As cybersecurity PR specialists, it’s crucial we recognise the difference, and the importance, between what our clients want, and what they need in terms of media coverage. Whilst our clients, like most, want to see their name in bold plastered over broadsheet papers and national news, we like to question why, and whether these media sources are always the best place to be?
This is why we at Origin Communications, commissioned CensusWide to undertake a study to provide an update on our survey last year into the changing dynamics of media consumption among IT decision makers. CensusWide interviewed a highly representative sample of 201 IT decision makers hailing from a range of sectors across the United Kingdom and discovered many notable media consumption trends and results.
The annual research aims to find trends that we can then put to our clients to highlight not only the media being consumed, but how to target their audience through the right channels. Unsurprisingly, the survey found that IT decision makers opt to follow tech websites (67%) and IT security-specific websites (64%), above all else. We also asked how they consume IT security specifically, which they read most frequently (whether print or online). Both tech websites (32%) and IT security-specific websites (32%) came out on top. Whilst this might be expected by some, we would inevitably expect to see national news higher up the ranking, but newspaper and radio consumption, for example, were at a miniscule 7% in the ratings.
That said – the FT jumped from 20% last year to 50% in 2019, when asked which websites respondents read/use for IT security, indicating that they are consuming more IT security information via this source than before, and more so than the Telegraph and Independent newspapers (41% each). This may reflect the fact that the FT publishes security and IT supplements in greater frequency as data security headlines mount. These titles have always been on any media list we produce, and we will always aim to target what the client wants, but we will also look at new avenues too.
Since last year, the proportion who are consuming IT security via IoT-enabled devices such as smartwatches or Amazon Alexa has leapt from 3% in 2018 to an amazing 11% in 2019, and for IT generally it has jumped from 7% in 2018 to 19% in 2019. IoT seems a popular choice too for decision makes questioned on where they expect to consume media in 5 years’ time. Our clients will need to be flexible in their future approach to coverage to adapt to the trends and diversity of their audience and their media consumption habits.
The research also highlighted that almost half of IT decision makers (47%) spend between 31 minutes to two hours researching news of a data breach when they hear of it, yet admitted to spending an average of only 7 minutes reading other news articles at any given time. Showing that consumption isn’t just about where we get our information but also how we access it and the time spent consuming any given article.
As with any PR strategy, it should begin with planning and setting realistic objectives. It makes less sense than ever to spend resources on targeting the wrong outlets, or providing messaging and information that in the long run will help neither the content providers nor the client. Our research continues to highlight that good PR is about knowing who to target, when to target them, what to provide them with in terms of content or information and in what manner.
To download the full report entitled ‘Targeting Information Security Professionals Based on the New Dynamics of Media Consumption’, please visit https://origincomms.com/research-report/
