How to Get the News Media to Cover Your Story
Stories have a better chance of being covered if they:
•Tie into what people are talking about today
•Add to discussions on current “hot” issues or topics
•Reference prominent people, places or things
•Have visual impact
•Are dramatic
•Are unexpected, controversial or outrageous
•Directly impact a publication’s readership
•Directly impact a station’s audience
•Have “human interest”
•Educate or entertain
•Have a “local” angle
•Tie into a holiday or special occasion
•Represent a significant milestone or a major honor
•Are introduced on a ‘slow’ news day
•Are introduced to news directors and news staff through
established relationship channels
PRSA Sacramento Learns Me Some Media Relations
– from Veer
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PRSA Sacramento hosted a very good media relations panel of four journalists from the Sac area. They were dropping knowledge that left me frantically typing notes into my Blackberry. As you could expect, many of the answers were very much the same as any other media relations panel. It seems interesting that all the do’s and dont’s would be the same from any area or country, meaning public relations professionals are making the same stupid mistakes all over the world.
Here are some of the best pointers:
Faxes – I’m not “in the field” yet, but I had no idea anyone still used such an archaic piece of mechanical equipment such as a fax machine. The panel was a bit torn on this one. A television journalist said she uses them quite often, and gave a few bits of advice for making them useful, another journalist said he will not even look at them.
“Your press releases are getting mixed in with offers for discount cruises. So don’t send them via fax.”
Shifting Spotlight – At any time, your secured PR piece of news can be replaced by a car crash, a fire, an unethical politician, you get the picture. There’s no such thing as secured news coverage. Sometimes things happen and your timeliness is gone. If this happens, one panel journalist said, don’t call five times to see if the news crew is showing up. Call once. If it doesn’t look good, make other arrangements or cut your losses.
Do Your Homework – Know who you’re pitching. Should I even go farther into this one? We all should know this by now. It’s sad to hear journalists repeating it. I’m sure the pace of the PR world gets the better of the best of us sometimes, but this one’s always important.
Stop in for a visit – This is something I’ve never even considered, but the a TV journalist suggested it as a way of relationship building. It would be especially useful for those who haven’t had journalism experience and need to get a good idea of how a newsroom works. The journalist also brought up the idea of sitting in on an editorial meeting or two to get. This would help you get a sense of how the publication or station chooses its stories.
Don’t attach releases
Memorize the important players in the media
Be compelling – Compelling stories are the most important. But it’s not always synonymous with important. You may have the most important news of the year, but if it’s not compelling or interesting, it might get passed on for a dog show. Always be thinking about what makes your story different. Be conscious of how much each publication gets (I’ll give you a hint: it’s a lot), and try to get to understand how each publication decides what’s compelling and important. This goes back to taking a tour and creating a relationship.
News conferences are not compelling–interviews are better
Consider other outlets – If a TV station passes on your story, try pitching it as a Web story as well. Many PR pros forget about the different ways news publications distribute news within the same publication.
Back up your information – Include Web links in your release, not to just your company, but other companies/organizations who support and corroborate your information. This will help the journalist conduct his own research.
Remind once – So you’ve got a big event coming up. Send one reminder call; make sure it gets through, and then leave it alone. Journalists hate being reminded five times of something they already know about.
Be in the know – Make sure you read the news and know what’s happening. If a big story breaks, it may not be the best time to pitch your story. Or perhaps it’s the best time to do so, but without knowing the news, you’ll miss the opportunity.
Send to multiple journalists – Giving your story to more than one journalist can work in your favor, especially if you give it to an editor. It will increase your odds. Just make sure you know the right journalists to send it to. [This one I am not sure about, because I have heard the opposite: that you should never send to more than one person at the same publication.]
What do you all think? Have any quarrel with any of this?
The Power of Trustiness
Reading about DoTheRightThing reminds me of a conversation I had a while back with a friend where we jokingly talked about how ridiculously easy yet powerful it would be to slap a community-driven “trustiness meter” on every company’s website.
