Media Relations for Craft Chocolate Makers: What To Do After You Get Media Coverage
by David Nilsen
Welcome to our Media Relations for Craft Chocolate Makers series! As a food and beverage journalist, I have communicated with thousands of breweries, distilleries, restaurants, chocolate makers, and other businesses, and I’ve seen ones who maximize their relationships with media members and outlets, and ones who are leaving opportunities on the table. Additionally, my wife and business partner, Melinda Guerra, is a freelance PR professional helping brands tell their stories and connect with media. In this series, the two of us will be sharing what we’ve learned over our careers to help craft chocolate companies of any size identify their stories, communicate them to media members and outlets, gain new customers, and keep the ones you have curious.
In part 1 of this series, we talked about why media relations is so important no matter the size of your chocolate business, and why you need to have a strategy for it.
In part 2, we talked about identifying stories and creating a story list.
In part 3, we looked at how to begin building a media list, and how to specifically build a list of industry-specific media.
In part 4, we talked about press releases: What they are, when to send them, to whom to send them, what to include, and—just as importantly—the inverse of all those: when not to send them, what not to include, etc.
In part 5, we talked about fostering ongoing relationship with members of the media, and how to communicate story ideas going forward.
In part 6, we discussed how to handle crisis communications and work with the media at times when you’d rather not.
In this post, we’re going to talk about what to do after you get media coverage.
Let’s say a media outlet picks you up for a news story, or the local TV station covers your event, or you build a relationship with a journalist and they involve you in a story they're writing. Congratulations, that's awesome! Your media relations work paid off.
But it's not the end of your role in that story and your relationship with that media member or that media outlet.
Let's talk about some of the things that should happen when you get media coverage, and what you need to do when a positive story comes out about you or you get news coverage.
Here’s the advice Melinda gives her clients (or does on their behalf) as a publicist when they’ve gotten media attention:
Express gratitude. The first thing I do is say thank you. I email the reporter, journalist, producer, or whomever it is that I've been working with to say, "Thanks for including us in your coverage and I would love to work together again." That little extra effort can help a lot in building relationships. It’s important to leave them with a positive impression of our interaction, and it’s not something that happens very often.
(Side note from David as a journalist: 100% agree. It always makes me feel good when I have covered a business and then they reach out to say thank you. This isn’t a transactional relationship, but just taking a moment to say that you appreciated the coverage goes a long way is noted. When you're looking at doing those extra little things to establish that relationship, it does go a long way.)
Share the story. Sharing the piece is another way of saying thank you, but publicly. Share the piece on social media, and tag the media outlet and the media member who actually wrote the story or reported the segment (one thing that can be helpful to do before the story comes out is pull together those relevant social media handles so you have them when you need them.)
David here: This is really important to do, because if you’ve gone to all of the work to get this story covered and to be interviewed for the story, that work is an investment. You now need to maximize what you get out of that. It's not just a way to say thank you. Sharing the story highlights to your existing audience that somebody else has taken the time to cover your story. Your existing audience doesn't necessarily know everything interesting you're doing. In reality, they probably don't know all the inner workings of what makes your company unique. When somebody else does the work to write the story and say these interesting things about you, use that as a way to market back to your existing customers by sharing it on social media by including it in your newsletter. You want to get everything you can out of these media interactions.
Share the link, not the full story. It’s not in good taste to just share screenshots or copy the text of a story when you’re sharing it. What the media is getting out of covering you is clicks, readers, or viewers. If you take a screenshot or photo of a story or just copy the text of the story and post that to your social media, you're taking away most of the benefit from that media partner. When you share it on socials or in your newsletter, consider quoting a key paragraph, adding a couple sentences saying that you really appreciated the story, and then posting the link for them to go read, view, or listen through the avenues provided by the media outlet.
Keep your press clippings. When you get media coverage, you’ll want to maintain a record of it. I keep an Excel spreadsheet with my different clients and who covered us and when, along with the links to those pages. If possible, I try to grab a PDF just in case that page gets taken down in the future. It's helpful for you to have these past stories as examples of media coverage that you’ve received. You can have a page on your website that includes these stories as a way of showing, "Here are other entities that found our story engaging and worth telling." That helps you get your maximum benefit from the work you've put in.
Handle corrections professionally. Occasionally, a media outlet might get a detail wrong in a story (the most common example is misspelled names). Both you and the media want facts in these stories to be accurate, so it’s appropriate to reach out to request a correction. Just be sure you’re doing this professionally and politely. Send a brief communication saying something like, "Hey, thanks so much for the piece. Quick correction: The release date for that chocolate is actually August 1st and not June 1st. Is that something that's possible for you to fix?" Don’t include three paragraphs of background. Just say, "Hey, here's the quick error if it's possible for you to fix it. Here's what it says, and here's what it should be. Thanks so much if you can get this corrected.”
Manage your own expectations. We noted a while back that there’s a difference between media that you are paying (advertisements) for and earned media you aren’t. In the former, you have complete control of the message and copy. In the latter, you don’t. There might be some things included that aren't exactly how you would have phrased them. Not every single part of your messaging is going to come across in every story. We’ve talked repeatedly in this series about looking at this as ongoing relationship with media. You don't need to tell your whole story and all of your messaging and everything that people need to know in your first media piece. This is going to be an introduction for some people to who you are. When this is a conversation and a relationship that's happening, you have the ability to continue to tell your story over time.
Maybe you had a 45-minute conversation with a journalist and they're then taking that conversation and turning it into a two and a half minute news clip. There's going to be a lot that's trimmed out and distilled down, and getting frustrated with the media because they didn't include every story and every quote, or because you thought this detail was really cute and they didn't put that in there? That's losing sight of the big picture. You're starting a relationship with this journalist, you're introducing your brand to new people and new audiences, and you're telling your current audience about some new things. Also, sometimes the things that are really important to a founder or an owner of a company don’t necessarily convey as interesting to the public, and the media knows what's going to be best to convey to the public in a way that catches their attention.
In the final post in this series, we’re going to discuss some common pitfalls companies make in media relations, and provide a simple action list of where to get started in working with the media!
Media Relations for Craft Chocolate Makers series
Podcast Episodes
Why You Need a Media Plan
Identifying Your Company’s Stories
How to Build and Manage a Media List
How to Write and Send a Press Release
How to Maintain Media Relationships and Communicate New Stories
How to Get Started, and Common Pitfalls
Blog Posts
Why You Need a Media Plan
How to Identify Your Stories
How to Build a Media List
Industry and Unexpected Outlets for Your Media List
How to Write and Send a Press Release
How to Maintain Media Relationships and Communicate New Stories
Crisis Communications
What To Do After You Get Media Coverage (you’re reading it!)
Common Pitfalls, and Easy Steps for Getting Started