One of the most fascinating tidbits of info that I got from a recent panel on online media was how niche publications and websites are the future of media.
I captured some footage of David Wilson, founder of the Grio, discussing the Grio’s relationship with parent company NBC. In this clip, David describes the trickle-up effect of online news: how news can potentially break on the Grio and end up on NBC nightly news or the Today Show.
The Grio is a niche news site for African-American viewpoints. So case-in-point: Go niche.
Another one of the speakers on this panel was the co-founder of Politico.com which is doing pretty well as new media companies g0. My takeaway: Gone are the days of being super general, so if you’re writing about travel, maybe consider writing about travel for parents. Writing about style? What about style for today’s busy business owner/blogger who has two toddlers and needs to be comfortable but also needs to have great things to wear for last minute meetings?
I recently had a conversation with a young lady, let’s call her PR Ingenue, who wanted to hear my PR Basic Principles because as she said, PR is so broad. We had an interesting discussion about the difference between public relations and media relations so I thought it would be interesting to share my thoughts with you guys, and get some of your basic principles. Here’s the conversation:
Mopwater: A lot of people equate PR to media relations, but that’s just one part.
PR Ingenue: Could you explain the difference?
Mopwater: Media Relations refers to the act of working with members of the media to get media coverage. PR includes media relations but it also encompasses how you safeguard image perception of your brand, or what do people think about you. What is your reputation? PR people shape that. So if your client is Starbucks and their problem is that people think its too expensive PR people would figure out the messaging that would appeal to cost-conscious consumers or decide “hey we are expensive and that’s how we want to be perceived, and we want to appeal to people who want a more expensive product. Let’s just leave it like that”
PR people watch what people are saying about you in a crisis and tell you how to respond carefully to minimize damage to your reputation (think celebrities like Chris Brown and Mel Gibson or corporations like BP).
PR people advise you on the steps you need to take in order to be more visible and to get to the next level, so we find platforms for clients to showcase their skills because we’re in the business of positioning experts.
Mopwater: People so often say “get me on CNN” or “get me in the New York Times” without thinking it through…it’s like why? Why do you need to be on CNN? How does that fit into your strategy? How is that helping you meet your goal? It’s just an empty wish you think you should have because everyone says you should have it. UNLESS you think CNN is the key to showcase all the work you’ve done up to this point and you’re ready to move to the next place.
PR Ingenue: Okay so PR asks underlining questions you need to know the reasoning to help create strategy, right? Correct me if I’m wrong.
Mopwater: You need to know the goals to create strategy. Always ask what is your goal? What do you want more of? Customers? Attention? Website hits? Facebook fans? Marketshare? Money? Repeat customers/brand loyalty?
I hear this question more often than I would like to admit. What, exactly is public relations or PR? I even hear this question from people who are in the industry or trying to get into the industry.
Public relations is an overarching discipline. A definition from The Public Relations Handbook:
Public relations is a distinctive management function which helps establish and maintain mutual lines of communications, understanding, acceptance, and cooperation between an organization and its publics; involve the management of problems or issues; helps management to keep informed on and responsive to public opinion; defines and emphasizes the responsibility of management to serve the public interest; helps management keep abreast of and effectively utilize change, serving as an early warning system to help anticipate trends; and uses research and ethical communication techniques as its principal tools.
So many people equate public relations with publicity (media relations) but there are many other activities. Here is a rough list:
Internal communications (communicating with employees through in-house newsletters, intranet sites and suggestion boxes, etc.)
Corporate PR (Communicating on behalf of whole organization with annual reports, ethical statements, conferences, etc.)
Media Relations (Communicating with journalists with press releases, press events, briefings, and increasingly social media)
Business to Business (Communicating with other organizations like suppliers and retailers at trade events, exhibitions and through newsletters and e-mail campaigns)
Public Affairs (Communicating with opinion formers and politicians, monitoring the political environment)
Community relations and Corporate Social Responsibility (Communicating with local community, elected representatives, creating exhibitions, presentations, letters, meetings, sports activities and other sponsorships)
Investor Relations (Communicating with financial organizations through newsletters, briefings and events)
Strategic Communication + Reputation Management (Identification and analysis of situation, problem and solutions through research, planning and executing a campaign to improve the ethical reputation of the organization)
Issues Management (Monitoring Political, social, economic and tech environment )
Crisis Management (Communicating clear messages in an emergency as the PR people at Toyota or BP needed to do to deal with the media in light of recent crises)
Copywriting (Writing for different audiences to high standards of literacy, writing press releases, newsletters, web pages, annual reports, crafting copy for tweets)
Publications Management (Overseeing print and media processes like leaflets, internal magazines, and websites)
Was that overwhelming? It shouldn’t be. It should help you focus in on what you want to do, what you do best or a potential focus area. Most firms and/or solo practitioners pick 2-3 focus areas to specialize. Larger agencies can afford to pick more. If you’re just starting out, try a few things and see what you like. You can probably tell whether or not you’re interested in, for example, investor relations or public affairs which require an interest and deep subject matter expertise in finance and politics respectively.
