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Public Relations

The secret to winning an editor’s heart

June 21, 2010 · 6 comments in Public Relations,Social Media,tech business

I was a newspaper reporter and editor for 12 years. Then I was a PR guy for more than 25. In the last five years I did a lot of writing about social media. I interviewed over 425 people and have been pitched a few thousand times.. Simultaneously, because a couple of books I wrote did well, I've been interviewed a few hundred times.

In short, I have been a pitcher, a pitch, an interviewer and an interviewee. I know a lot about what happens between a seeker of news and a source of news. I can't rant about how most PR people don't get it, but chances are you already know that--except if you are one of those PR folk who don't get it.

There is one way to get an editor to be favorably disposed to writing about you from a positive perspective. It doesn't involve sizzle or buzz. It doesn't matter whether they are print or online. It doesn't matter if contact is made by email, Twitter or an old fashioned phone conversation.

Just one rule:

Read his or her stuff.

It simply amazes me how so many people are oblivious to something so obvious. Editors and reports, bloggers and even tweeters want to be read. None of them are foolish enough to be producing the content in direct sear of wealth.

They want to be recognized and respected.

So before you contact an editor, or sit down to be interviewed by one, I strongly advised you read the most recent dozen items that person has written. Then go to Google or Bing and search the most prominent pieces she or he has written.

When you talk with the editor, start by talking about their recent writing, rather than your attempt to claim fame.

There are other things you'll need to get coverage, like a good story, relevant to that editor's audience. But if you know who the editor is what her hot buttons are and what they cover the most often you will be off to outstanding start.

Trust me on this. If you don't, then I stongly advise you to ask an editor, blogger or reporter.

When PR folk are more popular than the editors they pitch

December 29, 2009 · 8 comments in Public Relations,Social Media,tech business

Tom Foremski had a really interesting post yesterday about the fact that many PR people have more followers than the editors they have to pitch on behalf of their clients. He cites three of my favorite PR bloggers: Brian Solis, Todd Defren and Steve Rubel.

Each of these guys are well-known in the social media community, better known than most of the thinning selection of traditional editors who cover categories where their respective clients might be newsworthy.

But, Tom observes a paradox, these three PR executives rarely if ever write about their own clients and if they did, then they would be more than a little likely to lose the considerable popularity and credibility they have established.

"Having someone else write a story about
your client,on a third-party site, where there has been no exchange of
money, conveys far higher value to the story," Tom observes. "That's
the paradox of PR peoples' large, personal media footprint -- they
can't use their own access to large numbers of people to promote their
clients."

Tom is absolutely right, of course. But I think there is more irony and nuance than that. There is also the aside, that Brian Solis, Todd Defren and Steve Rubel have reached a point in their careers where they probably do very little media pitching on their own.

I have spent time with each of them and none has ever even mentioned a client to me.I thank them for that. It also means that if one of them ever did, I would listen closely and use it if I thought my readers might care. They have used social media to become very credible in the social media community. They know enough about me, to know what sort of stories would spark my interest and I would consider them truthful sources who weren't spinning an issue to make their clients look better than they should.

This is in stark contrast to some of the pitches I hear on a regular basis, from PR people who do not read me and have not contributed sufficiently in social media for me to check them out and decide if I consider them credible resources.

In addition to seeing social media as a promotional venue, they should also regard it as a building venue. PR people can use blogs and tweets and Facebook posts to build their own reputations and of even greater importance, they can use it to build relationships with people who may make a difference to them or their clients somewhere down the line.

That brings me to a second point. Tom references PR people pitching traditional media for client coverage. If that is all today's PR person is doing in the name of media relations, then they are performing to a diminishing crowd. The truth is that there are fewer traditional media covering fewer topic, they are very often providing less depth and bring less years f expertise to the topic and they are being read by fewer people.

PR people need to realize that the people relevant to their clients can be found, not behind a newspaper or magazine, but in social media venues. These people may be professional journalists, they may be industry enthusiasts or they may just be wandering through a topic.

The way a PR person finds them today is not by wandering down a purchased media list, but by reading the right social media content for their clients and reading it on a very regular basis. They are found by using topical search tools with some skill and imagination.

And then PR people are welcome to join the conversation and build a relationship before they try pitching a client for coverage. This does not take so long, because relationships form quite fast in social media. And if you are good at it, like Brian, Todd and Steve, the taint of PR hucksterism disappears.

Caught in the spamstream.

August 19, 2009 · 5 comments in Public Relations

It was early and I was on my first cup of coffee wading through my email. There was what appeared to be a request by an editor in Virginia for a review copy about my book. I immediately, responded with a polite note, copying my publishers, PR person asking the book be sent.

Except that the conversation was not directed at me. It was responding to a direct mail pitch from a PR agency that I had not heard of who was pitching another book with which I was not associated. The agency was using a list server that contained the email names of a great many editors and bloggers who touch upon the social media space.

