It’s nearly impossible not to notice that Tech Giants – Amazon, Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Nvidia andthe likes – have steadily eaten up more and more share of the media. With such a big impact on the stock market, it’s natural media would put a large majority of resources (and, consequentially) headlines toward them.
Despite an overall media landscape of fewer and fewer journalists producing more and more content – meaning many have had to become generalists – we still see every major business publication, and even many trades, with beat reporters dedicated to these Tech Giants.
It’s something startups, and even established brands who aren’t one of the big five, need to smarten up to in their pursuit of coverage. The good news: there are plenty of ways to steal some of the Tech Giants’ shine. Here are a few approaches to try:
Commenting on Earnings
The beauty of earnings is that they’re reliable. They happen once a quarter on a pre-determined date. As a company spokesperson (or PR team), you have the luxury of time and advanced warning to look back at what these companies did over the last 90 days; what moves they made that might contribute to a positive or negative earnings report.
Have pre-canned commentary – that actually says something rather than reconfirming what’s expected – and get it to a reporter either before or as soon as the earnings results hit helps. That way they can just drop it into their articles, which they tend to turn around fast. While not one of the five aforementioned Giants, this tactic helped my team land commentary in Adweek, a top trade, and Christian Science Monitor for a client.
Newsjacking
Perhaps a bit more challenging is executing rapid response around unexpected news. Take the example of this Amazon-JP Morgan-Berkshire Hathaway news. Quickly bringing Amazon or healthcare beat reporters your take on who it’ll impact and what the partnership could look like in practice is a prime example of newsjacking. Broadcast producers, too, were hungry for experts who could make themselves immediately available to come on-air to discuss the news.
Other opportunities are around M&A (when Facebook or Microsoft acquired another company, giving a meaningful analysis on what it means to the industry) or even forward-looking ideas on the likelihood of one of these major companies entering your industry.
Talk about their Business Practices, their People
Not every attempt to break into stories needs to be news-based. These companies, for better or worse, are closely scrutinized for their leadership choices and cultures. Look at all the headlines around the rogue Google employee who wrote a manifesto on how biological factors make women less adept tech professionals. Reporters were eating up a strong stance on this, like in this CBS story we placed for client YouEarnedIt.
Amazon’s Jeff Bezos? A legendary leader and innovator. Many media outlets would likely take an opinion piece around what a startup CEO learned from Bezos.
Did your startup poach an exec from one of these companies? Or perhaps was founded by a few former Google employees? Likely media gold.
The media is more driven by these Tech Giants than ever, it seems. Their news drives clicks and grabs attention. Whether a startup or established brand, if you can associate yourself with these companies and offer a unique point of view on their news, from a volume and frequency perspective, it’s one of the surest ways into the business coverage you’re likely after.
See, for example, how we positioned Criteo in conversations centered around Facebook and Google, or how we positioned Digital Reasoning's AI tech alongside IBM's.
Interested in ideas on how we can help tell your story and carve out SOV in top industry news and issues? That's what we specialize in as a tech PR agency, so let's talk.
What’s a Rich Text element?
The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.
The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.
Static and dynamic content editing
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