Stories Are Good For Business
With today’s digital marketing tools, every organization can be a media company.
Any business, nonprofit or government agency can now create and share useful information through a company website, a blog, and social media channels to attract and engage with supporters or stakeholders – all of this can be done without the filter of tradition newspapers, magazines and TV news programs.
But how do you create that content? How do you find the “news” in what you do?
A good place to start in figuring out if something is newsworthy is by asking the following questions:
Is it new?
The word news means exactly that – things which are new. If it happened today, it’s news. If it happened last month, well, it’s less newsy. What matters most is whether your readers and viewers know about it.
Is it unusual?
Things are happening all the time in your organization, but not all of them are newsworthy. The classic definition of news is this: “Dog bites man” is not news; “Man bites dog” is news. The “unusual” in your organization can be the hiring of a new employee, the launch of a new service, the announcement of a new grant or the release of new data.
Is it significant?
In other words, who will care about your news? What does the hiring of a new employee mean for your organization – or for your community in general? If the answer is, because of this new hire, you are producing a highly valuable service or product that is improving, changing or saving lives, then yes, it’s newsworthy. The news story shouldn’t be self-serving. Before you post anything, ask yourself: will someone truly care about this?
Remember this: your news doesn’t have to be for the general public. You aren’t a newspaper with a wide range of readers. Prepare your news for the people interested in your organization and your cause but be sure your content passes the newsworthy test described above.
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