Chapter 13. The Mindset of the PR 2.0 Journalist

What do you need to keep in mind in your PR 2.0 interactions with journalists? First and foremost, even if your journalists are engaged in 2.0 and social media (personally or professionally), that doesn't necessarily mean 2.0 takes precedence over all the tried and true PR rules of communication. Why? Because journalists, regardless of a level of technological acceptance or a desire to engage in social media, still expect and require a few very important characteristics from their trusted PR sources. Exhibiting the desired characteristics, on a regular basis, is the difference between the average to good PR resource and the great PR source. Social media applications (wikis, blogging, social networking, streaming video, RSS, podcasts, and so on) are for the most part used as communication resources that serve to enhance the communication or interaction with your contacts.

How to Reach PR Greatness

You learn from the journalists in this chapter, through their candid commentary and advice, that they have a clear expectation of their PR professionals, and these expectations relate directly to the field of Public Relations and the "traditional" PR communication practices, It's your ability to deliver excellent information that's timely, credible, accurate, and above and beyond what journalists can ultimately uncover on their own. For the journalist, this defines the PR person's value. Some journalists go as far as saying they would forego the fancy social media interactions just to obtain the best, relevant information and a deeper level of understanding on a particular topic of interest.

Journalists want and appreciate interactions with PR pros who are (1) tapped into their needs, (2) understand their publication's audiences and industry trends, and (3) offer precise information that is targeted and suitable for their stories/interests. That's so much more valuable than your ability to deliver a "cool" social media interaction. If you don't understand the journalist's intended audience and interests, you clearly are not following the natural and "traditional" rules of PR in your communication with influencers.

You're still building relationships and these rules, for decades, have built the strongest relationships. The intimate relationship that you develop provides the best transfer of information, in the timeliest fashion. (Of course, I still believe the most intimate communication is face-to-face, but you can't always achieve this easily.)

Social media or not...today's journalists and the journalists of the future will always be focused on your knowledge, ability to deliver credible information, and overall responsiveness (which could be at a moment's notice).

Although you should familiarize yourself and be ready for social media interactions (perhaps that includes providing journalists with a social media release or an interactive newsroom), beware of communication with them exclusively through a social networking site—Time magazine reporter Jeremy Caplan addresses this in an interview at the end of this chapter. A journalist always lets you know the best way to reach, interest, and keep your brand top of mind.

Advice from the Influencers

Similar to the shared stories of the PR 2.0 pros and gurus, every media person has a story to share and advice to give a communications professional on the best way to reach a media outlet and what will pique interest. Feedback about new media strategies and how they want to be engaged from several members of the media follows.

Anne Holland—Publisher of MarketingSherpa.com

Anne Holland is the President and Publisher of MarketingSherpa, Inc., a research firm that publishes Benchmark Guides, Buyer's Guides, and "How To" Reports for advertising, marketing, and public relations professionals. Holland is a 20-year veteran in the publishing industry and a well-respected figure in the digital marketing arena. She has been quoted by The New York Times, Business 2.0, CBS MarketWatch, and Fast Company on numerous occasions and offers you some good advice and a better understanding of how the media thinks and builds winning stories from her point-of-view.

When it comes to the best Web 2.0 and social media, Holland says that journalists tend to trust third-party sources, beyond the company voice tools, which make the best resources for stories. This includes finding external bloggers and podcasters who mention your brand and/or interview your executives. "For certain beats, such as technology reporting, journalists are more likely to read blogs other than just a company's," explained Holland.

Holland knows that journalists look to the newswires that feed into Google News, Yahoo! News, and the like, which is more of a tool to reach your end audience as opposed to the journalist world. "Journalists are not eager to troll news releases anymore because they know that these are being disseminated directly to consumers now," she said. Holland pointed out that as a result, journalists look in obscure places, including blogs, message boards, e-mail discussion groups, and podcasts. She feels that they are poking into the corners of the Web that their readers haven't discovered yet, and this is the same place your messages need to be. "If a possible source posts news releases much more frequently than other individuals—there's one company I know who has posted a release every day for the past 60 days—then it does raise your profile in my mind because every single morning when I check my e-mail feed from the wires, your name is always there!"

