Terry’s business had been growing steadily through the years. After achieving a key milestone, she decided it was time to invest in PR. The cash flows were great, at the moment, but the industry was expanding with new players posing stiff competition. It was not going to be all rosy forever. She needed to cement the company’s brand and secure a sustainable market share.

At a networking event earlier, Terry caught up with old friends who had also been in business. When they discussed strategy, one of them had spoken passionately about social media and how it took his business to the next level. 90% of their sales came from social media leads. Another friend had campaigned for Search Engine Marketing (SEM). They had started off with Google Ads, which secured high quality leads but now they relied fully on their high ranking and authority on search results. A third friend sworn by mainstream media. They had all seen him on TV and read about his successful venture in the papers. He let them know, the media appearances had paid off. Not only did his company secure leads, but they also increased their market share and gained authority on Google, due to the respectable mentions.

This interaction left Terry motivated but also confused. Should she invest her PR budget in media relations or digital PR (social media and search engine). Let’s explore these PR worlds and determine the best course of action for Terry’s company and others facing a similar dilemma:

Understanding the Landscape: Media Relations in Kenya

Media Relations, at its core, involves building and maintaining relationships with journalists, editors, and broadcasters to secure earned media coverage. In Kenya, this typically means targeting established newspapers, radio stations, TV channels, digital first news media and emerging digital media platforms (podcasts, media-facing Youtube Channels).

Although a some brands pay for media coverage, media relations in PR is ultimately about earning your spot in respectable media platforms.

What is Earned Media?

Earned media is publicity or media attention received organically due to PR efforts, brand reputation or newsworthiness. Unlike Owned Media (content created internally) or paid media (promotional content), earned media has to be interesting enough to appeal to mass or niche audiences.

Key Characteristics & Benefits of Mainstream Media

• Credibility & Trust: Coverage in reputable traditional media outlets often carries a high level of credibility, lending significant trust to a brand. Kenyans have a strong tradition of trusting news from established media houses. This kind of credibility feeds directly into your search engine and now AI platforms profile. Platforms like Google and ChatGPT percieve your brand as more credible and authoritative, if you have positive media coverage.
• Targeted Reach: Traditional media can be highly effective in reaching specific demographics, especially older generations, high networth individuals, niche industries or those in areas with limited internet access.
• Crisis & Reputation Management: In our #100Kenyanbrands report, we established that mainstream media in Kenya plays a big role in, not just spreading a crisis but also shaping public opinion. Although platforms like X and Tik Tok are emerging as critical crisis spreaders, negative publicity in mainstream media weighs heavy in Kenya. Established media relationships can be invaluable during a crisis, allowing for swift and controlled communication.
• Longterm PR Assets: Media clippings and broadcast mentions are long-term PR assets. They remain relevant and respectable forever. In fact, older media clippings are way more valuable.

Traditional Media Relations Challenges

• Editorial Red Tape: Brands have very little control over media mentions, although they can pitch stories that favour them. Moreover, securing traditional media coverage can be a lengthy process, often dependent on editorial calendars and news cycles.
• Limited Direct Analytics: Tracing direct impact (e.g. reach, website traffic, sales) from traditional media mentions can be challenging without sophisticated tracking.
• Declining Readership/Viewership (in some segments): While still strong, some traditional media outlets are experiencing shifts in audience attention towards digital platforms, particularly among younger demographics.

How Much Does the Kenyan Public Trust Media?

According to the State of the Media Survey Report, released in May 2025 by the Media Council of Kenya, TV is the most trusted media, in Kenya, followed by Radio. Here’s a breakdown of media trust levels for different types of media, including social media (click on the colours to see more):

The Rise of Digital PR in Kenya

Although mainstream media still has its grip on Kenyan audiences, digital media is rapidly closing the gap. According to the above mentioned report, between 2023 and 2024, TV and social media have been in a stiff competition, as “the main source of news for Kenyans”. The latest report shows, TV was in the lead in 2024, while Social Media dominated in 2023.

Many brands are realizing the power of digital media and therefore digital PR is now a top priority. Digital PR leverages online channels to enhance a brand’s online presence and reputation. This cuts across influencer marketing, SEO-driven content, social media content and digital media outreach. In Kenya, the rapid growth of internet penetration and smartphone adoption has fueled the rise of digital PR.

