Today I’d like to answer (publicly) a question I have received countless times throughout the 10+ years I’ve been in this business. When brainstorming ideas for this month’s newsletter topic, I thought now was as good a time as any to put it out there! I am sure it is something you have all come across over your own careers. Knowing the answer will make you even savvier and save a lot of frustration for your marketing team.
It is something that’s come up in both book and non-book related PR and publicity. Here’s the scenario: a story is broken in a media outlet like CNN. The story pertains to client A. Client A then comes to me and asks THE question: “Can you take this, circulate it to the media and get me more coverage?” Answer: No. It simply does not work that way. Especially when we are working with outlets that compete for certain coverage. It simply is not good business for the publicist to be the one circulating the story. Media players (reporters, editors and producers) are constantly reading, watching and listening to other media outlets. It is how they get leads for their own stories. The hope is they find out about your story and seek me out (or whoever is handling your media) to do the story for their media outlet and not vice-versa. Bottom-line—getting coverage on one media outlet is not enough for me to issue a breaking news press release. Past coverage IS important and we can highlight it on future press materials but it is not cause to suddenly reach out to the media.
Now, that does not mean getting a story on one media channel does not help you get more coverage—it does. What is beautiful in 2011 is that we have all these social marketing channels available to us to circulate the good news! This is a huge megaphone of a media outlet available to you for free! If you have active and vibrant social media profiles (on Linked In, Facebook, Twitter etc.) and you have a good following, you can help a story go viral with the goal of a media player taking note and getting in touch for your latest feature or review. Even if you don’t get additional press coverage in another media outlet, the story has reached potentially thousands of more people through your own (small) effort. Which is no (small) feat.