I had been one the bloggers on the list an that's why the conversation landed in my inbox, as well as scores of other editors and analysts.

Strangely, a lot of email started being generated in this stream. At first I paid no attention to it, but when the quantity started piling up, I opened a few to discover editors and bloggers shrieking to stop this endless stream of spam. Many thought it was me and I had to drop what I was behind it.

It spilled quickly into Twitter. An analyst for a very prominent firm, posted that my PR agency was spamming the world promoting my new book. The head of a PR agency who is prominent in social media, noted that this bad PR seemed to be doing me good because there were a few requests to send the book amid a host of them suggesting I go to the window open and take a flying leap.

Anyone who follows me should know that I am far from a fan of spammers and of PR practitioners sending blanket unsolicited emails. At first, I thought there was malicious intent behind what had occurred. I was relieved to realize it was just an odd coincidence.

I hope the PR person in question learns a lesson and is smart enough to apologize--not by email but in a blog. I wish the analyst who posted false accusations of me would retract his statement, but analysts admitting when they are wrong is an unfortunate rarity.

For me, it has taken a few hours with a firehose to set the record straight. I'm sure there are some people in that email stream who will continue to think I had something to do with book-promoting spam, but overall, social media has allowed me to set the record straight with most people.

This post is another step in that effort.

Is there a lesson to be learned? First, I need to be very careful what email I answer on my first cup of coffee. Second is that I should consider going back to caffeinated.

Three Reasons why PR folk should love Social Media

July 7, 2009 · 1 comment in Public Relations


[KD Paine contemplating the measure of a conversation. Photo by Shel]

Yesterday, I wrote about the difficulties of measuring a conversation, thus creating a measurement issue for PR people who use social media, a practice to which I think they have no choice in embracing.

My pal KD Paine the measurement maven, has done a good job of refuting some of the issues I raised yesterday. Years ago she and I had a chasm of philosophical differences between us. Now, it's just a few silly feet of cyberspace. We both understand that the entire communications industry is in a transformational phase, and that professional PR people need to adapt to the challenge for change and the clients they serve need to understand that the rules have changed to adapt into the Conversational Era that is replacing the Broadcast Era.

From my perspective--that of a recovering publicist turned social media champion--the smart PR people should embrace this new direction as a Golden Era.
There are many reasons why. Here are a few:

1.  The best PR people have never been one-directional broadcasters.

The most successful PR folk have never just smiled and dialed, have never just used a blanket pitch to extol virtues of a client. Instead, they have read editors before they called them, have found reasons to have conversations with their industry analysts when they were not pitching, have worked hard to become sources of information, rather than mere conduits of it. The best PR people have traditionally been unsung industry experts. They have been able to educate their clients on why some people prefer competitors about subtle but perhaps significant changes in the marketplace and perhaps what should be done about it.

2. You can now join the conversation as yourself

During my lengthy tenure as a PR practitioner, I sometimes found it difficult to remain the voice behind the ear of the actual spokesperson. I often knew as much as the spokesperson, better understood the needs of the person being presented too and felt I could add more value to hat was happening in the room than being the person delegated to carrying the paper press kits of that era.

Now, some of the best--and most popular--blogs are written by communications industry professionals. PR people pervade many Twitter neighborhoods. Their are many of them to be found at Facebook, even YouTube and Flickr.

PR people now are allowed to have their own voice. Speak from their personal perspective. They can talk with passion about their clients, so long as they are transparent about their perspective. Through conversations they can build actual relationships with people that make a difference--BEFORE there is a need to pitch.

It makes it much easier to have the conversation, my friend Shel Holtz talked about yesterday--the one that moves the needle for your client, the one that keeps you retained and compensated.

3. Social Media provides an infinity of potential PR "hits."

In days of traditional media, each PR client had a small cluster of relevant newspapers, broadcast, influencers to pitch and visit. Now we are the media. Each of us, through social media, can influence a market and very often one of us does.

Jessica Gottlieb didn't like an ad series produced by Motrin. Christine Lu felt the same way about a Pepsi ad. Both stopped campaigns with a few tweets. Every day, people on Twitter influence what others buy, watch, listen to; where they travel to; what they wear or drive; who they vote for and what they encourage their kids to do via social media.

A PR person can join these conversations and influence how the relationships people have with clients. The need to reach audiences through mass media intermediaries seems to diminish every day. And the ability to serve as a catalyst between client and customer grows strong by inverse proportion.

The key to these three  points is that you need to be a good conversationalist. You need to listen well and you need to find interesting and useful tidbits to bring to social media other than "NuCo announces yet another widget to add to your blog."

If you have the misfortune to be a PR pro and be a crappy conversationalist. If that's the case, then you will probably do crappy work in social media or for that matter any other channel you choose to use.