What’s By-line? How to Use Contributed Content to Build Buzz

by Morgan McDowell

The beauty of bylines as a PR pro is not only that they offer a reprieve from some of the dry tech writing we all have to do and let us flex our creative writing muscles, but also that they give us the opportunity to tell as much of our client’s story as we want, and to give the industry a glimpse into the people and personalities behind the corporate image.

Contributing articles and blog posts is also a great tactic for getting the names of key executives in target publications on a regular basis, establishing clients and executives as experts in their field, and helping to keep companies in the spotlight during lulls in their news cycle.

Here are some tips on how to do it right.

1. Establish a Voice: Some people (including some of your clients) think that if you can type, you can write – and we all know that isn’t the case. You don’t have to be Hemingway to write a byliner of course, but you do need to pay attention to who the author is, and ensure the piece reflects that person’s personality and tone. In some cases you’re writing on behalf of a CEO you’ve never spoken to, and in others, you’re writing on behalf of the marketing director you deal with every day for account management. In all cases, start by getting on the phone with your author, learn how they express themselves, read pieces they’ve written before and familiarize yourself as much as possible with their unique perspective. Pay attention to that as you write and you’ll quickly become accustomed to writing in someone else’s voice.

2. Build the Pipeline: When it comes to what you write about, always plan for more than one article. Editorial staffs are shrinking and quality contributed content is in high demand; very often you can score blogging and recurring columnist positions, which can be PR gold.

Create an editorial calendar of topics that underscore your clients’ messaging and leverages their assets without turning it into a sales pitch for their particular solutions. Now is the chance to educate the industry and the media that covers it, about the demand for your client’s product or service. If you can offer insight into the industry, in the form of trends, data, personal anecdotes, it will be all the more well-received. There’s always a bit of self-promotion underneath all that altruism, but if it’s useful information, the reader won’t care if you toot your client’s horn a little.

3. Keep the Superfluous Cooks Out of the Kitchen: Now, here is the one thing that as a PR writer that makes me crazy—when your internal team or your client’s team wants to have everybody and their mother review and edit the draft. When it comes to the actual writing of these articles, the fewer people involved the better. The core concept of a well-oiled byliner machine is that you can write in the author’s voice with only basic input from the author himself. So keep the layers of reviewing to minimum. It should be you, the author and then maybe one other set of eyes on each end. Getting outside perspective is always a great idea; writing by committee is not. Not only will it completely screw up the tone and voice of your article, but it will muddle your message and the reading experience will be torturous. Which is not the best way to get asked back as a regular columnist.

Writing bylined articles is one of my favorite parts of this job, and I think the benefits to clients are sometimes underestimated. Lots of clients are concerned with press releases and speaking engagements and don’t even think about contributing written pieces, or think that since they themselves aren’t writers it won’t be a good fit. But bylines are not only great media placement, but they go miles toward establishing thought leadership and giving a relatable and respectable voice to the organization.

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