Like anybody else journalists and reporters have to do more in less time.
When they are looking for information, they use the web a lot (surprise surprise).
However there are some “characteristics” you might be interested in to know about.
These are some findings of the Arketi Web Watch Media Survey (from a blog post on the Marketingcharts website):
– LinkedIn is the most popular social network among business journalists, with 92% having a LinkedIn account (85% Facebook and 83% Twitter).
– Virtually all (98%) journalists read news online, and 91% search for news sources and story ideas.
– Many engage in activities such as social networking (69%) and microblogging (66%), while more than half blog (53%).
– Despite high levels of social network membership, only 44% of journalists obtain story ideas from microblogs, while 39% obtain them from social networking sites.
– 82% of business journalists say a company without a website is less credible, and 81% turn to a company site when they are unable to reach a source.
– 85% call industry experts for breaking news.
What could be the conclusions?
1) You need to be present online with a website, a LinkedIn Profile (personal) and a LinkedIn Company Profile.
2) You could start building relationships with journalists by following them on Twitter and commenting on their blogs, stories (on the website of their magazine) and microblogs/status updates.
3) You need to be where they are when they need an industry expert (fast): on LinkedIn.
To your success !
Jan