Using the media is a great way to get your message across. Press releases are one of the most common ways to do this.
They’re an excellent way to get your news out to journalists quickly and easily. They’re also a great way to provide journalists with information about your company, product or service quickly and easily. This makes the
Press releases are, however, just one tool in the media toolkit. Today I share seven ways you can utilise the media as part of your strategy and some of my personal experiences of using them too.
Let’s dive in!
Links mentioned in this episode:
Using newsjacking successfully
Liked Listening today? What to do next:
Get my FREE roadmap to get more strategic with communication activity in your business
Listen to more episodes, take some training, or download a resource : Find out more here.
Hire my expertise, whether that’s support with a one-off comms project or entire strategy for your business drop me a line if you want to explore this further. You can also work with me 1:1 as a trainer and mentor emma@henbe.co.uk
Work with me closely
If you’d like to work with me to develop and implement your communication strategy through 1:1 work with me, podcasts, workbooks, sharing ideas and lots of accountability and up-skilling? then email me emma@henbe.co.uk to register your interest for you or your entire team.
Leave me a voicemail on my Speakpipe page I would love to hear your feedback in this episode and thoughts on any topics I could include in future ones too.
Full transcript (unedited)
What do you think of when you hear the term ‘PR’? A lot of people believe that PR is all about one thing.
Using the media is a great way to get your message across. Press releases are one of the most common ways to do this. They’re an excellent way to get your news out to journalists quickly and easily. They’re also a great way to provide journalists with information about your company, product or service quickly and easily. This makes the
Press releases are, however, just one tool in the media toolkit. Today I share seven ways you can utilise the media as part of your strategy and some of my personal experiences of using them too.
Let’s dive in!
- Press releases
Press releases are one of the most common ways to use the media as part of your overall PR strategy. They’re an excellent way to get your news out to journalists quickly and easily. They’re also a great way to provide journalists with information about your company, product or service quickly and easily. This makes them an excellent tool for providing journalists with up-to-the-minute company news.
One key thing is justmake sure you have answered the key questions;
What is happening,
Why? Why should the journalist care and how how does it affect the audience,
When is it happening and to
Whom?
Remember, this is not a sales pitch it has to have genuine human interest for national and regionalnews media in particular.
- Relationships
One of the best ways to use the media to your advantage is to keep them updated with the latest news and events happening at your company. This involves building relationships and keeping in touch with the press and media of your industry, and being available to answer any questions that may arise. It also involves being proactive and acting quickly to keep your name in the headlines. This will increase your chances of being seen by journalists, which in turn increases your chances of being seen by your target market.
This is particularly good for long-lead features where it may take some time for the journalist to plan and execute the story. It is a two-way street and being helpful and thoughtful with your approach always helps. The journalist is not obliged to print your story or feature your comment.
- Photocalls and live streaming
Photocalls and live-streaming are two ways of increasing your reach that are often overlooked. They’re two ways of connecting with your audience that are often ignored by PR professionals. They’re two ways of influencing the decisions that are made by the media, which in turn gives you the opportunity to have a real impact on the issues that are important to you. They’re also two ways of increasing your credibility as an expert in your field, which in turn gives you the opportunity to educate journalists on the issues that are important to you.
- Newsjacking
Newsjaking is a PR tool that allows you to position your brand or organization in a relevant, topical, and newsworthy context. How? By being quick to identify a news story and then leveraging that story as an opportunity to frame your messaging, you can generate buzz and build your brand awareness. It’s an excellent strategy to inject yourself into the conversation and generate awareness for your brand.
The term “newsjacking” became extremely popular, thanks to David Meerman Scott a marketing and sales strategist who He published a popular book called “Newsjacking: How to Inject Your Ideas into a Breaking News Story and Generate Tons of Media Coverage.”
To successfully newsjack, you’ll need to identify a newsworthy event that’s happening right now.
