“There is no one right way to surf a wave. There are a million different ways.”
Stephanie Gilmore
Stephanie Gilmore, eight-time world surfing champion.
Few sensations can match the adrenaline rush of catching a wave. And few similes fit so well with information and communication. Just as a surfer must train the skill of reading the sea, journalists have a duty to understand the media agenda .
media agenda
We have to understand the media agenda, gauge the context and decide when to paddle; and -let’s be honest- enjoy the immense pleasure of riding the information wave.
Gilmore’s quote ends: “As long as you’re smiling, you’re doing it right”. For us, that smile attests to the satisfaction of coming up with the right subject, at the right time.
The same happens when content creators manage to surf the news: they become trending topics. Think of the financial communicator who explains an interest rate decision in 90 seconds and chains thousands of interactions; the analyst who breaks down a corporate merger in a LinkedIn carousel and manages to be quoted by the media; or the technologist who, at the stroke of a pen, makes a complex paper accessible and, suddenly, sets the agenda for the day. All of them have in common timing, a fine reading of the context, a clear value proposition and a journalistic -not promotional- narrative that brings immediate understanding to the reader eager for this type of content.
As communicators, with the content we curate for our spokespeople, we have a lot to learn from surfers and content creators for social networks. Because the mastery lies, I insist, in surfing the information wave and not ending up centrifuged and splashing. This requires a strategy to bring communication consultancy -for the spokespersons we represent before the media- closer to journalism. We must incorporate journalistic routines to the positioning plan of spokespersons and brands, turning them into experts in a subject. The well-known
opinion leadership
. And we must do so by being strategic, knowing and anticipating the media agenda and foreseeing, in short, which topic will be the next trending topic. There is nothing like providing journalists with an expert opinion at the right time. Being on the right topic.
As I was saying, there is a lot of journalistic flair in this art of placing that textual quotation that turns our spokesperson into the expert protagonist of an article. There is a lot of craft. Serendipity also plays in our favor. But, above all, there is planning.
The method for not splashing
Planning is not about locking a spokesperson into a rigid script; it is about providing him or her with a fertile ecosystem for his or her judgment to excel when the wave comes.
- Defined thematic territories: to be clear about the areas of authority of each spokesperson -what he/she can speak about with solvency and data-. Without territory, there is no legitimacy; without legitimacy, there is no appointment.
- Agenda radar: anticipate key news moments when a current event can trigger a journalistic appetite for expert knowledge. For that, we must read the press. And a lot of it. Newspapers, newsletters, alerts, industry conferences, etc.
- Stakeholder map: to be in contact and aware of the movements of stakeholders in our areas, especially those who have the capacity to directly influence the sector of our brand and spokesperson.
- Criteria library: curate relevant content, files, data and comparisons that allow you to respond accurately. If the text is not journalistic and is not made by and for journalists, it is doomed to irrelevance. This is where it is advisable to stand up to the proliferation of copywriters who use promotional and self-promotional language, destroying a text.
- Prepared quotes, not prefabricated ones: work on background statements – with nuance and context – ready to be fine-tuned at the right time, without falling into hollow slogans.
- Speed protocols: who validates, how, in what time windows, with what formats and attachments -biographies, data, images-. Speed is not incompatible with rigor if there is a method.
In addition to all of the above, do not throw in the towel: we must have the ability to give a second life to our content if current events dictate it. The wave is not always taken at the first paddle.
Surfing in first person
Let’s look at two recent case studies in financial content curation for colleagues in the press. The precious metals rally we have been experiencing since the summer, which has filled pages and pages in the economic media, provided us with a golden opportunity (never better said). We had two in-depth analyses, with a long-term approach, signed by two spokespersons. We gave them a first and second life: we framed headlines, updated data, adjusted the perspective – risks, correlations, macro drivers – and managed to place the spokespersons in in-depth news articles for more than a week, in explanatory pieces and in closing session analyses. For them and for the brand, we managed to be the protagonists of the news during that period. We surfed the wave. And we did it smiling.
The summer banking soap opera between Torres and Oliu (BBVA-Sabadell) has provided communication consultants with another sustained momentum to contribute expert voices that provide depth to journalists. Without entering into ‘gardens’ that put the reputation of the spokesperson or the brand at risk, the derivatives and the projection that this fact has for the European banking industry -consolidation, competition, governance, regulation, technological efficiency, territorial impact- serve us on a platter a thematic melting pot in which we can make ourselves strong as expert voices. Through data-driven opinion columns, backgrounds that sort out the key issues and a fine reading of current affairs, we have also achieved notoriety for several of the companies we advise at comma. The key was not to get there first, but to get there judiciously and sustain the news pulse for several days, modulating the angle as the facts evolved.
The virtuous circle: from the spokesperson to the medium and back again
The reward for all our efforts is the gratitude of the spokesperson and the brand; the recognition of our work as consultants; and the generation of a virtuous circle in which we earn the trust and confidence of our clients .
trust
of the people we advise. They listen to us when we underline the importance of a topic that is on the media agenda in Spain; we have good, quality content; we curate it so that it adapts to the language of journalism.
This chain effect continues when the journalist receives that quality analysis just when he needs it, because it adds value and enriches his article. We become a reliable, constant source – we nourish the network of journalists with whom we maintain regular relationships with useful information, not just promotional press releases – and generate a relationship with journalists and media based, once again, on trust. The unmistakable sign that we are riding the waves, riding the news trend, is that call from the other side: “Can you arrange a statement from your spokesperson exclusively for my story? Kick flip on the ridge.
Learnings
All of the above leaves us with some lessons applied to corporate communication and the positioning of spokespersons:
- Contribute at the right time, with the right topic.
- Define territories of authority: without a thematic perimeter there is no opinion leadership.
- Monitor the agenda with method: daily reading and comparative analysis, not passive consumption.
- Curate journalistic content: data, context, nuance; zero self-promotion.
- Prepare useful quotations: short, clear, verifiable, with one idea per sentence.
- Build a stakeholder radar: know who is making moves, when and why.
- Sustaining momentum: iterating angles and updating parts -first and second life-.
- Agree on speed and control protocols: speed with judgment.
- Measure and learn: what worked, what was missing, what can be improved.
- Care for the relationship: contribute even when there is no press release; be a source, not a loudspeaker.
Surfing a wave is not about beating the sea; it is about understanding it. The same thing happens in communication: it is not a matter of forcing reality to fit our headline, but of reading the current of information, choosing the wave that corresponds to us and accompanying it with the demeanor and criteria of those who know where their place is. As Gilmore said -and it is worth remembering-: there are a million ways to do it, and if you smile, you are doing it right. Smiling, in our profession, is not frivolity: it is the serene expression of an invisible work that brings together craft, sense of smell, serendipity and planning. When these four pieces fit together, the spokesperson does not splash; he leads. And the brand doesn’t shout; it explains. That’s the kind of reputation that is earned wave by wave, article by article, relationship by relationship.