Peter Shankman’s free service HARO, short for Help a Reporter Out, which has become an almost ritual for PR professionals was just acquired by public relations software giant Vocus. The announcement was made this morning at the Vocus Users Conference opening presentation.
Vocus purchased Shankman’s service for an undisclosed sum, but both parties seemed excited about the acquisition. HARO will remain free for its 100,000 + subscribers.
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.
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.
I had the pleasure of meeting today’s TDMJ PR Pro a few weeks ago, and was so compelled by her story that I knew you would be, too. In addition to being a new wife and mother like myself, Mrs. Lara is a tenacious public relations professional who started out in the world of academia and leveraged a thirst for knowledge and willingness to work hard to create her own opportunities. For Lara, this has translated into a pretty impressive career track only a few years out of college-not bad for someone who didn’t study communications in college! Already a senior account exec with several agency positions under her belt and a consulting practice in the works, Mrs. Lara is one to watch.
Name: Jacqueline Lara
Age: 26
Current City:Silver Spring, MD
Job Title: Senior Account Executive, Lyons Public Relations Owner, Mpact Communications
Length of Time in this Role: 18 months
Mopwater: Describe your path to PR. How did you wind up in this field?
JL: My path to PR was nontraditional, but I wouldn’t change it for the world because each step has molded my experience. I received my B.A. in Sociology and a business certificate from the College Park Scholars program at the University of Maryland. While I enjoyed my major and loved analyzing groups of people and their behaviors, as well as organizations and the key factors influencing their effectiveness, I often wondered what profession I’d pursue after college. I felt pigeon-holed between working in HR and becoming a social worker. Neither of these options appealed to me, so I took a few communications courses and was intrigued by the power of words and the way media pundits ‘spun’ messages to advance their platforms. Read the full story
CNN correspondent Joe Johns offers what could be a case study in bad PR, and a cautionary tale for all of us. Johns tells the story of an unfortunate PR person who pitched the top of the CNN food chain (the producer) instead of involving the corresponding reporter directly.
This morning I attended the PRSA National Capital Chapter’s panel in Washington, DC: How to Get Big Media Hits in a Social Media World. Joe Johns, a correspondent for CNN, gave this great synopsis of how he uses Facebook to get information for his stories. While he loves Facebook, he’s not such a big a fan of Twitter. So the lesson here is, know your journalists’ tastes.
Find out how to use hashtags to promote your event, connect with influencers before your event, manage your hashtag during the event, use Twitter and other tools to stream your event live, and how to reward active hashtag users after the event.
Name and News Organization: Kate Michael, KStreetKate.net and The District Dish Beat: DC topics (People, places, events, charities, businesses) Job Title: New Media Personality Length of Time in this Role: 3 years Web Site and/or Blog: K Street Kate/ The District Dish Twitter Handle:@kstreetkate
Mopwater: What kind of stories/people/companies are you most interested in covering, and in what context? KM: Both the online magazine and talk show feature the best of DC, lifestyle stories that highlight the real District of Columbia and its eclectic neighborhoods.
Mopwater: What’s the best pitch you’ve gotten recently and why? KM: A unique and interesting business (trapeze school) moved into the area and featured lessons with the instructor who taught “Carrie” on the trapeze episode of Sex and the City. We booked him immediately to tell people about the trapeze school on The District Dish!
Mopwater: What’s the worst pitch you’ve gotten recently and why? KM: The sister of a local woman asked me to do a feature on her because she was “so nice” and “people should know about her”… I’m not sure why.
Mopwater: What’s the easiest way to get ignored by you when pitching? KM: Forget to take out the name of the other publication you were pitching when you were cutting and pasting your pitch.