Think about it…an amazing amount of agony, energy, expense, and burden goes into crafting, shaping and analyzing a brand image and even then, in the end (at best), you really only have a loose interpretation of a brand’s perceived reputation, equity and trust.
For the public, it’d be a hellofa lot easier to just glance at the trustiness meter, like you do at the star ratings for a hotel or your gas gauge, to determine if a company deserves your time, money or attention. And for the PR and marketing folks, it’d be a hellofa lot easier to just glance at the trustiness meter to determine whether or not you’re gonn’a get out of bed….
NOTE: The trustiness meter should not be confused with the trust barometer. While both are fictional measures of trust, one was created by a real company, the other over beers.
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Copied from Media Guerrilla
Long Tail PR: how to do publicity without a press release (or the press)
From Chris Anderson’s “The Long Tail” Blog:
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I’ve been following the debate started by Brian Solis about “social media press releases” and other forms of doing PR in a way that both works in a conversational medium and doesn’t demean and insult the intelligence of everyone involved. As far as traditional media goes, I suspect none of this matters much–most journalists have long ago figured how to quickly decide if they have any interest in a press release and how best to extract whatever value is in it. The system is no more or less broken than it’s always been.
But what about the Long Tail of media–all those new influentials, from the micromedia of Techcrunch and Gizmodo to individual bloggers? And the social news aggregators like Digg and our own Reddit? They’re where the most powerful sort of marketing–word of mouth–starts, but most of them don’t want to hear from a PR person at all. Blogging is all about authenticity and the individual voice, not paid spin. Many bloggers seem just impedance mismatched with the preternaturally positive PR professionals, and woe to the flack who’s busted trying to game Digg without revealing that they’re paid to do so.
So now imagine that you’re one of those PR professionals. What do you do? Stick with the world you know, and continue calling and emailing releases to the traditional press (trying not to notice that their ranks are shrinking and influence waning)? Start spamming bloggers, too, and hope for the best? Or just treat alpha bloggers like traditional press and shower them with love, while ignoring the rest?
I’ve seen all three of those paths taken, some of them even with modest success. Despite the culture mismatch, there certainly are plenty of bloggers who actually don’t mind hearing from a PR person, as long as it’s in the form of a personal email or comment that reflects that the flack actually reads the blog and gets what it’s about. And companies such as Microsoft and Sun are now shifting their PR strategy to give special attention to influential bloggers, inviting them to private briefings and giving them early looks at new products.
But fundamentally social media is a peer-to-peer medium; bloggers would rather hear from someone doing something cool than from the paid promotional representative for that person. The problem is that the people doing that cool stuff are busy, which is why they pay PR people to do the outreach for them in the first place.
I wonder whether the solution to this is to evolve the role of PR from external relations to internal relations, from communications to coaching employees on how to effectively do the outreach themselves. Take Microsoft’s 3,000 bloggers who are, for many of us, a welcome substitute for Microsoft PR. Internal project managers like Major Nelson of the Xbox 360 team are a trusted and timely source of information, and have largely replaced the formal press release with blog posts. He and other Microsoft bloggers like him are part of a transparency movement that grew out of the company’s developer relations team, but it could have just as easily been driven by an enlightened PR team.
Here’s a start at a curriculum for such in-house social media coaching:
- Who’s influential in our space (and how we know)
- What/who influences them
- How to get Digged
- Effective blogging
- Using beta-test invite lists as marketing
- The art of begging for links
- Stunts, contests, gimmicks, memes and other link bait.
- Sharing versus oversharing. How to know when what you’re doing is ready to talk about.
UPDATE: I’ve been chatting with some magazine people about how this would apply to our own industry’s PR. Here’s what I said:
Having just come from running a Sundance panel on how to use social media to get buzz for independent films, I can say that there’s no substitute for plain old hustling. The filmmakers hate to hear this, because once upon a time you could sell the idea to one exec at a big distributor or studio and their marketing team would take it from there, allowing you to get back to what you love–making movies. But those days are gone, and now the creatives have to be salesmen, too.
