Merchandising your media coverage. Doesn’t that sound refreshing?

Your PR firm secures a beautiful, or short, feature, or brief, in a newspaper ANYWHERE. Your firm gets you a 3-minute segment on local TV. They put you on the radio in a developing market. GREAT! AWESOME! FANTASTIC!

Traditional media is still the starting point for generating media coverage.

But now what? What to do next?

First question: Has your PR firm educated you on the possibilities for merchandising the media coverage they generate for you, or does it publish, you receive it, and then it goes only on your wall and on your desk?

There are new options. There are now ways to take the media coverage generated and merchandise it via user created media outlets for mass distribution. Let’s say (even though so many “researchers” suggest corporate blogging is pointless) you operate a blog. Let’s say your firm generates a nice feature in a daily newspaper. That article will publish and readers will read it the day it comes out, as well as perhaps online. Then it is archived. GREAT.

What you could do, is wait a week. Wait until the dust settles. Watch your analytics to discover the reach of the story. And then MERCHANDISE IT! Put that article on your blog. Talk about that article. Say the reporter only used two quotes from you, add more thoughts. Put more cents into it. Add value to it.

Corporate blogs can be used for more than giving pats on the back to your own brand. They can be used to extend the value of your media coverage. And there are many, many, many more things you can do to prolong the life of any media coverage. This is just me wetting your taste of curiosity.