Like Sex, Media Relations Requires You to Pay Attention to your Partner

Whether you’re eyeing someone for the first time, or hungrily checking out your partner of 20 years, if you’re not attuned to that person’s moods, likes and dislikes, you probably aren’t going to get any action tonight.

The same is true of pitching news to the media.

Just ask Richard Edelman, whose international agency offers expert services in that field. (No, not that field!)

Based on research and his observations of how the business media is changing the way it delivers news and structures its news teams, Edelman suggests these four changes for public relations in the increasing online media world:

1. [We] have to provide a multi-media press release that can be repurposed across platforms. It is now assumed that digitized video and photos are attached, to help tell the story. Links to third party expert sites are also helpful.
2. [Speed] matters more than ever. Spokespeople must be ready to comment immediately to assure equal treatment of a company. We have always been vigilant about accuracy of articles by wire service reporters because they have been the on-ramp for stories in accountability media. Now the same must apply to the accountability media who are filing in Internet time for the on-line versions.
3. [A] story is never over. In fact, there is now a greater likelihood of a negative story gaining traction. It will likely be repurposed across platform and could well move from an industry specific outlet to a mainstream media aggregator such as Forbes.com then into other mainstream media. A company in crisis needs to move faster to acknowledge the problem, set a context for curing the problem, then follow up relentlessly to assure that stakeholders are aware of improvements. The Taco Bell situation is indicative of the new expectation.
4. [We] will need to offer more than hard news because reporters will have to sell feature concepts to their editors to earn space in the paper editions. This will mean that our people will have to be better informed about the industries, not simply the company or the product, to pitch effectively.

By sheer coincidence, Edelman PR now offers a multi-media news release tool, based on the emerging social media news release standard being developed by a loose group of innovators in the public relations industry.

Think these trends don’t apply to the media you deal with? Have you taken a close look lately? Chances are the journalists and owners are under a lot of pressure to respond to trends that are threatening traditional media. Or maybe the partners you should be approaching aren’t traditional media at all.

If you haven’t already, it’s time to spend some time studying what media outlets now reach your target audience, and how they’re changing the way they serve up information.

Ignore this research at your own peril. People may think someone “gets lucky” when they score a wild night of sex, or a front page article in an influential publication, but luck rarely has anything to do with it.

Photo: Kiss, by Pedrosimoes7

Tags: edelman, media, pr, public relations, smnr, social media, trends