Mopwater: What’s your preferred method of contact? Phone, email, your web site, your twitter account, your Facebook? KM: Email and twitter, equally. My actual e-mail is listed on my facebook page, so why use a facebook message?? Read the full story
Name: Marc Silverstein Current City: Washington, DC and environs Job Title: President and CEO Company: On The Marc Media Length of Time in this Role: 5 Years Twitter: @onthemarcmedia Mopwater: Describe your path to PR. How did you wind up in this field? MS: I was a crusty but lovable TV news reporter for close to 20 years, so skepticism of all spokespeople, PR folks and spinmeisters was in my DNA. Over time, I came to appreciate the few who “got it.” They knew how to successfully spar with reporters, leak stories, get out their message—and when they had to—take one for the team (usually a critical story) without too much whining.
Then I left news and hosted a long-running show about restaurants on Food Network called The Best Of. Many of the places we profiled had publicists, some of whom were incredibly helpful, and succeeded in making good stories better. But far too often, we had to deal with what I nicknamed Philadelphia-type PR, based on a company in Philly whose reps were so inept that we stopped covering their clients. They got in the way, raised tension levels with the crew and consistently made the process so difficult that even eating the free food offered by the chefs became a chore. That takes some doing.
From both the news and entertainment experiences, I saw there was an opportunity—to offer the kind of PR that provides a more effective bridge between clients and the media. Clients need public relations people who know how to:
• Understand reporters, their pressures and their personalities—and make their lives easier. (Like providing “one –stop-shopping,” and not calling to pitch stories when reporters are under deadline).
• Speak the language of news reporters (Forget the elevator speech; you’re lucky if you get to ride one floor while you’re pitching them).
• Identify what their client does that’s newsworthy, and figure out every way we can to get it in front of an audience.
• Write short, dynamic news releases that don’t waste anyone’s time.
• Use a lot of bullet points.
After Food Network, I hosted a show on Discovery Channel. After shooting the episodes, I was under contract and couldn’t work elsewhere in TV for several months. Much to my disdain, my wife wouldn’t let me sit home in semi-retirement. That’s when On The Marc Media actively started going after PR clients—and since then, we’ve been successfully getting them on TV, in print and on the Internet, in addition to providing a vast array of other marketing services. Read the full story
Mopwater: Describe your path to PR. What made you want to get into the field?
MC: I grew up in the entertainment industry working as a model/actress, but always loved to write and am an avid storyteller. I graduated from Rowan University in 2002 with a BA in Communications and began my career in corporate PR. I didn’t enjoy working in a corporate environment so I switched into sales before ultimately deciding to go back into PR…this time on my own terms. I started my own firm when I was 26 years old working with small business owners, professional speakers, authors and industry experts.
Mopwater: What do you love most about doing PR?
MC: I love landing big placements for small business owners – there’s something exciting about getting in on the ground floor and watching a business grow with your efforts. I also love seeing direct ROI from placements and helping clients leverage placements into sales or into ongoing coverage (like regular columns or correspondent opportunities).
Mopwater: Describe your office and workplace. How many co-workers do you have? Where, how, and how often do you collaborate with them?
MC: I have a home office and do not have employees. Instead I collaborate with other industry experts in marketing, copywriting, advertising, social media, etc and outsource work to them when necessary. We collaborate by phone, email and Skype.
Mopwater:Describe a typical workday including your work hours. What do you do all day?
MC: I usually start work around 7:30am. Every day I start with a plan and just check off tasks as I go. The hours between 9-5pm are spent pitching clients (new pitches, follow ups, coordinating interviews). I also use Profnet and HARO as a leads source and respond to those queries throughout the day. The evening I reserve for writing, social networking and any housekeeping that needs to be done for my business.
Mopwater: What are your favorite and least favorite PR tasks? Do you love to pitch? Do you dread writing releases?
MC: My favorite task is pitching. I love crafting pitches tailored to each individual outlet and really envisioning how my client will fit in their program/publication. My least favorite is writing press releases, because I rarely use them. 95% of my media placements are from a well-crafted pitch. Read the full story
Today’s How to Pitch is all about beauty and relaxation. If you represent a client in the beauty or spa industry, you need to know about Jacqui Pini and her Gannett-backed blog Indulge. Jacqui writes about high-end cosmetics, the latest spa treatments, and international beauty trends, so if you have a client or two in this industry, you’ll want to really read her pitching preferences.
Even if you’re not in the beauty industry, her tips are great for anyone who is trying to draw media attention to a product, so please read on. Here’s how to pitch a beauty writer: Jacqui Pini.
Mopwater: What is your name, news organization, current city and beat? What types of stories do you write? How long have you been with your news organization?