Holland spends a great deal of time on the Internet. She naturally checks out her MarketingSherpa blog and the bloggers who mention or hotlink to the site. However, she doesn't spend a lot of time in forums. She's a member of several intimate (300 members or less) industry e-mail discussion groups for key beats her publication covers. She often scans the e-mails she gets looking for story ideas. "If a topic comes up there, I might assign a reporter to it. It's more of a topic idea generator, not a lets-write-about-this-company thing. If I ever thought someone was trying to fake me out by posting queries to catch journalists' attention, I'd probably 'out' that person to the forum administration and get them kicked off. It's very bad form if it's not a genuine post."

Holland rarely reads a company blog from a vendor in the field. She's more likely to sign up for e-mail from a brand (no reporters she knows sign up for the blog RSS feed). Holland said that it's not useful because you can't forward anything to colleagues. If you have a really great blog and you offer an e-mail feed, she might sign up for it and read it, and maybe consider you as a potential good story source. In all cases, it has to be genuine—something you'd write even if you didn't know she was reading it. "It's got to have behind-the-scenes insight or unknown factoids I won't find someplace else. If it's how-great-we-are crud, I will stop reading it," she mentioned.

In Holland's opinion, PR pitching strategies have changed over the years. For her, it's still about personal relationships. If you get back to her with useful "stuff," if you answer the phone when she's on deadline, if you're intelligent and conspicuously make her job easier, then Holland will, in turn, help you out too. If you send her ill-fitting pitches on a regular basis, she'll eventually start ignoring all your e-mails. In fact, Holland said that if you offer it, you must be willing to respond to it. If this is the case, you can even reach out through IM. However, never, ever, ever IM a journalist out of the blue. If they IM you, of course, respond; but Holland suggests that you shouldn't use this as an invitation to start hitting journalists with IM pitches. "That can be more annoying than the phone. Especially, reporters on tight deadlines will want to hunt you down and kill you if you interrupt their train of thought with an unrelated pitch," she warned.

Holland believes that the PR person is a valuable resource to the journalist. In fact, if she needs a source and reaches out to a PR pro for an interview and that person gets back to her in a super-timely fashion, then that's valuable. When the PR person is there and ready to react when Holland "cries" for help (although she said she doesn't do that often), that too is extremely valuable. Holland realizes that technology certainly helps the relationship along. "Now, I can sign up to be e-mailed news from you. I can surf the Web and see what your customers say about you. I can surf the 'way back' machine and pick up past stories and quotes your CEO would prefer stay hidden," she said.

Holland, like many journalists, realizes the value of the PR professionals is their quick, responsive nature, knowledge of their brands, and valuable/credible information to complete their stories. Regardless of social media or 'plain old traditional PR,' this is the natural expectation of the journalist in any good relationship.

Jeffrey Chu—Business Senior Editor, Fast Company

Jeffrey Chu, senior editor at Fast Company, is no different from the many editors out there who long to interact with great PR people. Chu has been writing for many years and now, as a business senior editor for Fast Company, he shared his checklist of do's and don'ts for the PR 2.0 communicator. In his opinion, despite social media the pitches are still mediocre.

At the time of the interview, Chu was fairly new to Fast Company. He believes that the use of social media tools is a preference and it really depends on what you're looking for when you're developing a story. Social networking Web sites are useful for finding sources, and he mentioned that blogs, in some cases, are useful for story subjects. But, the rest of the "newfangled technologies," as he called them, often contribute more to the clutter than anything else. Chu is not a blogger and he rarely spends time in forums unless he is searching for information on a particular subject. He does, however, use Facebook as his primary social networking site and he also has a Friendster (www.friendster.com) page.

Chu said that he really hasn't seen any novel PR pitches through social media tools. E-mail is the main source of the pitches he receives. On the whole, he feels that PR pitching is "garbled and/or littered with errors and/or just not that professional." I agree with Chu's frustration. Communications professionals should not allow themselves to get lost in the "looseness" of the Internet. Good communication skills shouldn't stop in 2.0. They should get only better.

