Communicating with the Press

 

Summary:

¾     Introduction

¾     Press monitoring

¾     Managing the press file

¾     Sending a press release

¾     Measuring the impact

 

Introduction:

¾     Basic notions

¾     Tools

 

 

Basic Notions of the Press Release:

 

Who is a journalist?

¾     A professional who is always in a hurry who is looking for reliable, fresh and, ifpossible, exclusive information.

¾     And don’tforget about bloggers, too!

 


 

Why communicate with press?

¾     Asa sounding board

¾     To relay opinions…and respectability

 

When tocommunicate with press?

¾     Always

¾     In advance

 

How to communicatewithpress?

The golden rule: save the journalist time

 

¾     Relevance tothe journalist’s areas of interest

¾     Factualinformation. To the point.

¾     Providing new and fresh information

¾     Maintaining the relationship, the trust (goodies, exclusives, etc.)

¾     Being creative, creating the events (flash mobs, etc.)

 

Who communicates with press?

¾     A press contact

¾     Identify the spokesperson in your community

 

PR Tools

Press monitoring:

¾     To know one’s sector, one’s subject

¾     To identify the media and journalists

¾     To monitor the press’ impacts

 

The Press File:

¾     The lifeblood of the battle

¾     Updating: a permanent task

 

The Press Release:

¾     The job of writing and presenting

¾     Brevity, clarity, attractiveness

 

Press Monitoring:

 

¾     Google tools

¾     Twitter and social networks

¾     Tools of “Professionals”

 

Google tools:

Google news: news.google.fr

 

¾     To choose areas of interest and sources

¾     To identify media and journalists

¾     To monitor press impact

Google alerts: google.com/alerts

 

Nowit’syourturn:

Create 3 Google Alerts!

 

 

 

 


 

 


Twitter and Social Networks:

 

¾     All journalists are on Twitter

 

¾     Scoop it and Netvibes: all-in-one dashboard intelligence platform for real-time social-media monitoring and social analytics

Nowit’syourturn:

Create a netvibes Dashboard!

 

Tools of “Professionals”:

¾     Pressedd: pressedd.com

¾     Press Data: datapresse.fr

¾     The Argus of the Press: argus-presse.fr

¾     And many others: http://www.categorynet.com/mtree/veille-et-panoramas-de-presse/

 

Note: Professional services canbeexpensive!

 

 

 

 

 

 


Managing aPress File:

¾     Information

¾     Tracking journalists

¾     Tools of “Professionals”

 

Recording and organizing the gathered information:

 

First Name

Last Name

Media

Type

Topics

Email

Tel

Twitter

LinkedIn/Viadeo

Connection

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tracking Journalists:

¾    

Nowit’syourturn:

Add 3 journalists to yourpress file!

The Masthead

¾     Google, Linkedin

¾     Twitter

¾     The website contact form (for the 1st contact)

¾     Freelancers

¾     Business cards (professional events)

¾     Directories and communities: Categorynet


 

Sending a Press Release:

 

¾     Rules for writing an effective press release

¾     Examples

¾     Circulating your press release

¾     What next?

 

Rules for writing an effective press release:

¾     An attractive, but clear title

¾     The title (in bold): just what’s essential!

¾     The text: concise and factual — short sentences, centered headings, bold-faced type, etc.

¾     The boilerplate: your business card

¾     Sign and date; press-contact info.; link for further info.; logo, date (at the top)

 

Nowit’syourturn:

Writeyourpress release!

Examples of Press Releases:

 

http://www.ereleases.com/press-release-sample.html

 

 

 

Circulating your press release:

 

¾     By email:

o   best to place it within the body of the message, but pay attention to layout.

o   in an attached (pdf) file, but make sure this is indicated in your message.

o   don’t forget to hide the mailing list (bcc)

 

¾     On your website/blog:

o   in pdf or html format

o   in a press section

o   make it stand out

 

¾     On social networks:

o   Twitter: @name or DM (Direct Message), create a hashtag

o   Viadeo and LinkedIn: add links to websites, Twitter accounts, In Mails, Groups, etc.

 

What next?

¾     Press conferences

¾     Interviews

¾     Photos and videos


 

 

 

Measuring the Impact:

 

Several indicators:

¾     theactual number ofpress contacts

¾     the number of citations recorded in your monitoring process

¾     website consultation statistics

¾     Google E-questionnaires, on-site  questionnaires

 

 

 

 

Any Questions?

 

If not, THE END!