JP: My name is Jacqui Pini and I am a news editor and blogger for a Captivate-a leading alternative media company that delivers more than 54.5 million impressions a month, and is backed by the Gannett News Company. I summarize news, business, sports, lifestyle and entertainment stories. I also write one of Captivate’s lifestyle columns called “Indulge,” where I cover the latest spa trends and high-end beauty products from all over the world. I have been with the company for 4 years and prior to that I was a TV news producer for a station in West Palm Beach, Fla. I have been interested in journalism my entire life and I have a Master of Science in Broadcast Journalism from Boston University.
Mopwater: What kind of stories and products are you most interested in covering, and in what context?
JP: For Indulge, my favorite stories involve anything new, unusual and interesting in the world of spa treatments, beauty trends (for men and women), relaxation and more. Expert interviews are a great way for me to get important technical information to a reader in a fun, personal way. I also like to cover new products before they hit store shelves – because who doesn’t want to be the first one to report the scoop on a new product? Finally, I have a fondness for studies and reviews, which I like to elaborate on and editorialize on the results.
I truly believe public relations professionals are part of what makes all of the above topics happen. They play a major role in helping journalists bring value and something new to a reader.
I update Indulge 2-3 times a week, but here are a few recent ones:
Mopwater: What’s the best pitch you’ve gotten recently? Why did this pitch impress you?
JP: I just received a pitch from one PR exec that was especially well done. It came the morning after the Golden Globes and she sent me a brief email about her product (which was new to me), named a few celebrities wearing her product at the Golden Globes, had an expert stylist available for comment and had attached 1 photo of the product. I wrote her back right away and told her I was interested and wanted some comments from the stylist and she had the information to me within an hour. This is what I liked about this pitch:
• It was a new and interesting product
• The pitch was brief and had everything I needed
• She was responsive, but did not hound me
• The pitch was timely
• She had an expert available for comment
• She included just 1 photo so my email was not overloaded
Overall, she made covering her product very easy and interesting for me. Read the full story
Mopwater: Describe your path to PR. What made you want to get into the field?
RC: My motto is ‘I was born to do this…’ and that’s because if I go back to my childhood I can see the evidence. For example, I was always ‘reporting’ something and my grandmother, Irene, would always say, “If you don’t want it repeated, do not say it around that one.” I can see the evolution of the little loud girl who became the little loud woman who has this ability to connect people and influence decisions. Plus, I was bossy and if that’s not a trait of most PR practitioners and publicists, I don’t know what is. On a practical note, I began college as a broadcast major with the goal of becoming an anchor, but a major melt down (stage fright) while taping audition reels led me to change my major.
Mopwater: What aspects of the industry are you most excited about?
RC: There are two aspects that I find not only exciting but delightful. The first would be the Barack Obama presidency, which I believe from a practitioner’s perspective will ultimately become the Obama Era. As a former college instructor who taught mass-mediated images of African Americans, nothing delights me more than to see a shift in our image on the world media stage. The leader of the free world looks like me and has a background that is not only similar but relatable. It gives me hope that my niche will become commonplace and more of us with great African American or underrepresented minority clients will be able to translate their value to a broader market in mainstream media. The second thing that excites me most is the inclusion of social media and Internet strategies as a part of our campaigns as practitioners. News can be relayed more quickly and efficiently than ever before. Moreover, I love the social media news release because it gets to the heart of your story and offers another way to tell it. Read the full story
Happy Hump Day. As promised, I spoke to Sarah Caron, a “real live” freelance writer to get some thoughts on how best to work with freelancers. Sarah divvies up her writing time between Parenting/Children, Cooking/Food and Technology. You can check out her blog for more of her insights.
But after chatting (typing) with Sarah, I noticed that there’s a pretty common thread coming from reporters, whether they are freelance writers or staff reporters. Always remember that writers are people. Always respect the writer’s time. Never practice spam-pitching (pitching off topic, sending releases blindly). Media relations are all about the relations! So develop relationships with your media contacts, this includes freelance writers.
Sarah Caron’s Dos and Don’ts
Do Take Time to Read the Writer’s Former Work
As with any writing professional, PR people really need to take the time to understand a writer’s role at publications and who they are writing for. This can easily be done with a little research or even just asking the writer.
Don’t Pitch Off Topic
Freelancers can be an excellent resource for PR professionals, especially if they write for multiple publications online and in print. However, it’s important that the PR pros take note about what the freelancer writes about and only sends along pitches that really fit their topics of interest. Trying to twist a subject to fit the writer’s interest seldom works if it’s not a natural fit. One important thing to realize though is that there are different types of freelancing: there is contract work, where you write on a regular schedule for a publication. There is also one-off work, which is most often garnered through pitching. And pitches take time. Read the full story
