Why being experts for journalists is GOLD!

What is expert commentary and why is it important?

Expert commentary is essentially pearls of wisdom shared by those in a particular industry. These insights can come from experts within your organisation or be sourced externally to help your digital PR efforts. As a result, your efforts can help win powerful backlinks from high-authority publications, contributing to improving your SEO performance and all-important E-E-A-T signals.

In this blog, we will look at why being an expert is gold for journalists and how you can utilise expert commentary in your Digital PR activities. 

How to find the right expert within your business?

Before we talk about how you can utilise experts for journalists you must find the right expert within your business or client.

You will likely have several experts internally who would be able to provide valuable insight into your Digital PR campaigns. Knowing how to find the right people to provide commentary can be tricky but by asking the below questions, you can pinpoint the right spokesperson within your business/client who will contribute effectively to your Digital PR campaigns and strengthen the overall impact:

• Do they have experience in the topic? Ensuring that you approach people within your organisation who possess knowledge and expertise directly related to the subject matter is crucial.
• Do they have any thoughts on the topic? It’s worth establishing whether they have any strong opinions on specifics in the industry and whether are they happy to discuss these. 
• Are they willing to help, and what is their availability? For time-sensitive situations like newsjacking or responding to journalist requests, it’s essential to collaborate with those who are quick at getting back to you and can meet deadlines.
• Are they happy to speak to journalists directly and named and pictured? If not, this could be a barrier! 

What are the benefits of expert commentary in Digital PR?

Unique Storytelling Opportunities

This is one of the key reasons why we push for our clients to be experts in their fields AND showcase their knowledge!  Journalists are always on the lookout for unique angles and original content to differentiate their stories from the competition. 

Experts can provide exclusive insights and little-known facts that create a sense of scarcity and add a unique dimension to a story, making the story more relatable and engaging. Audiences may feel they are getting privileged knowledge, making them more engaged and valuing the content more highly.

Effective storytelling is not just about presenting facts; it’s about weaving those facts into a compelling narrative that resonates with the audience, and experts play a key role in this process.

For our client Whitehead Monckton, a leading law firm in Kent- we regularly work with journalists at a variety of publications from local to national who want expert commentary for pieces they are working on that are timely and related to the current news agenda ie: Legal rulings, new employment laws coming into place, trending employment or education law stories.

Credibility and Trust

Experts for journalists lend credibility and authority to their stories. Experts bring a level of knowledge and specialisation that can substantiate the facts and provide a reliable foundation for the narrative. Their authoritative voices help ensure that the information presented is accurate and trustworthy. This is a behaviour nudge called authority bias, people are more likely to trust and be persuaded by information from experts. Highlighting the expertise of a commentator can lend more weight to a campaign, as audiences often defer to those with perceived authority in a field.

Here at Reflect Digital, we have built great relationships with many health and fitness journalists for our client Complete Pilates. Its director is often asked by journalists to lend a viewpoint to a particular piece that their audience can trust. The more they see her quoted in highly authoritative publications the more they trust what she is saying and form a strong connection with her and the brand.

1. Below are some of the reasons why being featured in the Women's Health article below, for example, helps build credibility and trustworthiness for Complete Pilates:
2. Association with a Reputable Source - Women's Health Magazine is a well-respected publication in the health and fitness industry. Being featured in such a reputable outlet implies that you are recognised as a knowledgeable and credible figure in the field.
3. Expertise and Experience: The article highlights Helen’s personal experience and expertise in dealing with injuries and recovery. Sharing the methods used to recover from running races demonstrates her practical knowledge and firsthand experience, which readers can trust.
4. Educational Value: By providing detailed information and tips on injury recovery, Helen is educating readers on an important topic. She is not only knowledgeable but also willing to share valuable information to help others, reinforcing her credibility.
5. Increased Visibility: Being featured in a popular magazine increases visibility and reach to a broader audience. This exposure helps establish you as a trusted voice in the fitness community.

Breaking Down Complex Topics

Many news stories involve complex topics that can be challenging to convey to a general audience. Experts play a crucial role in breaking down these complexities into digestible information. From explaining the implications of a legal ruling to how to plant a particular plant at a particular time of year for example, experts can simplify and clarify, making the information more accessible and engaging. How expert commentary is framed can significantly impact its reception. Positioning experts as providing solutions or unique insights can make the information more appealing and useful to the audience.

Networking and Building Relationships

For journalists, cultivating relationships with experts is an investment in their professional network. These connections can lead to ongoing collaborations and future story opportunities. Having a roster of reliable experts to call upon enhances a journalist’s ability to quickly and accurately cover breaking news and emerging trends.

How can you utilise expert commentary for your Digital PR campaigns?

Commenting on Campaign Findings

There is very rarely an occasion where you wouldn’t want to include a comment from a spokesperson to supplement a Digital PR campaign. This could be as simple as someone from within the organisation commenting on the findings of a survey, this simple addition can significantly bolster the credibility and impact of a Digital PR campaign. 

