Getting Stuff Out the Door

No matter how much content you produce and post, I'd be willing to bet that you think you ought to be doing more. And if your job responsibilities include marketing, I'd double-down on my bet.

Contributing interesting and valuable content to the worldwide conversation is easy to do – there’s virtually no barrier to publishing – but it does take time and focus. And that’s always in short supply.

For instance, I have an e-book idea in the works about brand journalism, and another idea to start posting Google+ video interviews with content marketers. Great ideas, but they haven’t seen the light of day yet.

What’s on your desk that you can’t get finished?

Gary Vaynerchuk, the hyperactive social media marketer, has figured out one way around the roadblocks. He has assigned one of his employees to be his Content Assistant, to help Gary capture more of his ideas and turn them into finished content. I think this is a brilliant idea and a likely new corporate communications job. I liked it so much I blogged about it in my last post (thanks for the inspiration, Gary!).

Don’t despair if you don't have a Content Assistant following you around. Here are some tips for getting more content posted:

• Break it up into smaller chunks. You don’t need to write a novel or even a 1,000-word post. Shorter is better anyway.
• Share visuals. No writing involved.
• Trawl Twitter and LinkedIn and other social media for interesting links you can share. Even better, write a one-sentence intro to the link when you re-post it. Again, shorter is better.

Working with people to achieve their content marketing objectives is what we do at JGC, so if you’d like some help navigating the roadblocks, give us a shout at contact@jgcllc.biz.

Two New Ways to Use Texting in Media Relations

Here are two tidbit's from yesterday's Bulldog Reporter PR University audio conference on email/online pitching (which I moderated):

• Dave Satterfield of Sitrick & Co. said that he has texted reporters to answer questions and make clarifications  during major announcement events, while they were all in the room together


• The Vatican has been send text messages to followers and the media since 2003. Kevin Dugan of the Bad Pitch Blog said one of the reasons was to reduce the possibility of Vatican-related hoaxes being picked up by the media as legit.

Clear is the New Clever

I love the title of this post: "clear is the new clever." There -- I said it again.

I'm not a particularly "clever" PR person. I don't come up with lame excuses, I don't misdirect people to divert their attention. I like to help clients sort out their story, position themselves strongly, and then tell the world about it.

So I loved picking up this line from journalist/author Sarah Lacy on a recent Bulldog audio conference. Like me, she prefers that people just give it to her straight and clear, rather than trying to grab her attention with something they think is "clever."

Love it.

"Vitch" is the first new PR catchword of 2010

Why send a plain old written PR pitch when you can send a "vitch" -- a video pitch?

That's right, the new thing is to make your pitch via video. It's certainly simple enough to do -- plan your video, shoot it with an inexpensive video camera, upload it to Youtube and spread the link.

Makes a lot of sense, too. Video is such an incredibly powerful medium, and now, through the evolution of technology, we can all be fast and cheap video producers.

The key thing here is that a "vitch" can't just be you reading your boring, stilted press release into the camera. You need to show something -- the newsmakers, the location, something, anything tangible. This, by itself, takes PR people out of their jargon-filed comfort zone.

I just picked up on this word so I don't have any good examples of video pitches and their results, but the whole thing makes a lot of sense to me. I plan to try it this month just to see what happens.

Free Media Database for UK Media

Here's another free online database of journalists, covering the UK media: journalisted.com

It's pretty simple: just go to that page, type in as much of the name as you know, and get a set of matches. For instance, here's a link to a search for Smith.

And here's a page for one of the journalists on the site, Nick Parker of The Sun. They post whatever contact info they have, as well as links to recent articles and other similar journalists.

For a free resource, it's pretty cool.

Online Directory of Freelancers is a Media Relations Freebie

Most media directories cost money, but not this one: the Society of Professional Journalists' online directory of freelance journalists.

The directory lists 914 professional journalists who make a living as independents, and gives their names, coverage areas and best of all, contact info [including email], right there on the web. It's true.

