A trend I’m seeing is founders trying to jump straight into earned media.
What many fail to realize is reporters get so many pitches that they have to make fast judgments about which companies they can trust. If they Google, ChatGPT, or check your LinkedIn and find little content, you’ve already lost their attention and trust.
Reporters can’t cut corners—so why would they work with a company that does?
Even worse than being ignored is being covered without control of your narrative. If you don’t have content that reinforces your key messages, journalists might fill that gap with their own interpretation. Every story needs tension. The best kind of tension is when your company is seen as disrupting the market or challenging incumbents. If you don’t define that tension, someone else will.
In short: if you don’t curate your story, you risk letting others shape it for you.
If you want to build media visibility but don’t post on LinkedIn, you’re missing out. The platform has a billion active users—including your customers and the audience you’re trying to reach. There’s rarely any “quick win” in communications, but LinkedIn is the exception. It’s a powerful place to own your narrative, grow community, and build reputation capital.
If you’re asking reporters to tell your story while refusing to tell it yourself—why should they trust you?
As my friend and reporter Andrew Hirschfeld says, reporters can’t cut corners, so why would they work with a company that does?