How to Get Featured in Forbes Australia
Forbes Australia is a licensed Australian edition of the Forbes brand, produced here with its own editorial team. That single fact explains most of what founders get wrong about it.
What Forbes Australia actually is
Forbes Australia publishes under licence. It uses the Forbes name and format, and it makes its own editorial decisions from Australia. Its journalists live here, cover companies here, and answer to a local masthead.
It is a working newsroom covering Australian business: founders, investors, executives, private companies and the money moving around them. It also runs local lists and rankings, which have their own criteria and entry windows. Check those at source rather than relying on what anyone tells you about them.
How it differs from Forbes US
This is the correction worth reading twice. Appearing in Forbes Australia is not appearing in Forbes. The two are editorially separate operations.
Pitching one does not pitch the other. An editor here cannot commission you into the American masthead, and a US contributor cannot get you into the Australian edition. Coverage occasionally travels between editions, but that is a decision someone else makes afterwards, never something to plan around.
The routes differ too. Our separate guide to getting featured in Forbes covers Forbes Councils, BrandVoice and staff editorial in the US operation, and none of those map cleanly onto the Australian edition. If the American masthead is the goal, read that guide instead of this one.
One practical tell: check the address on the published piece. The Australian edition generally publishes on its own local domain, and the difference is visible to anyone who looks closely, including the investor you are hoping to impress.
What the Australian newsroom covers
Australian business, told for an Australian reader. Founders and family businesses, funding and acquisitions, property, resources, technology, wealth, and the people running large organisations here.
The bar is local relevance. A global trend gets covered when it lands in Australia. A founder gets covered when the Australian angle is genuinely theirs. If your company has no Australian presence, customers or story, this is the wrong masthead and no amount of pitching will fix that.
The routes in
- Earned editorial. A journalist or editor decides your story is worth publishing. Free, and entirely their call.
- Lists and awards. Local rankings with published criteria and application windows. A legitimate route if you actually qualify, and a waste of a quarter if you do not.
- Sponsored or branded content. Paid, produced commercially, and labelled on the page. Legitimate, but it is advertising and readers can see the label.
- Agency-assisted pitching. An agency builds the angle and takes it to the right person. You are paying for the work and the judgement, not for the outcome.
Ask which of the four you are being sold, and get the answer in writing. Anyone guaranteeing earned editorial in Forbes Australia is describing something they do not control.
What makes a story they will run
Numbers, consequence and a local reader. A raise with a notable Australian investor. Data from inside your business that says something about a sector here. A structural change in how an industry works, explained by someone who can evidence it.
"Australian founder builds successful company" is not a story. "Here is what our order data shows about where Australian customers are cutting back" is close to one.
Write the single sentence a reader would repeat to a colleague afterwards. If you cannot write that sentence, the pitch is not ready to send.
What we do
Digital Networking Agency develops the angle, writes it to editorial standard and pitches the people who cover your space. You approve everything before it goes anywhere.
The honest limit: we do not control the Forbes Australia newsroom, and we will say so when a respected Australian business or trade title is the realistic first step. Coverage compounds, and the first placement usually matters more than the logo on it.
Frequently asked questions
Is Forbes Australia the same as Forbes?
No. It is a licensed Australian edition with its own editorial team and its own decisions. A feature there is a feature in the Australian edition, and describing it as Forbes US coverage is misleading.
Can you pay to be featured in Forbes Australia?
You can pay for sponsored or branded content, which is labelled as commercial. Earned editorial is an editorial decision and cannot be bought, whatever anyone offers.
Do I need to be an Australian business?
You need an Australian story. International companies do get covered when they are doing something here that matters to Australian readers.