Chapter 4. Reaching the Wired Media for Better Coverage

Where does the editor/journalist fit into PR 2.0? Even though PR 2.0 breeds citizen journalists who have a passion for publishing their opinions on blogs and social networks, the media will always be a powerful influencer. Remember that the media triggers and feeds into today's web conversations. Today, most journalists are wired for the Internet, on the go, and ready to converse with the professionals who know their communication preferences. Whether you intend to prepare a general PR release or are responding to a specific request from a journalist for information about your company's products or services, the Internet has become a valuable two-way conduit for researching as well as disseminating information. If you focus your time and energy into gathering targeted research—especially investigating information about your brand's key media influencers—getting them interested in your communication will be easy.

When you reach out to your media influencer, you should know as much as you can about that person—whether she is singled out and communicated to as a part of a campaign, or she appears on your news release distribution list and receive announcements on a regular basis. Work hard to build relationships with journalists because the influence of the journalist's pen (or keyboard) is extremely powerful. A solid list of good media contacts might be the key to securing your next big feature story for your brand, or maybe your exceptional relationships with media contacts can land you your next job or your next big promotion. In some cases, it's your elaborate list of media contacts and your editorial portfolio that might win you a large piece of business.

You've heard the expression "It's who you know." Well, in the PR world, the same applies, and even more so. When you first begin in PR, if you are in a smaller company, you might not have outside resources to help you develop your media "House List." But, with the reach of the Internet, it's not terribly difficult to find the right contacts, whether it's a national newspaper business editor or key journalist per vertical market. PR is moving at a fast pace, so you need to keep in mind two challenges. Journalist turnover will always be an issue. If you keep up with your editors, you can follow their careers from one media venue to another. The other challenge you might face is that building a relationship with anyone takes time and a great deal of trust between both parties. The Internet can help you with both challenges, especially when it comes to finding and keeping in touch with those key influencers who help you share information. There are no excuses for not taking advantage of research 2.0—Internet style. Because the news, media commentary and coverage fuel the conversations in the blogosphere, you need to keep your influencers close. Your media outreach program should aim to build strong relationships, and, as a result, you'll secure excellent media coverage that leads to more positive conversations among your customers.

How Far You Go for the Relationship

Although the Internet makes it easier for you to find the right information, build stronger relationships, and do this in so much less time, can you ever have too much information on a journalist? Is there anything wrong with knowing everything about his or her writing style and career history? What about likes and dislikes? Should you make it your business to know about your "A" list or top-tier journalists' general hobbies and interests? What about their overall writing backgrounds? (Should you go as far back as college?) The Internet has this information. You'll come to find as you expand your media database that as long as you don't come off "stalkerish" in the eyes of your media contacts, there's no reason why you can't take full advantage of what the Internet has to offer in terms of intelligence. But you should employ the same respect and etiquette you would use in any relationship.

Anna Maria Virzi of Ziff Davis' Baseline magazine cautioned PR people who are too proficient at gathering information on the media that they need to be careful of occasional backlash. Some reporters prefer to remain private people, and they don't necessarily want the spotlight turned on them. In an interview, Lisa DiCarlo, a senior editor from Forbes.com, mentioned that she felt uncomfortable with some of the information PR people had collected on her. The details went far beyond what she thought was normal intelligence gathering. Some of the information included how she "doesn't divert her eyes from the executive to write on the notepad," which the person being interviewed felt was "an intimidation tactic." DiCarlo explained that research on what she covers and how she covers it is acceptable, but she said, "Examining the personal interviewing styles was creepy." Both Virzi's and DiCarlo's comments were shared back in 2002. You can only imagine the type of information you can obtain on journalists today if you connect with them on Facebook.com or LinkedIn.com.

In general, editors tend to build relationships with you if you work for a newsworthy company because they need your help daily with their stories and deadlines. They usually call upon you with one straightforward request. If you offer information on your own for dissemination, it is incumbent upon you to make sure the content of what you share meets the same criteria.

Give Your Influencers What They Want

Because the journalist's request is so important, let's break it down, piece by piece, to understand how to give the influencers what they want.

