It’s all about relationships
Here’s the second installment of my JellyRock PR blog. In this one I’ll be talking about creating relationships with journalists, your corporate online history and bloggers and vloggers…and why they should all matter to you.
Creating relationships with journalists
It’s ever so easy to create a relationship with a journalist. Just buy an expensive media database such as Gorkana or Vuelio, search for, say, “features editor” and create a list of contacts. Then email them all a press release.
But what kind of relationship have you built with each journalist? No more than the one you have with the last company who cold-called you trying to sell you something. It’s not a great relationship, that’s for sure. Sending out a blanket email to hundreds or thousands of journalists or bloggers is very easily done with a media database. It’s called PR spam and it’s an ever-increasing problem in the industry.
At JellyRock we do things differently. Instead, we read what the journalist is writing about. We find out their remit by looking at their Twitter or LinkedIn profiles before speaking to them on the phone. We chat about what news angle suits them and their readers best. It takes far, far more time, but it gets results.
PR people should be assisting writers and broadcast production teams by working with them to produce great stories, not taking the easy route sold to them by the database companies.
Your online corporate biography
If you’re a founder of a company, a noteworthy executive, or could possibly act as a spokesperson for your company one day, then your online reputation matters. You need a digital history that can be found instantly. I’m not talking about the things you got up to on Facebook ten years’ ago, but using LinkedIn and your website or blog to create a corporate biography.
By writing one, complete with your areas of expertise, experience, and with evidence of success, you’re explaining why you matter. It should be no more than a page at the most, written in the third person, with an image or two, and even video if you’re looking for potential TV or radio spots. It’s not a copy of your CV; it needs to tell your story. It’s a great way of positioning you as an industry expert and can lead to national PR opportunities.
Bloggers and Vloggers
With an increase in radio and TV channels, niche publications, brands becoming content providers and a certain thing called the Internet, the media landscape is now more fractured than ever. Add bloggers and vloggers to the mix and there are a lot of people to be talking to about your brand.
But, in some ways, blogger outreach can be more effective than traditional media relations. Because bloggers cover specific topics, they enable brands to target precise demographic groups. If they positively review your product or service, then bloggers can turn into strong brand advocates. In fact, Research Now says 84% of people have purchased products based on their description in blogs.
For example, got a child’s toy that you need to promote? There is an ever-dwindling number of parenting magazines out there (about 4 in print, 5 if you include online-only Junior). In contrast, just look at the site Tots100.co.uk. The blogging-network site started by listing the top 100 parenting blogs and now has over 8,500 bloggers submitting regular content to them. You can work with the website (on a commercial basis) to perform blogger outreach with their writers.
Video-bloggers (Vloggers) have created a whole new world of young, pretty, shiny things. There are some seriously impressive young entrepreneurs out there who are shaking things up and doing very well out of it. Vloggers cover all subjects from fashion and beauty to the very niche. They get a cut of the revenue from advertising displayed on their content.
Since starting in 2009, fashion and beauty vlogger Zoe “Zoella” Suggs, has 10 million YouTube subscribers and has enjoyed 665 million views. She’s the UK’s most highly paid vlogger and has just moved into a £1 million house (and she’s only 25 years old).
But blogging or vlogging needn’t be a full-time job and you can do it too. Many successful business owners use regular blogging to build their business though content marketing. By regularly blogging or vlogging with your audience, you are creating and owning your own media space. You’re becoming an expert in your field and offering advice to existing and potential customers. If you want a case study of how one person has made it work, have a listen to the Content Marketing Academy’s podcast with Kate McQuillan from Pet Sitters Ireland. She pretty much tells you how to do it from scratch: http://bit.ly/1QHbVK1
Thank you for taking the time reading this article. I hope you’ve found it useful and, as always, welcome your feedback and comments.
Jo O’Connell
Jo O’Connell is a public relations consultant with over 12 years’ experience in many areas such as travel and tourism, consumer, arts, sports and lifestyle.