The reason it's out there for free is that the directory is intended first and foremost for media editors who are looking for freelancers to hire. But that doesn't mean we PR folks can also scan the directory for potential journalists to pitch our stories to.

One more tip, an obvious but important one: do some homework on the freelancers you are pitching to see if they would be a good fit for your story. They usually have samples of their work posted on a web site and sheesh, you can always Google them.

Sure Fire Elements of Media Stories, Or How to Get in the Times if You're Looking for a Job (Hint: Be Cute, Young, Blond and a Twin)

Part of my media training curriculum is explaining to people that the media covers only a set group of topics -- they are broad, but they are really all you will find in American mainstream media, so if you want coverage, you better figure out which buckets your story fits in.

They are:

• Novelty: things that don’t happen everyday


• Familiarity: things that DO happen every day, such as the weather, the City Council and the stock market


• Big money and winners: the ups and downs of public and private institutions are always grist for news stories; everyone loves a winner


• Risk-takers: people who put their money, reputation, health or safety at risk


• Cat-fights: want coverage? Pick a fight


• Your wallet: everyone likes to learn more about how to make money, save it or spend it


• Sex, celebrities and scandal: because they have universal appeal

The story that prompted this post is this: cute blond female twins who want to work in journalism. This story appeared in the New York Times. Seriously.

Bucket analysis of this story:

• Cute blond twins = sex


• Want to work in the media = the media's favorite big institution, itself.


• Killing themselves to get a job = risk-takers, esp. if you are a cute blond twin


• And don't forget novelty! They're cute young blond girl twins! How unusual!

Here's another story making the rounds: Rush Limbaugh's desire to become a minority owner of the St. Louis Rams of the NFL. It has generated, for sure, the most publicity ever for someone who wants to buy a non-controlling interest in an NFL team. Limbaugh knows exactly what he's doing -- here's an interview to that effect.

Bucket analysis:

• Limbaugh = celebrity


• NFL = familiarity and big money


• Wants to buy small piece of NFL team = catfight!

See how easy it is!

Are PR Embargoes Dead?

The embargo is one of my favorite PR tactics, but it looks like it will soon be another casualty of the Internet, if it isn't already.

In the ooollllddd days, you could hand out embargoed news and assuming you had a good relationship with the media, the news would sit in the can until the agreed-upon time. But the Internet and online media changed all that, for good.

In the tech news space, in particular, the embargo has become a cause celebre. TechCrunch, one of the gorillas in the tech media space, has been pushing for the death of embargoes for awhile, and their wish may be coming true. TechCrunch may be a little early in writing an obit, but in the end, they may be right.

For other tech journalists, however, it's still something of an open issue -- and one we'll discuss next Wednesday (along with many other topics of interest to tech PR) on the PR University webinar, Tech Media and Trends PR Can't Afford to Miss: Top Tech Influencers Reveal Best PR Practices for Reaching Consumers in Today's Economy. Panelists include:

• Nancy Blair, Senior Assignment Editor/Technology, USA Today


• Spencer Ante, Computers Department Editor, BusinessWeek


• Jim Kerstetter, Executive Editor, CNET News


• David Lidsky, Articles Editor, Fast Company


• Tom Foremski, Author, "Silicon Valley Watcher"

How do I know we'll be talking about this? Two reasons: it came up today on our pre-webinar prep call, and I'm the moderator and get to ask the questions.

Know-Nothing Journalists Give Bad PR Advice (Again)

I almost didn't even react to this latest example of journalists giving businesspeople bad advice about PR, but I couldn't help it. I figured it was better to blog about it than to leave a comment on someone else's blog.

Here's the story: a Boston web trade group held an event on Tuesday called, “An Entrepreneur’s Guide to Bootstrapping PR.” All the panelists came from the media, in other words, the people being pitched, not the people with any experience at pitching (panelists: Scott Kirsner of the Boston Globe, Wade Roush from Xconomy, Peter Kafka from AllThingsD, and Bob Brown of Network World). Working journalists were recruited to give profit-seeking businesspeople advice on conducting PR, a marketing department function.