I suspect the same is increasingly true for a creative industry like our own. While the traditional press still matters, it’s only half the game. And the best people to be getting blog buzz on stories are the writers and editors themselves, even if they consider such self-promotion unseemly.
All bloggers know that the way to get links is to engage in the secret underground economy of sucking up to bloggers with higher Technorati rank than you. Each post is accompanied by personal emails to people who might be interested, ideally referencing their own posts on similar themes. I do it and other bloggers do it to me. It’s just part of effective blogging. There’s a protocol to such hustling, and some do it better than others, but it strikes me that learning and teaching this culture could be a big part of PR 2.0.
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PR Tips from the Experts
Courtesy of Valleywag on 1/15/2007:
—————————————————-
Michael Arrington is sometimes so refreshingly blunt that one can forgive him his over-compensating aggression, and sanctimonious contempt for those, such as mainstream journalists, who just don’t get it. Asked by Sam Whitmore’s Media Survey to give advice to tech publicists, Arrington answers: “I’ll make time for people who will help me be successful in the future, it’s that simple.” He says he’s happy to cover a marginal client “if I know I’ll get scoops down the road.” Mainstream reporters make those deals all the time. They are swayed, not by financial inducement or freebies, as geeks such as Arrington often suspect, but by the promise of information. Arrington’s so new to the journalism game that, like an innocent child, he hasn’t developed a sense of shame, one that leads his grizzled colleagues to be more inhibited about their dealmaking. Advice to PR flacks, from other tech reporters interviewed by Media Survey, after the jump.
Don Clark, Wall Street Journal
“Don’t be shy about pitching a story that may have nothing to do with one of your clients, but you just think is an interesting story that we’re missing or maybe other people are missing. [PR people] hear things that are interesting and that’s a good way to build a relationship with a reporter.”Greg Sandoval, News.com
Greg says he met PR pro Michael Prichinello while reporting on Prichinello’s client, Kozmo. The relationship grew from there. Prichinello called Greg to discuss trends and ideas that had nothing to do with Kozmo, knowing there was no quid pro quo. The result was that “when he would call with something, I would listen. He didn’t waste my time. I’ll take his call any time.”Fred Vogelstein, Wired
“Because the best are brilliant and plugged in,” Fred likes talking to small companies and entrepreneurs “especially when they are customers of big corporations.” This offers him insight as to “what it’s like to be customer of the big companies out there.”Richard Waters, Financial Times
Set Richard up with “serial entrepreneurs — people who have spent time at big companies. If I get Google on the phone – around earnings – I don’t want to talk about earnings, which gets me in trouble,” he confesses. What he’s looking for are unstructured opportunities to ask broader questions in search of the bigger story.Jeffrey O’Brien, Fortune
Pitch an insight, not just about the company in question, but about an emerging trend in culture and business. “If you want to help me out, help me along that path. Get me started in that direction. Something that goes beyond come and meet our CEO.”Mike Masnick, Techdirt
“Point me to stories that have something interesting we can stake an opinion on.”Mike Arrington, TechCrunch
“I’ll make time for people who will help me be successful in the future, it’s that simple.” He says he’s happy to cover a marginal client “if I know I’ll get scoops down the road.”Ashlee Vance, The Register
Because he writes two or three stories a day, Ashlee wants to be “off the hook, get the quote, file the story, and move along. Waiting for a call becomes another whole process.” Ashlee loves it when PR knows the subject so well they can answer all questions about “shipping info, product details, (and) keep me abreast of events.”Erick Schonfeld, Business 2.0
