Does your organization have a media kit? It could be one of the missing links between your marketing, press outreach and business development strategies, experts say.
A well-done media kit “promotes, explains and puts together in one place a unified set of information about a company, making it easier for the users — whether a news reporter or local government official — to understand the company, its history, products, financial health, brand materials and more,” says Sue Voyles, a business coach.
In this guide, you’ll learn how to assemble an effective media kit — especially its visual assets, which can be far more impactful than written collateral — that supports your organization’s outreach goals and elevates its brand. We’ll start with one of the most important aspects of any media kit: leadership photography.
Invest in Professional-Grade Leadership Photography
Yes, it’s worth it. To dispel any lingering doubts, peruse this media gallery for David Miscavige, leader of the Scientology religion. It’s clear that this is the work of a professional photographer at the height of their powers, backed by state-of-the-art technology.
Nothing is stopping you from achieving similar results. If it helps justify the investment, remind yourself that you only get one chance to make a first impression, and an amateurish set of “professional” photographs is not consistent with that objective.
Use Leaders’ Photos to Advance Your Organization’s Image and Brand
Once you’ve created a professional-grade archive of leadership photography, leverage it to burnish your organization’s image and enhance its brand reputation. At minimum, feature these photos prominently on your website, not just in your media kit, to put a “face to the name” of each member of your leadership team.
“Many enterprises use team photos on their websites to foster a sense of authenticity, and develop a connection with their audience,” says business branding expert José Luis Martín Cara.
If you’re inclined to go further, include leadership photos in press releases, blog posts, white papers, and other marketing collateral. Repeated exposure makes it more likely that outsiders who engage with your brand — especially those in a position to advance its publicity interests, like reporters and social media influencers — associate specific leaders with specific departments or initiatives (or with the organization as a whole).
Use Separate Galleries for Different Purposes
An effective media gallery is more than a single gallery. It includes numerous collections and sub-collections that serve discrete purposes or correlate with specific events or initiatives:
- Professional headshots and/or “official” team photos for general distribution
- “Candid” photos showing members of your organization “in action,” particularly in community service settings
- Photos associated with specific events, such as fundraisers
- Images produced specifically for marketing or press purposes, such as photos of your headquarters
- Visual content distributed for informational purposes, including for press reference, such as charts and graphics detailing aspects of your operations
Develop Free, Informational Resources for Press and Media
Your top priority for your organization’s media gallery might be to build an engaging repository of appealing, brand-building imagery.
That’s a noble enough goal. However, others may have different designs on your media assets. From media professionals’ perspective, a media gallery is all about information: both primary facts, figures and context to inform reporting, and secondary visuals to include in the finished product (the media report).
With that in mind, your media gallery must be more than a set of well-done headshots and team photos. As noted above, it should also include helpful charts, graphs, multimedia assets (including videos), and other graphical representations that inform understanding of your organization and advance your preferred narrative.
Include Contact Information With Your Media Assets (Preferably a Dedicated Individual or Team)
No matter how comprehensive and well-produced it may be, your organization’s media gallery is of limited value if it fails to invite follow-up action.
With each asset, include the contact information of the individual or individuals responsible for that particular department, initiative or event. Smaller organizations may have just one or two contact people; larger entities may have dozens. But in all but the very smallest or under-resourced organizations, these should be dedicated individuals whose responsibilities revolve around managing inbound and outbound public relations — not members of your sales or administrative teams working “side jobs” as PR professionals.
Add Context to Image Collections
Each collection and sub-collection within your media gallery should incorporate helpful context for those not familiar with its contents. Such context should include concise but comprehensive descriptions of the contents of each gallery, “alt text” for each image, and high-level technical data (such as photo resolution and size).
Alt text, in particular, is helpful to ensure your images reach a wider audience and that they remain legible to search engines like Google. Brevity is preferred, experts say, though Google has not said whether there’s a hard character or word limit (as is the case for webpage “meta descriptions”).
“You’ll see people suggesting keeping it to 100 characters, 120 characters, 140 characters, or to specific word counts like 16 words,” says Chima Mmeje of Moz. But “it’s important to know that all of these figures are speculative.”
Your Media Assets Are a Work in Progress — Keep Investing in Them
Hopefully, you’re inspired by these tips and guidelines to invest in your organization’s media assets. Doing so helps you put your best foot forward and distinguish your brand, your story and your vision from those of your competitors.
However, building a first-rate media outreach operation is not something any organization can do overnight, no matter how determined and well-resourced it may be. It is something that takes time, and perhaps more important, that requires a considerable amount of strategic planning. It’s the sort of initiative that must be evaluated at regular intervals once it’s in progress.
Above all else, developing a media outreach operation and its attendant assets is the sort of project that has no clear endgame. Like managing a manufacturing line or recruiting across a large organization, it’s a continuous process that is — ideally — marked by continuous improvement. A work in progress, in other words, with all the commitment that entails.