Is the PR industry maximizing the potential of bloggers?
In the world of Public Relations all of the KPI’s, AVE’s and company mottos can distract from the aim of the game. What it truly comes down to is generating awareness of a service or product. Whilst traditional media coverage is still incredibly relevant and valuable, there is one area that is massively underutilised and potentially misunderstood– blogging!
Blogs are great for PRs. One of their main advantages is that they tend to focus on one singular issue, whether it’s gluten-free meals, menopause or men’s socks. This means that if your story fits in with the blog’s subject matter, then it is relevant to their readers. By securing coverage in blogs you’ll actually be promoting the brand more effectively with people who are genuinely interested.
Also, by focusing on a singular issue, bloggers will usually have a good understanding of the relevant research, products and experts in their field. If you can convince a blogger that your story is credible and relevant to their readers, you tap into an entire audience of people who trust the blogger’s perspective.
What is vitally important in getting bloggers interested is really getting to know their blog. For example, we work with a lot of parenting bloggers and recently did a story charting the life of an average 12-year-old boy. It was not simply enough to send the story out to all the parenting bloggers; we had to select the ones who actually had sons. It’s always good to explain why a story would interest them and with this particular story it helped to ask them to compare our findings to their experience as parents. Sometimes the content itself is not enough. You have to give the blogger a reason to engage.
So, the million dollar question is: What can PRs offer bloggers?
Payment?
The truth is the principle rule of PR is that we do not pay for coverage. That’s advertising. However, some bloggers run their site as their main source of income and expect PRs to pay them for taking their stories. Unfortunately, that is just never going to happen. When a PR can land a good story on the MailOnline with nothing but the quality of the content, why would they pay a blogger £70? Especially when the blog has about 3% of the readership of the MailOnline. It may upset some bloggers to hear it but payment is just simply not on the table.
Content
Content is what PRs can offer to bloggers. PRs have surveys, spokespeople, experts and a whole host of other resources at their fingertips that a typical blogger couldn’t afford or gain access to.
Personally, I am in a unique situation as I’m both a PR and a blogger. Now if I were approached and asked to write something for money I would turn it down. My voice is credible and taking payment ‘bribes’ to run a story would make it less credible. My opinion can’t be bought. Yet, if someone came to me with good content, research I didn’t have access to, graphics and other resources that I actually found interesting and felt my readers would find interesting, I would be more than willing to take it.
This is what PRs can offer to bloggers: content they couldn’t afford and stories their readers will respond to. PRs can also offer bloggers products to review. This saves the blogger time and money and gives them something to talk about. Providing a beauty blogger with free make-up samples does two things.1- it saves the blogger having to spend money on the samples and 2 – it makes for appropriate content that the readers will be interested in.
Events
PRs also have the funds to put on events that bloggers can go to. Bloggers shouldn’t want to be seen as a keyboard warrior, preaching from the confines of their bedroom. They should be out there engaging with people on the topic of their choice and PRs can facilitate that. Events are great. Not only does it keep the old Instagram account looking busy but it is also a meeting of like-minded people working in the same field which is great for getting inspiration as well as keeping an eye on your competition.
Inspiration hub for bloggers
As part of SWNS, we have an online hub (PLUG!) where we upload our stories and resources. This is free for bloggers to go to get relevant content. Whether a blogger needs stats to support something they are writing about, a quote from an expert or if they are simply looking for something fresh to write about, we’ve found an online hub is a great way for bloggers and PRs to work together. We have the content and they have the following. We provide newsworthy content to bloggers for free and they find their readers responding.
My hope for the future is for bloggers and PRs to understand how to work with each other more effectively and make each other stronger.
Understanding how a national newsdesk works
Can you just email it, please? Six words to send a shiver of dread down the spine of any PR when attempting to “sell-in” a story to a national newsdesk. It almost certainly means that cleverly tricked out idea or cheerfully penned piece of copy is heading for the email queue graveyard, unloved and almost certainly unread.
But perhaps the issue lies in the very phrase “sell-in” – and the alarming lack of a working knowledge of how a newsdesk works.
