12/17/2009
Public Relations and the Holidays | Keeping Your PR Plan Active
The following is a guest post from PR blogger, Ashley Wirthlin of Public Relations Blogger.
Get Noticed during the Holidays
To alleviate some of the distractions of the season and to keep your PR efforts at their best, here are a few tips to staying focused:
- As Brad has mentioned in previous posts, create a schedule, and stick to it. Set goals for yourself. This can be done as an editorial calendar, a tasks lists, a large list of things to do for the week, etc. This can go hand in hand with an editorial calendar (for writers, bloggers, etc.), but schedule your most important tasks first and get them done. That way, when winding down after lunch, you are left with your less important tasks that may not require as much care.
- Actually use that editorial calendar. Whether it is for your blog or press releases, schedule when to write, when to release it, and the topics you will be covering. This can help to guarantee you get the writing that needs to be done, and it can also help to ensure that your company and brand are continuously sending out information for media, other bloggers, etc. to pick up.
- When writing blog posts and press releases (and even pitches) ensure that you are optimizing them with keywords, titles, and images. Even more important is to ensure that you are sending pitches to the right people who will find your story valuable and newsworthy. With companies striving for media attention during the holidays, your news release may get lost in the mix, even if newsworthy and relevant to the media contact you’ve decided to pitch.
- If you story is not relevant, that media contact will waste no time recycling that fax or deleting that email. To ensure that your pitches are read, relevant, and newsworthy, do your research. Read other stories the contact has covered, find out their interests, and really evaluate your story to ensure that it is in fact something people would want to read about. The best way to do that: ask yourself how it will affect its readers. If there is no effect, you may not have a very newsworthy story.
Journalists, bloggers, and reporters will undoubtedly be inundated with stories and pitches; the way to stand out is to make your story relevant, use an attention capturing title, and make those first few paragraphs of your pitch enticing.
While these may be good tips to overcoming the holiday distractions, try to implement some of these tips during the rest of the year as well; you may find that you are working more effectively and in turn more productive. Remember that content really helps customers to make a move, buy that product, download that book, or sign-up for that newsletter. Letting your content slide can hurt your company in the long run, so keep publishing!
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email hidden; JavaScript is required is the author and editor of Public Relations Blogger, writing, editing, and managing the blog daily. With a 450+ term PR glossary and nearly 3,000 articles on all areas of public relations, social media, marketing, and everything in between, Public Relations Blogger is a great, free, educational resource. Ashley is a marketing/management graduate from the University of Portland. She is currently developing a public relations certification program to be released in early 2010. She also just released a free 80+ page eBook available for download at http://PublicRelationsBook.com and at the Public Relations Blogger homepage.
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Ashley, these are great tips for all year. As media outlets continue to contract, and publications utilize freelance journalists, it becomes even more important to have a focused, consistent PR effort year round. Your pitch should always match the target audience and although the goal is PR for yourself, it should never be simply self serving but be crafted with the audience in mind. Thank you Brad and Ashley for sharing these tips, it is greatly appreciated.
Karen, thanks for the kind words! It is important to remember the audience when pitching; I think that often times gets forgotten.