Give timely information. Timely information refers to something relevant about your brand. Perhaps there's a hot topic in the news that surrounds your products or services that you must address immediately. In a 2.0 world, an editor really can't wait for you to take a week to schedule an interview with a source. He or she has Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds (the whole family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated digital content), blogs, and uses different tags to find as much credible information as possible to enhance his or her story.

When called upon, you need to have your executive prepped and interviewable on a moment's notice; or you can step up to the plate and become the key company spokesperson. When there's breaking news, an interview can take place on the spot. Depending on the nature of the story, there are cases when the journalist's sense of urgency is not as immediate. Of course, the Internet plays a huge role in getting information to editors in an instant. Whether it's answering questions via e-mail or instant messaging (IM, which might not be as popular), sending digital files that can be downloaded into stories, or using File Transfer Protocol (FTP) to get graphics to media outlets, rigorous deadlines must be met.

Give accurate information. A #1 rule of thumb is you always need to make sure your information is accurate. Just as an editor has to check facts and have second sources—so do you. You and your executives need to make sure that anything said "on the record" or even "off the record" is accurate. Whether you say it, e-mail it, or IM it, the information will show up in print, or online. If it's discovered that the information is inaccurate, the black mark may stick with your brand (both the brand you represent and your own personal brand as a PR professional).

Give novel information. The media looks for information beyond what they've researched themselves. They need it to be relevant and it should enhance the story they are researching. You might have already experienced those awkward pitches when an editor says, "Okay, now tell me something I don't already know." It's human nature to feel stunned at first by this statement. Even if you felt tongue tied, hopefully you had a contingency plan. Have a backup angle and rehearsed segues ready to go, if the first angle doesn't spark immediate interest. Bull Dog Reporter's e-newsletter reminds its readers to provide substance: "The best PR people have stories I haven't read about before...If you come to me and say, 'My client has a great investing record,' I'll say, 'So what?' What I want are special insights that go beyond conventional wisdom and offer special, unique stories." However, the "so what" factor is very true. As a PR person, you're meaningless to a journalist unless you are a credible resource they can count on for new information that can be obtained only by you and/or your brand.

Give information that can help meet deadlines. It's so important that you, as the PR pro, help the editor to get everything he/she needs to complete a story. If there's one thing you should strive for in your career, it's to position yourself as a PR person who provides valuable information and someone who can get the information at a moment's notice. As a result, you will have many editors in your corner (or in your database). This follows the fundamentals of PR, which have not changed extensively since the days of Edward Bernays (the Founding Father of PR). PR is, and hopefully will always be, based on providing accurate, credible, and timely communication. For instance, you wouldn't approach the media unless your story was relevant and fit into an existing trend or was a part of an emerging story of interest.

Using the Internet is the best way to ensure the relevancy of material you share. You can tap into the Internet every day and night, if you choose. And the many resources at your fingertips—from search engines to paid software programs—enable you to uncover a tremendous amount of information.

Help Is on the Way

Many PR service providers equipped to help you are available. Look for the programs that enable you to do all your PR research at once. For example, Cision has CisionPoint and Vocus provides one-stop "research" shopping. According to the Cision executives Peter Granat and Vanessa Bugasch (who you met in Chapter 2, "Getting Started with 2.0 Research"), the new CisionPoint platform is the latest step in offering a complete research solution. "We bring together the Delahaye analytics service, the broadcast monitoring, and streaming video into the MediaSource platform, as well as our traditional print clipping and research databases," states Granat. Bugasch explains, "When you think about integration, let's say you're looking at the journalist profile you're going to pitch, and you're looking at their pitching tips and how they like to be contacted. Then you can see what coverage they've actually written about your company or your industry into those clips." Then you're able to evaluate, "Are they writing a positive story about me or a negative story about our organization?" before you even contact them. CisionPoint integrates the clippings, the evaluations, and the journalist database all in one.

The Human Element Gives You an Edge

Companies such as Cision and Vocus, and many of the other service providers, have done their homework. These organizations know what resources you require to help you find detailed media information, with platforms that are simple to navigate. But, there's one fine point you need to remember as you use PR 2.0 strategies to gather your intelligence and communicate with journalists: Nothing can ever take the place of human interaction. The Web certainly gets us the closest to face-to-face real time communication. But PR is about people and personal relationships. The human voice and meeting in person, when the situation presents itself, is still the best way to take a relationship to the next level. So, no matter how sophisticated the technology, keep in mind the human element is always the cornerstone of a relationship.

