General category for all things related to communication. Including things like story telling, linguistics and art.
Recently I’ve been working with the Industry Trust, increasing copyright awareness. You can read about the campaign here on The Drum, and watch behind-the-scenes of a photostunt we did with Gemma Atkinson.
Look out for the man with the flat cap! Video produced by Terry Church PR (my brother).
A journalist, by Roberto Rizzato
You’ve got a new product or some news you want to get out there. How do you find the right journalist?
Read the papers. Every day for a week, go to your local coffee shop for one hour and read all the papers they have back-to-back. Note down the names of journalists who wrote something relevant. It doesn’t have to be about a product exactly the same, even if they just wrote about your industry or have a section that your product would fit into, that’s fine.
Write down their names and then research them online. Read through everything they’ve written and see whether they fit. Things to look out for are whether they write positively about things, or just slag everything off. Are they sarcastic and critical, or nice and optimistic? Try and find as many as possible that fit your match.
Now it’s time to get your news in shape. If you have the time, it pays to tailor your news to each individual publication. For example, The Sun uses massive words in bold and blasts the message out there (see an example I worked on). The Guardian, by contrast, tends to discuss things more tentatively with facts. Blogs and online news sites love to talk about rumours (as it means they get the story first) so perhaps you could offer them an exclusive into what’s coming up, or a behind the scenes video. Either way, always write the article in the body of an email, never in an attached word document.
For a major publication, magazine or online news outlet, you must call the journalist. If you send them an email without a telephone call, you can forget it. You must call them in the morning, before 9.45am. What’s going in the papers is decided at about 10.30am, so you have to get in before. If you can call them between 8.30 – 9.30 they are much more receptive.
To get through to them, call the publication’s News Desk. I wrote a blog post here which contains links to the contact information of every single major news desk in the UK. Make sure you call ALL the journalists on the same day. They will NOT publish your story if they’ve seen it somewhere else the day or week before.
Newsdesk: “Hello, Weekday Times newsdesk.”
You: “Hi, please can I speak to Joe Bloggs? I’m calling with some relevant news for them.”
Newsdesk: “Please hold…”
Joe Bloggs: “Hello, Joe Bloggs speaking”
You: “Hi Joe, I read your article yesterday about stereotypical names used in examples and how people with that name get really upset. I happen to be an author of a book about stereotypical names and I’ve got some news. Do you have a second?
Joe Bloggs: “Go on”
You: “Thank you. [Give a very brief 20 second summary of your news], can I send you a news release to look at?”
Joe Bloggs: “OK”
You: “Great. What’s your email address Joe?”
Now you’ve got their email address, you can send them the pre-written story. Make sure you send the email within 5 minutes of talking to them on the phone. Any longer and they’ve already had a few other phone calls and forgotten about you.
Send them the email, and make sure it’s crystal clear, includes all the relevant information including where they can go to learn more, and how to contact you. Don’t ask them any questions, and don’t expect a reply.
At 3pm, give them another call. “Hey Joe, it’s You from this morning. I spoke to you about my book of stereotypical names? Yes. Just wondering if you got the release and had any questions? Great. Do you know whether it’s going to make it into the paper/magazine?”
This follow up call is almost as crucial as the first one. All experience PRs know that a follow up call increases the chances of getting published ten-fold. If you’re not doing it, someone else is. You may even have to do a few follow-ups. I remember that to get my first ever piece of coverage in a regional paper called the Stirling Observer based in Scotland, I chased them four times. In the end I got a full article on page three.
Journalists often don’t know whether or not your story will get published. Even if they write something, that doesn’t mean it will. The editor decides what goes in, and the only way for you to check is to buy the paper or magazine and go through it. Don’t rely on Google Alerts (it misses a lot) or any other kind of online tool for digital versions of printed press.
If you get published, celebrate like crazy. It’s a wonderful achievement and I’m sure you’ll feel the buzz. Tell your friends and followers, link them to the article and if it’s from a credible source put it on your website, As featured on… Also, send the journalist another email thanking them. Within that email, say that you’ll be sure to get in contact with more news, and perhaps give them the inside scoop or exclusive next time. This is just a way to show your appreciation and keep the relationship open for next time.
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If you want your message to ripple across the pond of noise, you have to use an integrated communications strategy. It’s true in life that some people listen to the radio on the way to work whilst others watch TV before going to bed; Some pick up the newspaper on the train, others read Tweets. Focus solely on one channel, and you miss everyone else.
Unlike what most ‘modern marketers’ say these days, social media isn’t everything. 7 million people in the UK listen to BBC Radio 1 every morning and 2 million tuned in to Channel 4 to watch people getting high on Ecstasy live. There are so many more channels than just Twitter and Facebook.
To get across all of them, you have to create a narrative that will stick on TV, radio, newspaper, magazines, blogs and on social media. If you can make a message work well on each and every one, you’ve got a winner. So how do you go about doing that?
First, look inwards. Who are you trying to reach? Bring them in to your organisation and ask them to be a part of it. Ask the very people you’re trying to target to help you design the campaign. This in itself is a story – you could make it a competition and invite a relevant magazine to a behind-the-scenes exclusive.
Then invite bigger names to get involved; it’s kind of like getting sponsors for an event. If what you’re doing is noteworthy, you’ll pick up some interest from bigger brands (or individuals) quite easily. Don’t be afraid to pay for it either, celebrity endorsement is as common as odd socks. Partner with them and stand on their shoulders. This will open the media’s doors as they’re already interested.
