Big Mistakes In PR That Can Easily Be Avoided

Wanted to discuss today some of the common mistakes made by people and agencies in public relations.

A few of the most common mistakes are actually very simple and easy to avoid, if you just take a little time and have a little knowledge.

1. Overdoing it with the media and contacting them too much. You do not need to contact the media 7 or 8 million times, this annoys them and if you burn a bridge, you may not have a second chance with the person you have harrassed to the point of ignoring you.
2. Making sure you have the right contacts at press outlets. Many times lists are out of date or have everyone at a press outlet on a list. This is not appropriate and you need to research and know who your contacts are for whatever type of story you are pitching. There can be more than one person at a publication, but you need to know who they are, not just randomly contact every reporter at an outlet. This makes you and your agency look like hacks and is not good.
3. One very important rule is to never ever lie to a media person about a company, product or service. We all want to score the meetings and the big stories with Wall Street Journal, New York Times, TechCrunch and Good Morning America, but when you lie you are risking not only your reputation with the media, but the company you represent. I have seen PR agencies and people lie and have warned them about this, and some have found out the hard way what it costs to try and fool the media. You cannot buy your reputation and if you soil your name with someone in the press, it could have a very negative effect on your career.

Just a few simple rules to follow when working with the media, and it is always best to be open, honest, and know your media outlets and contacts. A good PR agency or team lead will make sure their people are doing things the right way, and will educate and assist them on learning and developing in their career and skills, and help them to avoid blunders like those listed above.

Good luck pitching all you hungry PR people.

Pitching Media Around Holidays, What You Need To Know

Media relations is a lot of work, can take time and requires strong communications skills, and a little charm never hurts.

What it also requires is knowing the media, understanding the press, their publication or blog, beat and areas of coverage, topics of interest, and best ways to contact individual media. But, there is another aspect I wanted to talk about as we head into Thanksgiving and the holiday season, and that is media and pitching during the holidays.

Pitching media around holidays can be tricky and there are several holidays in the U.S. when the media are much more busy, short-handed or even unavaiable with many being off for the holidays. The main holidays which can be tough to pitch include Christmas and New Years, Thanksgiving, and the 4th of July. Also, with many still taking their personal time off in August, that month can be tougher than others.

To effectively work with media around these holidays make sure you have a good pitch and something really newsworthy, a really cool or juicy story never hurts. Also, if a news announcement just isn't something that is that awe-inspiring and not related to anything about the holiday or consumers, then you may want to advise your client to hold off making the news announcement until after the holiday, when the press are back in the grind and not worried about getting away for their own holiday time. Another important factor is having backup contacts at outlets, other people covering a space as well as knowing who is picking up news for the person out of the office. This way if you cannot push back the announcement to avoid the holiday, then you know who to go to in place of your usual contacts if they are out for the holiday.

One other thing is you need to be understanding and respect the time and work of the media, especially during holidays, as since many of the newspapers, magazines, broadcast networks, online news sites and blogs are undermanned and look like ghost towns during many of these holidays. So remember that the people you are contacting are trying to fill in and handle beats and news for those out of the office. You really should be understanding regarding how busy the media contacts are during the holidays.

Know your contacts, when and how to pitch them, and know that during the holidays many are out of the office and away for holidays of their own, and be understanding for those covering for them during the holidays and holiday season.

Good luck pitching and have a Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Knowing and Understanding the Media: The Key to Successful Media Relations and Story Placements

Over the years many people have asked me what is it that makes a PR campaign a success, and what is the best way to handle media and media relations?

My answer is simple and very important:
Know and understand the media. Know who the media are, identify the appropriate reporters, editors, writers, producers and bloggers, and understand their beat and coverage. Know how they prefer to be contacted, by email, phone, Twitter, etc.? Understand them by researching their beat and stories they have written for last 6 months to year. Know them and know their beat, what they cover, and if you have a chance ask them what they are most interested in.

By knowing and understand media, what they like or don't like, how to pitch them or how not to pitch them, you will be far more successful with media and story placements.