Vocus has a sophisticated core product—a media database with approximately 300,000 U.S. media contacts, or about 400,000 contacts if you include international media. The Vocus program provides more than just simple media profiling and list generation. It's amazing the type of information and reports you can compile. The program provides you with a full cycle of PR research from media profiling through distribution. The interface is friendly and organized so that you can work through your entire process, from idea to polished information you intend to share. It's the type of program that could be open on your desktop all day, an integrated solution that includes news searches, opportunities database with editorial calendars, awards and speaking opportunities, media contact profiling and list building, distribution, and then analytical reports that monitor your brand (such as, was your brand mentioned in the headline and how many times was the brand name mentioned in the article?).

You should look for certain important details in media intelligence resources. Look for a source that includes a good journalist's profile, one that includes a contact schedule (when is the best time to reach this person), and any previous story written so that you're given a sense or flavor of the person's writing style.

One more very pertinent PR 2.0 question that you should keep in mind: Are journalists with blogs included in the database? In other words, are these blogs listed in media profiles or are they a part of the database as a media channel?

Vocus is keeping a close eye on the blog space. Social media is also incorporated into their programs. According to Kye Strance, a Vocus sales representative, "The newsgroups surfaced in 1998 and it was difficult to keep track of them. We managed to figure out what were the most influential. Blogs are a whole different medium. Bloggers are more prominent. Because there are so many of them, Vocus tracks the top bloggers. Currently, there are several thousand of them. Vocus includes the top bloggers in its database for PR people to access and pitch accordingly."

Another great feature to look for in an intelligence-gathering resource is the use of technology to upload and distribute news releases and media alerts to your media outlets (media lists that you've created yourself). With the click of a button, you should be able to blast out to your own list in a flurry of e-mails. Then, with another click you should be able to check off a box that automatically enables you to reach the journalist the way they've requested you reach them. Vocus enables you to accomplish the former and the latter, and also gives you the option to distribute through PR Newswire. (Vocus takes care of the PR Newswire charges upfront and bills you an invoice later.)

You should be aware that not every editor accepts HTML e-mail. However, when you send out your e-mail to a media outlet, it's the computer servers that determine whether the e-mail recipient needs to receive the e-mail correspondence in plain text or in HTML. From intelligence gathering through distribution and analytics, 2.0 resources provide smart technology so you can act smarter and perform the research a lot faster for your brand.

Resources for Relationships and Better Coverage

You can also rely on paid resources for editorial calendars and services that join the media person with the company executive. As a PR expert, you know the value of the editorial calendar. However, you also know that if you have to go online to retrieve an editorial calendar or call each outlet that you want to pitch to request one, this takes a great deal of time. One PR researcher or assistant could take days, even weeks to gather all this information by hand.

PR Newswire's EdCals is a searchable database that makes editorial calendar research easy and streamlines your efforts. The EdCals database has approximately 100,000 U.S. editorial opportunities. The service enables you to find out what editors and reporters from trade and consumer publications are writing about. You can also find information on lead times, issue dates and, of course, editorial contact information. Similar to other PR resources, you can search by name of the media outlet, subject, geographic location, copy deadline date, all in an effort to find the best opportunity for your brand. Because editorial calendars offer story opportunities for the entire year, EdCals has an export function to transfer the information into an Excel spreadsheet for archiving and future use. Editorial calendars give you story opportunities for the entire year.

Another Internet-based service that offers value to PR pros is PR Newswire's ProfNet. It's a quick and easy service that enables you to connect your company's experts with journalists who want to interview them. ProfNet has more than 100 reporters using the service daily. As a PR professional using the service, you're able to respond to inquiries from journalists each day. The editor inquiries are grouped by category and sent to your e-mail inbox, with a deadline for response. Lead times can be as long as a couple weeks, or as short as 24 to 48 hours. Services such as ProfNet are great because they save you time in the pitching process. By signing up your brand expert, you cut out one of the tougher steps, that introductory telephone call to the journalist, and tap right into what could be a very appropriate opportunity for your brand. Using these types of research strategies is quicker and can be more effective; however, you always need to remember that straight pitching and picking up the phone has, for years, been the key to a strong relationship with the media. There has to be a fine balance of both the traditional "pick up the phone and check-in strategy" fused with the sophisticated research tools of today.

