TheGutes

Social media is everywhere these days, whether we see a company’s social media advertising on billboards, magazines or websites, we can’t seem to miss the logos for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest on the bottom . It’s become the norm to be asked to subscribe to blogs, become fans, friends, follow, share, and connect in a limitless number of ways.

While Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are obvious social networking sites for your company to connect with the media, customers, users, etc. — you should also consider Pinterest, which has become one of the hottest trends in social media.

So, what is Pinterest? Pinterest is a virtual pinboard that lets you organize and share all things you find on the web, whether it be business related or for personal use. People use pinboards to plan, discover, find and inspire. Users can simply create a board and start ‘pinning’, ‘repin’, and ‘like’ from your followers.

More and more businesses are beginning to use Pinterest as a marketing tool to connect with users and spread the word. Here are a few suggestions on how you can use Pinterest as a PR tool:

Think Visual and Engage with Customers

With Pinterest you must think visual – focus on pinning items that will help you create exposure for the stories you are trying to communicate. While you’re pinning items to your boards, engage with your customers to share interesting items and have them repin from your boards to increase exposure.

Pin What’s Happening In Your Industry

Try and find some interesting visual elements that can illustrate trends in your industry. A great example of his would be pinning infographics from your company and/or industry related graphics. If the company is attending any trade shows or conferences, be sure to document it by taking pictures/videos and pinning them during and after the event. For example, one of your boards can be called “SXSW” and you can pin images and videos about you and your company, as well as include others you interact with at the show.

Pinterest Is Not Just For Pictures

Surprisingly enough, you can pin videos as well as pictures. This is a great way to convey your company’s story, address industry related issues, share tips and tricks, interviews with the media, conferences the company is attending, etc. These videos (as well as pictures) can link back to your company’s website to drive traffic.

Those are just a few tips that I’ve found from my personal interactions with Pinterest. Is your company on Pinterest?

Screened phone calls and unanswered emails are a commonality for us PR pros representing less renowned companies. The good news is that there is much more effective way to reach reporters nowadays. Twitter might not be sexy, but it can be a loyal friend when it comes to making connections with reporters.

More often than not you see many writers, editors and even industry analysts as daily contributors to their personal twitter handles. Regularly you see them pushing their posted stories out via tweets and patting each other on the back for solid reporting. This is an avenue for you as a PR pro to strike while the iron is hot. Take the time to comment on their story, or recommend related content for them to check out. You don’t necessarily need to pitch them your client right off the bat, but engage with that person personally, and see what happens. A good start is to take the initiative to tweet their posted stories to your followers and facilitate spreading the words that they wrote. Don’t be surprised if you get a retweet, or an @mention saying thanks. Now they have a face and a personality to go along with the drag of going through countless pitches. When you pitch them again, mention the twitter interaction as the road to initiate a conversation. After getting some interaction going, send them an informal tweet inviting them to talk or to take a look at client news.

In my experience, there is surprising response and often a very different tone coming from the other end. Many times it has been the spark that was needed to stir up a conversation that ended up becoming a successful working relationship. This can be just another addition to the PR toolkit, that in conjuction with creative email pitches and selective telephone follow up, can be the difference between getting that coverage for your client or not.

Building relationships with the media is the essence of great public relations professionals. Positive coverage can help put your clients on the map and it is our job to make this happen.

But before you dive into the ever-changing world of media relations, you need to understand that producing positive client coverage isn’t about blasting press releases, impersonal emails or untargeted pitches to every journalist you can find. There must be a “method to your madness” in order to be successful in your PR career.

Most journalists will tell you that there is nothing more frustrating than PR professionals flooding their inboxes with irrelevant pitches.  To avoid this, make sure that you aren’t repeatedly spamming them with information they can’t use. Instead, become a reference that they can come to for help with a story whenever they need it.

Here are a few suggestions for working with journalists that I have learned over the years that can help you to succeed with the media moving forward and become a better PR pro:

Understand the Publication

Nothing can be more irritating to a journalist than receiving off-base pitches while they are under the pressure of meeting a deadline. Take the extra time needed to become familiar with the outlets and stories that the journalist covers to ensure that your client is relevant. Fully understanding who and what they cover will go a long way towards building a lasting relationship.

Always Personalize Your Pitches

No one enjoys impersonal communication. Read up on what the journalist has recently covered and incorporate this into your pitch or general follow up. Keeping a pitch personal will let the journalist know that you understand their coverage area. Also, every interaction doesn’t have to be a pitch. Sometimes checking in with a journalist every couple of weeks to let them know that they recently wrote an interesting article can be very beneficial to building a long-term relationship.

