We've all drunk the Kool-Aid
In the algorithmic era, it’s easy to forget about press as a communication channel. Not if you’re at a luxury brand, as I was for so many years, but in smaller organisations, or as solopreneurs, experts, and voices.
Looking back at the past decade, we’ve moved through waves, from user-generated content and search, to organic and paid social, to own-brand content channels, video, short-form, podcasts, etc.
All find their place in the communication mix. But many of us forget the value of being in a media story.
I grew up in a French-speaking household where journalism was highly prized. For a hot second, between 13 and 14, I even contemplated journalism as a career path. My father brought home local newspapers alongside weekly titles, French and international. Time. Newsweek. I never planned a career in communication, but I never stopped reading the press.
And media moves the needle for me. I shop from India Knight and Sarah Jossel in the Sunday Times Style (K-beauty in particular, salmon sperm etc). My living room boasts two stunning vintage armchairs found after spotting a vintage dealer in the Financial Times. I’ll read books featured by Harvard Business Review, and even feature its writers: look out for my conversation with Zach Mercurio later this month.
Third party endorsement is an essential part of telling one’s story. Whether we’re talking about a brand, a product, a point of view, or a voice.
Good journalists focus on timeliness, trends, they pull resources and voices that are relevant to us, right now. Not everyone will agree with me. I’m part of a group of online writers who read Substack more readily than the New York Times. I read both. But personal opinion alone doesn’t make for persuasive communication. After all, we have drunk our own Kool-Aid.
Legacy media, as it annoyingly gets called, matters more the more we turn to AI for search.
Researchers at the University of Toronto found AI search leans heavily on earned media (coverage you don’t pay for or publish yourself, like press articles and reviews): 70 to 92% of sources, far more than Google. Social posts barely registered.
To anchor this, let me use a retail analogy. I spent enough time in stores and malls over the years, not as the shopper but the operator. One reason most brands don’t just go for direct to consumer is to exist on a shop floor next to other brands. We call this adjacency. Who you are positioned next to matters just as much as who you are, what you do, and how you do it.
When we are featured in the press, that’s what happens. We are brought into context.
To be sure, media has its issues, and once we hand over the narrative to someone else, whether that’s Meta’s paid ads or a journalist, we are no longer in control. But if we want to be discovered, if we want to find our tribes, our clients, our audience, I’d bank on journalists over the machines any day.
Which is why I’m so happy to be hosting another masterclass for Le Trente tomorrow, with special guest Bianca Barratt.
Having expertise doesn’t mean never listening to other experts. It means refreshing what we think we know, especially when we need to be seen and heard. That’s why I was curious about what another communication professional could teach me.
Bianca has written for Vogue, The Sunday Times, Forbes and the BBC, and founded The Scoop, now Press Flow, to teach founders, experts and entrepreneurs how to land press without a PR retainer.
Join us tomorrow and you’ll leave knowing how to find the right journalists, craft a pitch that gets opened, and time your story to land. Can’t make it live? No worries, register and we’ll send you the recording the following day.
Tuesday, 12pm NYC | 6pm London | 7pm Paris - live on Zoom. Pay what you can from $1.
I hope to see you there.