Posts Tagged ‘BurrellesLuce Resource Center’


BurrellesLuce Newsletter: Bolstering Your Communications Tactics in the New Year

Tuesday, January 25th, 2011

As 2011 unfolds, many PR, communications and marketing professionals are beginning to examine their strategies and determine how they can be applied in the New Year. It’s a time to lay the groundwork for future campaigns that are designed to increase brand and client exposure, drive traffic to websites, create quality leads, build communities, and enhance relationships with The Media. BurrellesLuce Newsletter: Bolstering Your Communications Tactics in the New Year

Both technology and The Media are evolving and, as a result, so too are the preferences and values of audiences. Still, many communications and marketing practitioners defer to the same old tactics, failing to keep up with the platforms and outlets of the audiences upon whom they rely on for brand or client success. Communication professionals must remember that they are engaging users in the users’ communities or space, rather than a platform controlled by the company.

That’s one reason that digital audiences seem to be increasingly careful when posting about a company, product, or service; they fear getting inundated with mobile and online spam solicitations. As coined by Marie Baker, co-founder of PRBreakfastClub, “blogger bombardment” is running rampant as The Media-scape shrinks and “PR Pros are scrambling looking for new places to get their clients visibility.” She goes on to write, “Bloggers are getting just slammed, and sometimes too much of something isn’t always a good thing.” (2011: The Blogger Revolution, 1.6.11)

In essence, audiences, journalists, and bloggers who aren’t appropriately targeted do just the opposite of what media professionals desire: The audiences disengage and The Media overlook what could potentially be a worthy story. Read more of this newsletter in the BurrellesLuce Resource Center.

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Media Relations 2.0: What Journalists Really Want from PR

Monday, June 28th, 2010

Last week, I attended a webinar by Sally Falkow, APR, and Rebecca Lieb, on how Internet technology and social networking affects news media and as a result, the public relations and media relations practitioner.

For those of you who attended last year’s PRSA International conference and heard Arianna Huffington open the keynote address with, “The Newspress release is dead…” or those who read Tom Forenski’s rant a few years ago, “Die! Press Release! Die! Die! Die!,” may be surprised to learn the press release, like traditional media, is NOT dead.  Falkow told us the news has changed, but journalists still want information.  The way that journalists work is evolving so we need to provide this information in different ways.

Lieb quoted some statistics on how journalists work today:

  • 91 percent of journalists search Google to do their job (“expert” is a common search term)
  • 89 percent use blogs
  • 64 percent are using social networks

In addition, Lieb went on to say that over 75 percent of reporters view blogs as helpful in providing story ideas, story angles and insight into the tone of an issue. And, almost half of reporters say they are “lurkers” on social networking sites.

So, what do journalists really want and need from PR?  

  • They want the news in easy-to-identify, digestible sections.
  • They are looking for images, quotes, video, backgrounders, fact sheets.
  • Tag the information so it’s easily found. 
  • Give them the full embed code for multimedia.
  • Put your news in a feed.
  • Make it available on social sites.
  • Aggregate your news/social content in one place.

She says, “Deconstruct the press release into special sections and tag the information. By using news tags, a newspaper or news site could pull together larger numbers of news stories and the PR industry would be helping news publishers to gather the facts and present them in a near-publishable format.”

Bottom line: if you aren’t telling your story, then someone’s telling it for you. If the media can’t find the information they need from you, they will find it elsewhere – and you may not like what they find!  

The media in general is expected to provide more than just a print story, or just a video clip – it’s also on the web. What is your organization doing to feed the media’s hunger for content? 

Want more tips and best practices for working with the media and giving journalists what they want and need? Visit the BurrellesLuce Resource Center which provides FREE white papers, tip sheets, and more. And be sure to sign-up for this month’s newsletter, “When Press Releases Go Bad” or view an archive of last month’s newsletter, “Staying Ahead of the Media Relations Curve.

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