Use everything as content. Get interviews on local radio and TV networks for your partners – ask them to talk about your message in return. Write press releases quoting the partners from the interviews: ‘As Tom Church recently said on Sky News…’ Send the releases to all news desks and relevant blogs (where possible, call first). Take pictures of your press cuttings, and share them (and/or links) on your social media channels.
If you’re really smart, you’ll get the last part to feed back into the top, keeping the conversation going and the ripples ever flowing. So when you’re thinking about how to get your message out there, don’t worry so much about what tools you’re going to use – whether it’s a Twitter account or on blogs – focus on your narrative and how it could work on every channel.
Yesterday I was sitting in the reception area of a gym, waiting to be shown around. Staff members looked at me, and just walked past, or stood idly chatting to each other. The more that walked past, the more they each thought I was being seen too by somebody else. Normally, I’d pipe up, but I wanted to see what would happen.
Ten minutes. Ten minutes I sat there (and in a reception room, time goes bloody slowly), before someone who had been walking in and out like a yo-yo must have caught a good dose of déjà vu because he did a double take, frowned, and asked if I was being seen to. For fuck sake! he shouted at the other staff.
This made me think of the dangers of assumptions. When running a startup, as I experienced with uHouse, it’s really easy to forget who’s doing what. Internal communication is really important to make sure you stay on the right track, that everyone is responsible for measurable actions and that your goals can be met. If this means having one more meeting a week, so be it.
When you get your business into the press, try to leave a link trail. This means having one article lead onto another, onto another, onto another. It has huge SEO and branding benefits that you ought to know.
For example, I recently wrote about the Kooki app on The Huffington Post,
Launched only two months ago, Kooki has already been featured in The Guardian as a ‘Winning New Business‘ and looks set to be a hit with Londoners as it partners with new shops everyday.
You can see how this is then linked to their feature in The Guardian, which in turn, was linked to their website. A link trail like this is great for search-engine-optimisation and branding.
In terms of Google, you’re helping it find more backlinks to your website, increasing your pagerank and scoring higher on the results pages.
For branding, readers immediately see greater credibility and can learn more should they choose to. It’s alright to have just one article in a newspaper or magazine, but you can’t lean on that forever. Customers become much more aware of your brand if you’re being talked about again and again.
Once you’ve racked up ten or more articles from various well-respected news outlets (university blogs are even better), consider creating a Wikipedia page. Here, you can put a reference to all of these articles, making sure that Google and readers will have access forever more.
But, a word of caution. Wikipedia volunteers are extremely strict when it comes to establishing a new Wikipedia page. It’s meant to be an encyclopedia, remember? So when you’re writing about your business or product, think about it from that point of view. As a general rule of thumb, either the product, business or story of creation must be remarkable (and proven to be so).
Have you won any awards? Been referenced by celebrities or book authors? Been mentioned in the press over ten times?
It took me a long time to figure out what gets accepted as a new Wikipedia page, so if you keep that in mind, you’ll be on the right track.
Newspapers, magazines, radio shows, websites and TV programmes need expert opinions. You can be that expert. In the video above, I introduce HARO and teach you how to get press coverage.
UPDATE
Being mentioned in the press (for the right reasons) gains you:
Keep reading to learn how to get press coverage, become a source for journalists, and solidify your position as an expert.
Photo Credit: Trey Ratcliff via Compfight
Learn how to become carbon neutral in 60 seconds. Plant a forest of over 1000 trees for just $100 and watch it grow on Google Earth.
Use this super-quick method to become green, and if you have a business, you can then communicate that achievement to your customers. Communicate your green credentials by dedicating a web page to it, then include a link to it in your newsletters or blog posts.
This article explains how you can be carbon neutral in 60 seconds.
This is an example of a presentation I admire. It’s simple, direct, funny, warm, clear and has you nodding your head along the entire way. There’s no nonsense, no professionalism, no secret technique. It’s purely great speaking.
Presenting effectively is a huge part of communication and most people get it wrong. At school, college, university and work, we’re taught a certain way of presenting: Keep it short; direct; use a PowerPoint; speak to the back of the class; stand still; be clear; and stay on topic.
But how many presentations by those teachers did you ever enjoy? How many meetings have you sat down in, watched a PowerPoint and thought wow, this is amazing.? Maybe one or two at most.
I hate 90% of presentations because they’re crap. I’m willing to bet money that you feel the same. At University, PowerPoints were an excuse to sleep and it’s no different at work. So isn’t it time to put it right?
How do you give an effective presentation that everyone loves?
Continue reading “Presentation Secrets: Get Naked, Sit Down and Discuss” »
Students travel half-way across the world following the principles of their teacher and help locals in Chittagong plant rice.
As my Anthropology degree comes to a close at University College London (UCL), I ponder what I have learnt. I can rattle off a hundred names of different tribes around the world, describe our evolutionary path, explain dozens of cosmologies, talk in depth about social theories from Marx, Weber, Foucault and more… but to what end?
Knowledge is pointless until it is applied. And that was the key for one teacher who gained the adoration and devotion of hundreds of students.
Continue reading “How to be loved by hundreds of devoted students” »
Melinda Cotton, Osteopath, treats a baby patient.
A ten-year old business can be proud of itself. A twenty-year old business should be proud of itself. Fulham Osteopaths is 22 years old. It’s a health practice in West London, dedicated to helping its patients. It has no plans to expand, no interest in franchising, no concern to automate nor outsource. Instead, it is the life of its staff. A place where they practice their craft – bringing people back to good health.
I had the good fortune of working there for a year, and learnt about their communication strategies – why hundreds of people come back week after week, some since it began in 1989.
Continue reading “Case Study: Fulham Osteopaths, 22 Years in the Making” »