Journalists with Individual Preferences Want News

You've heard about the tools and best practices from the PR person's point of view. It's also important to hear straight from journalists how they want to receive information (both from Internet services and directly from the PR person). You might agree that journalists, in general, prefer e-mail; well, that's no surprise. They also appreciate when you use e-mail to provide them with direct links to related information in an online newsroom because they like to access digital content and high-resolution images for their stories.

Journalists will tell you how they don't like to receive attachments. It's an unspoken rule to alert a journalist that an important attachment is on the way. Many journalists prefer information in the body of the correspondence, even if it's a news release (for fear of opening up an attachment with a virus). They especially appreciate if the news release has several interactive features within—whether it's audio, video, informational links, and the like—so it's easier for them to collect information on a topic of interest. However, there are so many different resources and ways to reach out to the media that it's critical to ask, "How do you want to be contacted and what type of resources are you looking for?"

You might expect all journalists these days to say they are using social media, blogs, and RSS technology for information. However, it's important to note that most journalists rely on a knowledgeable PR professional to help complete their stories with novel, timely, and accurate information.

Andy Teng is the editor of HRO Today, a national trade publication written for senior business leaders and decision makers who recommend and buy HR outsourcing services for their corporate and public sector organizations. Teng says, "My publication relies on PR directly from the companies in our space because it's such a specialized industry. In addition, we receive e-mail alerts from Business wWire as well as alerts from Web sites and organizations involved with HRO." He spends an awful lot of time these days on the Internet because many companies post information that sometimes even the internal PR person isn't aware of, or can't recall quickly.

For Teng, often the fastest way to gain information is through verified Internet sources. Teng finds online newsrooms helpful and noted that "up-to-date information is usually an indicator of a good source. Many companies often let their sites go stale because they don't think it's important to have constantly updated content. While it might be a budgetary constraint, it also shows a lack of polish for that company. Good marketers reflect their savvy with very dynamic sites."

His preferred way to hear from PR professionals is, "A phone call first, followed by details in an e-mail is best. An e-mail out of the blue usually gets ignored unless we have a relationship with that PR person. Also, a call first usually determines if the PR person needs to pursue the publication any further." To date, Teng said that HRO did not have a blog and in his opinion he feels they are "way overrated and few people seem to be able to commercialize them successfully." Teng said he doesn't use IM for professional purposes, and probably would not share his IM with anyone he's not familiar with.

Teng discussed what makes a PR person a valuable resource. "They must work in my space, work with well-recognized companies that we cover, and understand the relevance of their pitch to the industry I cover. Often they don't and hope to win coverage with out-of-the-blue e-mails or telephone calls, a strategy that simply is a waste of their time and mine. They really should spend some time on our Web site and try to figure out if their client is relevant to our scope of coverage."

Teng says that while the Internet has facilitated some very strong relationships between the journalist and the PR person, in some cases it enables the editor or reporter to make an end run around the PR person. It works both ways for Teng. If the information is online, he can often save time by cutting the PR person out of the loop. On the other hand, by making the PR person prominent on the site, he at times finds it easier to call the PR contact instead of digging through scores of Web pages for the information he's seeking.

Kate Coe is a blogger for "FishbowlLA," hosted at www.mediabistro.com. Coe has written for the London Sunday Times, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Journal of Folklore Research, and My Weekly Reader. In addition to blogging at mediabistro.com's "FishbowlLA," she is a TV screenwriter and producer whose claims to fame include working with Audrey Hepburn, winning a Peabody, and being canned by "E!" for sticking her nose into other people's business. Coe's insight on how the media wants to work with PR professionals comes from both a TV producer's and a blogger's point of view. As a TV producer, Coe relies on reviewing news sites, some blogs, and some RSS. She does not use podcasts or video online because, "I don't have time." As a blogger, Coe relies heavily on RSS, news sites, and other blogs. As far as the manner in which Coe wants to be contacted by a PR person, she prefers e-mails, and she says, "Then, if I reach out to you, call me back. I'm astounded at how few PR people return calls." She insists, "E-mail, e-mail, and e-mail. Don't ever call me unless I ask you to." She says, "I don't want to be pitched on IM because I don't archive those messages. Once an IM is gone, it's gone for good. I like IM for quick answers to questions, casual exchange, or maybe breaking something that's happening right that second." For Coe, the most valuable PR people are the ones who know their subject matter, have answers easily available, and who don't "dance around."

