Adaptability Is Key To Surviving In The Changing Media Landscape

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Blink and the media landscape changes: a magazine goes out of business, one company acquires another, a podcast launches.

Blink again and something else has changed.

In the nearly 20 years since I founded Amendola Communications, the media landscape for healthcare and healthcare technology has changed dramatically. Publications that I assumed would last forever are long gone while others have sprouted in their place. The dominant medium has shifted from print to digital and the lead time for news has shrunk from days and weeks to, well, almost nothing.  

The number of journalists covering healthcare is also greatly reduced. The big publications once had mastheads with multiple editors and reporters; now, most have only a few and they’re juggling podcasting and social media duties along with reporting and writing.

I hate to see any media outlet vanish. That’s partly for selfish reasons; fewer outlets means fewer places we can pitch. But it’s also because I love journalism and I love helping clients get their news out.

But nostalgia is an indulgence, not a business model.

That’s why, amidst all the change, Amendola Communications remains focused on the constants: the need for companies to spread the word about their products and services and the interest in them among the industry. While there might be fewer media outlets now, there is more healthcare news and content than ever before and it’s just as important to get it seen.

So we’ve adapted our approach. Rather than primarily pitching media interviews, we now do a lot more content development where we conceive a story idea, pitch it to a media outlet, and then have one of our writers create a draft that is vendor-neutral and publishable.

Another example of adaptability is how we’ve had to change our approach to media interviews at key trade shows, such as HIMSS, HLTH and others. Instead of only relying on in-person interviews at the shows, we have been super-aggressive in securing more podcast and video interview opportunities for our clients as well as focusing on pre-and-post show news coverage.

We also now operate in a world where clients are less dependent on third-party outlets. Companies have acquired the ability to speak directly to customers through their own blogs, emails, websites, social media, webinars, podcasts and, in some cases, publications. Indeed, consumers now expect a more direct link with and greater insight into the companies they work with and those businesses can no longer depend on third-party media to provide that.

This good news is that this allows businesses to be more creative, comprehensive and in control of how their images are presented and how their stories are told. A big part of what we do now at Amendola is creating content for our customers and advising them on the best format for that information.

In an ever-changing environment, the greatest necessity for ourselves and our clients is adaptability in how we craft and deliver our messages.

Putting Your Communication On A Diet

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On the cusp of a new year, many of us start thinking about exercise regimens. But the founders of Politico and Axios recommend we put our “prose on a diet.” In their book, “Smart Brevity,” they spell out effective ways to communicate in a world of 24×7 news cycles and social media.

Theirs isn’t the first book to detail better ways to write. But they do build off the seminal “The Elements of Style” to account for our 21st century digital age.

Citing various research studies, they suggest that we’re “overindulging in words” and that we need to pay attention to how “people consume content,” and to “communicate to save people time.” The key is to get people focused “on what matters most.” That’s what they’ve done with their Axios newsletters, i.e., structured them in a way to inform, but also linking to the details if readers want to go deeper. Go “short, not shallow,” “with simplicity and brevity,” is their mantra.

In order to get people to understand what we’re saying, PR professionals also need to package content so it answers two questions:

  • What’s new? (i.e., tell me something I don’t know.)
  • Why does it matter?

It’s particularly important to be memorable in the subject line, be it in business communications or a story pitch to a reporter. The authors recommend no more than six words, grabbing the reader’s attention.

In the body of a communication, they also recommend bold-facing key points and using bullets to “impose rhythm.”  The first sentence is important because it may be the only opportunity to “tell someone what they need to know.”

Here are other key takeaways, many already known, but still good reminders for anyone in the business of writing and communicating:

  • Single out the person you want to reach
  • Be simple and direct
  • Use the right words
    • As Mark Twain once said, “The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—it’s the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”
  • Sharpen thoughts and ideas
  • “Deliver depth, detail and nuance more quickly”
  • Less is more
  • Use active verbs always
  • Write direct, declarative sentences
  • Use one-syllable words in lieu of two- and three-syllable ones
  • “Tell me a story; don’t tell me about a story”

One thing I found interesting was their recommendation to use emojis in e-mail subject lines, as a means to stand out.

The book also includes chapters with best practices for writing e-mails and presentations, running meetings, writing speeches, building visuals, doing social media, and running companies.

The ultimate goal is to “win the war for attention,” and this book provides a worthy playbook for doing so.