Allie Novak, Senior Media Strategist at SourceCode Communications
This week we round up the final part of our breaking through the news cycle series with part four. In part one, we discussed the importance of newsjacking within our insights and engagement practice. In part two, we talked about how to use holidays and other national days to our advantage within our consumer lifestyle practice. Lastly, in part three, we discussed how to elevate our executives through executive profiling within our enterprise practice.
This week, we go into further depth on how to utilize larger timely storytelling within our Consumer Tech practice:
Larger Timely Storytelling
We work with Handshake, the leading career community for early talent, and because of their unique position working with students, employers, and universities, they have a great amount of data on hiring practices – including numbers around diversity. Handshake crunched their data to help employers better understand how their hiring practices could be more effective and inclusive, which we found to be incredibly timely. We took the piece to Quartz, and worked with the editor to run an op-ed by Handshake’s VP of Employer Marketing, Kamal Thakarky for Quartz at Work titled 3 mistakes to avoid if you’re hoping to hire Black college graduates.
This was successful because Handshake had resources that they could use to offer tangible steps for companies looking to diversify their workforce during a time that doing so was (and of course continues to be) top of mind for employers across the country.
I want to close this series with one thing: I truly think being successful in breaking through the current news cycle comes down to perseverance. You might not hear back from a reporter for weeks, but that doesn’t mean that you’ll never place the commentary or byline. Reporters are so swamped and sometimes, it takes them getting through a heavy assignment to come back to you about your idea. With that, it’s important to cultivate relationships with reporters that show to them you can be trusted to deliver unique, compelling executive insights and ideas for profiles and spotlights – and that they can come back to you if they have a story they would like your help on.
We maintain that being authentic is necessary to build these relationships, and it’s exciting to be at an agency that lets us as team members be unapologetically ourselves, always. I believe that’s what helps us create solid, genuine relationships with media, our clients, and other people we engage with along this journey!
To learn more about SourceCode Communications, please drop us a line at hello@sourcecodecomms.com.
