Executive Summary 2013 PR News Media Relations Conference

Executive Summary

PR News' Media Relations Next Practices Conference

Dec. 12, 2013, National Press Club, Washington, D.C.

  

8:30 - Wake-Up Call: The Media Landscape & What It Means to You

Amy Eisman, Director, Media Entrepreneurship & Interactive Journalism School of Communication, American University

  • Watch the major media players and observe what direction they’re going
  • How do you navigate the rush of media? Go with the flow.
  • Atomized content will be hot in 2014; any snippet of information including a quote, factoid, nut graph will help build the story.
  • Don’t depend on your intern for social media. You have to get your hands dirty.
  • Be a journalist whisperer – know when to approach journalists at the right time with the right content

 

8:45 a.m. - Story Pitching Techniques You'll Need in 2014

Tracy Schario, APR, Communications Officer and Clean Energy Lead, The Pew Charitable Trusts

  • Even if a reporter says “no” to your pitch, that’s still a response and the beginning of a relationship.
  • Think like a reporter.
  • Things that work best are when you are the first person to pitch the story, or at least the most creative.
  • It is a multimedia world, and you need to start using photos, videos and infographics.
  • Target fewer reporters and media outlets. Pick 10 and tailor your pitch to each one.

 

Kraig Kann, Chief Communications Officer, LPGA

  • Our job is to make people focus on what is important to us.
  • Those who listen are only those who you make pay attention.
  • Media help shape your brand, help build your brand and they always get the last word.
  • Unglue yourself from the chair and reach out to media directly via phone and face-to-face.
  • Reward reporters who help build your brand by offering them your best pitches, and promote their stories on your brand.

 

9:15 a.m. - Craft Press Releases (and all PR Content) From the Journalist's POV

Myra Oppel, APR, Regional Communications Vice President, Pepco Holdings, Inc.

  • Don’t issue releases during major news events such as the death of a public figure or presidential election.
  • Send from your company email, label as “news release” with an informative subject line.
  • Ask reporters and assignment desks for the best email address to use for specific topics. Don’t email the entire news staff.
  • Limit acronyms and always spell them out.
  • Reporters won’t use quotes unless they sound as if they came from an actual interviewee.

 

Fred Sainz, Vice President, Communications and Marketing, Human Rights Campaign

  • Be prepared for tough questions from journalists. They have a great B.S. detector.
  • The story of how a bill becomes a law is a popular story in Washington and beyond.
  • Give the media something in your press release worthy of being cut and pasted.
  • There may be better ways to communicate information than a press release. Don’t automatically assume releases are the only way to go.
  • Reporters can dismiss a release, but they can’t dismiss helpful information.

 

Dick Wolfe, Senior Director of Corporate Communications, ADP

  • Don’t edit your own press release.
  • When you have “mobile” and “app” in a press release, you get eyeballs.
  • Use short-hype free sentences. This will draw media interest.
  • Use stats and data in a release only if they will advance the story.
  • Use no more than three key points in the whole release.

 

10:15 a.m. - Find and Engage With the Right Journalists and Influencers on Social Media

David Wescott, Director, Digital Strategy, APCO

  • Overcome the drive for everyone to be like everyone else in your branding and your content.
  • Tweet your beat – position yourself as an expert in your field.
  • Use hashtags for context, but use them judiciously.
  • LinkedIn is a great place to find writers, and Muck Rack is a decent place to find who works for whom and is online.
  • Share what you’re reading.

 

Kathy Grannis, Senior Director of Media Relations, National Retail Federation

  • Go beyond the brand and keep in touch and stay top of mind through Twitter.
  • Contribute transparently to conversations on social media platforms to communicate subject matter expertise.
  • It angers reporters if you reach out to them not knowing enough about their beat.
  • Blogs are a great source for story ideas.
  • Influential bloggers are just as important as a mention in a media outlet.

 

David Ringer, Director, Media Relations, National Audubon Society

  • Reflexively follow journalists with whom you interact, or with whom you’d like to develop a relationship.
  • Use Twitter’s list functionality to organize group of journalists and influencers. Make the list public if you can, and maybe even give it a title like “Thought Leaders.”
  • Social media gives you little glimpses into journalists’ souls. What interests them? What ticks them off? Whom do they respect? They will voluntarily give you information that PR pros used to have to work long and hard to obtain.
  •  You can figure out which social media influencers matter just as you would with any communications plan – by identifying your target audience.
  • Make friends with bright new-media stars.

 

11:15 a.m. - ROI Essentials: How to Measure the Impact of Your Media Campaigns

Ryan Bowling, Director of the Press Office and Digital Communications, Mars, Inc.

  • All key stakeholders can be influenced by media and can influence media.
  • Get into the stakeholder’s mindset regarding business challenges and opportunities – identify their concerns and how to grow the business.
  • Establish media measures of success that stakeholders understand – reach, message placement, engagement and conversion.
  • Present a media strategy that underscores integration with other business functions.
  • Media relations campaigns are not just about media anymore; realize the interdependencies with other departments.