The interactions with journalists that I first experienced and learned from my own mentor were never left to just "spell check" on a computer. These communications were well-thought out and reviewed even when there was a crisis or the severest time crunch. In fact, there was no spell check when I was starting out. At the time, the only tools we had were our own "eagle eyes," as the Vice President of Padilla, Spear, Burdick & Beardsley, Andrew Edson, used to say. We would read something once, maybe even twice for flow and grammar, and then read it backward to make sure that all the words were spelled correctly. Do you know anyone who does this today? Not many communicators take the time, especially online. It's very important that your communication, no matter how creative you are or want to be, doesn't lose momentum (or credibility) if the Internet makes you fall into a lazy frame of mind.

Chu had some strong opinions about blogging and the PR pitch. For him, blogs are not the right forum for the PR professional to use to pitch to a journalist. "It seems a poor use for a blog. I wouldn't take such a pitch too seriously. If the PR person wants to pitch me, the best thing he or she can do is to find out more about me and my publication and my interests, and target the pitch in a very obviously informed way. That's the problem with so many pitches: we're obviously just names in a database," explained Chu.

Chu thinks that the most valuable PR person is the professional who has a real understanding of his publication's focus, as well as a willingness to discuss ideas at length. Unfortunately, he can count on his two hands the number of PR people he's come in contact with who he feels are good and meet these expectations.

Chu doesn't really concern himself with how much knowledge the PR person has if he's receiving a social media release. That's not what brings him the best story. Chu feels that PR professionals should spend their time understanding journalists and the field of journalism first. "The social media elements are just bells and whistles, but until you understand how to deliver a compelling message, regardless of media, that's irrelevant," he said.

Chu says, "I think technology has made PR people complacent. I get a ton of lame e-mailed pitches, often addressed to the wrong person or the wrong company. There's much less of a face-to-face relationship." Chu values most of those PR people who contact him first to have coffee and to understand what he's trying to do with his content. Once the conversation is started, it can flow from there. The key to great PR 2.0 is always to establish a relationship. Nothing has changed. In this day and age of advanced technology and increased bandwidth and applications, PR pros should not forget to pick up the phone.

Yes, social media can be very personal and it's all about conversation. Perhaps there's a line that needs to be drawn between your interaction with journalists through social media tools (such as social networking and blogging) and your professional services. In an interview with Jeremy Caplan, Business, Technology and Social Issues Reporter TIME magazine, he offered PR professionals a best practices approach to the journalist and social media.

Q&A with a Top-Tier Journalist

Q: What do you think are the best social media tools for journalists, whether it's RSS, blogs, podcasting, or social networking, which help you to develop your stories?

A: I basically use a tool in each different area, and I find that it's helpful to rely on as few tools as possible. Getting overwhelmed with all the available resources online is very easy. The best approach for me is trying out several and then figuring out the single most efficient/effective tool and just learning to master that particular tool.

For instance, there are numerous RSS readers. I've tried a few and found that Google reader is the most efficient. It enables you to access RSS feeds or blogs from wherever you happen to be as long as you have Internet access. For instance, if I'm on the road or if I stop at an airport, I can read whatever blogs I'm interested in reading at that particular time. Basically, Google provides an easy way to keep track of however many blogs you follow, whether it's ten blogs or a hundred or as many as several hundred. In addition to reading a blog, it enables you to categorize it and save or file it for future reference, or forward a blog entry to someone else. Google reader is searchable so that you can always access that content later, and it's a terrific tool for managing the huge amount of information that most journalists and PR professionals digest everyday.

Another tool that I find particularly useful for digesting podcasts is iTunes (www.apple.com/itunes), which is free software from Apple. You can use iTunes on either a PC or Mac and, basically, it enables you to subscribe to podcasts on just about any subject under the sun. A few that I particularly enjoy listening to and find useful are: Meet the Press, On the Media, This American Life, and a variety of shows from National Public Radio (NPR), one of which is Story of the Day. These are examples of podcasts that come out regularly—in most cases, once a week—but in some cases daily. You can listen to them wherever you are and they're all free! It's a great way to keep abreast of the news when you're not in a place where you can read.

