2 March 2023

If you’re struggling to get traction from your social media and digital PR activity, having left behind traditional media activity, you are not alone.
Over the last few years many companies have switched their marketing focus away from traditional media to digital options, especially social media. As a result, trade magazine and website editors are being starved of well-written news stories and feature length articles that make up the bulk of their weekly and monthly content.
With all the excitement around social media marketing, which really started over a decade ago and has gathered pace tremendously over the last five years, the move away from traditional media towards digital and social has become something of a stampede. It has been spurred on by clarion calls from the likes of social media champion Gary Vaynerchuk and the success of BBC Dragons’ Den’s newest recruit and founder of social media marketing agency Social Chain, Stephen Bartlett.
But it’s left behind a still valued media, but one that is struggling from a reduced flow of information from companies who used to provide much of its news, either directly or through their PR companies.
Whether you’re in construction, manufacturing, technology, insurance, services or whatever people looking to make purchases still rely on trade media to curate information for them and let them know what’s happening in their industry.
Anyone looking for a new piece of equipment, for example, won’t turn to TikTok to see what’s out there, they’ll rely on their network of contacts and the relationships they have with existing suppliers. But they also want the comfort of knowing that there’s not something better that they may be missing out on. They also want to gauge how well they’re doing in relation to their peers.
It is only their industry media that is providing unbiased reports of this nature. Naturally, this unbiased reporting, like any reporting will be influenced by what the editors and journalists at these publications are exposed to themselves. They can only report what they see, so if companies are putting news in front of them, it will have an impact on their view of who is leading the market and who has something of importance to say.
This means that if you have neglected traditional PR activity targeted at your industry media, maybe now is the time to think again.
Companies still active in their trade media are enjoying a plethora of PR opportunities and unprecedented access to market directly to prospective customers who still rely on trade media for much of their industry news, new products announcements, market information and technical advice.
These companies are the ones who are strengthening their brand profiles and winning market share on the back of their media coverage.