A reporter friend recently told me that he overheard two of his colleagues commenting on how much they appreciated my work as a media relations professional. These two grizzled journalistic veterans would usually stick their tongues in cup of hot broken glass before they would praise a PR guy, so I deeply appreciated their sentiments.
I am proud to say that I have had several similar experiences times over my 20+ years as a strategic communications and media relations professional. I have come to the conclusion that doing an effective job of communicating complex, high-stakes messages in a way that both clients and journalists will understand and appreciate is simple.
Simple, but not easy. Effective media relations require five basic “musts”:
Must #1: You MUST have something to say.
A self-serving message that provides no value, solves no problem, answers no important question or fails to educate/illuminate the public on some important reality or trend has no news value. The good news is that a skilled, seasoned media relations/PR professional can almost take just about any information and find a way to make it newsworthy.
Must #2: You MUST know the audience of the media outlet you are targeting.
A sure sign of a media relations/PR novice is the tendency towards “spray and pray” – spraying a news release or email willy-nilly to a wide range of media outlets and/or reporters and praying that someone somewhere will pick up on the news. You need to make it your business to know what your targeted media entity covers, why they cover it and how they cover it. This is a non-negotiable.
Must #3: You MUST know your subject matter.
Again, this seems obvious, but ask any journalist with just a few years tenure and they will regale you with stories of how often interview subjects come in with their canned message but are completely unable to provide any context, background or “color”. When this happens, their credibility drops like a brick dropped from a bridge.
Must #4: You MUST plan and prepare for every interaction with the news media.
As in any other undertaking, the likelihood of success is usually directly proportional to the level of preparation. While it is impossible to predict exactly what questions a reporter will ask, you can anticipate the general direction and thrust of the topics, and you can anticipate the general tenor of the exchange if your media relations advisor has done his or her job.
Must #5: You MUST learn from every media interaction.
One of the greatest mistakes that people who engage in media activity make is not devoting sufficient time and effort to reviewing how they did with an eye towards improvement. It is often difficult to get busy people – especially senior executives or elected officials to understand the importance of this key activity, but they ignore it at their own peril.
For an example of what can happen when a media interview subject ignores virtually every one of these musts, click here.
Any other “musts” that I might have overlooked? I would love to hear your feedback in the comments section below (if the comments section is not visible, just click on the title of this post and it will appear at the bottom).