The Public Relations Blog

How to cultivate long-term relationships with journalists

Navigating relationships with newsrooms and media contacts is challenging sometimes. Journalists play an important role in sharing your company's story, which, in turn, helps to build your credibility in the marketplace  and attract more customers. Journalists are a key audience for your company, and your success depends – in part – on them.

Working with the media is all about relationships — mutual trust, respect, meeting deadlines, and occasionally making friendship. Here are three important ways trust plays a key factor in building successful, mutually beneficial relationships with reporters, editors, bloggers and producers.

Prospective clients often ask us about news wire distribution services as part of their public relations campaigns. We find that many companies are using these services incorrectly. If you aren’t using a distribution service the right way, you aren’t receiving the full value of the news release and that could be hurting your brand.

To that end, we created a list of how, why and when your company should use a news release distribution service.

3 tips to help you prepare

News headlines are regularly peppered with fear-instilling stories of data breaches and cybersecurity threats that riddle us to the core as we consider how our personal and private information is vulnerable to hackers.

These same issues should concern companies even more. Large corporations like Uber and Equifax have already fallen prey to cyberattacks, and health care is the most hacked industry to date. Cybersecurity is no longer an issue exclusively for individuals who fear identity theft. It’s a rampant concern for companies as well. In addition to customer data, company trade secrets, patents and proprietary algorithms are vulnerable.

Axia Public Relations encourages its clients to regularly review and update their crisis communications plans. As more headlines spotlight cybersecurity concerns, adding steps and protocols for a cyberattack is prudent. For those that don’t have a cybersecurity plan in place, here are three steps to consider as you prepare:

Shared coverage doesn’t have to be bad

So, the journalist you’ve been pitching finally decides to write a piece on your company. Thrilled, you update your team, alert your spokesperson and send the reporter all the necessary photos and information.

Then, at some point during the process, or maybe even once the story runs, you find out that your competitors appear in the piece too – perhaps with more prominence than your company. When this happens, PR pros will certainly be bummed, even bitter, upon learning they’ll share the spotlight with those they compete so hard against.

Don’t see shared coverage as a loss. As long as the coverage for your company is positive, it’s still a win. Here are some tips to consider when you learn your media coverage includes your competitors.

How to get quality internal news for external PR

As a public relations professional working for a large corporation, staying in the know of important happenings within your company can sometimes be a challenge, especially if there is a large remote workforce or highly siloed structure. Other factors that limit the flow of newsworthy developments reaching your desk include lack of quality sources, the C-suite being unaware of what makes a good topic for a news release and an internal misunderstanding of the function of the PR department.

Take these steps to increase your feed of high quality PR content.

Unlike consumer-facing companies, like Dunkin’ Donuts and Nike, the technology B2B space is often niche or super-techy, making public relations efforts a bit more challenging. Tech B2B companies don’t require recognition from the average Joe or Jane. Instead, they look to other companies that benefit from their product offerings, which typically exist within the enterprise, cloud or back end. Even so, audiences for news from B2B companies consist of potential customers, media and, of course, analysts. Therefore, to gain greater profile in the minds of potential customers and other key demographics, B2B companies desiring a more aggressive PR push should consider the following tips to get the ball rolling.

3 tips for using an unexpected event to earn positive media coverage

Football fans across the nation found themselves riveted last week by a digit. It was a strange deflection from the anticipated rivalry set to play out this past weekend as the New England Patriots took on the cinderella Jacksonville Jaguars.

A thumb stole center stage.

What does a thumb have to do with public relations you may ask?

Tom Brady, widely recognized as a superior athlete, Gisele’s husband and first string quarterback for the New England Patriots, injured his thumb during a practice prior to the scheduled playoff game. The injury itself isn’t really the news. How the injury became news is.

Learn the best methods of establishing relationships with media representatives

Email is a terrific way to pitch to journalists. Most people use this tool to communicate – it saves time and it’s efficient. So how can you ensure that media representatives open your email pitch instead of instantly deleting it? While there’s no definitive answer, you can increase your chances of connecting with journalists if you follow these do’s and don’ts in your emails:

When I worked in Silicon Valley, a front-page story in The Wall Street Journal was the “ungettable get.” Our teams would persevere for weeks trying to figure out a way to get their venture-backed technology startup onto the front page of the Dow Jones-owned media outlet. Our efforts often felt futile, as the Journal covers mostly business news with significant financial or industry-shattering impact.

As numerous public relations firms have predicted since the beginning of the year, a key facet to every successful campaign in 2018 will be the story. From cave drawings and legendary tales to biblical passages and novels, the art of storytelling captivates us. And the foundation of all good stories, of course, is the unexpected adventure contained within.

The ability to craft unique narratives seeps through the souls of PR professionals. We look beyond what everyone else sees and often unearth unexpected elements that make our clients’ stories come to life. From those nuggets, we create unique stories to share with key demographics as well as the media.

How do companies discover the useful snippets necessary for a unique, creative and authentic corporate narrative?