So much has changed in just the four years since I've joined the communications industry. The exponential growth of social media, blogs and digital tools has caused us to take a step back and reexamine the most strategic way to deliver key messages to our clients' target audiences. And we continue to hear how newsrooms at some of the nation's leading outlets are shrinking, with many of the journalists who we've worked with over the years now freelancing, as opposed to holding a full-time position at one news outlet.
Yet one aspect of communications that has not changed is the power of relationships. While the communications industry is constantly evolving and embracing new tools, continuing to establish and build strong relationships is still at the core of media relations. This may seem like a no-brainer, but in today's fast-paced, changing media landscape, it is something that can often be overlooked.
So how do we explain the value of established relationships in the midst of the changing media industry and the new tools that are at our fingertips? As an opportunity to deliver results. Here's why:
Freelancing opens doors: Many journalists are now freelancing, which opens the door for stories in multiple media outlets. Freelancers often provide valuable insight on where they believe a story will be a good fit. Strong relationships with reporters who are broadening their network and writing/producing for a more diverse range of media outlets provides numerous new opportunities for our clients. For example, a contact who previously wrote exclusively for a top weekly may now have her own blog, write for one of the top dailies, tweet on a regular basis and continue to contribute to the top weekly. Because of an established relationship, we're three times more likely to deliver our clients' messages to their target audience.
Relationships lead to stories spread across multiple channels: By working with reporters who have embraced social media, now the original story, as one of my colleagues often says, is just the beginning. One small example: this NPR story on autism and handwriting was recently broadcast on Morning Edition. It was then posted to the NPR Web site, tweeted about by @nprnews, and subsequently retweeted about by numerous followers. How did the story originate? Through an established relationship.
Social media provides insights that build relationships: In addition to writing and producing stories that are published in print and/or broadcast on television and the radio, reporters who we work with now actively blog and tweet. This is fantastic! We can more actively "listen" to what they are saying and reporting on - sometimes multiple times a day. This allows us to better evaluate the frequency and tone of their coverage in order to more strategically tailor our pitches. As described in this blog post by Six Until Me blogger Kerri Morrone Sparling, it is critical to understand what bloggers write about. This understanding - or lack thereof - can make, or break, relationships.
The value of relationships cannot be overlooked. What is so exciting is how we, as communications professionals, can use our experience in media relations to stay at the forefront of the changes that we are seeing on a daily basis. As we look back through what used to be a Rolodex - and is now a list of Outlook contacts or a Twitter list - we may find that many of the reporters we've worked with have stories in outlets we didn't know they wrote for, have their own blog, and tweet from their own personal handle and/or for a specific outlet.
So in the midst of all this change, we need to take advantage of the relationships we've worked so hard to establish - the opportunities are endless!
Tags: New Media, PR, Social media
