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This article takes a quick look at making sure you have a few important and cost effective things ready for when the media comes a knocking.

Clients and people looking for help always have a similar goal in mind, they want to make their organisation or business look as credible as possible. One way to do this is have an all singing all dancing website, but there is one page that can really help on the credibility side that people often forget… The “Media Page”.

I have worked with journalists for years and discovered that although they are a rare breed of humans, like us, they love a bit of special attention. That little bit of special attention can mean you getting written up in their story or alternatively being given a quick glance over and ignored.

A media page is really straightforward and can pay large dividends. Once you have made contact with a journalist either by phone or email, and they have shown an interest in your story then you are halfway there. Quite often the journalist will ask you a number of general questions about your business and they nearly always ask for your web address. This is because when they are writing your story up they need to ‘pad’ around the actual story you have put forward by saying a bit about what you do and how long you have been formed.

They get the normal stuff by browsing onto your site and reading the ‘about us’ section, but also, they look for a ‘media’ page.

Best practice for your media page means having information like; all your past press releases about your business, your media contact details (including an out of hours number where necessary), areas that you are able to talk about and be considered an expert in, a library of business and corporate photo’s, key events and dates, case study and advocate information and a latest news page.

The photo section should show the business at work and also key members of your company, like the managing director and alike. Be careful what pictures you chose because, just as a journalist browses your site when doing a nice story, if you ever find yourself on the wrong end of a news-story, what you thought was a funny picture could be used against you.

Journalists are always looking for case studies to support articles and if you can put these forward then the media area is the place to do it. Make sure you have a bank of advocates ready to talk about what a good service they had from your organisation and list the different support areas in the case study section.

‘Key events and dates’ allows you to put across a brief timeline of your business landmarks and growth as well as giving you a bit more credibility. You can also use this to highlight future events you may be attending, or even future events of a charity or other organisation you are supporting.

Probably the most important thing to get right is the text first read when the browser opens the media page. Although there is no real harm in allowing members of the general public to see your media page it is always a good idea to put some form of words on there that draws attention to the fact it is meant for the media (and makes the journo’s feel special too!). Something like,

“This section of the website is meant for media only, all none-media enquiries should be directed via the normal contact routes”.

So, there you have it, a simple way to lend a bit of credibility to your company and also a good thing to drop into conversation the next time you are trying to get a journalist to use a news story about your organisation.

For more information email andy@10yetis.co.uk .

Andy Barr 2005 - www.10yetis.co.uk