# A Strategic Guide to Earned Media for Authors If you want to get your article published organically, it’s crucial to understand the nuances of traditional media categories. These categories can be conceptualized as three concentric circles, each expanding in reach and publishing requirements: in relative terms, your company blog (if you have one) offers the most accessible placement, trade media occupies the mid-tier, and business media presents the most significant challenge. These publishing requirements come from editors, but we also consider them viewership expectations; together, they guide our content development and optimization efforts.   **At the core is your company blog:** A more casual place for interaction between a business and its audience. Ranked comparatively, blogs are typically less dependent on timely content, often favoring evergreen themes. They focus on delivering valuable, easy-to-digest, and engaging content emphasizing the brand’s narrative. **The next circle is trade media:** These industry-specific publications can have a slightly relaxed rigor compared to business media, but contrary to company blogs, trade media demands expertise mixed with high-quality writing, often supplemented by innovative research. They prioritize specialized insights, trends, and the sharing of best practices. They focus on substance over urgency, but relevance remains a key component. **The outermost circle is business media (Bloomberg, Forbes, WSJ):** These publications focus more on how industry-specific expertise applies to the greater business dialogue. They are the strictest of the three, necessitating structured, well-crafted writing and expertise applied to topics of high news value. Their editors publish fresh, engaging, in-depth insights on current and relevant events because that’s what their audiences expect. Of course, the concentric circles diagram is imperfect for a few reasons. First, the diagram is not scientific without mentioning specific outlets and their reach. Second, company blogs, trade media, and business media can serve different audiences, even if they cover the same industry. Third, while your company blog is considered “owned media,” trade and business are typically considered “earned media”—the former can be much more promotional than the latter, which must be vendor-neutral—so, while the article’s thesis can be the same or similar, execution varies. Nevertheless, while there are exceptions to the model, its primary purpose is to give context to our copywriting and editing process by underscoring the connection between audience size and content requirements across traditional media categories. Our prime objective is to see your article succeed. Leveraging our 54 years of combined expertise in copywriting and editing, we've developed an intuition—along with tools like our proprietary headline formula and persuasive article outline—that helps us maximize an article's potential for publication. After you’ve sent us an article for copyedits, here's part of how we help you prepare it for top-tier trade publications: 1. We rework the title and add headers crafted to inform, catch attention, and engage readers, particularly editors, who will decide whether or not to publish your article. 2. We expand the introduction to increase retention and provide a clear overview of your argument. A well-written introduction primes the reader for your thesis and makes you more persuasive. 3. We develop a refutation to demonstrate your expertise, build credibility, and strengthen your argument. 4. We expand the conclusion to succinctly and comprehensively summarize your argument. A well-written conclusion leaves your reader with a strong emotional impression by invoking a sense of urgency or hope and a call for action related to your thesis. 5. We reorganize the article's structure (the order in which ideas are presented) to enhance the reading experience, improve comprehension, and retain readers by reducing reader fatigue. 6. We rephrase complex or difficult-to-understand sentences to enhance readability by limiting confusion. Assuming the author demonstrates great expertise, we suggest further improvements if the author’s aspirations extend to business publications like Bloomberg, Forbes, or WSJ. This entails two key alterations which drastically boost the odds of a work being featured in top-tier business media: 1. Craft a contemporary, newsworthy subject. For example, "news-hacking" a significant individual or company's success or failure would grab media and reader attention and provide an application for your expertise. In essence, this means applying the principles of your evergreen content to a trending, under-explored issue. 2. Develop a unique, insightful angle. For example, approach the subject with counterintuitive insights or proprietary frameworks. In addition, include non-trivial, lesser-known, but essential principles that most people need help understanding. The Venn diagram below underscores the importance of a balanced content strategy, which requires a timely subject, an insightful angle, and expertise.  The key to getting your words published is simpler than you think. It's about understanding the target media category, aligning with their audience, and creating insightful content. We've pieced together a straightforward process to help you tailor your content for trade and business media. But remember, this isn't a solo journey, and we're here to support you every step of the way. Your articles will undoubtedly make their mark with the right approach and a little teamwork.