For fun, let me ask: would a right-thinking trade group ask a panel of business writers to opine on "bootstrapping R&D," "bootstrapping legal," or "bootstrapping HR?"

But journalists think they know something about PR, so they opined on what cash-strapped companies ought to do to maximize publicity without hiring those expensive, pesky, clueless PR people who presumably bug them all the time with useless pitches. Here's the moderator's summary of the panel:

As far as these reporter/bloggers were concerned, PR agencies aren’t worth much.

BTW, his post was titled, "PR Bashing Harsh but Fair." Excuse me, but was that the title and intent of the panel? I thought the idea was to give sound business advice, right? [Here's a longer and more nuanced summary of the proceedings]

Anyway, enough. In my experience, the vast majority of journalists know nothing about how PR works or why companies need it. That's not to say that a lot of PR isn't overpriced garbage or that PR people don't annoy journos with stupid pitches. It is to say that there is a perfectly normal role for communications and PR in a growing company, and smart entrepreneurs will figure out how to use it to build their businesses. But don't ask a working reporter -- you're wasting your time.

Tip: it's actually pretty hard to do PR right without some professional help. It's time-consuming and can be unproductive if you don't know what you're doing. But if you're sure that you want to do it and don't have squat in the bank, at least buy a book like "PR for Dummies" or one of the others in my "Recommended" ad from Amazon to the right.

3 No-No's When You Pitch the Media By Email

Almost all journalists say they want to be pitched by email. So guess what -- they are deluged with email pitches! And to make matters worse, most of them are bloated, non-news pitches that get deleted faster than you can say, "did you get my email?"

How to avoid the trash bin? That's easy -- pitch real news, facts and figures, information that the journalist's audience really might want to know. Skip the self-serving pseudo ads -- those are the ones that get deleted FAST.

But the title of this post is 3 no-nos, so here's a list of other no-nos:

1. Using ALL CAPs in the subject line -- why are ya yellin' at me?


2. Putting the words "press release" or "news release" in the subject line -- yer wastin' precious space, pardner.


3. Including attachments -- send links, not attachments. Repeat -- send links, not attachments.

For more handy email pitching tips, tune in to PR University next Wednesday, September 16, for a lively webinar called, "Perfect Email Pitches: Master PR Scribes Reveal How to Craft Copy That Boosts Opens and Media Coverage in Today’s Shrinking News Hole." I'm moderating, and the panelists will include:

• Harry Medved, Head of Public Relations, Fandango


• Jane Mazur, Executive Vice President/Director of Media Relations, Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide


• Dan Beeson Director of Media Relations for Mother Nature Network


• Nancy Brenner, Senior Vice President/Director of Media Relations, MS&L Global Public Relations

Cartoon Network, Gays in the Military and Other Things 18-Year-Olds Think

As promised, here's a link to the Beloit College Mindset List for the Class of 2013, i.e., 18-year-old freshmen born in 1991 who are now entering college. According to this super-helpful list:

• There has always been a Cartoon Network.


• The status of gays in the military has always been a topic of political debate.


• The nation’s key economic indicator has always been the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).


• The Green Giant has always been Shrek, not the big guy picking vegetables.


• They have never used a card catalog to find a book.


• Margaret Thatcher has always been a former prime minister.


• Salsa has always outsold ketchup.


• Earvin "Magic" Johnson has always been HIV-positive.

And on and on. A few weeks back, I gave you a link to the report for now-19-year-olds in the Class of 2012. The Beloit Mindset list gets published annually to remind those us who are a bit older than the newest adults have very different world views than we do.

How to Keep Your Spirits Up and Boost Your Success in PR

Doing PR can be a pretty frustrating job, with endless client/boss demands, temperamental reporters and editors (and bloggers), pitching difficulties and the like. It's a wonder any of us enjoy making a living at this at all!

Over the years, I've found that working in teams, brainstorming with colleagues and having the occasional bitch session with my peers makes this challenging profession a little more bearable.