As a TV producer, Coe spends a tremendous amount of time on the Internet if she's not on deadline. She looks at Lexis Nexis, and various news sites, depending on the story. She stated, "For a show on video games, I spent a lot of time at fan sites. Wikipedia is NOT a source. It's useful for blogging but I won't accept it as a real source. I don't know any journalist who does." When she assumes her blogger role, she doesn't spend a terribly large amount of time on the Internet. She Googles for another story she can link to. Coe feels that Technorati gives her a lot of MySpace pages, and that's not helpful to her. She said, "I think that technology can make the PR person a better resource—especially if they have images or video I can download. But, often the PR person just doesn't have the technical savvy to know what really works—the specs, how long it'll take to download, and how big the jpeg is. Most PR people know a lot about words, but nothing about images. They just don't know. They'll pitch me an interview with their client or expert but they don't have useable B-roll footage to go with it, or they don't have a way for me to shoot some footage. This is really, really, a pain." She says, "If you want me to post, make sure I've got an image I can use. Invite me to your event and make sure I can get photos the next morning—with IDs."

Another journalist, Paul Grzella, managing editor of the news at Courier News, handles what his news organization refers to as the "In-Paper" products that are published by the newspaper in print and then distributed. Grzella gets a great deal of his information from his readers and businesses who send direct inquiries and who also publish their own news releases and photos into the newspaper's calendar section. "My editors also rely a great deal on e-mail and telephone interviews. Of course, we all still want to have face-to-face with contacts, if our schedule permits," stated Grzella. The Courier News also subscribes to the Associated Press (AP) and the Gannett News Service. Editors at the newspaper are also tapped into Lexis Nexis and frequently use Google searches for information. As for his contact with PR people, Grzella says, "Six months ago the phone was my most relied-upon communications vehicle, but now I'd say it's e-mail. E-mail is so much easier."

His paper is using some of the new media techniques. For instance, his sports editors now have blogs, and the newspaper intends to add more in the future. "The reporters with blogs are getting great story ideas from PR people. But, there's really no hard-core pitching going on," he said. Journalists at the Courier News are not interacting on IM with PR professionals. Every reporter's e-mail address is provided in the articles published in the newspaper or on the Internet, which cuts down on the need to use IM as a communication vehicle. Grzella feels that PR people who "understand the nature of the paper's mission, are direct and strategic, and the ones who really do their homework, are the professionals that are the most valued." Grzella stressed the importance of understanding his newspaper's mission, which is intensely local. He doesn't want his journalists writing about national stories unless it's somehow related directly to the local community. Local is his news service's corporate mission, and any PR person pitching should know this.

Last, Grzella says that although many of his reporters cover local stories and still have the time to knock on doors (now that's the ultimate in face-to-face relationship building), any story with a sense of urgency can get done quickly by using the tools in a company's newsroom. In some cases, he says, journalists rely less on the PR person because the Internet enables you to check it out yourself. However, journalists always want to know that there is a knowledgeable person who's there to help get the story completed.

In summary, it's important to keep the following key points in mind as you forge through PR 2.0 with respect to your wired key influencers:

• Develop a solid database of media contacts that will lead to tremendous opportunities in your career and for the brands you represent.
• Gather as much information as possible on the journalists you target; just know when to draw the line so that you don't invade anyone's privacy.
• Understand that journalists want to work with PR people who can provide them with timely, accurate, and novel information for their stories so that they can reach their deadlines.
• Invest in research tools when you have the resources and take full advantage of the integrated service platforms that enable you to bundle your PR tasks easily and quickly.
• Find out what journalists expect from you and how they want to be contacted. Each individual journalist might have a PR 2.0 preference, whether it's communication through e-mail, IM, or blogs.