Like everyone else, journalists are using social media to multitask, carry on multiple conversations and be in more place at one time. Of course this ends up meaning they are able to communicate with more potential sources than ever before. The limitations of communication are (almost) removed, creating a hyper-journalism. Kinda like journalism on steroids.
PR pros consider these limitless pathways to communication in a pitching context of course, but it’s nice to know that journalists think of it that way as well. Thanks goes to DC Social Media Examiner Mary Fletcher Jones for capturing this great footage at Twitch! Public Relations in the Age of Social Media, the panel hosted by Mopwater on Thursday evening. In the clip, Washington Business Journal reporter Jennifer Nycz-Conner discusses how reporting, aided by social media, is akin to cooking on a restaurant range as opposed to on your standard kitchen stove.
[Other #TwitchDC panelists included Jim Long of NBC (@newmediajim), McLean Robbins of Washingtonian Magazine (@deacondoesdc), Jamila Bey of NPR (@jbey), Arthur Delaney of Huffington Post (arthurdelaneyhp) Lindsey Mastis of WUSA9 (lindseymastis)]
Not quite. Turns out, it was Grim’s third wedding anniversary, which he obviously could not skip.
Grim sent fellow Huffington Post reporter Arthur Delaney in his stead, and to avoid becoming an official Twitch Ditch, he also sent these responses via email to my questions about his use of social media during his reporting and sourcing.
Mopwater: How has social media changed how you do your job? RG: The biggest shift I’ve seen is toward IM [instant message], both on Facebook, blackberries, gchat or plain old AIM. People seem more relaxed on IM. So build an IM relationship with a reporter.
Mopwater: How do you use social media to find sources for your stories?
RG: LinkedIn has been an enormous help and is a great way to find people online, as is Facebook. If you want reporters to be able to reach you, make those accounts as public as possible and have a phone number easy to find.
Here’s my broad point: The PR people who are successful for me are the ones who can get through. Getting through is a function of staying ahead of the stream of communication that rushes our way. Once, emailing a reporter was the way to do that, but the inbox now is so stuffed it’ll just get buried. There will continuously be new ways to stay ahead, though. Facebook chatting is a good and underused way now. Some reporters might get annoyed at getting a FB ping from a PR flak, but whatever. It’s not your job to make us happy, just to get our attention. A direct Twitter message would get through, too, as would a tweet with my handle in it. Reporters are always out there looking to see what people are tweeting or writing about their work, so you can trap us that way.
You haven’t heard from me in a while because I have been working day and night putting together the very first Mopwater PR + Media Notes Panel, and it promises to be amazing. If you’re in the Washington, DC area, you won’t want to miss it. If you’re not, hopefully we can do some sort of recap for those of you who could not attend.
If you manage the public’s perception of your company or are concerned with increasing your organization’s media exposure in 2010, you will want to attend Twitch! Public Relations in the Age of Social Media. If you are like 80% of PR professionals who participated in the VOCUS fall survey on PR planning for 2010, you will be focusing more on social media this year. And if you are working in the nonprofit world, you probably can relate to the 85% of nonprofit executives polled by Weber Shandwick who say social media will be demanding a larger share of nonprofit spending dollars in 2010. But how do you harness the power of social media to get traditional media coverage? How do you embark upon, what I like to call, “social media relations?”
Find out how at Twitch! This event will feature a panel of working journalists who use social media daily to interact with PR professionals, communicators and the public. Think of this event as a “How to Pitch 2.0 Workshop.” Come with your questions about how to effectively use social media to land traditional media coverage. Learn how journalists are accepting pitches and twitches via twitter and Facebook, what they like and what they hate. Do some networking and workshop the idea of social media relations.
Twitch! Public Relations in the Age of Social Media
Thursday, Jan 14, 2010
Busboys and Poets Langston Room
2021 14th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20009
Cost: $20 Note: Space is limited. We can’t accept payment on-site. You must register online through Eventbrite.
Ryan Grim, Huffington Post / Author of “This Is Your Country on Drugs.” (@ryangrim)
Jamila Bey, National Public Radio and WAMU (@jbey)
McLean Robbins, Washingtonian and DC Modern Luxury Magazines (@deacondoesdc)
Organizer: Amanda Miller Littlejohn, Miller Littlejohn Media Group / Mopwater PR + Media Notes / Author of “The Mopwater PR + Media Notes Manual for a Stellar PR Career” (@amandamogul)
Zackery Moore, 23 Birmingham, AL
Media and Brand Strategist, 4 years
Z Kreativ Media Blog:Making a PRofessionalTwitter: @zakmo
Mopwater: Describe your path to PR. Any pivotal moments mentors or internships that let you know PR was for you? ZM: I’m a media fanatic that grew-up in Arley, Alabama, a town in the middle of nowhere. Never someone that was especially patient (I tried to skip my senior year of high school just to start college early), I sought out a PR internship during my freshman year of college at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
I found a mentor and interned at a music/event venue and bar. That would be the first of four internships. Later I interned with my mentor at a custom motorcycle
shop that creates limited-addition motorcycles. Tom Cruise owns one of the bikes and one of the models was featured in a movie with Jet Li and a commercial with Brad Pitt.