Unfortunately for many of us, we don't work in large enough teams to make such collaborative moments possible. PR is often one of the smaller functions in a business. It's not uncommon for PR to be handled internally at a company by one or two people, and even in agencies, most client teams have only a handful of people.

As a result, our thinking can get stale, leading to more frustration and potentially less PR success. That's why I'm very happy to let you know that I'm launching a new webinar series, PR Power Boost. The first one will take place Monday, June 22 at 1pm ET/10am PT.

PR Power Boost is a 60-minute webinar to recharge your batteries and send you off with a raft of new ideas to accomplish your PR goals.

Here's how it will work:

• A small group will meet on a conference call to get the latest PR tips and share ideas. To make it as high-value as possible, there will be no more than 20 participants per call.


• Everyone's line will be live, so you can ask questions, get answers and offer ideas all throughout the call.


• I'll facilitate and make sure everyone gets the answers they need.

I'm really excited to offer this new service to the PR community and I think it's going to be a great success. I'm pricing it at a very reasonable $75 per session, and offering at introductory price for this first webinar of $60 (use the discount code BOOST).

I hope you will join us, and feel free to pass this post and the discount code around to your colleagues!

Go Ahead - Coin That New Word

In the PR game, words really matter. The well chosen or well-coined word can really change the discussion, raise awareness and influence decision-making.

Too often, we in PR fall back on old words, and as a result, we send the signal that we only have old things to say. Not good.

So go ahead and coin that new word, or try that new phrase. It just might be the key factor in the success of your campaign.

This post was prompted by a terrific William Safire column in this past Sunday's New York Times Magazine. The first part was about the rampant use of abbreviations, or as they are now being called, "abbreves."  A sample from the column:

Today, the fave (for “favorite”) abbreves are obvi (a shortening of “Thank you, Captain Obvious”) and belig (a clipping of “belligerent,” retaining the soft g). Nobody in the young-barflies crowd orders “the usual”; it’s the yoozh. My grandnephew Jesse concludes sentences with whatev, which is probs (for “probably”) “whatever.” In this cacophony of abbreves, word endings are scattered all over the floor. Go fig.

His second section was on the coinage of new words using "templates" of old words. (BTW, as he points out, a newly created word or phrase is called a "neologism" (knee-OL-o-ism)). Examples per Safire:

• Phrasal templates, e.g., "the mother of all [fill in the blank]"


• Single word templates, e.g., "[blank] chic", "[blank] point" (talking point, tipping point, etc.)


• Prefix and suffix templates, e.g., neo-, -oholic, -sphere

What these templates do for us is allow us to influence the discussion by talking about what we want to talk about in terms people already understand. So, for example, a  "TV-oholic"might be someone obsessed with TV, while "Obama-gate" is sure to be coined for the first scandal of the Obama Administration

To communicate in today's world, think "infosnacks"

Tweets. Text messages. Emails. Emoticons. LOL.

You name it, and we can shorten it into a tidbit of information. That's an "infosnack."

No longer do people want to "digest" a full newspaper article or curl up with a good book. Give me the story in 140 characters (twitter) or even less (TXTing) and let's get it over with.

So -- to get to the point -- what sorts of "infosnacks" are you providing to your key audiences? Are they the usual corporate inedible mush, or is it something tasty and brief?

This is one of the main challenges in PR today -- in some ways bigger than the Internet revolution itself. People don't have time, or don't want to take the time, to understand what you are trying to say. They want it now, fast.

That means:

• Short email subject lines


• Tweets


• Social media style press releases


• 60 second videos


• TXT messages

Give it to them the way they want it, or find yourself asking why you're being ignored.

Do You Know What Stuff Journalists Like?

"Think like a journalist." It's one of the most important skills a PR person can have. As a former journalist, frankly, my experience in the media gives me a big leg up. For PR pros who have never pulled a paycheck in the media, it's a never-ending quest to get inside the head of journalists to do a better job anticipating their needs.