 

Sandra Fathi, Founder and President, Affect

  • Don’t measure based on convenience and don’t get stuck measuring just what the measurement platform hands you.
  • Goals are broad, intangible and abstract, while objectives need to be narrow, tangible and concrete.
  • Realistic goals are grounded in reality, backed by resources and have the support of the C-Suite.
  • Incorporate tracking links and measurement techniques into your social media program.
  • Speak in a language that your CEO will understand.

 

Johna Burke, EVP, BurrellesLuce

  • You should know how your organization makes money and spends money.
  • Choose the right metrics that align the business, support strategy and inform better decision-making.
  • Focus on outcome, not tools.

 

Keynote Presentation: The Future of Authoritative Journalism and the Rise of Branded Content

Lewis D'Vorkin, Chief Product Officer, Forbes

  • Organizational culture can eat your strategy.
  • Paid media, earned media, shared media, owned media are all converging.
  • PR and companies are all creating their own newsrooms.
  • Mobile is going to crush newsrooms because advertising is too cheap to draw enough revenue to keep the old style news model alive.
  • The only thing the audience cares about is who’s talking. The association makes no difference.

 

1:15 p.m. - Show & Tell: Examples of Content Marketing That Connects to the Bottom Line

Doug Simon, President & CEO, D S Simon Productions

  • Identify the behavior you want to change and the people who you are trying to reach.
  • Place content where you know it will be found.
  • Measure the impact of content, assess if it meets your brand goals, and revise accordingly.
  • We're all trying to get people to do something different, and content marketing is a great way to do that.
  • What you do on your social sites and your satellite sites must have journalistic credibility. It can't be corporate "puffery."

 

Julie Craven, Vice President, Corporate Communications, Hormel Foods Corporation

  • Cater to 140-character attention spans.
  • A centralized hub property for your content allows you to focus efforts on your satellite properties, aligning community management objectives across platforms to engage users and drive them back to the hub.
  • Knowing your audience and how to provide them the most utility with your content is key to maximizing opportunities to build relationships with them.
  • Provide bite-size information, graphics and evergreen content to get your brand message to resonate as quickly as possible.
  • Create channel-specific content to provide utility and drive conversion.

 

Blair Austin
, Marketing Director
, ILMO Products Company

  • B2B messages don’t resonate with general public and the media knows this, so go for goodwill gestures with employees and CSR efforts.
  • Likeability does resonate with customers.
  • Your audience and customers do not care if your company or organization is celebrating its hundredth anniversary.
  • Success can lead to more marketing resources, particularly for smaller organizations.
  • Your pitch needs a marketing strategy.
  • That marketing strategy must guide communications.

 

2:00 p.m. - Crisis Clinic: Media Relations Survival Tactics During a Crisis

Dallas Lawrence, Vice President, Corporate Affairs, Mattel, Inc.

  • Social media in a crisis can be instigator, accelerant or extinguisher.
  • Majority of businesses believe they will have a crisis in the next 12 months and that it will come from the digital space. Yet they have no plan in place to deal with it.
  • Actively monitor not just your reputation but the activities of your protagonists and antagonists.
  • Be where your crisis is happening.
  • In a crisis, we want to talk to and hear from someone with whom we can relate to.

 

3:00 p.m. - Media Training Essentials: How to Handle Difficult Questions in Interviews

Jerry Doyle, Senior Consultant and Principal, CommCore Consulting Group

  • Only a fraction of the words you say will be remembered.
  • Don’t fall for “either/or” questions. Replace “what if” with “what is.”
  • Never say the words  “no comment.” The phrase implies admission of guilt.
  • Don’t go beyond your expertise.
  • You’re never off the record. Think of every constituent as a reporter.
  • Don’t bash the competition.

 

3:45 p.m. - Face-Off: Relationship-Building Tips for PR Pros & Journalists

An open discussion with communication professionals and reporters on building relationships

Dawn Kelly, Vice President, Global Communications, Prudential Financial

Jon Schwartz, Senior Director, Integrated Marketing Communications, NASCAR

  • Be available whenever journalists may call.
  • We want to build relationship with reporters not just for ourselves, but for our executives.
  • We try to tell the full story.
  • Use the phone.
  • Identify barriers to getting the story out and overcome them.

 

Abha Bhattarai, Reporter, Capital Business, The Washington Post

Natalie DiBlasio, Breaking News Reporter, USA TODAY

Darcy Spencer, General Assignment Reporter, News4 - NBC4 Washington

  • Responsiveness is very important to reporters.
  • Cutting through the chase and getting to the facts is very helpful.
  • You have to let me know why I should care, and why I should care now.
  • Have an expectation of coverage when you send out a press release and be prepared immediately for a response from journalists.
  • When journalists receive the other side of the story from PR pros without asking for it, that builds credibility.