How to Get Featured in SmartCompany

SmartCompany is one of the few Australian publications written specifically for people running small and medium businesses, which makes coverage there unusually useful to hold.

Here is how it actually works.

What SmartCompany is

SmartCompany is an Australian online business publication covering startups, small and medium enterprises, and the people running them. It has a staff newsroom that reports and writes its own stories.

That single fact decides everything else on this page. There is no membership tier that lets you publish yourself and no contributor programme to buy into. Coverage is a decision made by a journalist or an editor.

What its newsroom covers

The working reality of Australian business. Startups and funding, retail and hospitality, employment law and workplace change, tax and compliance, insolvency, marketing, technology adoption, and the policy decisions that land on small business owners.

Its readers are operators. They read for things that affect how they run the business next week, not for profiles of people who are doing well.

That readership shapes the writing. Stories are short, practical and specific, and they almost always contain something a reader can act on. A pitch written in marketing language is visibly out of place before anyone finishes the first line.

Who realistically gets covered

Australian businesses with something concrete happening: a raise, an acquisition, an expansion, a collapse, a legal outcome, or an unusual operating decision with numbers attached to it.

Also founders who can speak credibly about something already in the news — a rule change, a cost shock, a shift in how customers are behaving. Being a usable, quotable source is often the easiest way in, and it is badly underused.

What does not get covered: that your company exists, a rebrand, a new website, an award nobody has heard of, or a milestone that only matters internally.

The routes in

• Earned editorial. A journalist decides your story is worth writing. Free, and theirs to decide.
• Expert commentary. Responding quickly and specifically when reporters need a credible voice on a story they are already writing.
• Advertising and sponsored content. Paid, commercial and labelled on the page. Legitimate, and plainly not the same as being written about.
• Agency-assisted pitching. An agency develops the angle, writes to editorial standard and pitches the right journalist on your behalf.

Ask any supplier which of these they are selling, and get the answer in writing. Guaranteed earned coverage in a staff-written newsroom is not something that exists.

What makes a story they will run

Specifics an Australian operator can use. Numbers you can stand behind, a decision that went badly and what it taught you, the real cost of a policy change on a real business, or data from your own operations that says something about how your sector is behaving.

Local relevance is not optional. A global trend becomes a SmartCompany story only when you can say what it is doing to Australian businesses, with evidence.

A quick test: delete your company name from the pitch. If a story survives, you have one. If the whole thing collapses, you were asking for free advertising.

What we do

Digital Networking Agency finds the operational story inside your business, writes it to the standard an Australian business desk expects, and pitches it. You approve the angle and the copy before anything is sent.

We are direct about the limit. We can develop and pitch, but publication is the newsroom's call — and any agency promising otherwise is selling a paid route under an editorial name.

Where a business title is not the right target, we will say so and point you at publications your buyers actually read. A placement nobody in your market sees is not worth chasing.

Frequently asked questions

Can you pay to be featured in SmartCompany?

Advertising and sponsored content are paid, labelled products. Editorial coverage cannot be bought, and it should not be sold to you as though it can.

Do I need to be an Australian business?

Effectively, yes. It is written for Australian operators, so a story needs a clear Australian angle — customers, staff, regulation or a real market presence here.

Is it worth pitching if we are very small?

Yes. Small and medium business is the beat. What matters is whether your experience tells other operators something useful, not how large you are.