Journalists | Communiqué PR
07Sep
What Clients Should Know About Working With Journalists
A major part of public relations is working closely with journalists. These relationships help drive awareness and coverage for clients. They are essential to their business goals and objectives. To build and preserve good working relationships with journalists, it’s important that clients of PR agencies understand a few important things. By being prepared for the following, PR professionals and their [...]
Filed under: COMMUNIQUÉ PR, Experience, Media, PUBLIC RELATIONS, Strategy, Writing
21Dec
Don’t Print That!
Reputable journalists do their best to attribute the information they publish to a relevant, named source. Offering transparency about a source’s identity, connection to the story and direct quote benefits a journalist’s audience because it builds credibility and allows readers to trust the information. However, there are certain situations where explicit identification or direct quotes may put a source at [...]
Filed under: COMMUNIQUÉ PR, Crisis Communications, Education, Execution, Media, PUBLIC RELATIONS, Reputation Management, Sources, Strategy
26Oct
5 Tips for Building Relationships with National Journalists and Media
“For forever and a day, I shall chase that white whale." – Captain Ahab, “Moby Dick” Had Captain Ahab worked in public relations instead of whaling, his quote may have referred to securing the elusive, top-tier national coverage that so many clients seek. Everyone wants to see their name in valued news outlets such as The New York Times, The [...]
Filed under: COMMUNIQUÉ PR, Execution, Media, Planning, Positioning, PUBLIC RELATIONS, Strategy, Writing
17Aug
Less Than 10% of Pitches Result in Coverage—How to Develop an Effective Pitch and Build Relationships
Most, if not all, PR professionals are often left wondering if their pitch was opened and what the targeted reporters thought of it. Well, now we have some insight into whether or not journalists are opening email pitches or filing them away. Recently, a report by Propel analyzed 1 million pitches sent to journalists to better understand if email pitches [...]
Filed under: COMMUNIQUÉ PR, Email, Media, PUBLIC RELATIONS, Sources, Strategy, Writing
03Dec
The Intersection of Earned and Social Media – Where the Magic Happens
We have written often in this blog about the value of earned media, but I’d like to dig a little deeper into how it can help better build your brand. How can you reinforce positive perceptions of a company, support media pitching efforts, and ultimately strengthen the value of media placements? Social media might be the answer, albeit not a [...]
Filed under: COMMUNIQUÉ PR, Media, Monitor and Measure, Positioning, Social media, Strategy
19Nov
Pitching to Media: Which Positions Should You Target?
Pitching to media is one of the most important avenues to earning coverage for your client. Pitching involves researching, identifying, messaging and contacting journalists who you believe will cover your client’s announcement. It is essential that you are targeting the right people with your pitch. To determine the best fit for a pitch, look at the topic or “beat” of [...]
Filed under: COMMUNIQUÉ PR, Media, Planning, PR trends
05Nov
Reflecting on Cision’s Decade of Insights Regarding Media Preferences
Ten years ago, the internet was a different place: Instagram had just launched, Twitter had just reached 50 million tweets per day (10% of today’s rate) and we were still “poking” people on Facebook. Even more notably for PR professionals, the way that the public gets their news has changed drastically since then. Pew Research Center stated in June 2020 [...]
Filed under: COMMUNIQUÉ PR, Media, Positioning, PR trends, Strategy
28May
The State of the Media in the Time of COVID-19
Each spring Cision releases its State of the Media Report, analyzing trends in the media, uncovering insights into journalists’ view on the state of the industry, and describing preferences on how they prefer to work with PR professionals. I keep an eye out for it each year, knowing that it will provide information that will be highly useful when pitching [...]
Filed under: COMMUNIQUÉ PR, Media, Planning, PR trends, Sources, Strategy
Does Your Organization Need a Spokesperson?
Many organizations struggle with the idea of a identifying and preparing a company spokesperson. For some companies, there is a clear spokesperson that naturally assumes the role, enjoys it, and is good at it. However, for many organizations the spokesperson is not identified until an event, such as a crisis, forces someone into the role. Unfortunately, this scenario does not [...]
