The web has made making contact with the offline media much more accessible. The rise of social media and collaborative platforms such as Twitter have aided the process even further, and extended the reach of journalists to not just the heavy hitters in the industry, but to average Joe’s like you and me, with something interesting to say. The traditional methods of small business PR that we have become accustomed are changing dramatically.
Take the following scenario of what the face of traditional PR used to look like:
PR 1.0
1) Company / Brand / Celebrity performs good deed / launches product / saves the world
2) Hires PR firm (at significant cost) to write a suitable press release
3) PR firm distributes (read emails) press release to parties
3) PR firm courts journalist and builds relationships
4) Journalist rewrites press release
5) Journalist wins (easy newsworthy article)
6) Company / Brand / Celebrity wins (exposure)
PR 2.0
This is now changing significantly, here’s how some smaller brands are performing online PR now – and winning.
1) Build an audience of listeners to a Brand Channel via pull marketing (Facebook / Twitter / Bebo / Blogging)
2) Encourage both offline Journalists and bloggers to subscribe digitially to their message
3) Engage large Sneezers (people who spread the message) and journalists by listening to their needs and providing it on demand
4) Wait for the web to start talking about the company, and the journo’s to write offline material.
On the whole, the web is changing the way journalists source information, and ultimately get fresh content for offline publications.
Does the web get rid of traditional PR ?
No. There still is scope for offline PR to be used in conjunction with this. Indeed it is a necessity in some cases. I guess what I’m getting at is that the web as it stands now, makes it much easier for small businesses who couldn’t ordinarily afford the monthly retainer of a large PR firm to do PR online themselves.
We’ve also seen a number of celebrities, artists and musicians getting the word out about what they are up to, and make serious dough just by using Twitter. Effectively, the likes of Jonathan Ross who tweets regularly can engage an audience on his own now, without the need for a public relations firm.
Using the web to reach journalists
It is possible for the small guy to make big wins online. If you are in the position where you do want to take a bash at DIY PR, here are a few must follow rules. Granted a lot of this stuff is common sense but it is often overlooked.
The web makes finding journalists easier than ever. If you’ve got a good idea of where you want to get your stuff into (whether that be Tech magazines or the business section of a weekly publications) – simply do a search for them on Twitter and start following them. I’ve started collating journalists and high profile bloggers inside TweetDeck, separated into certain areas of expertise that they cover. There are also a few decent sized directories of journalists (specifically I’ve collated some Irish Journalists on Twitter here and there’s more over on PR Blogger for UK Journalists) – with associated contact details that you can gain useful contacts through. Don’t be a stalker though and engage and interact as you would do any other Twitter user.
Listen to their needs
If there’s a question you can answer out of the hand picked selection of journalists, do it. Alot of the time they are writing in areas that could do with first hand quotes or additional information from companies. You may end up getting a telephone or email interview off the back of it. That kind of exposure for free, in an offline publication just for answering a couple of emails is gold.
You can also find out what sort of things are pushing the buttons of offline readers (I tend to follow a few tech journalists – Jack Schofield tech blogger at the Guardian) just to see if there are holes that can be filled on my own blog.
Know their interests
Many Journalists only write within a certain sector, for example writing only about tech related issues. Profiling them, and working out what sort of content is newsworthy within their publication is also a good idea. There’s no point talking to a political journalist when you are promoting a tech heavy product. If they are the only contact you have; ask them who they should be talking to. That said, if you’ve used your loaf you’ll have already worked out who the people you need to speak to are, just from reading the relevant publication.
Plug the holes
Essentially making a Journalist’s life easier in whatever way you can will score you goals. Another service I’ve found incredibly effective is Peter Shankman’s Help a reporter out. This is a service which you subscribe to be email which puts you directly in front of journalists and other bloggers, both online and offline who need information and help on subject areas.
In the past I’ve answered queries in the form of blog posts, and forwarded that source to the enquirer; this has had the effect of not only getting referenced in the original article, but also gaining additional exposure by appearing alongside other folks in the industry in their email marketing campaigns. (If you were wondering, it was my post on search engine optimisation for images – which got referenced in PhotoShelter’s SEO cookbook.). It’s also great at helping to generate fresh content ideas for your site.
Submit better press releases
It’s probably not a great idea to start sending out Tweets to the above mentioned Journalists with information on your blog. Better to let them find it by interacting with them in a human, helpful way. Or in other words just keep your ear close to the ground. If you do however have a great story and want to distribute it online what is the best way to get your stuff into publications and onto other sites?
Online Press Submission Services
I’ve used some of these in the past; and in my opinion they are midly effect. If anyone has any great stories to tell about how they have resulted in exposure and what service they used, feel free to publish it here. The service I used was Get2Press. That said, perhaps the story wasn’t newsworthy enough to garner alot of attention.
Going viral online first
This is pretty much the holy grail. What better way to get into a news publication than for the journalists to hear about it online; and contact you as a result looking to do a story about it. This is what happened with the RyanAir story that Jason Roe stumbled across, blogged and the monstor grew on its own. Jason later got interviewed by RTE on the tele, which raised his profile both online and off.
This isn’t the only tech story within the Irish community that has seen additional offline exposure as the result of what happens online. Decisions for Hero’s also has gained publicity in two national newspapers. Due in part to receiving a Tuesday Push and from gaining exposure on TechCrunch.
The Tuesday Push is a co-ordinated blogging effort which promotes Irish startups and websites collaboratively. It can and often has helped to perform the all important seeding information before information goes viral. Seeding content as I’ve mentioned before is an important step in going viral.
Manually Building Relationships.
I’ve been reading some brilliant material from Adrian Weckler a Journalist at the Sunday Business post. You should do yourself a favour and read every one of these posts. Nothing better than hearing it from the horses mouth.
In summary you should introduce yourself by email first.Including a bio of yourself, and your company. Journalists are hungry for facts and short on time, so it will need to be snappy and gets to the point without waffle quickly. If the information is urgent then a phone call might be better than emailing; but only if it is a pretty big story. Otherwise schedule a time to talk. Offering exclusives can help win a Journalist over; with guest posts in the online world many bloggers would refuse point blank to allow you to guest post without getting exclusive access to your content. The same too applies with Newspapers and Magazines. If you have a product you are looking to promote, offering a trial or demo personally is also a win.
Overall – the web as it stands today makes it alot easier to find, interact and gain exposure through traditional mediums, and as the lines blur further between journalists and bloggers collaborating and helping them will only serve to further your profile online and off.
linky
posted:July 4, 2009 1:38 pm
Thank you for the mention, and glad HARO is useful for you! We’re over 125k journalists and sources now! :)
Peter Shankman