I should know…I ran one for a decade and had exactly the same attitude to the daily avalanche of well-meaning but ultimately futile calls from PR executives.
A newspaper is not a blank canvas of opportunity to be filled with PR “puff”, rather, at least in the opinion of the journalists manning its newsdesk, it is a limited space on which they aim to paint a daily masterpiece.
Everything must be there on merit. Every line, every column inch must be hard earned. The same golden rule applies to their online counterparts. Content must match the digital DNA of its host. Anything that does not will jar with an online editor.
The step from national newspaper journalism into PR is a very small and indeed logical step to take.
But for many it represents a yawning chasm with an ‘us and them’ mentality that frequently sees the two sides who should, perhaps, be working hand in glove instead diametrically opposed and pitched as polar opposites.
How can this gap be bridged? Put simply by working hard to understand the mind-set of the national papers and the staff who populate them.
By their very natures, news editors are a tough and cynical bunch. There is little a grizzled desk veteran will not have heard during his or her career. They’ll have heard every pitch, every nuanced subtlety deployed to chisel some space in the paper. And chances are, a call redolent with cheery bonhomie will be the last thing they need at 10.45am as they battle to build a newslist that will impress an editor.
Similarly, an online news editor will be bombarded by pressure – working at enormous speed while attempting to make sure every paragraph is accurate and every line sings.
That is why every decent PR would benefit from time spent in a newsroom environment. An opportunity to witness the ebb and flow of a day at the editorial coalface. A chance to witness:
- How a newslist evolves, who is likely to give them the time of day and when.
- The pressures brought to bear by editors and their executive teams.
- The immense speed at which stories are published online.
Much of the problem is caused by the very different timelines in play. A PR exec may have spent six weeks working towards building the “perfect” pitch. Gathering the information, writing the copy, ensuring all is approved by the client – only for it to be dismissed in a matter of seconds by a harried news editor working at warp factor 10.
Understanding the news agenda on any given day is utterly crucial as well. No newsdesk journalist will give a PR their attention while a terrorist atrocity is unfolding. Equally, sometimes a well-delivered light and frothy pitch might be the perfect riposte to the grim horror that seems to haunt our newspapers and websites in these troubled and uncertain times.
Timing is all. Freelance journalists are masters of this, understanding the right moment to call in with their offerings. They have this advantage because they have virtually. all worked in a newsroom environment and there really is no substitute for that.
Even the jargon is completely different…as with any industry, journalists and PRs have their own patois of acronyms and buzzwords, but for two professions seemingly so closely aligned, I have been taken aback by quite how different the methodology and mantras are.
News is gathered organically, and no one can have complete control over how it will grow during any given day.
News editors and journalists, in general, are perpetually one call away from triumph when a story works, or staring into the abyss if a front page splash crashes and burns.
They are expected to keep dozens of plates spinning simultaneously and to move with devastating speed when a story breaks because time is their greatest enemy.
It is only close up that the frenetic pace of a busy newsroom can be truly understood.
It is only through experience that the alchemy of turning newsprint into newspaper can be fully appreciated.
At 72Point working alongside a newsroom is an undoubted advantage. Having the SWNS Group as our parent company means we are in hourly contact with our content users, and actually being able to immerse staff in a newsroom environment with newsroom attitudes gives them an invaluable insight into how the media works.
Social Media Content: It's a dog's life
Working at a press agency means I’m constantly surrounded by creative, passionate people in an office buzzing with ideas. Every morning my colleagues scour the news pages and sites to see if their stories made. Hours are spent every week brainstorming ideas for clients and writing witty, compelling copy. They deliberate headlines, by-lines and always push themselves creatively. In a competitive market, they are constantly asking themselves the age old advertising question: What sells?
