FAQs → Frequently asked questions
Our most common questions, answered.
Please get in touch to talk to our team.
About We are Talker
We are not a PR agency, we are a news business working within the PR and Communications industry. We specialize in news generation and earned media coverage. We provide a results-driven service to in-house teams and agencies.
Talker Research is the polling arm of our business. We conduct online surveys to ask panelists questions and collate data that add depth to news stories and provide consumer insights for clients. This allows us to offer you the option of a full-service research and earned media package, or to work with our team on research projects that support your own campaigns and media initiatives.
We work with in-house and agency PR, Communication and Marketing professionals across the U.S. The majority of our clients are consumer brands, or agencies representing consumer brands. However, we also conduct research and create news stories and content for charities, not-for-profit and B2B organizations. Here are some examples of the range of sectors and brands we have generated coverage for.
No, we do not require clients to commit to a retainer. We are as happy working on one-off and ad hoc projects as we are working on a series multiple project campaigns. If you are planning a longer-term campaign, or looking to integrate earned media activity into multiple projects, we offer solutions that reduce costs and allow you to plan media campaigns with ease.
Our news generation service
We don’t write or distribute press releases or Mat releases. We write page-ready news copy, as well as broadcast scripts and Spanish translations which we distribute via our proprietary newsfeed, Talker.news.
We write news copy in a page-ready format, usually about a page and a half in length. It is ‘page-ready’ because we supply copy that can be easily lifted from the page directly into a news publication or onto a web page. The copy includes a namecheck for the brand commissioning the research, two sections of quotes in order to embed key messaging and a link to a site or landing page. We write survey-led news stories not brand-led press releases. Read more about our process here.
To increase the reach and impact of our news stories, we also produce broadcast-ready scripts that are adapted from the main news copy. We also translate stories into Spanish, providing Spanish-language media with ready-to read content for their audiences.
No. Mat releases are typically syndicated stories that appear on local publications, often in the less read sections of those publications. Our stories are supplied as news content and generate more top tier coverage than a PR Newswire or a MAT release. The majority will sit on the lifestyle pages of publications, sometimes featured on homepages/front pages or segments produced for TV and radio talk shows.
Not always — some outlets will pick the copy up word for word (though they typically do put their own headline on the piece), but other publications will rewrite the copy to fit their style and tone or pull out a few specific stats to use in a story or featured article. Publishers and content producers have the editorial discretion to use, not use, or edit stories as they wish.
The process of drafting survey questions, writing the news story and creating the assets is a very collaborative process and we look to you (the client) for approval on every step. We won’t move forward until we have the green light and are agreed on both sides. Our team will provide honest and expert advice throughout. If we think a story idea is not newsworthy, or that certain phrasing or messaging will have a negative impact on the story pickup, we will always share our reasoning and suggest alternatives.
As with all earned media, we cannot dictate how a media outlet covers a story. Publishers and content producers always have the editorial discretion to use, not use, or edit stories as they wish.
We are unable to share our list of newsfeed subscribers to clients due to the Talker News privacy policy. We can share a list of some of the publications that are most likely to take your content, but it will not be a guarantee.
The way PR news stories are received from newsfeeds such as Talker News is different to how they are received via PR pitches or press releases, so there is no need to be concerned about duplication. If you want to distribute the story to your own contacts, you can. In fact, we recommend it to ensure maximum pick up on the story.
Media coverage and content
No. We do include a link to your website in the news copy to encourage publishers to embed it into the story, but we are not able to include this in our guarantees. Your account manager can also offer advice and tips when crafting the copy to encourage links.
This is down to the publisher – typically they remain live in perpetuity.
No, we write the news copy and we create the content. We will work with you to develop a story angle that is relevant to the brand and newsworthy so that it is picked up by the media. Our team is more than happy to take a look over your content, but we have to be particular on the stories we distribute via the Talker newsfeed and we must protect the quality of it. We are on hand to offer our advice for anything else.
You are absolutely able to use the stats for social media or for a blog post — in fact, we encourage it! The data is yours to use as you’d like. If there’s a date peg or campaign you’re running and would like to use some of the data for it, we’re happy for you to post that before the story has been released. And if you do write a blog post or create a campaign-specific landing page, we can use that link within the copy to encourage publications to link back.
All of the survey data, news copy and final visual assets are yours to use as you see fit. We encourage you to publish and share the assets on your own channels. We also offer a Social Media Package where we create resized and reformatted stand-alone images, so you have your story’s key stats and survey findings designed, perfectly sized and ready to go.
Deliverables and metrics
We use CoverageBook to collate and present client coverage at the end of every project. This includes volume of coverage (number of pieces), coverage views, online readership, domain authority, number of backlinks and social media shares. The main metrics are domain authorities and estimated views. We typically only include coverage that mentions the brand that commissioned the research but we can add coverage that does not include a brand mention if requested.
This metric is provided by CoverageBook, a well-respected third-party site that uses multiple API sources like SimilarWeb and Moz to determine estimated coverage views, online readership, social shares, number of links and domain authority. Moz is specifically used to determine a site’s domain authority and SimilarWeb is used to calculate online readership and estimated coverage views.
We guarantee coverage on a minimum number of sites (Domain Authority of 60 or higher). The coverage however, is not capped and we very often see our guarantees maximized.
The coverage we generate for you is earned and appears as editorial content, we do not produce paid placements.
You are welcome to use the findings of your research and resulting news copy to support your own earned and paid media initiatives.
While we don’t guarantee broadcast coverage, several producers for local and national TV and radio programs are aware of our research, so you can expect to see some broadcast pick up. Since a large number of television stations operate through syndication, the same segment around your company can air in multiple markets and time slots.
We monitor viewership figures using our broadcast monitoring service. The metric is calculated through a variety of factors – primarily through the station’s overall viewership, the market it is played in, and the time that the segment airs. Broadcast information is included with digital coverage metrics in your final reporting at the end of a project.
We regularly use AI platforms as social listening tools, to help our team identify key topics that might perform well in the earned media space. As well as timing for particular stories to help campaigns perform well. During a campaign, we are able to track which publications are mentioning your brand. After the campaign, we can monitor brand awareness and measure share of voice.
If for some reason a story doesn’t get picked up the first time around, we will hold the story for a few days and distribute again, if the story doesn’t make on the second round, we will run a new project for you completely free of charge. Meaning you will not walk away without coverage. We do not class coverage without a namecheck as coverage for you.
Like to know more?
If we’ve not answered your question here or you would like to know more about what we do and how we can work together, contact our team. We’d love to hear from you.