The media’s fascination with Donald Trump’s candidacy began in 2015. It continued in 2016, when during the 24 weeks of presidential primaries (Jan. 1-June 7) “there was not a single week when Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, or John Kasich topped Trump’s level of coverage,” a July 2016 study from the Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy says. Even after Cruz and Kasich quit the race in early May, essentially ceding the race to Trump, the businessman received more coverage than either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders, the Shorenstein report says. Jump to the past two-and-a-half months and communicators can legitimately be forgiven if they feel like social media platforms and the media have adopted a philosophy of “all Trump all the time.”
Add the noise of Trump coverage (or over-coverage?) to one of the PR pro’s perennial headaches—how can I break through the clutter with my message?—and you can see why so many communicators are focused on how to attract journalists’ attention. With this in mind, we asked PR pros about best practices for social pitching. We also inquired of journalists about pitches that attract them.
ClassPass
Relationships and Targeting: Mary Baker, senior PR manager at corporate performance specialist CEB, and Ashley Hennings, head of PR at ClassPass, a fitness company, emphasize using social to build relationships with reporters as a first step. Pitching comes later. “I like to develop relationships, particularly when I don’t have news to share,” Hennings says. Less is more when it comes to pitching, she adds. “I’m a fan of quality over quantity,” preferring to develop deep relationships with a few reporters “who cover my beat and my company” instead of sending press releases to a long list of media.
Relationships are so important to Baker that she uses social to keep up with reporters she worked with from previous jobs (hers and theirs). “You never know when one of your experts may be able to serve as a source” for a journalist, she says, “particularly in today’s media landscape where beats are increasingly broad and changing and one-off assignments are common.”
Both Baker and Hennings use several social channels, but tend to engage with media more on Twitter. Hennings creates Twitter lists, arranging them by topic, issues, industry trends, consumer press and trade press. She makes it a point “every day to spend about one hour in the morning reading the news…and seeing what people are talking about…I know it sounds incredibly obvious” but it helps her develop relationships. “If there’s a chance to engage with [a reporter on social] I’ll do that.” She’ll retweet articles and tweet a comment in response to reporter’s tweeted-out article. “I find that when I go to back to that reporter and I have [news] to share, they’re more responsive.” Hennings uses Instagram to check on reporters’ personal interests, which she slips into conversations when meeting with journalists face to face. Building a relationship with a journalist “is almost like dating someone, you have to invest the time…I want to know what they care about,” she adds.
Baker says, “I will often reach out to reporters who have tweeted that they are seeking sources or information.” If it’s a reporter with whom she has a relationship, “I will email them directly but include in the subject line that I’m responding to one of their tweets.” Hennings says she also responds to journalists who use social to seek sources.
Pitch Selection: Once the relationship has begun, how does the pitching work? Much of it is done via email. Baker often leads with exclusive data CEB has generated. “We always lead with insight and use our data to be proactive,” surprising or provocative, she says.
Both she and Hennings prefer short pitches. “My goal is to keep it short, sweet and clear,” says Baker, who often uses bulleted lists of data in email pitches “if I have a lot of data points/insights to share or if I’m trying to show that my expert can speak to a variety of topics.” She’ll also bold and italicize information to call attention to something specific. Says Hennings, “I only put the most important details in the pitch…when I have an exclusive for someone, I tell them.”
A Journalist Responds:Many of Baker’s and Hennings’ points resonate with Washington Post Express senior arts editor Kristen Page-Kirby. For one, she prefers email pitches. “Email is where I organize my stories,” she says, and “I don’t pick up my phone.” She also prefers to work with PR pitchers she’s met through Twitter, “those who respond to me after I’ve tweeted out a story.”
For someone who receives “about 100 emails” daily, Page-Kirby urges pitchers to structure their email in the style of journalism’s inverted pyramid, with the most important information at the top. “I’ll take a well-written, organized pitch over a clever one” where she has to search for details of why she’s being pitched, Page-Kirby says. Peg your pitch to a news item or an upcoming event, she recommends. And get to the important details fast. You have about 25 words to make your point or your pitch will meet the delete function on Page-Kirby’s computer. Don’t even get her started on pitches outside her beat, which she receives often. “It shows a total lack of research” on the part of the pitcher, she says.
A tip: Make sure you provide a link to usable art. And be available once you’ve sent the pitch. “That drives me crazy…I might need to fact check with you,” she says. And please don’t vanish after the story is in print or online. Tweet it to your followers, which increases engagement.
Master pitching coach Michael Smart of Smart PR, a former journalist and regular contributor to this publication, concurs with much of Page-Kirby’s insights.
Journalists, he says, have two questions “burning in the back of their minds” when they open your pitch: What is this? “They want to know what you have to offer. What it is, in a nutshell.” And Why are you contacting ME about this? Why will my readers/viewers care? These questions seem obvious, he admits, but top PR pros often fail to answer them promptly in pitches.
His explanation of why this happens is interesting: “When you’re too close to your subject matter for too long, you don’t even realize that you’ve lost the ability to get out of your own head.”
Editor’s Note: Hear more from Baker, Hennings, Page-Kirby and others during the PR News webinar, How PR Pros Can Engage With Journalists on Email and Social Media, March 13, 2017, 1:30pm ET or via tape. For more: http://bit.ly/2lkYXtb
CONTACT: [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] and http://bit.ly/2mrRJ8S