The important thing is to;
- Respond quickly
- Do your research – so confirm the topic has a high search volume
- Be tactful
- Don’t seem overly promotional, unless this is part of your goal
- Don’t try to benefit from bad situations or disasters, or seem like you do
Gilette has a good example where they newjacked the hashtag MeToo movement and changed thier strapline to the best a man can be, from the best a man can get.
This showed thier support for a topical issue which is clever and also that they wanted to be associated with proggresive men.
Another popular newsjacking strategy is to use something popular in media or entertainment and connect it to your brand or messaging and can work well for content marketing. This commonly involves TV shows or movies and is a really fun way to engage a new audience. Such as 3 PR strategies from Game of Thrones. #GOT
- On the telebox
This is about making yourself available for broadcast inerviews if you have something visual to see as part of your story.
People sometimes get put off or intimidated by tv crews but its a fantastic way of getting to a large audience at prime time, especailly if it’s national or even regional news which is broadcast 3 times a day.
TV are an interesting bunch to work with and differ slightly from print press unless its a breaking news story or national interest, then the timetable can change dramatically. Typically tv like to produce thier own content this means if you have something to show them working or a building or an event, then they will want to come out and film themelsves and create thier own perspective on a story. So pitchign tv needs to be clear and precise and have a ‘so waht’ factor asnwered, not be a press release.
However, B roll footage is also often overlooked and can be an important part of any story. It provides context and additional information to the main subject of the video.
It’s used to provide background to the event or issue being discussed, and can be used to show working or a building or an event in greater detail, or to provide a different angle or point of view. It’s often used, for example, to give the interviewee the opportunity to provide more information on an issue, and can be used to provide the viewer with additional information that they didn’t have the opportunity to hear in the main story.
This can be done by simply featuring footage of an interviewee answering a question or providing more information, followed by footage of the question or information that was asked or provided in the main story. The golden rule is please don’t brand it as they will likely never use it if you do. It has to be raw, uncut usually.footage is footage that is used to support the main story being told.
So something to think about.
- On the radio
Radio is another media channel that can be used to reach a large audience, and it’s one that many PR professionals don’t consider when planning their media strategy. Radio is a great way to provide your target market with up-to-date company news. It’s also a cost-effective way of reaching a large audience. Radio also has the added benefit of being able to provide your target market with information concerning issues that are important to you, and them which can help you build your brand and enhance your reputation as an expert in your field.
It’s especially great for reaching people who have limited access to other forms of media, such as those living in rural areas. And it’s an excellent option for reaching people who are passionate about the issues that are important to you. There aare a huge number of niche programmes, much like podcasts.
But like television, radio can be difficult to work with. It can be difficult to access, and can require a large investment in time of money in order to reach a large audience as local radio stations need advertising these days to make them viable. This makes it difficult for small businesses to use, which is a shame.
- Private or embargoed breifings and press conferences and ‘stealing thunder’
The big difference between this tool and the ones already mentioned is the ability to own or control the message to a certain extent. This is useful or needed for example if you do not want news to be out before the stock market closes – and the news can affect the share price, or it is a difficult story to tell like a company takeover, or a disaster – often used in crisis communication.
The press conference provides the opportunity to deliver a carefully crafted message to journalists and the general public about a product or service at the same time, and sometimes in the same place. The regular press briefings around the pandemic are a good example of this.
Great also for product launches – think about Apple and the private media briefings before a product launch and also film launches as well. The goal being to grab the attention of potential customers and impress them with your company’s skills and knowledge, as well as to make them aware of your brand.
Sometimes press conferences also go hand-in-hand with a tactic called ‘Stealing thunder’. Often used by celebrities to tell thier story before the papers print the ‘kiss and tell’ version but this is also a good tactic I have used myself where you effectively take all of the noise and momentum out of the story by telling the truth with facts, backed up by an independent expert – it’s still not great news, but it’s told your way in a controlled way – the headline is usually pretty sensational still in my experience but the facts are there for whoever wants to read past it.