Related:

From SEO to AIO: How AI is Changing Digital PR and Online Discovery in Kenya

How to Get Featured in Kenyan Media

Key Characteristics & Benefits

• Wide Reach: To understand just how expansive and limitless digital media is, let’s use an example of a recent event. Data was obtained from social listening tools. News about the death of Kenya’s former Prime Minister were officially announced by mainstream media. While these traditional platforms made the news more believable or trustworthy, it is social media that fueled global conversations and tributes from across the world. In just 24 hours, there was an estimated 64 million in reach from digital media. This is essentially the numbers of people who saw the news on various digital media, be it digital or online news websites. To put this into context, Kenya’s population is roughly, 50 million (including children). Clearly, social media spread the news beyond Kenyan borders. Digital platforms offer the potential for unparalleled reach, transcending geographical boundaries. Social media achieved the highest reach with Tik Tok and X resulting in the highest number of user generated content around the topic. Digital media’s ability to spread content across boarders makes it highly effective, especially for brands targeting multiple countries.
• Measurable ROI: From the above example, it is clear that digital media makes it very easy to track visibility. Analytics tools allow for precise measurement of website traffic, conversions, social engagement, backlinks, mentions and more.
• Speed & Accessibility: Traditional media involves a chain of decision makers and production barriers which slow down the speed of disseminating information. Digital Media, on the contrary is accessible round the clock. Digital campaigns can, therefore be launched quickly, responding to real-time trends and news.
• Cost-Effectiveness (Relative): Digital media is designed to have lower barriers to entry. All budgets are acceptable, although with more brands leveraging digital tools, it now takes more to actually get noticed.
• SEO Benefits: High-quality online mentions and backlinks from reputable websites significantly boost a brand’s search engine ranking.
• Direct Audience Engagement: Digital platforms facilitate two-way communication, allowing brands to engage directly with their audience, gather feedback, ac on it, and build communities.

Challenges & Considerations

• Noise & Competition: “Everyone” is online these days and content, especially from businesses is struggling to get seen. Audiences are critically overwhelmed with fresh content each day. Cutting through the noise requires a lot of creativity.
• Crisis Magnet: The cancel culture thrives online. One negative Tikk Tok Storytime about an unpleasant interaction between a brand and a netizen can lead to a a crisis or reputational damage. In fact digital media plays a big role in fueling traditional media -led crisis. Negative online mentions spread rapidly, requiring constant vigilance and proactive management.
• Authenticity & Trust: Statistically, Kenyans trust social media almost as much as they trust newspapers and other traditional media. However, sponsored content is now deemed as less authentic, perhaps due to advert fatigue.
• Content Volume: Sustaining consistent and high-quality content production is crucial for sustained digital PR success. But production is also overwhelming, especially for businesses that are not in the content business, or lack the budget to sustain production.

The ROI Showdown: Which Delivers Better in Kenya?

Whether to invest in traditional media relations or digital PR depends largely on a brand’s specific goals, target audience, resources and its ability to attract earned media. A lot of brands are quick to general social media content, with the hope that something will come out of it. In reality however, this kind of blind content generation only worked many years ago. Strategy is extremely important when planning your PR budget.

To determine which platform will deliver better ROI for your brand you can take different approaches. Here’s a breakdown to guide you:

A Goal-Based Approach

• Brand Awareness & Credibility: Traditional Media Relations often excels here, particularly for establishing foundational trust with a broad, diverse audience in Kenya. People will respect your brand more if they saw it on TV, compared to a social media campaign on your platforms.
• Lead Generation & Sales: Digital PR, with its direct analytics and calls to action, typically offers a clearer path to tracking conversions and sales. Digital PR works perfectly if aligned with the sales function of a brand.
• SEO & Online Visibility: Digital PR is the undisputed champion for improving search engine rankings and overall online presence, especiall for B2B brands. This kind of PR is great for long-term, diverse goals, such sales, brand equity and authority.
• Crisis Communication: Both Digital PR and media relations can avert a crisis if used well. A blended approach is often best, leveraging established media relationships while also controlling the narrative across digital channels. However, priority should be given to the platform where the crisis started.

An Audience-Based Approach:

• If your primary audience is older, niche, less digitally connected, the masses or located in rural areas, traditional Media Relations might offer a more direct and predictable route.
• If your audience is younger, tech-savvy, and primarily online, Digital PR will likely yield significantly better results. It is however, important to understand each digital platform. Tik Tok for instance, has the youngest audience while Facebook has a broad user base in Kenya.

Budget & Resources:

• Currently, the gap between the cost of running digital PR campaigns vs traditional media campaigns is closing. Both platforms offer entry level options and cash-intensive options. Although digital PR may seem cheaper on the surface, with so many people running ads and generating content, the cost of achieving significant visibility online has increased over the years. Consult wisely to understand where your budget fits and the likely ROI, depending on your goals.