Erick appreciates PR pros who are experts on the companies they represent — especially those who have been around ten to 15 years and “often know more than the execs I’m interviewing.”Peter Burrows, BusinessWeek
“I look for industry knowledge,” Peter says. He responds to conversation about the industry and appreciates someone who can offer background. Be prepared to talk about the competitor, not to trash them but to show that you know the industry.Larry Seltzer, Ziff Davis Media
Be prepared with credible facts. “With my limited time, I don’t have extra to give to people who aren’t answering questions. I’ll be suspicious if you’re not willing to concede any weakness. You won’t gain credibility that way.”Scott Kirsner, freelancer
His preference for PR agencies tends toward the smaller or independent PR pro. “The biggest agencies are all horrible, unresponsive and slow to return calls…you have to explain the story you’re working on 16 times to 16 different people… The most helpful have been self-employed PR people who have the freedom to tell the client, ‘I’m not going to call the Wall Street Journal because they’re not going cover it.'”Steve Rosenbush, BusinessWeek
He says he gets lots of press releases but not many pitches. He believes that it’s easy to send a press release but it takes conviction to get out and actually pitch a story. In most cases people are simply passing information along on an FYI basis as background, but it’s a small number people of I meet with who actually say I think I have a story here.Kevin Maney, USA Today
“I work best in relationships,” Kevin says. Ideally he’s looking for one contact per company or agency. “I don’t want to be dealing with four, five or six different people at an agency or a company.” He’d rather have one individual to turn to.Demir Barlas, Line56
Demir suggests you offer “feedback to a specific article.” He’s interested to hear your reaction to something he’s done. “The more work you do, the more it catches my attention. I can’t think of a single person who’s done that amount of effort that I haven’t eventually done something with.”Suzanne Kantra, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia
“Don’t hesitate to ask me what I want – most people don’t ask.”Paul Krill, InfoWorld
Paul says PR works best for him when “PR is honest about what going on…when they are open and trust me.” A good way to tick him off is to call him late Friday afternoon about a Monday announcement. “Then I either have to work late on Friday – or hope not to be scooped and wait ’til Monday.” In either case, he feels sandbagged.Damon Darlin, New York Times
Damon wants PR pros to say, “Look, here’s the background, here’s the problem we’re facing…I’ll put you in touch with these executives and they’ll tell you how they’re going to solve the problem.” It’s brave, we know, but weekly we hear from journalists looking for this level of honesty.Greg Sandoval, News.com
Greg gives kudos to PR people who don’t cold call “when they have a pitch in the gray area” – in other words, when even the PR pro has doubts about the pitch’s newsworthiness.Andreas Kluth, The Economist
Be “rare, relevant and short.”
PR Tips from the Experts
Courtesy of Valleywag on 1/15/2007:
—————————————————-
Michael Arrington is sometimes so refreshingly blunt that one can forgive him his over-compensating aggression, and sanctimonious contempt for those, such as mainstream journalists, who just don’t get it. Asked by Sam Whitmore’s Media Survey to give advice to tech publicists, Arrington answers: “I’ll make time for people who will help me be successful in the future, it’s that simple.” He says he’s happy to cover a marginal client “if I know I’ll get scoops down the road.” Mainstream reporters make those deals all the time. They are swayed, not by financial inducement or freebies, as geeks such as Arrington often suspect, but by the promise of information. Arrington’s so new to the journalism game that, like an innocent child, he hasn’t developed a sense of shame, one that leads his grizzled colleagues to be more inhibited about their dealmaking. Advice to PR flacks, from other tech reporters interviewed by Media Survey, after the jump.