Keep Pitches (and Subject Lines) Short

Not only do you need to personalize each of your pitches, you should also be sure to keep them short and to the point. This starts with your subject line. You have the body of the email to secure their interest, but you need a good subject line to grab their attention. For example, you can put a sample headline in bold at the top of the email (or in the subject line) and put all of the important details in bullet format up front. You’ll save the journalist time by putting the boring stuff later on, or skipping it entirely. If they’re interested, they will get down to the nuts and bolts in their follow up with you.

Simple is Good

When sending a pitch via email, try to use standard, basic fonts (such as Arial or Calibri) in all of your emails. Always keep the font sizes consistent, using sizes 10 or 11, and keep the text in black. Journalists don’t want to receive pitches in fluorescent colors that takes up the entire page because you bolded, enlarged or highlighted all of the content. Keep it simple. Journalists will appreciate it!

Never Bait and Switch

When pitching the media, always be sure you can deliver on what you promise. Nothing can ruin a relationship with a journalist faster than failing to meet their expectations by promising an interview with the CEO and then not having them available. The same goes for story pitching. If a journalist goes into an interview expecting to talk about the future of mobile technology, and you decide to talk about the best restaurants in the Bay Area, chances are the journalist won’t respond to your next email, or pick up the phone next time you call.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

Whenever possible, be sure to include photos and/or video in follow up. This will help to paint a picture so the reporter can see the story more quickly. Try not to send high resolution photos unless requested, as they will clog up the inbox of the journalist. Sending a follow up email with pictures or video might be the added content you need to get your client covered.

Always Say Thank You

Saying thank you can go a long way in building a strong relationship with a journalist. But keep in mind that this doesn’t have to be a rambling letter. It could just be a sentence or two that lets the journalist know that you appreciate the time and effort they put into the article. This simple act of gratitude can be the difference between securing continued coverage or not.

Those are just a few recommendations that I have from my personal interactions with the media. What tips work for you?

In the event you have missed it, some very large brands have had their corporate messages re-interpreted by an always aware and always vigilant source – Hackers.

At first this appeared to be a headline from “The Onion” –  “Burger King Just got sold to McDonalds because the whopper flopped.”  This was followed quickly by “Just Empty Every Pocket sold to Cadillac” within a day. While we all know that many brands are using Twitter to make major announcements – and we even advise our clients to sometimes use this methodology – these two headlines tend to raise an eyebrow.

In reality, what we have here is hackers flexing their muscles and reminding us just how important passwords are, and all of the policies companies establish to govern the use of social media.  While we could look at this as an opportunity to say thank you for the free publicity and create some clever #lines and capitalize on their humor, my suggestion is that we closely examine our social media accounts and who has access to them, as we increasingly stake our corporate reputation on them.

The ever clever and never to do saying KISS or Keep it Simple, Stupid in the case of passwords on empowers those who seek to influence the our messages, gain free publicity at our expense and always watch for ways to inflict the KISS of cyber death on as many as possible.

With the annual RSA conference upon us, we as Public Relations, Media Relations, and Social Media representatives of brands large and small need to take action and ensure we understand, acknowledge and respect the responsibility we have to ensure that the access to our clients social media channels remains secure.  Otherwise, we risk facing the reality that hackers will out do the infamous “Onion” with headlines and messages on our behalf.

On a night when Marco Rubio was poised deliver the GOP rebuttal to the President’s State of the Union address, something happened that the PR team at Poland Spring must have (or should have) jumped on.  If you missed it, Rubio leaned over, mid-speech, and sipped a mini bottle of Poland Spring water.

The media has been relentless in mocking Rubio for his gaffe and an influx of “memes” has been created since then. As a PR professional, we must learn to not only monitor but jump ahead of the curve and create compelling and memorable campaigns around both planned and unplanned events. In my opinion, Poland Spring lost a huge opportunity by not jumping on the bandwagon and creating something memorable from it.

No one is thinking about what he said, rather the news has been linked to his refreshing gulp of Poland Spring than to his actual speech. Poland Spring first and foremost should have exploded on social media as soon as it happened. Their Twitter feed was silent during and after it happened, which was a mistake. They should have started trending something along the lines of #RubioThirstQuencher or #DryMouthRubio something along those lines. They then could have made an announcement offering Marco Rubio a lifetime supply of their mini water bottles so he will never get parched, mid-speech, again.

