The power of links: why Old Media is no use to social media and digital PR types | Contently Managed - Social Media in Scotland, strategy & digital engagement

The power of links: why Old Media is no use to social media and digital PR

Posted in Blog Entries:, Digital PR, PR Issues, Traditional PR on November 16th, 2009

By Craig

Consider this a case study involving a client of mine. But it’s one that shows the differences between old media (even on their websites) and new media and suggests that for digital PR operators, bloggers may be better than mainstream press.

Richard Paterson, the Master Blender at whisky company Whyte & Mackay, has recently mentioned on his whisky blog, his podcasts (iTunes link) (audio only link) and in face to face twitter/blogger meetings about two crates of whisky belonging to Whyte and Mackay which are at Sir Ernest Shackleton’s old base in the South Pole.

Now, Mark Smith of The Scotsman / Scotland on Sunday had a look at it after I pointed it out to him and decided to do a write-up on it. Smashing stuff. Mark also had the paper include a link to Richard’s blog in the printed version, which was fantatic (he also got in touch on the Sunday night to let me know that he had spotted the online version didn’t have a link to the blog, so he got one put in – now that’s great journalist/PR relationship work).

Now Mark’s tale has gone far and wide – BBC, New Zealand press, AP, PA, The Telegraph and many more. There’s also been a bunch of Google Alerts on it.

So surely the job’s a good ‘un? Blog and podcast story generates copy to traditional press, Whyte and Mackay get lets of mentions, everyone happy?

Well, no.

From a few points of view it is far from it.

In pretty much all of those articles, there’s no link back to Richard’s blog for people wanting to find out more about the whisky or the retrieval attempt.
Most of the articles don’t even reference Richard having a blog or podcasts, so they wouldn’t even think to go googling for it. In some cases the story comes across as a good tale for the explorers.
From a SEO point of view, the linkbacks would also have been appreciated.

Now again, some traditionalists might be thinking, ‘what’s the fuss?’ Well, the fuss is quite simple: if the blog doesn’t get the credit and exposure for people to come and find it and the audience doesn’t grow/outreach then there may come a time when people decide what is the point to the blog?

It’s something I’ve actually noticed a lot in more traditional press – even in their online forms – they hate to give a link or a credit to something external to their own. They’ll happily take and use content (’twas ever thus) but actually reciprocating is alien to them, even in an age when providing a linkback actually has zero financial cost to them.

This is one reasons bloggers and many digital-only press are better: they provide links to original items, which helps grow audience, which is one way of justifying having digital PR people about.

I always remember words of advice from a Mr Scott Douglas: “It can be the best article or TV piece ever created, but if there isn’t a direct link/credit of your client – or a mention of your client’s event that they are promoting, then it’s worthless because how does it help them promote themselves or an event?”

Now I’m a keen believer that traditional press still has an important role to play – especially print – in boosting awareness of online activities, but events like the above tend to leave me feeling a bit more cynical and disgruntled.

Has this happened to others? Be interested to find out. What do others think? Does the traditional press take too easily from online and give nothing back?

Andy Bull

It’s the old story of journalists not wanting to reveal their sources – because that shows the reader they might as well bypass them and go straight to that source.
Nick Ryan

This is something I’ve noticed, too. Even as a journalist, I sometimes still fight to have a blog or website link included in/at end of copy for a newspaper or magazine. Sometimes you have to fight blue murder to get one in.

Other times, I’ve noticed that tons of other sites will pick up the news from your (my) online report – for example, I wrote a 4-part, 12,000 word investigation into gold selling in video games – and the blogs which pick it up rarely include your name/website, and then the blogs which pick up those blogs in turn fail to even mention where it was published. What’s the end-benefit, then, to oneself or the original place (in my case, a website) where I/one publishes?
katie moffat

hmmm, it’s tricky. I agree that ‘traditional’ media seem to hate to give credit and even harder to secure a link that has the all important keywords rather than just ‘click here’ (but that’s another discussion). Perhaps in this case though the key was that they could tell the story without linking to the masterblender i.e. linking to it doesn’t add anything to the story. Traditional news media in particular will never link unless to not do so would render the story unclear.

So while I agree with you that it’s not particularly ethical, I can see why they don’t. They’ve probably been taught to minimise links out unless they are absolutely necessary to the story. Old school and damn frustrating for PRs.
http://www.craig-mcgill.com Craig

Got a link to the article? Shame on you for not putting it in there in the first place
Chris Lee

Interesting. It’s pretty commonplace in the offline/trad media to not cite a (corporate) client in, for example, survey results, but when it comes to online there’s no excuse. In fact, the Web’s all about giving as much info as possible, so links to blogs and other resources should be provided.

I agree, it’s slack. Is it deliberate? It wouldn’t surprise me.

Chris Lee
http://www.runmarketing.co.uk
Paul Bradshaw

Content Management Systems deserve a lot of the blame here, as many journalists simply cannot add links on their employers’ systems, or have never been shown how to. Of course, many are too lazy too, as well, and there’s little incentive for them to add links generally.
As you say, this detracts from the value of their content. It reminds me of the very first television news bulletins from the BBC, which were simply radio bulletins over a black screen. It took decades to invent the genre of TV news.
I often point out to news organisations that one of the things that Google looks at when ranking a page is how many outbound links it has – Google assumes that a page including many links will be better than one with few or none.
That is often the Eureka moment…
http://www.ju2.com Jim Williams

I suspect traditional media owners do not want to train their readership to go directly to the orignal sources. They want to own the whole readers online experience to keep readers on the their site as long as possible to boost page views and advertising revenue I suspect there is also the belief that lending relevance to origiinal sources through a properly constructed link just hands search engine authority to a competitor at their own expense.

Jim Williams
http:/www.ju2.com
Scott Douglas

And we wonder why the traditional media is in such trouble?
It’s still not uncommon for newspapers to drop all mention of a company when quoting someone, like:
John Smith, legal expert said: “Blah, blah.”
It’s like quoting “Sir Alex Ferguson, manager of a football team”, or “Gordon Brown, leader of a European country”.
Sorry hacks out there, but to pull these stunts and to fail to put a link in a story is simply bad journalism.
It is depriving the readers of content which is absolutely vital to the proper appreciation of the story.
Scott Douglas
http://www.holyroodpr.co.uk