Don Clark, Wall Street Journal
“Don’t be shy about pitching a story that may have nothing to do with one of your clients, but you just think is an interesting story that we’re missing or maybe other people are missing. [PR people] hear things that are interesting and that’s a good way to build a relationship with a reporter.”Greg Sandoval, News.com
Greg says he met PR pro Michael Prichinello while reporting on Prichinello’s client, Kozmo. The relationship grew from there. Prichinello called Greg to discuss trends and ideas that had nothing to do with Kozmo, knowing there was no quid pro quo. The result was that “when he would call with something, I would listen. He didn’t waste my time. I’ll take his call any time.”Fred Vogelstein, Wired
“Because the best are brilliant and plugged in,” Fred likes talking to small companies and entrepreneurs “especially when they are customers of big corporations.” This offers him insight as to “what it’s like to be customer of the big companies out there.”Richard Waters, Financial Times
Set Richard up with “serial entrepreneurs — people who have spent time at big companies. If I get Google on the phone – around earnings – I don’t want to talk about earnings, which gets me in trouble,” he confesses. What he’s looking for are unstructured opportunities to ask broader questions in search of the bigger story.Jeffrey O’Brien, Fortune
Pitch an insight, not just about the company in question, but about an emerging trend in culture and business. “If you want to help me out, help me along that path. Get me started in that direction. Something that goes beyond come and meet our CEO.”Mike Masnick, Techdirt
“Point me to stories that have something interesting we can stake an opinion on.”Mike Arrington, TechCrunch
“I’ll make time for people who will help me be successful in the future, it’s that simple.” He says he’s happy to cover a marginal client “if I know I’ll get scoops down the road.”Ashlee Vance, The Register
Because he writes two or three stories a day, Ashlee wants to be “off the hook, get the quote, file the story, and move along. Waiting for a call becomes another whole process.” Ashlee loves it when PR knows the subject so well they can answer all questions about “shipping info, product details, (and) keep me abreast of events.”Erick Schonfeld, Business 2.0
Erick appreciates PR pros who are experts on the companies they represent — especially those who have been around ten to 15 years and “often know more than the execs I’m interviewing.”Peter Burrows, BusinessWeek
“I look for industry knowledge,” Peter says. He responds to conversation about the industry and appreciates someone who can offer background. Be prepared to talk about the competitor, not to trash them but to show that you know the industry.Larry Seltzer, Ziff Davis Media
Be prepared with credible facts. “With my limited time, I don’t have extra to give to people who aren’t answering questions. I’ll be suspicious if you’re not willing to concede any weakness. You won’t gain credibility that way.”Scott Kirsner, freelancer
His preference for PR agencies tends toward the smaller or independent PR pro. “The biggest agencies are all horrible, unresponsive and slow to return calls…you have to explain the story you’re working on 16 times to 16 different people… The most helpful have been self-employed PR people who have the freedom to tell the client, ‘I’m not going to call the Wall Street Journal because they’re not going cover it.'”Steve Rosenbush, BusinessWeek
He says he gets lots of press releases but not many pitches. He believes that it’s easy to send a press release but it takes conviction to get out and actually pitch a story. In most cases people are simply passing information along on an FYI basis as background, but it’s a small number people of I meet with who actually say I think I have a story here.Kevin Maney, USA Today
“I work best in relationships,” Kevin says. Ideally he’s looking for one contact per company or agency. “I don’t want to be dealing with four, five or six different people at an agency or a company.” He’d rather have one individual to turn to.Demir Barlas, Line56
Demir suggests you offer “feedback to a specific article.” He’s interested to hear your reaction to something he’s done. “The more work you do, the more it catches my attention. I can’t think of a single person who’s done that amount of effort that I haven’t eventually done something with.”Suzanne Kantra, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia
“Don’t hesitate to ask me what I want – most people don’t ask.”Paul Krill, InfoWorld
Paul says PR works best for him when “PR is honest about what going on…when they are open and trust me.” A good way to tick him off is to call him late Friday afternoon about a Monday announcement. “Then I either have to work late on Friday – or hope not to be scooped and wait ’til Monday.” In either case, he feels sandbagged.Damon Darlin, New York Times
Damon wants PR pros to say, “Look, here’s the background, here’s the problem we’re facing…I’ll put you in touch with these executives and they’ll tell you how they’re going to solve the problem.” It’s brave, we know, but weekly we hear from journalists looking for this level of honesty.Greg Sandoval, News.com
Greg gives kudos to PR people who don’t cold call “when they have a pitch in the gray area” – in other words, when even the PR pro has doubts about the pitch’s newsworthiness.Andreas Kluth, The Economist
Be “rare, relevant and short.”
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