Here's some new help: a partly tongue-in-check, partly serious site called Stuff Journalists Like, playing off the "Stuff White People Like" phenomenon. Some of their dead-on posts:

• Free food


• Election day


• Statistics


• Reporter's notebooks


• Swag


• Year in reviews


• Weather stories

For a flavor of their style, here's part of their post on Anonymous Sources:

... And that’s why journalists like anonymous sources, because journalists like the truth. And one cloak and dagger call can level crooked politicians and deplorable corporations breaking the law.

Without Deep Throat, Nixon would have finished his presidency and Woodward and Bernstein would have just gone on to become two reporters among the bunch at the Post (and would probably be receiving buyout packages by now).

Anonymous sources can alter the course of history and undo injustice, which all journalists aspire to do. And the stories from anonymous sources can lead to fame and glory, which isn't bad either.

Need to do a better job Thinking Like a Journalist? Check out this site and better yet, use it to brainstorm ways to reach out to journalists more successfully.

Which New Media Skills Do PR People Need to Compete?

This post is a follow-up to a great post by PR Pro Sarah Evans called, "Top 4 new skills all PR professionals must have." You MUST read this post. Evans' top four skills are: basic HTML coding, SEO for PR, how to use a Social Media Release, and online presence (on Facebook, Twitter, blogging, et al).

I'm just going to add on here with some additional thoughts:

• HTML coding, while critical, is not as important as having the basic ability to use a Content Management System (CMS). What's a CMS? It's the blogging software I'm using right now to write this post. Using it successfully doesn't require any knowledge of HTML, though such knowledge does help. A CMS can also be used to manage a web site (I use one to manage the web site of my client, El Dorado Ventures), and again, using it doesn't require HTML knowledge, though again, it helps. Either way, if you are scared of using a CMS, get over it -- fast.


• Need to know more about HTML? Needless to say, there are a gazillion web sites devoted to HTML and web programming, but for starters, here's one to bookmark: HTML Code Tutorial.


• Newswire distribution services: It has gotten to the point where I rarely if ever rely on the traditional newswires to disseminate my press releases. I think it's much more useful to distribute your release via a quality email distribution list of journalists you think might cover your news. What the newswires do offer that you can't get anywhere else is third-party web site distribution of your release. Which means: when you put a release on a newswire, they turn around a push it out to potentially hundreds of web sites that immediately create a new web page with your release. For example, here's a list of the sites that re-use Business Wire releases, and here's an example of a release I put on Business Wire that is now also posted on Reuters.com.


• Using online media databases: do you know how to navigate and use online media databases such as Cision or Vocus? You must.


• Video: Do you know how to make a low-cost/free video and post it on YouTube? If not, get up to speed ASAP.


• Blogger relations: very different from traditional media relations in every sense. Every single blogger is different (take the difference between me and Sarah Evans for example -- same 'beat' but totally different blogs) and needs to be approached in a customized way.

These skills, of course, are in addition to the three core skills of PR: writing, pitching and being a communications strategist.

To call or not to call? That is the follow-up question.

When you send an email pitch, do you always follow-up with a call? Or do you never follow-up? This is one of the trickiest questions in PR.

On today's PR University audio conference with top editors of womens' magazines, there was a definite split among the panelists regarding their receptivity to follow-up calls.

"Please don't call me," said Lea Goldman, Features Editor of Marie Claire. Goldman says that she religiously checks her email and reads all email, at least the subject line. If she wasn't intrigued at the time, calling to plead your case rarely if ever helps.

Cari Dineen, Senior Editor of Redbook, and Jeanine Detz, Senior Editor of Shape, both agreed 100%.

On the other hand, Stephanie Emma Pfeffer, Senior Associate Editor of Family Circle, and Nancy Minikes, Research Editor of Women's World, were somewhat more open to follow-up calls, but not minutes or even hours after you sent the pitch. Give them a couple of days to get back to you -- remember, most editors are getting hundreds of pitches a week.

Minikes made an interesting point about customizing your pitch: if you address it directly to her by saying "Hi Nancy," she will make a point of responding by email and telling you whether or not she's interested. But if you just send PR spam, she will very likely ignore it and will not respond.

