Ever wonder why some people get media coverage for their business and some don't? Chances are those getting the buzz are taking the time to proactively build personal connections with bloggers and reporters, both on and off-line.
By taking a people-centric approach, over time you can build an engaged group of writers and influencers who trust you, understand your company's unique value, and are rooting for your success. Here and in the Slideshare below, is an outline for how you can kick off your own media relationship strategy.
Get organized: Treat important media contacts as you would key prospects or clients, and onboard your connections into an organized system. This will lay the groundwork to make sure they don't slip through the cracks. While lists in spreadsheets are great for putting together initial research, I urge you to move past them because building rapport with writers will not simply require contact management, but relationship development.
I now am part of the team at Mingly, a social relationship development tool, but fell in love with it back when I was building my own startup. It brings together all your contacts across email, Facebook, and LinkedIn, so you have a global view of your entire network, no matter on which platform you've connected. From there you can create:
- Groups: Create a group(s) like "Tech Writers" or "Food Bloggers" and add respective contacts. This simple step will save you a ton of time down the road, as you can quickly pull your current media list for efficient outreach.
- Notes: What makes this person unique? Capture and store important information such as: a link to one of writer's most popular articles; link to personal site/blog; interesting hobbies/passions; where you met; etc.
- Connections: Connect across as many mediums as possible. Follow writers on Twitter, friend/subscribe on Facebook, and if appropriate, send invite on LinkedIn.
- Keep in touch reminders: Like any relationship, it will take ongoing outreach to get on the radar and stay top of mind with writers. I'd suggest setting a weekly reminder for those with whom you are trying to establish an initial connection, and a two week reminder for those reporters already in your court.
Invest in their success A weekly keep in touch reminder? How are you supposed to come up with things to say in an email every week? You're not going to. I like to think of keep in touch reminders as "How can I be supportive and helpful?" reminders. That simply means that yes, sometimes you will pursue very deep engagement, and other times you will casually champion their work. The key is to put your agenda to the side and focus on helping those you admire be even more successful.
Here are some ideas for connecting with your favorite bloggers and reporters:
- Reply to and reshare Tweets and Facebook posts.
- Regularly leave well thought out comments at the end of articles you genuinely enjoyed.
- Get involved in their favorite online communities like Quora, Focus, and LinkedIn Groups. Answer questions about relevant topics and share resoucese to position yourself as an expert.
- Congratulate them on birthdays, new gigs, and other personal news.
- Write a blog post that highlights a story of theirs, then e-mail/ tweet them the link.
- Offer suggestions you think would make great follow-up stories, especially ones that don't have anything to do with your business. (Most stories are part of a long-running issue, so additional story follow-up ideas are always needed.)
- Offer to connect them to experts you know.
- Meet in real life. Pay attention to events they will be attending, and introduce yourself. Maximize your travel plans with your Mingly global address book: Sort your media group(s) by city, and invite them to meet up for a coffee while you're in town.
First focus on building personal relationships with those in the media. When you are genuinely interested and understand them, your eventual pitch will be ten times better. You will be able to relate to them personally and they will know who you are and have a sense of your expertise. So when the time comes to share your news, they will be much more likely to open your email or take your call.