Instead of hiding his head in shame, Reclaim America, Rubio’s political action committee, began selling a reusable “Rubio” water bottle after his awkward moment of thirst. Anyone who donates $25 or more gets one and the PAC website reads “Send the liberal detractors a message that not only does Marco Rubio inspire you… he hydrates you too.” This was great thinking on the part of the PR team. Rather than hiding from the moment, they are embracing it by not only capitalizing on the moment, but enticing people to donate to the Florida senator with a fun play on words to make up for the momentary thirst quench.

Poland Spring could learn a few things from Reclaim America. They were able to capitalize on something that was trending and made it work to their advantage. That is a large part of what PR people need to and should be doing when it concerns their clients. This is especially true in social media. Poland Spring’s PR team lost an opportunity to expand their already huge brand by poking fun at Rubio, whether it was via social media or a press release.  Whether or not Rubio plans on running for President in 2016 remains to be seen but one thing is for sure, he will live in infamy for his reach to that mini Poland Spring bottle.  And Poland Spring will be kicking themselves as this takes on a life of its own, without the help of their PR team.

So what should Poland Spring have done? For starters,  monitor relevant coverage in real time. They should have jumped on that as soon as Wolf Blitzer went “uh-oh” when he took a sip. They also need a heavy dose of social media training and should think more about how social media can amplify their message. If they were active on social media during and after this happened, they could have used it as an opportunity for clever brand exposure.  Social channels act in real time.  Its not worth tweeting about three days later. # yesterdaysnews

As PR people, we need to constantly think about how our placements or other media attention can start a new conversation in social media, and that conversation can (and does) take on a life of its own.  Think about how this one event could have impacted sales of the Poland Spring mini, if Poland Spring acted quickly.

Many outlets covering the passing of astronaut Neil Armstrong have noted that he was actually misquoted in his first words from the lunar landing: “That’s one small step for ‘man’, one giant leap for mankind.” Armstrong himself maintained that he actually said …one small step for ‘a man’, rather than just ‘man.’  But why does it matter? And what does it have to do with public relations?

The ‘a’ changes everything, in that it denotes a step for a man, rather than ‘man’, which would be the same as mankind.   We probably never really thought of it that way, but it’s a big difference.

We always counsel our spokespeople to communicate in pithy, quotable phrases, that are both succinct and memorable.   Oftentimes, we anticipate interview questions and how to answer them. Neil Armstrong was a great American. In the end, the fact that his ‘a’ was inaudible on the tapes never hurt his legacy, because the message he delivered was powerful, memorable and quotable, and will survive in the history books forever.

Had Armstrong told people, “Oh, that’s not what I expected,” as he took his first steps, or “Wow, this is strange,” he likely would not be as enduring a figure as he is now.    At least I doubt that the President would be ordering flags to be flown at half staff for his funeral.  So remember, if you want to make an impression, choose a phrase that captures the moment with some flair and drama. Neil Armstrong sure did.

Pitching a new media contact is a lot like an awkward first date. You don’t know enough about the other person to know what buttons not to push or what will score you major points. Just like when trying to start a relationship with a new reporter you may not know that they are more likely to give you a briefing if you start by only asking for 10 minutes, that they only want product information when you have an available customer or that they are just plain difficult (or delightful!) to work with.

Now Pitching Notes, a newly launched site geared at PR pros, gives us the chance to share our experience with reporters, both good and bad, and even rate them using a Yelp-style star system. Best of all – it’s free.

I know I get excited when I Yelp something and find out it has 900 reviews and a 4.5 rating. It fosters the anticipation that I am about to have a great experience. So I am all for a site that lets us share our journalist interactions with each other. If I know that a bunch of my peers have worked with Joe Reporter, and that he really likes short pitches, hates to be contacted on Tuesday mornings and is most responsive to email on Wednesday afternoons that only helps me create a custom, targeted pitch to maximize the potential of establishing a long, mutually beneficial relationship.

At Gutenberg we already leverage each other’s knowledge of media personality quirks, but the concept of having a site where all PR professionals can share their experiences is exciting. Like any site that relies on user’s feedback, it will take Pitching Notes a while to build up its database of reviewed reporters and become a reliable go-to resource, but as the site gains traction it will be a complementary addition to the big database tools like Cision and Vocus.