The bottom line for all these editors: customize your pitch! [How many times do we have to say this?] Address them by name, know their slice of the female demographic they are targeting, know the sections that they edit, and then make your pitch accordingly.

The dumb pitch that got the biggest laugh from this panel: emails that say something like, "I have a good expert or story about [fill in the blank]. Can you help me figure out whether it's a good fit for your publication?"

So, back to follow-up calls, here's a poll: do you make the call or not?

[polldaddy poll=1490921]

Don't Waste Precious Real Estate With Bloated Email Pitches

Be concise. Tell the journalist how your pitch will help them do their job, in the crucial first words of an email pitch. Customize your outgoing email address, if you have to, to make it more recognizable and user-friendly. Bottom-line: every character counts, and you have zero to waste.

That is the key-takeaway from today's Bulldog Reporter PR University audio conference on email pitching: make every character count.

LA-based journalist Gary North of Variety had a couple of key tips: your subject line should contain an active adjective, a noun and a verb that your recipient might care about. As in, "Doctor Wins Nobel Prize." Contrast that with: Interview opportunity with Dr. Frederick Smith, M.D., on New Research into Cancer Treatment." Which one would you open?

North also suggested that senders make sure their email addresses mean something, too -- that just like we all do when sorting our postal mail, he and other journalists look at who sent them something as they decide how much importance to give it.

A few other takeaways:

• Think about the recipient -- you are filling space in their life with your email. Are you adding value or just spamming them? (from Richard Laermer, BadPitchBlog)


• No client names in the subject line -- it's a dead giveaway that you are seeking publicity rather than offering a story to the journalist (from Heather Hamann, Dr. Dean Edell radio show)


• Every email pitch should answer this question: what can I uniquely offer that no one else has? (from Kim Metcalfe of Weber Shandwick)


• Write for the Blackberry! Meaning, short and pithy, not wordy! Example: "Inventor Helps Seniors Plug In." (from Nancy Brenner, MSL)

Breaking into TV News: Black and Blue and 2 Shades of Green

If you want to generate TV coverage, don't kid yourself -- your story needs to be simple, easy-to-understand and have good visuals. TV is a powerful but simplistic medium that serves the lowest common denominators of our society. That's not necessarily a bad thing or a putdown -- there's a place for CNN, and a place for The New Yorker. Your job as a media relations pro is to know the difference and pitch accordingly.

So what are TV people interested in now? I gleaned the headline of this post from a recent Bulldog Reporter PR University panel I moderated on network TV news:

• Black & Blue: crime, war, the usual "if it bleeds it leads"


• 2 Shades of green: #1 -- the environment, green technologies, and so on. #2 - the economy, natch!

Other nuggets to note:

• TV news is always about people. People who do things, how things affect people. If you don't pitch people, you're basically DOA.


• How to pitch experts: they have to have something to say, but they also need a recognizable pedigree. So Harvard is better than Oshkosh State U., and an author is better than a blogger, and so on.

The Big PR Lesson of "Thank You For Smoking"

I finally got around to seeing "Thank You For Smoking" last week -- my bad. It's an absolute must-see for anyone in the PR industry and if I was a university PR professor, I would use this film in my course and devote a couple of weeks to watching and analyzing it. It is a pitch-perfect study of the role of PR in society.

Even though I may be the last person in the industry to see it, I don't want to recount the plot here and spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it yet. But I did want to comment on one of the key turning points, when the main character, Nick Naylor the tobacco industry spokesman, lets his guard down (among other things) and tells a journalist a lot of information he thinks is "off the record."

When the information becomes the basis of a blockbuster expose about him, Naylor complains to the reporter that he thought their conversations were "off the record." Wrong! No conversation with a journalist is off the record unless you get specific buy-in from the journalist before you start talking! That's when you have the leverage and can negotiate the terms of the interview. And furthermore, some of the best times for journalists to get candid information from you is in the informal exchanges you might have in the elevator, sitting down for the interview, or making small talk over lunch, when you think they aren't taking notes.