An example of how we executed this was for our client Sunsail a leader in yacht charter holidays where we shed light on the top 25  beaches in the world for switching off in 2024.

To bolster this campaign and shed light on the issues, we collaborated with various industry experts, including representatives from Sunsail as well as a leading psychologist, who were able to offer further insight into the benefits of switching off on holiday and why it’s so important.

The inclusion of these insights turned out to be crucial in shaping the campaign’s findings, resulting in achieving coverage across core industry and national news. Featuring expert commentary in reputable publications provides social proof. When people see experts they respect being quoted in trustworthy sources, they are more likely to view the information as credible and follow the advice given.

Using expert comments to form planned Reactive PR

A tactic you can plan into your digital PR strategies involves planning commentary around things like awareness days, sporting occasions, or even the weather that’s relevant to your business/client and anticipated in advance! 

By utilising an expert spokesperson you can provide tips, hacks and insightful opinions on topics relevant to the industry - this in turn not only helps enhance a brand’s visibility but helps to build strong backlinks too.

As part of our Digital PR strategy, we use our content calendar for all our clients to help keep us on track with our Digital PR activities and put together a bank of content that we can use for various events and topics we know are about to come up.

Earlier this year we utilised content about how to keep pets safe in the snow during the cold snap from our client Everypaw Pet Insurance’s in-house vet Dr Anna Foreman. We also found a trending TikTok video that she could also comment on,  in this case, the dangers of putting boots on dogs in cold weather. 

This initiative resulted in securing coverage in 20 different media outlets with an average domain rating of 75, including The Metro and The Mirror effectively positioning Everypaw as a credible authority in the industry. 

Reacting to trending industry news

Having a prompt and knowledgeable spokesperson allows you to capitalise on breaking or trending news effectively.

A prime example of this was when we pitched comments from our client  Helen O’Leary, physiotherapist and clinical director at Complete Pilates when we noticed that the ‘old man test’ was trending again on TikTok. 

We jumped on this and asked Complete Pilates’ clinical director Helen O’Leary to provide expert commentary about how to improve things like strength, balance and mobility to be able to do the test. We knew who we wanted to target with this piece and secured coverage in various publications such as Fit&Well and The Metro.

Responding to journalist’s requests

A large part of what we do as part of Digital PR strategies for clients is reactive PR. Essentially, this means being ready to respond to journalists who are looking for experts to provide comments on a particular story they may be working on. This is GOLD for you. If you have the right spokesperson for them, who fits their story, you can quickly and easily secure high-quality coverage while establishing the spokesperson as a credible industry authority. Building relationships with journalists by providing them with valuable expert commentary can create a sense of reciprocity. Journalists may feel inclined to return the favour by reaching out for future stories or providing favourable coverage.

We often get coverage for many of our clients where we have responded to a journo request around topics such as gardening to fitness and everything in between). This not only benefits the article’s quality for the journalist but also establishes your brand as a reliable source of knowledge in the field. 

Off the back of this journalists are likely to save your contact information for future articles, leading to additional opportunities for similar requests down the line. 

The biggest tip here though is to be quick and make sure you are offering valuable comments. Journalists get inundated when they put out requests and get  frustrated when a PR gets in touch with comments that aren’t relevant or insightful 

You can spot journalist requests by:

Signing up to sites like: Response Source, Qwoted, Homes4Media, TravMedia etc.
Check Twitter for ‘#journorequest’ and as well as search relevant keywords

Each month we work regularly with journalists at a variety of publications but mostly Ideal Home, Woman&Home or Top Ten Reviews who want expert commentary from our client Hopes Grove Nurseries for pieces they are working on. 

The aim of this is to be quick to help build those relationships and that trust so they know they can keep coming back to us for comments. 

Each opportunity helps us achieve our KPIs -  being links and brand awareness - and ultimately helps to build our relationships with these journalists for when we come to outreach our proactive campaigns! 

Key Takeaways

In summary, seeking out experts for stories is a practice that yields golden benefits for journalists. It enhances credibility and authority, provides deep insights and informed perspectives, breaks down complex topics, generates unique content, builds trust with the audience, enhances storytelling, supports networking and relationship-building, and is crucial for investigative journalism. 

In an age where information is abundant but reliable sources are invaluable, experts are journalist’s best allies in crafting compelling, accurate, and impactful stories.

Expert comments add authority to your digital PR activity and help to position your client as a thought leader in their industry

• You can utilise expert comments to compliment your PR strategy in several ways including newsjacking, responding to journalists’ requests, complimenting campaigns and leveraging planned reactive PR.
• Expert commentary is a great way to build relationships – journalists are  likely to save your spokesperson’s contact information for future articles, leading to additional opportunities for similar requests down the line
• You can use X and media/journalist databases to find comment opportunities as well as source external experts 
• Ensure you ask the right questions to find the right experts to secure coverage! 

If you're looking to start implementing expert commentary within your Digital PR campaigns but are unsure where to start we’d love to hear from you. We can help you develop a tailored Digital PR campaign that delivers results and sets you apart from the competition.