Public relations stirs up powerful emotions – it’s a rare CEO who isn’t totally captivated by her picture on the cover of Wired Magazine. I’m not a PR person anymore, but I was one for 25 years. So, to help the companies dying for great coverage and the heroic PR people who serve them, poseyblog is spending June on common myths about PR.
Huge PR Myth #1: You can control a story
Media relations (a huge part of public relations) is two things. It is the art of generating opportunities for coverage and it is the art of influencing media who are creating stories. A great PR person has relationships with reporters who will read her e-mails and take her calls. This is essential, because reporters do not open e-mails from strangers.
Once a reporter is interested in a story, a great PR person manages the story – she keeps tabs on the reporter all through process. She uses her influence to salvage a story that’s going off the rails. But a PR person cannot control what words are said on air or what words appear online.
Do you want to improve your chances of getting great media results? Listen to your agency’s advice – it’s the press that defines what “news” is. It’s your agency who understands what the media wants. If your agency says your story needs work, work on it. Then, become a great spokesperson. Get media trained so you can deliver that message beautifully, with great stories and soundbites.
Huge PR Myth #2: A great PR person can get any story placed anywhere
An amazing PR person is a credible and connected source for media. When she asks, reporters will do the interviews with her clients. They write stories and give them good placement.
But even the best PR person in the world cannot do this with every reporter at every outlet every time. Her influence may be broad, but it’s never universal. She is not magic. If your story is weak and irrelevant, she can’t turn it into major national news.
Huge PR Myth #3: Reporters will always cover something important
“Important” is entirely subjective. Never assume that what’s important to you is important to the press. Bottom line – reporters write about what other reporters write about. Because reporters and their editors closely follow news covered by other outlets, if you are in the news already you stand a much greater chance of getting covered.
Yes, someone somewhere has to write that first story. Put all of your effort into shaping a brilliant pitch for that first story. A self-serving “we are great” story won’t make the cut. A story that crystallizes a nascent trend – that’s the kind of first mover story that a particularly curious and ambitious reporter likes. Your great PR agency knows those types of reporters and knows what a story like this looks like.
Your business must scale, and you must scale with it. Great communicators create the change they want to see in the world. poseycorp helps innovators build powerful messages and the skill to deliver them so they can break through the noise and be heard! Click here to receive pragmatic communications advice in your inbox every month.
poseycorp’s Ask Me Anything About Communications is on vacation in July. Happy 4th! Be sure to join us on August 3rd.
