Analysts, bloggers and press on how they like to work with PRs 

Most people will remember Michael Caine’s classic line ‘You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!’ from The Italian Job, where his sidekick accidentally blows up a security van. While in our industry the only thing that has been exploding is the unabated growth of data, there is another parallel between the technology space and this iconic 1969 movie: the requirement for knowledge and expertise. 

The fast pace the IT industry has been evolving at hasn’t just shaped the way we use technology, and its role in everyday life it has also had an impact on those who watch it and report on it, namely media, analysts, bloggers and consultants. The increase in the number of news sites and the subsequent drop in IT print publications alongside the proliferation of companies issuing news, has resulted in the press publishing stories much faster and more frequently. It has also led to a shift in popular sources of information (see the A3 Communications blog post at https://a3.ax/FiIVn where we report from the 2019 Gartner IT Infrastructure, Operations & Cloud Strategies Summit about where end users go to stay up to date with the IT industry). Today’s so-called ‘influencers’ work differently from the way they did even just a couple of years ago. 

To find out exactly how these industry watchers like to work with vendors in 2020, A3 Communications, the data storage industry comms agency, recently re-ran a survey originally carried out in 2016 https://a3.ax/IgiOD to identify any changes and to share the findings with you. 

Between November 2019 and February 2020 A3 Communications polled nearly 80 journalists, bloggers, analysts and consultants based across France, Germany and the UK. The topics ranged from their preferred social media networks to the types of spokespeople they like to speak to, and from the materials they like to work with to their preferred interview set ups. While many of the respondents in 2016 and 2020 were the same, it is important to remember that some influencers we polled the first time around have since retired, started working for vendors, or left the industry. By the same token, the latest survey includes new respondents, or people who switched role e.g. went from being a blogger to an analyst, or moved from one publication to another. Being aware of such changes is an essential part of any communications professional’s job as it will allow them to ensure they only send relevant information to these targets. 

The respondents represented many well-known organisations including AI Business, Architecting.IT, Channel Pro, CIO, CloudComputing Insider, Computer Reseller News, Computer Weekly, ComputerWoche, Datacenter Dynamics, Elektronikpraxis, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), Freeform Dynamics, GigaOm, IT Administrator, IT Pro, IT Business, LANLine, Le Mag IT, Markt & Technik, Microscope, Ovum, PacketPushers, Speicherguide, Storage Consortium, Storage Insider, Storage Magazine, The New Statesman, The Register, and vInfrastructure. 

Continue reading to learn about the way the top European influencers like to work with vendors’ communications teams.