“Can you get us in the Financial Times?” is a question that is often asked in the world of financial PR.
The honest answer: potentially, but there is no guarantee and it is likely to be driven by macro developments, rather than a small cap’s personal victories.
However, the reality is that if you’re running a speculative small-cap – a junior miner or exploration play – the people most likely to buy your stock are not reading the FT over their morning coffee. They’re on X following commodity commentators. They’re in Telegram groups. They’re watching YouTube channels dedicated to commodity cycles and watching which stocks keep coming up.
That’s not a criticism of mainstream media or investors. It’s just where the market has moved.
The prestige trap
There’s a version of financial PR that’s really about making management feel good. A mention in a broadsheet. A quote in a national paper. It looks great in a board presentation.
But for a pre-revenue explorer sitting below £100m market cap, that coverage doesn’t always move the needle. The readership of mainstream financial press skews institutional – wealth managers, portfolio allocators, macro readers. The overlap with retail commodity investors is surprisingly small.
I’ve seen companies spend significant budget chasing mainstream coverage that generated almost no investor activity. Meanwhile, a single well-connected mining influencer thread can drive more traffic to a company’s investor page in 48 hours than a national article ever did.
What actually drives retail attention in speculative markets
It’s not prestige. It’s repetition and community.
Retail investors in speculative sectors need to see a story multiple times, across multiple places and platforms, before they act. One article doesn’t do it. What works is consistent visibility: video interviews, podcast appearances, newsletter mentions, social commentary, community engagement. The investors who end up buying are usually the ones who’ve encountered the company multiple times in the spaces they already trust. My advice for this: befriend the camera and remember, it doesn’t have to be highly polished to be high performing.
This isn’t new behaviour by the way. Junior mining has always run on narrative and community — newsletters, broker notes, tip sheets, conferences. Social media has just made it faster and louder and created new ways in which companies can connect with investors.
Traditional media still matters – just not in the way most people think
I’m not saying ignore mainstream press entirely. There’s real value in it, just not the value people usually expect.
Coverage in respected outlets builds credibility. It helps with institutional conversations. It supports due diligence – investors who discovered you through social media will often look for third-party validation before they commit, and a solid press clip helps there.
The other thing traditional media does well is shape macro narratives. Stories about commodity supply deficits, energy security, critical minerals policy – that coverage lifts the whole sector and benefits smaller companies operating within those themes, even if they’re not mentioned by name.
The best approach for getting into Tier One publications is usually to build a direct relationship and let it develop over time, rather than chasing individual placements.
The honest strategic picture
For most smaller IPOs, the right approach is hybrid but weighted toward digital. Social channels and specialist investor media generate the attention. Traditional press provides the credibility layer underneath it.
One caveat I always give clients: social-driven attention is real, but it attracts momentum traders. If your goal is building a stable shareholder base, you want targeted visibility in the right communities – not just viral moments that attract people who’ll sell the next week.
Attention is the scarce commodity in small-cap markets right now. The question is how to get the right kind.