Filed under: Execution, Media, Planning, PUBLIC RELATIONS, Reputation Management, Strategy
Storytelling: The Power of Persuading an Audience
I would like to share with you a recent article I read about effective persuasion by Lisa Lai, an advisor, consultant and coach for some of the world’s most successful leaders. Lai argues that in order to persuade an audience you must focus on either winning their hearts or their minds – and that to do both at the same [...]
Filed under: Execution, Planning, PUBLIC RELATIONS, Strategy
Social Media: What’s the Frequency?
As a communications advisor to clients in the tech industry, I am frequently asked how to leverage social media as part of an integrated PR strategy. Clients are often curious to know when and how often they should post and what their content should look like. Many clients are also now starting to think about whether or not they should [...]
Filed under: INDUSTRY, Media, Planning, PUBLIC RELATIONS, Social media, Strategy, Tech Industry
What Journalists Want: Findings From the 2014 Business Wire Media Survey
As PR professionals, we are constantly trying to get into journalists’ heads to determine what they’re looking for from us. What kinds of multimedia elements are most helpful? How in-depth should our pitches be? Should we engage reporters on Twitter? Luckily Business Wire might have some of the answers. It recently conducted a media survey in which it asked a [...]
Filed under: COMMUNIQUÉ PR, Monitor and Measure, Planning, PR trends
Why Who is Key in Pitching
As public relations professionals, we are constantly cultivating story ideas from our clients, developing pitches, identifying targets and distributing them where we hope they do the most good. Though having a compelling story is important, it is only half the battle; finding the right audience for your story is also key. Ask yourself: Who will care about this news? For [...]
Filed under: Execution, Media, Planning, Strategy
Pitching Notes: A New Tool for PR pros
We’ve all been there. You think you have the perfect story and the perfect pitch to send to a reporter who is the perfect fit and then…you’re ignored, hung up on, or denied. As a PR professional, rejection is sometimes part of the job. But what if there was a way to help make pitching more effective and help increase [...]
Filed under: COMMUNIQUÉ PR, Media, PR trends
Using LinkedIn Advertising to Pitch Media
Keeping abreast of PR industry strategies and tactics is important to ensure that you’re continuing to innovate and provide fresh ideas to clients. Recently I read about interesting new ways to pitch media in the article, “5 creative PR pitches that caught reporters' attention.” The post included a number of ideas but one really caught my attention: pitching via pay-per-click [...]
Filed under: COMMUNIQUÉ PR, Execution, INDUSTRY, PR trends, PUBLIC RELATIONS, Social media
The PR Balancing Act
Forbes.com posted an interesting article the other day titled, “How NOT to do public relations: An interview with Peter Shankman.” Peter is a former PR practitioner and founder of Help A Reporter Out (HARO), an online service connecting journalists with PR people. In the Q&A, Peter and contributor Jennifer Leggio discuss the relationship between PR practitioners and the media. Notes [...]
Filed under: COMMUNIQUÉ PR
28Jan
Writing the Winning Press Release
As a best practice, we like to ask our clients a set of questions before we begin writing a press release on their behalf. We consider this a Communiqué PR best practice with three significant benefits. Shared Expectations First, the process of asking these questions ensures that we are on the same page with regard to key messages, objectives and [...]
Filed under: Execution, Planning, Positioning, PR trends
Big Fish Games Unveils Mystery Case Files: Return to Ravenhearst
On Nov. 26, Big Fish Games launched Mystery Case Files: Return to Ravenhearst, the highly anticipated fifth title in the blockbuster hidden object-adventure Mystery Case Files series. The series, which started in 2005 with Mystery Case Files: Huntsville, is the number one brand in the casual games industry and has sold more than 2.5 million units to date. With a [...]
Filed under: Consumer, Our Results, Tech Industry