If
you want to learn how to promote your book successfully, you might consider
watching Criminal Minds, a television
show that depicts how a special unit of the FBI profiles and tracks down serial
killers. No, you don’t have to commit
bloody murder to get attention from the media, but you do have to apply their
use of profiling to get a better handle on how the media thinks and what they
want. You need to be a better hunter.
Criminal Minds always comes up
with a hypothesis and tests it against the evidence in hand. Sometimes they have evidence that allows them
to imagine competing scenarios of the truth, and it’s up to the FBI to play out
every lead until new facts are learned, and the evidence is re-analyzed and put
into a new perspective.
It
seems to work in catching repeat killers, rapists, bombers, and psychos. Maybe such an approach can work with the
media.
Let’s
start with the facts. There’s plenty of
evidence to examine.
Begin with what a media outlet has covered in the past. Start to see the patterns and styles that develop. Match up your observations and collection of data with what the media outlet says it likes to cover. You’ll learn about how it views itself by the way it sells advertising. What demographic do they emphasize and say they reach? How do they describe their outlet on their website? What subjects does their social media tend to cover?
Begin with what a media outlet has covered in the past. Start to see the patterns and styles that develop. Match up your observations and collection of data with what the media outlet says it likes to cover. You’ll learn about how it views itself by the way it sells advertising. What demographic do they emphasize and say they reach? How do they describe their outlet on their website? What subjects does their social media tend to cover?
Next,
look at specific reporters, hosts, producers, and editors. Just as you looked at the whole media outlet,
do the same with the individuals responsible for what gets covered by that
outlet. Look up their social media
profiles and form a picture of their backgrounds. What can you assume they may be interested in, personally, once you know things like their age, sex, religion, race, hobbies,
education, etc.
Now
think about who that media outlet sees as its direct competition, the way the New York Times views USA Today, WSJ,
and Washington Post – or the way Today Show competes with GMA, Fox & Friends, and CBS This Morning. Start to have a sense
of how they want to scoop or beat their competitors. See what differentiates these competitors and
determine how your story can be packaged as an exclusive to each one, with a
customized twist.
Criminal
Minds shows there’s a predictability and consistency to serial killers. Many of them follow patterns and live under
some code – if not delusion – to guide their actions. The media too, lives by its sense of what’s
news, what’s ethical, what’s important to them.
Tap into the voice and branded image of a media outlet and appeal to
what they admittedly stand for and promote.
If
all else fails, you can always go on a killing spree and get some media
coverage.
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