In terms of social networking sites, I find LinkedIn to be fairly useful. I use it to connect with other journalists. I also use it to refer people to others who might be in need of help with something, perhaps with a project. I also use it to refer colleagues, or maybe for people who are looking for a job. I've also used LinkedIn to find sources for stories. In some cases journalists prefer to go around PR people. They can go directly to the people who work at a particular company or who have worked there in the past. I'll use my LinkedIn network to find sources who have experience in a particular industry, or who might have worked at a particular company that I'm writing about at some point in their career. I would easily be able to find this type of information noted in their LinkedIn profile.

Only in rare instances would I refer a journalist colleague to a PR professional who was profiled on LinkedIn. If I knew someone was writing about a particular subject and there was a PR person who I trusted and whom I thought would be helpful for the journalist and vice versa, I might make that referral. I have to say though, in general, I am wary of connecting with PR people in unfamiliar networks for a number of reasons. First of all, as a journalist you want to remain impartial. You don't necessarily want to connect in what could be perceived as a social way with a PR person; you want to keep some distance.

Second, you might not want to create the expectation that you're going to be available for a PR person's regular contact. Because, depending on the person, they might abuse that opportunity to be in touch too regularly. Third, I try to limit the number of people in my network to just those individuals that I'm in contact with regularly. There just aren't too many PR people who I'm in regular contact with. On the other hand, a PR person who makes effective use of LinkedIn, by connecting to people in a variety of industries, might be able to offer a resource that's of value to journalists. They can act as connectors that serve a useful purpose—but only if the journalist asks for that connection.

With respect to user-generated video, I cannot say that it's terribly useful in terms of regular research and reporting. On occasion it is, and I'll use a tool like Digg Video (a community-based popularity Web site with an emphasis on technology). But, that tends not to be something that's really a part of the reporting process. I just haven't found video of that sort to be useful in the past. There have been a couple occasions where video has been of interest to me—for instance, illustrating product usage. I've seen a couple videos where a PR person demonstrated how a consumer could use a technology service or product. Seeing the product in action and a quick demonstration of a real-life scenario was an interesting way to learn about a product that was efficient, in comparison to reading a couple pages of dense text. Seeing a short video of the product in use—a real-life scenario—helped bring it to life. That's a case where it was useful. But, in general, I don't find that there's a lot of value added to see a video produced about something that can be explained briefly in text. Unless it's something that you really need to see to understand, I think those cases are probably not as common as some might think.

Another consideration with video, it takes time. That's really one of the biggest issues for me. If you have ten minutes between meetings to find something that you're thinking about and want to dig into further, you probably don't want to spend eight of those ten minutes trying to load up a video. You have to see if you have the right software, see if it's relevant, and then it takes two minutes to load and then, in turn, the video isn't really that relevant or useful. For me, it would be most efficient, in many cases, to read a quick paragraph summarizing things.

Q: Do you feel that readers on Time.com are engaging in social media on your site (RSS, blogging, podcasts)?

A: It's a work in progress for us. The Time.com editors are continually looking for more ways to engage readers. Invite them into the conversation. Readers can comment on the Time.com blogs and there are many Time.com blogs on various subjects from technology to politics. Readers can participate in dialogue on the site. We're looking forward to finding more ways to get them engaged and involved. We're constantly working on the best way to do that.

Q: About how much time do you spend on the Internet blogging or checking out forums and gathering information?

A: As a journalist, I spend a tremendous amount of time online gathering information and reporting. I don't spend too much time blogging, but that might change in the future because I find it's a nice format for journalism in the sense that it's flexible in terms of length. In a story in a magazine you often have to fit into a particular predetermined length, which might be a page, two pages, or five pages. It has to fit your text, the images, and the particular framework. However, in a blog you can write just a few lines, or you can write several paragraphs depending on the length and the chosen topic. I like the flexibility of blogging and I plan to do more of it in the future. Blogging enables you to add things like pictures or video, kind of on the fly. If you're reporting somewhere, and you happen to quickly want to post, it enables you to do it in a really easy way.

With respect to spending time online, for journalists, obviously the Internet has radically changed the nature of how we do our jobs. The bulk of what we are doing is gathering information, and doing that with a resource like the Internet is often a thousand times more efficient than trying to do that with old-fashioned books.

