Media relations: machine-gun or sniper rifle

We've seen too many books and articles about media relationships, mediocre and misleading. The "Manufacturing News" (Henderson), published around 2006 by David Henderson, is a great strategic guide to media relations and is worth recommending. Henderson, once the award-winning CBS correspondent, was diverted to become a PR consultant. There are plenty of fascinating insights and practical ideas about how to produce positive media coverage for a brand, and the laws that should be followed.

Today's public relations industry, we more talk about Word-of-mouth marketing, new media, brand strategy, and so Henderson's media relationship thinking a bit old-fashioned. The fact of the matter is that a lot of PR people don't have enough knowledge and skills to build a healthy and lasting media relationship. Henderson believes that media relations are the most influential tool in corporate marketing today. When you really understand the workings of the news media and know how to attract media attention with valuable information, you can build a strong awareness of your brand and better promote your products and services. It also helps to provide clear and accurate information in a crisis. ”

The media has a wide range of audiences, and the media can provide a solid foundation of credibility, and the presence of brand information in news reports is much more powerful than the messages that appear in advertisements. This is the public relations industry is aware of the common sense, but the current public relations industry in this basic level is really passable. Henderson's two points are worth pondering.

First, he stressed the importance of having a deep media relationship and familiarity with the workings of the media. At present, many senior PR staff spend time with their customers, but often transfer important media communication work to inexperienced junior staff to arrange. PR companies do not value media relationships in their bones. The consequence is that senior PR people generally do not understand the operability of public relations programs, and low-level staff will only use the stare tactic, the media reporters obsessed. So in the eyes of many media reporters, PR firms are as annoying as cold call real estate agents, resulting in tensions between PR companies and the media.

Second, public-relations firms prefer to use machine-gun-style publishing, rather than sniper-type selective, targeted releases. Henderson personal experience is that a lot of PR is not willing to spend time with the media to discuss topics, but not good at the media perspective to consider issues, but also do not like to work with reporters to establish a good working relationship. They tend to be prone to indiscriminately issuing press releases, or asking a large bunch of reporters to come to the press conference. For example, many PR in the promotion of a topic, often even publications do not look, simply do not know the publication of the editorial theme, features, layout style. "The common misconception in the PR industry is the size of the media list, as if the above name were more useful, the machine gun approach would not only be wasteful but would have a serious reputational impact on the PR company and the clients he represents." ”

Henderson believes that today's media are deeply trapped in profit margins and fear, the Internet free information disrupted the tradition of news operations, the shrinking media profit space, which caused the News interview department's pace of work accelerated. As a result, he believes that traditional PR practices such as the convening of large-scale press conferences and news releases are largely ineffective. Journalists are more inclined to establish long-term relationships with sources and to obtain valuable information on a continuous basis.

For those companies eager to increase exposure to the brand through the media, Henderson offers some tips on how to do good media relations, and we do some simple sharing:

1, out of the narrow ego: it's best to look at the challenges and opportunities of corporate branding from an outsider's perspective, such as customers, consumers, investors, or the media. Try to understand how others see you.

2, into the future: clear understanding of the next two or three years, important stakeholders will be how to describe your company and brand.

3, challenge the tradition: in this highly competitive environment, only a year or two ago is still effective, it is not still useful, so the best way is to constantly challenge themselves to see what the current media relationship is not enough or bad, try new ways.

4, avoid the "official statement": Often, if you simply define your company through official statements, the result is bad, and your lengthy rhetoric often says nothing or is baffling.

5, decline the marketing language has been abused: such as unique, innovative, leading, and so on, these qualitative, empty, millions repeated words have no real meaning, the media is worthless.

6, be consistent: Once you have identified what to say and what to say, it must be consistent, which is the best way to build trust and overcome confusion with the media.

Finally, it should be pointed out that in the law of news operation, the domestic media and foreign media have basically not much difference. The degree of specialization of the domestic media has been greatly improved, so the basic ideas on this issue should be consistent.

For more information, see the Reputation Butler website

(written in 2008-07-29)