At the AlwaysOn OnMedia conference in NYC yesterday, I saw a fascinating panel on Social Commerce. An interesting statistic came out of the panel discussion from Lance Neuhauser, CEO of The Echo System: 95% of Facebook wall posts from companies go unanswered while call centers for the same companies are packed with customer service reps taking phone calls. Most large companies do not have any employees focusing their time on interacting through social networks to improve their image.

Most companies have in place response strategies for the media, but what about negative comments about your business through social networks?

Based on this presentation, here are a few tips for rapid response social media PR:

1) Have someone within your company (or at the PR firm that represents you) constantly monitor your company’s FB pages, Twitter handle, YouTube channel and every other social network for any comments.

2) Respond right away to either negative or positive comments by either re-tweeting, commenting in a thread or posting how your company corrected the wrong that you were called out on.

3) If possible, directly message the person that negatively commented about your company and apologize for any inconvenience and make it right through a discount, refund, etc.

4) DO NOT try to fight back and challenge the person unless you are ready for a possible social media comment war. In some cases, this kind of publicity could be a good PR stunt but make sure you have thought through all the possibilities.

Remember: Social media is the new social interaction medium for businesses. Stay ahead of the curve by paying attention to and interacting within your social networks.

The holiday season is a time for family, friends and food. It’s a time to appreciate those around you and participate in the spirit of gift giving. But, it’s also an excellent time for us PR folk to build relationships with members of the press, clients and colleagues. From a media relations perspective, it’s also one of the best times to pitch. Below are 4 holiday pitching tips from the Gute team.

1.       Thank the Press – We’ve been reaching out to the same media people throughout the entire year and in most cases contacting them strictly via e-mail or phone. Now is the time to invite a few key press people out grab lunch, dinner or a drink to thank them for their time and get to know them a bit better as people. The holidays bring out the best in most people, so odds are if you take the time to meet with journalists during this time of year, they’ll be more open to not only you,  but also open to hearing about your client(s). If time and/or budget doesn’t permit an outing, send a ‘Thank you/Happy Holidays’ card or email. It can go a long way. You’d be surprised.

2.       Develop a 2012 Outlook Pitch Platform – Everyone is writing about the year ahead and recapping 2011. Why not hop on the bandwagon? We’re sure there’s a fit for any industry you’re in.

3.       Catch them Right before the Holidays – This is a tricky one, but if done right can bear fruit. Most offices are closed the last two weeks of the year. And if they’re not, most press folks take that time off. Odds are you should probably start outreach in Early Dec., right after Thanksgiving to catch them right on time. Unless of course we’re talking about a long lead publication.

4.        Identify those folks NOT taking holiday – News never sleeps, so there are some media that will be working straight through Christmas, Hanukah, New Years, etc. Our job is to identify those folks right away and check in with them to see what it is that they’re covering. While most media folks are on a tight deadline to get stories in before the end of the year, odds are they have a warm fuzzy feeling in their hearts from all of the holiday sweets and spirit, so they’ll be more open to your idea.

These are just a few tips for PR folks looking to gain some media traction throughout the holiday season.

We also want to wish our readers a very wonderful holiday season and happy new year!

When clients request a regional media tour, surprisingly one of the first places I visit to find relevant reporters is LinkedIn. When I want to discover what a reporter’s latest interest might be, I take a peek at their Twitter feed. The value of social media platforms provide PR professionals with more insight and can be “minimally invasive” as compared to other methods of more direct contact which can sometimes be a less than welcome intrusion for reporters on deadline.

Here are three ways that PR pros can use social media to strengthen pitching efforts and perhaps more importantly create solid bonds:

1. LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION – With LinkedIn, PR professionals have the ability to easily and unintrusively view where a reporter is located when booking a local media tour.
2. MUCK RACK – A quick method to discovering what reporters are discussing among their community is to head over to MuckRack.com where you can catch a filtered view of the latest tweets by reporters (designated by beat)
3. FRIEND REQUEST – A few of my colleagues have creatively used Facebook to interact with reporters on both a professional and personal level helping to successfully cultivate a PR/reporter relationship. 

Unfortunately many PR pros have relied too heavily on the “mail merge” or “bulk sender” option when it comes to pitching efforts. We can see this time and again on reporter Twitter feeds when they call out a #PRFail.  Reporters respect PR pros that take the time to truly understand the publication and their beat. Social media has made it easier than ever to identify and track reporters that might be great contacts and approach them with a more personalized message. Gaining insights in real time and understanding what is happening for these reporters on a more personal level translates into a much higher likelihood they are open to pitches and story ideas.

Do you have any experiences with social media? Send me your thoughts.