How to Become a Successful Media Manager

As the Media and Communications Director for a small non-profit in Philadelphia, most of my professional media knowledge has been gained on the job. College gives you a glimpse into what media is, how it works, and how it affects markets, but practical application is a far way from doing a project in a class. If you’re a media manager whose organization is struggling with getting the word out, or a fresh college graduate who just got a new job, this article is for you.

I’ll break down the article into two sections, traditional media and social media. Traditional media for the purpose of this article will include things like TV, radio, and print coverage/advertisements. Many companies now put a stronger emphasis on social media, but both are important aspects of getting your brand out there.

Traditional Media

Traditional media advertising is one of the easier media duties. Usually it’s just contacting the network or publications sales desk and paying for the advertising space. Hopefully you have a marketing department who can create the content for you, or you may need to do it yourself depending on the size of your company. On-going relationships with advertisers may mean that you company could pay less for subsequent ads.

Getting media coverage for an event is a completely different story. The first thing you need to do is understand your local media. Figure out the point of contact for the publication or network, and determine the phone numbers to your local assignment desks. Often, there will be opportunities to post online to event calendars which you should take advantage of. Start by building a spreadsheet of all the media contacts that you are reaching out to so you can double down on your efforts in the future. The key is to build a network of people who are reporters or those in the press who can assign a reporter. Building relationships will make them more receptive to your requests.

Next you need to send out a media advisory to all the applicable networks. This should be short and to the point, and should contain key information like contact number, location, time, and what it’s about. Within the advisory should be a pitch as to why they should cover your event. If you live in a big city, make sure that you do this 3-4 days before the date and send it everyday leading up to the event. This should be followed up by pitch calls the day of the event to the news desk or assignment editor directly.

Your pitch call is crucial when you want to get some press coverage. You should believe that your event is worth going to and convey that to the assignment editor. Think about what makes it newsworthy, and why people would tune in, and hone in on that. The media does not work for you, they work for ratings, so anything you can do to sell potential viewership is ideal. Immediately after the event you should send out a press release about what took place that day. Even if no media showed up for the actual event, the release could be picked up and passed around by the news networks and reach its intended audience.

Being successful in traditional media means building relationships with people and knowing who in your local media realm has the ability to reach your consumers.

Social Media

Social Media is a much more wide open realm and is still being developed consistently. There are many strategies you can employ with Social Media, but I’ll try to keep it concise here. The first thing you should do is identify what platforms will reach your intended audience. Believe it or not, more is not always better, especially if you can not allocate enough time to constantly update all of your platforms. Each social media platform is unique, and can reach a different type of audience. Therefore, each post needs to be tailored to the specific platform you are putting it on.

Twitter is good for quick updates, breaking news, and small messages. Most, if not all, companies should have an active Twitter. Facebook on the other hand will reach a different audience and isn’t necessarily checked constantly by all age demographics. It’s more of a space to store more meaningful information for a company, and push the brand image, and to run advertisements. Tumblr and Instagram are also different and focus more on visual media rather than text, though they can contain that as well.

Ultimately, across all platforms you need to be actively updating your content, and producing meaningful and likable posts. Being able to identify what is popular and trending is a skill in itself, but a good tip is to stay relevant. Partnering up with another social media user or organization can also help you gain an online following. Make sure to respond to supporters of your brand, and only reply to detractors if there are gains to be made by doing so. Typically, try to refrain from responding publicly to detractors unless you’ve met with strategists internally to discuss proper action. Additionally, there are ideal posting times for each platform, which has been published in a nice info-graphic by Quicksprout. Make sure you are utilizing apps like Hootsuite and Tweetdeck to schedule posts across different platforms to make your life easier. The skill to good social media posts can’t be taught, as what trends and what doesn’t depends on what people like. Being able to manage social media, and staying up to best practices however, will help you get there.

Being a successful media manager requires social skills, excellent writing and speaking skills, organization, dedication, tact, and fortitude. Most likely when you get started there will be an event that gets no coverage, an advertisement that produces no sales, or a post that gets no likes or shares. Learning from mistakes and keeping a level head, as well as staying organized and on goal will achieve the results you desire.