There was a full house at the The Kenneth Owler-Smith Symposium at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at USC last night.  Steve Rubel of Edelman spoke about how PR and journalism are changing and the need for companies and organizations to expand their view of media and media relations.

The Internet has created more than one new way to reach your and engage your audience:

• companies can now publish their own content
• consumers have a voice
• influential digital news properties, like The Huffington Post, Mashable and Tech Crunch, have emerged

Which is a good thing, since research now shows that to effect behavioral change, people have to see or hear something at least 3 -5 times.  In developed countries, where there is so much more information overload, that figure jumps to 9 times!

To reach your audience in multiple ways Rubel advises that you work your content across four inter-related media platforms:

1. The first is Traditional Media, which still has influence.
2. The next is the Digital News Media –  make sure that your content appears in the relevant digital news outlets that have sprung up.
3. Owned Media – Every company can, and should, be a media company – in addition to their core business. Create blogs and curate industry news.  Set up  a social media online newsroom that invites people in and creates spaces for them to find and share content that interests them.  Connect them to one another.
4. Social Media – Spread the right content to the right people using social platforms and feeds.

All of which creates a trans-media storytelling strategy that will connect with your audience in multiple places and create those 5 – 9 touch points needed to get their attention and move them to action.

Originally published at the proactive report