When it comes to blogs and the PR pitch, I would suggest the PR person develop a dialogue outside the context of a journalist's blog. I think the blog is really the medium for the journalists to communicate with readers, rather than to field PR pitches. I would say that a better way of communicating would be to e-mail separately and then reference a blog post, if it's relevant.

Q: Have you seen any interesting pitches using social media that have come across your desk?

A: The video product pitch I mentioned earlier, I found interesting. In this one case, it happened to be particularly useful as it successfully demonstrated how the product would work in real life and showed creatively what the product could do, and why it would be useful. I find that many pitches offer a piece of information; for instance, this is a new product we have, this is a new service that's coming out, and here's how we're launching our campaign. What they often leave out is the significance of why the product is important, why a reader should care, and what benefits it has for consumers.

However, most of the pitches I get now are by e-mail. I'd say the most effective ones are very brief and lay out three things. The first is that the information is very clear, simple, and straightforward. The second most important factor is to identify why the product or service is significant now, or what's happening now that's different. Last, it's important to spell out why the new product/service is relevant to TIME magazine's audiences.

I get a lot of pitches about local events that might be of great interest to a small number of people in a particular area, but might not be appropriate to the national audience of TIME. It's particularly helpful when the PR person has thought about what TIME is, what we've done in the past, and why our readers would be particularly interested in the subject. Those three things are really helpful in PR pitches, in any format, but particularly by e-mail.

Q: How do you feel about the use and value of the social media release?

A: I see the social media release as a second step. I think the first step is to receive the 'what and the why' e-mail. What is the service, why is it relevant, what's the context, what's the benefit, why would I be interested, and how is it relevant to what I've done or what I might be working on at the time? If there's a huge amount of information and videos, audio files, and pictures, which appear to be cumbersome, then what this whole thing is about is not clear to me. I'm not going to want to take the time to dig into all the information provided.

On the other hand, if a journalist is interested in a subject and they've already expressed an initial interest or curiosity about that subject, or a journalist makes it clear that it's relevant to something they're working on, then, yes, I think it could be a useful set of resources. But I haven't really come into contact with that as of yet.

Q: How do you feel the advancement of technology has changed the relationship between the PR person and the journalist? Do you think technology has made it weaker or stronger?

A: It certainly made it easier for PR people to get in touch with journalists and to get more of their pitches read even though journalists get an overwhelming amount of e-mail every day. Journalists tend to read the pitches because they want to make sure they are not missing anything important. I think technology has made it easier for PR people to get their information in front of journalists.

On the other hand, it has also made it increasingly difficult to capture the attention of a journalist, as I mentioned before, who is overwhelmed with information and e-mail. It's even more important for PR people to learn the art of being concise, and that's something that I find is lacking most often. I get a huge number of news releases or PR people contacting me in writing. They send numerous paragraphs of information, which most of the time isn't really necessary. E-mail might have made it easier for people to be in touch, but it's definitely harder to maintain the attention.

I think the e-mail subject line is worth addressing. The subject line is a very important way to capture someone's attention and is also a quick way to lose their attention too, if it's clearly not relevant, or if it hasn't been targeted to the person appropriately. If the subject line doesn't grab my attention, why would I bother reading the e-mail?

Just one other tip while we're on the point about e-mail and technology. I often get e-mails with huge attachments and all kinds of extraneous materials. Unfortunately, some media outlets are still using systems that are unable to digest all the attachments and additional information that PR people send. I would say that, unless PR people are absolutely certain that the journalists on the receiving end can digest whatever attachment they're sending, they should just keep it plain and simple. If it's a jpeg, then most e-mail software will identify it as a jpeg. That's not so much a problem, but sometimes if it's a high-resolution image, unsolicited, that will clog the system. Today, there's less of a problem worrying about viruses, and more of a problem with the size of the files.

Q: Is there any advice you'd like to offer PR professionals as they continue to use new media to build relationships?