I started my freelance career that same year with an innovative theater group called MUSE OF FIRE: Shakespeare at Sloss. The group turned nontraditional spaces into stages; MUSE OF FIRE specifically used a haunted iron furnace for now annual spring and fall showcases of adapted Shakespeare. On more than one occasion news crews’equipment would malfunction on-site. This project solidified my desire to one day own an agency. I’d already decided I wanted to work for myself.
While looking for freelance projects, I worked part-time in a restaurant, focused on finishing my degree and completed internships (some for school credit, some for the experience).
Mopwater: Describe your office setting and a typical workday including your work hours. What do you do all day? ZM: Usually my workday begins at 9. Freelancing gives me a lot of freedom to create my own schedule. Sometimes I work a couple hours a day, sometimes I work from 9 to 9. It depends on my workload. I completed my last-ever internship at a
creative branding agency called Cayenne Creative and still have office space with the group that I use when I want a change of scenery. They’re one of the most amazing groups of creative professionals and taught me so much about branding and the importance of strategy.
Mopwater: Who are some of your and what kind of projects do you take on for these clients? ZM: My past clients include MUSE OF FIRE, Broadway Across America – Birmingham, Nick Sparks for Congress, a short stint with March of Dimes and the National Center for Sports Safety. Presently I’m working with Lemak Sports Medicine & Orthopedics and I take on occasional projects with Cayenne Creative. I’m also looking for new clients and projects to grow my business.
I like to say I’m a creative media strategist; that means I use traditional and new media to help an organization brand itself. Copywriting, media relations, email marketing, writing for the web and branding strategy are the services I offer.
Mopwater: Describe a recent project where you produced results of which you’re really proud. ZM: The results of my last project included increased website traffic for three months in a row and media coverage from local media and mom bloggers. It was a 6- month project. With Lemak Sports Medicine and Orthopedics I’ve led a team in creating a new logo for the brand, a social network about health and wellness, two branded-email designs and I’m working with a designer to create a new
brochure for the practice.
Mopwater: What are your favorite and least favorite PR/marketing/SM tasks and why? ZM: My favorite part of my job is writing. I love copywriting for email and websites/blogs. I also really love to write press releases and pitch news stories.
Mopwater: What’s the worst part of your job? ZM: The worst part of my job is uncertainty. As a freelancer I’m responsible for every part of most projects: traffic, planning, creative direction, execution and deadlines. It leaves little time for business development. That’s why I’m about to start a search for a business development pro.
Mopwater: What advice would you give someone who is trying to break into your field? ZM: My advice is don’t wait. My college experience has changed me for the better, but I’m not going to let a piece of paper define my talent, creativity and professionalism. Don’t let [graduation] hold you back. I’m still in college (a 5th year senior) but I’ve started my career when some of my friends who recently graduated are still struggling to find a job.
Last night I attended a public relations seminar at the WUSA Channel 9 Station in Washington,DC. The topic du jour was digital media and making the transition, but as it was a roomful of PR pros in a televison statio, questions naturally came up about pitching television producers in a digital world.
It’s no secret that newsrooms are shrinking. In December the Washington Post reported on WUSA9’s new approach to multimedia journalism; deploying anchors equipped with digital cameras, camcorders, and video editing equipment. This approach has been met with praise and criticism; but it still begs a question: how can PR pros successfully function in this new multimedia environment?
I found the comments of Khalim Piankhi, Vice President of Community Relations for WUSA9 to be extraordinarily spot-on. To sum up Piankhi’s thoughts, don’t pitch producers.
This may seem counterintuitive to public relations professionals, but the media industry is changing, which absolutely affects the way we work with media organizations. How do they liked to be approached? What are their preferences?
Piankhi says news organizations like his don’t particularly care about your client. They care about their audience. He suggests that instead of thinking of how you can get yourself or your client in the news, think how you can help a news organization meet its objectives. At the end of the day, news organizations need the most relevant content to keep their audience, and if a big story breaks they will be searching for content to pump out to their consumers.
So instead of thinking a pitch, think relationships, he went on to say. Frame yourself as a resource to a news organization. Check in from time to time. Send background materials. Keep your issue on the back burner-close enough that when that major story breaks bringing your issue to the fore, the producer will reach for the phone and call you.
You’ve seen the ads on the job boards: social media specialist, social media strategist, digital communications expert. Major corporations and organizations can see the value of social media, so they’re creating new positions to fill this role.
For the freelancers and consultants, social media is a perfect niche field for you to start or grow your freelancing practice. But don’t stand on the sidelines for too long: social media is super hot right now, but it’s only a matter of time before it grows beyond the purview of specialists and becomes just another ubiquitous subset of communications that every communicator is forced to master.
