“I would **** it if your team could get us featured in The Globe and Mail or Toronto Star this week.”
My goal has always been to get my clients placed in their dream outlets. I am driven by results, brand visibility, and thought leadership.
Often, big names like the Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, and National Post come up for Canadian clients during our onboarding process when asked, “What is your dream outlet to be featured in?” along with the follow-up question, “How long will it take to get featured there?”
With news and information overload, it might seem easy to just get a “quick” feature on any outlet. And I wish it was. I would definitely be giving Oprah giveaway energy: “You get a Forbes link, you get a Globe and Mail link, you get a Business Insider link.”
Why do clients mention these outlets? They are extremely reputational and hold long-standing authority in the media industry. Sharing these placements across your network holds power online and offline. However, being featured on these outlets takes a long time, with months and years of building strong and authentic relationships with journalists.
The Globe and Mail is a Canadian news outlet that prioritizes engaging, inspiring, trusted journalism that is trusted and highlights influence in business, politics, and everyday life. With 6.8 million monthly unique visitors of influential professionals and consumers, they are one of the first Canadian members of The Trust Project, an international coalition of reputation media organizations working together to promote truthful, verified news with fairness and accuracy. The outlet prides itself on its long-standing tradition of upholding its ethical code, trustworthy journalism, and news coverage in Canada and worldwide.
The Toronto Star has a strong foundation of ethical journalism for editorial staff. It centers on accuracy, trust, fairness, and quality to engage and connect information with readers from all platforms and make lives better for the community, Canada, and the world. As members of the Trust Project, TorStar Corp. focuses on further developing ways to improve transparency. Implementing a weekly trust feature fosters enhanced decision-making behind stories and reporting.
Over 10 million average unique visitors across Canada, reaching 33 percent of the country’s 18+ population. With 1.7 million newsletter and email subscribers and 2.4 million print readers in Ontario weekly.
Reaching such a large audience is a big responsibility for The Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star, as well as many other reputable Canadian newspapers and otherworldly outlets. Almost a year after Bill C-18, a legislative framework aimed at having digital platforms, Meta (Facebook and Instagram) and Google, we have seen some developments. Google reaching an agreement to pay an annual cap of $100 million towards Canadian news media funds. One thing is for sure: the media landscape is changing and evolving.
With a strong editorial code of conduct that values truth, accuracy, fairness, and inclusivity and ongoing dialogue with the public, news leaders, social media platforms, and search engines, finding trustworthy sources continues to be a challenge in a world of mistrust and misinformation. So, as the topic suggests, seeking out quality, world-renowned outlets to highlight the stories of experts holds previous value. Focus on investing in high quality and relevancy. Low-quality, quick wins are old news. You are reaching many eyeballs, and we are extremely connected online, so let’s continue to support journalism, support public relations, and support freedom of speech! Let’s face it: Everything worth doing takes time.
Just like patiently waiting to get that extra chicken nugget at McDonald’s…
Important reflection: who are you?
In a world of endless trends, the question, “Who are you?” can seem daunting to answer. For so long, we have been told who we are, what we should learn, and what we need to follow.
Disconnect, and take the time to reflect on it. This is your authentic fuel.
Ask yourself what values are important to you. What motivates you? What drains you? Who is my target audience? What strategy do I succeed in? What strategy do I have challenges with?
Determining who you are and who you serve will help in the long term. It’s like a foundation: it takes time to figure out the best location, source material, and hire the best workers for the job. So, even if Mr. Wolf blows down your house, you still have your foundation—something solid that you can always refer back to.
But doing what everyone else does is not worth it if it doesn’t align with your brand. Be unique. What makes you stand out from the rest? This is how you will attract customers and keep them coming back.
Reputation is real: invest in quality because you are quality
“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently,” said Warren Buffett.
Being online holds a lot of responsibility; this blog highlights many shocking stats to reinforce that you are appearing in front of many eyes. Investing in building your reputation and strategies goes a long way.
60.9 percent of users aged 16 to 64 use the internet to find information. The last thing you want is to have those users look up your name and associate negativity and low-quality with it; this will only tarnish your reputation.
Investing in planning, strategy, and mitigation tactics for long-term success for your brand. Even if they take time.
But if you aren’t first, are you last?
In an overly connected world, we need to reframe FOMO
It feels like I blinked, and brat summer was declared over….
It can often feel like if you aren’t connected from the moment you wake up to the time you fall asleep, you miss out on the world. With over 8 million people in the world, 5.35 billion connected to the internet (66.2% of the world population), spending over six hours 40 minutes daily, 5.61 billion people with mobile phones (69.4% of the world population), and 5 billion social media user identities (62.3% of the world population), spending over two hours and 23 minutes on social media. The data is obvious: our digital growth is increasing by millions year-over-year. So, how can we keep up and not fall behind?
Inevitably, with these stats, there has been an overwhelming fear of missing out (FOMO). This buzzword is everywhere. On SEMRush, the global keyword search volume of “FOMO” is 459.4K. The top location is the US at 90.5K, followed by Brazil at 33.1K, Germany and India following suit with 27.1K searches, and Canada lower down at 9.9K searches. “Fear of missing out”, however, sits at 28K global keyword volume. The US, yet again, holds the top spot at 3.6K, and Canada is behind at 590 keyword search volume.
We can see this with the wave of AI. When ChatGPT launched on November 30, 2022, I was in a local coffee shop along with other hybrid workers. The entire mood of a vibrant, aesthetically pleasant shop felt like a strong fall wind swept through the room. People seem a bit frantic, fearing the worst. Will I lose my job? What about human intelligence? What about privacy? At the end of 2022 and throughout 2023, FOMO seems to be more “fear of job loss” (FOJL?).
My brother, a senior software engineer who was working alongside me at the coffee shop, was excited. Of course, I have a strong understanding of the continuous utilization and integration of artificial intelligence (AI). AI has been around for over 70 years, but the breakthrough of generative AI, also known as Gen AI, created original content, texts, images, videos, or software code by utilizing a user’s prompt.
OpenAI organic traffic increased from 1,787,356 in November 2022 to now in September 2024, increasing to 199,945,770.
You are not behind. You are just adapting to the new normal. It feels a bit similar to the years during COVID. This reinforces the importance of being an early adopter. Approaching with an inquisitive mindset rather than being apathetic. It’s new and can feel intimidating, but try to run away from it rather than questioning the effectiveness for your benefit while outlining risk and privacy concerns. Here is what my friend ChatGPT had to say when I inserted my prompt “Outline how I can be successful with GenAI within my workflow. Success without Gen AI, risks of not integrating Gen AI.”
You see, even ChatGPT, our famous robot friend, understands, just like us humans, that you can now utilize Gen AI within your workflow, but there are risks.
Walk alongside it and invest time to learn how it elevates your strategy. Get out of your comfort zone; it will be uncomfortable, but do you know what’s even more uncomfortable? Not prioritizing high-quality and world-class strategies will not put your brand on the map, and as the data highlights, online connections influence all aspects of our global patterns and behaviours. Slow down, keep learning, and invest in quality.
I **** digital PR because it’s all about building authentic connections, delivering high-quality results, and elevating brand visibility. It takes time, patience, and a focus on quality over quantity to achieve meaningful, lasting results for clients. If you’d like to chat more about how we can work together or just connect at an upcoming event, I’d **** to meet you!