A: One tip I would offer the PR pro is to have a simple way for a journalist to contact you, whenever it's convenient for them. One method I've experimented with, and I would recommend, is a service Grand Central. Grand Central basically gives you a universal contact number. It enables people who have seven different phone numbers, three different e-mails, and two different fax numbers to be contacted through one telephone number. For a journalist, having many numbers for a single PR person gets unmanageable. A universal number automatically forwards to whatever number you happened to be at so that you avoid the problem of missed connections. For journalists, time is particularly precious; I'm sure for PR people as well. Right now the Grand Central services are free, so it's a good tool to try to keep everyone connected when time is of the essence.

Another tip: It's easy for a PR person to find out what someone has written about, his/her interests, and background information. This intelligence should be used to tailor a pitch appropriately and to show that you have some understanding of what is of interest to that person based on what they've done in the past. Even if it just means spending a couple minutes acquainting yourself with a person's body of work, it's probably a good idea to take advantage of that. It lets people know that you've taken the time to see what they do.

The cost benefit equation comes into play. It might not be worth it every time you send a pitch, to spend hours at the library finding someone's articles. But, with the Internet, if you can do it in a minute or two, which you can often do, it might be worthwhile. However, there is a line not to cross as it's important to reference only strictly professional information that you find. I've had occasions where someone will find something out or look for something that might not be relevant to the professional context of the communication. I would say it's probably better to stick to finding out what the person has written about rather than where they spend their summer vacations. We all know that information is out there about us. In the same way that you wouldn't mention personal matters in a professional meeting, it's inappropriate online to do the same.

This is actually one of the dangers of social networks online like Facebook and MySpace, which can be useful for finding information or networking. But, this is a place where the lines between professional and personal can be blurred. I know a PR person who recently posted a button that said they support a particular politician in an election. For some people that's fine and they are comfortable with including this type of information in a personal profile. Mixing political and personal life with professional life is a personal choice.

However, it's worth thinking about how that might impact your professional communications with people if that doesn't suit them, or if it's in conflict with them in some way. It's tricky because people have online identities in the social networks they use in their off hours. They are communicating with their friends and there's nothing wrong with that necessarily, but if they're using that social networking for professional purposes the lines can become blurred.

PR 2.0 Means Great PR

If you are not providing the media with the knowledge and expertise to help them reach their deadlines, there isn't a social media application available that will help you to get their attention. You should use social media tools to reach the influencers once you've proven that you understand what it is they are trying to accomplish and what their audiences want from them. Then, these new media interactions will enhance their stories or your brand in their eyes. It always has to make sense and, above all, it must be a useful interaction. Your journalists require great PR. Nothing has changed; this goes back to the early days of Edward Bernays.

Back in 2000, I interviewed Frazier Seitel. Seitel is a well-known PR counselor and the man who practically wrote the book on PR, the author of The Practice of Public Relations. He said that we were returning to the Golden Age of PR. According to Seitel, PR professionals can be much more focused on strategy because the Internet enables them to be less of the "paper pushers" and more of the strategic thinkers who counsel C-level executives. And, now we have enthusiasm and excitement about PR 2.0. There is a reason to be excited because just like other eras in PR, 2.0 is meant to get PR people practicing great PR. It's always been about great PR (and always will be). You need to keep the following in mind:

• Journalists, regardless of a level of technological acceptance or a desire to engage in social media, still expect and require a few very important characteristics, including your ability to deliver excellent information that's timely, credible, and accurate.
• Some journalists would forego the fancy social media interactions just to obtain the best, most relevant information and a deeper level of understanding from their trusted PR sources.
• Your use of social media tools with the media should also be used to augment their ability to obtain the information that's critical to their deadlines.
• Today's savvy PR 2.0 professional knows the type of communication to use in a media outreach program. It is truly the individual preference of the recipient.
• Communications professionals should not allow themselves to get lost in the "looseness" of the Internet. Good communication skills shouldn't stop in 2.0.
• When it comes to social media, journalists want to remain impartial and don't necessarily want to connect with PR people in what could be perceived in a social way.
• Social networking has dangers; it can be useful for finding information or for networking with contacts. However, this is a place where the lines between professional and personal can be blurred.
• Blogs are a really good medium for journalists to communicate with readers, or to research topics rather than to field PR pitches.
• The social media release might be used as a second step in the case of journalists wanting to receive the 'what and the why' e-mail as a first step.