In my role as OnePoll’s online community manager, it is my job to interact with our OnePoll panelists. Whether it’s competitions, answering member queries or just posting an image that I think they might like – the latter of which I like to do on a Friday to cheer everyone up for the weekend. A while back, I posted a picture of a dog. A picture of a wet dog if you want to be specific. Why I hear you ask. Well it had been a long week so work so I decided to Google ‘frazzled dog’, as one does. I saw the picture and loved it. I decided to add a few words to it, to really drive home my message. It turns out that this dog was no ordinary dog. It was internet gold. The image has so far reached 22 million people, been shared by more than 350,000 and has over 50,000 likes.
Who knew those words and that image would resonate with so many people! People have shared stories about their stresses at work, their lives in general and have told me about their beloved pets. They tagged people and those people tagged other people. At first we had a few likes and shares, then those likes and shares doubled, then tripled.
After a week we reached nearly 500,000 people (the most likes a post had got before was 819, and the post was boosted, so beating that was my original goal). I kept refreshing the page until it crashed and refused to update. I left work on Friday feeling super successful….just like Dave from Money Supermarket.
It was pretty surreal seeing my post pop up on my newsfeed because someone I know has shared it, without knowing who I work for, and colleagues (yes you Rick Maughan), telling me their friends are also sharing it. It was just plain odd.
I post on the OnePoll members Facebook page every day, it’s my job, and never before has anything taken off in such a way. So what is so special about this post?
Obviously we need to make something clear. The OnePoll Facebook page is a B2C. This gives it the freedom to feature light hearted, jovial content whether it be memes, YouTube videos, dogs, cats, goats …anything really. It’s the go to page for our panel; it’s the home of OnePoll’s online community. Being a Facebook page for our OnePoll community means therefore that follower numbers are considerably more substantial that other B2B accounts, which means the impression rate is automatically more impressive.
These things don’t automatically mean that content will go viral – an overused buzzword for the 21st century – but they do obviously lend a hand in making them popular.
In the serious world of journalism and B2B marketing there were mixed feelings about the success of the image, or ‘cognitive dissonance’ if you want to be smart (Jay Williams, our Content Director!). On one hand, as Jay puts it, there is a sense of frustration that a picture of a soapy dog has done so well. But, on the other hand, and I’m quoting Jay directly here for maximum embarrassment, ‘Look! It’s a soapy dog! That’s soooooo cute!’ (Yes, he did over extend ‘so’. That really happened).
So why has the image done so well? Obviously no-one can predict what’s going to go viral (there’s that word again, sorry), but in an article for the Guardian in 2014 Buzzfeed’s editorial director, Jack Shepherd, gave the world some insight in to what makes it more likely.
His first piece of advice was to avoid the term ‘viral content’ like the plague, hence my overly apologetic use of the phrase earlier on. Shepherd described the term as sounding ‘like a vomit bag’. Lovely.
His second piece of advice was to share things that people can relate to, or in other words ‘things people share the most are things about themselves’. Shepherd commented that in the modern online world ‘your readers are your publishers’ – sentiments that relate strongly to our own findings from our Generation Editor report. ‘They are more likely to do that if the act of sharing helps them to make a strong statement about who they are.’ That doesn’t mean that the thousands of people who shared our dog image think of themselves as wet dogs, although some of them might and who are we to judge? What it means is that something about this image related to them on a personal level. Maybe it was the sentiments of the text. Maybe all 381, 839 shares were from people who had had the week from hell.
Shepherd’s third piece of advice was that people are more likely to engage with a something if they have ‘a strong, positive emotional response to it’. The guardian article refers to findings of a 2010 study into the New York Times’ “Most emailed” list (an early form of viral content, before social shares) which found that items on the list fell into one of four categories:
- Awe-inspiring
- Emotional
- Positive
- Surprising
Ok, so the soapy dog isn’t awe-inspiring, emotional or surprising but it is positive. The dog has had a rough week and come out fighting! (I know I sound crazy, but please suspend your disbelief for a bit longer).
Last and by no-means least, and this isn’t Shepherds insight, it’s a cute dog. Animal posts do well. It’s an unexplained phenomenon. You just have to look at the rise to fame of the host of internet cat celebrities….wow, there’s a phrase we never thought we’d hear. Since the early days of the internet cat posts have always done well, starting with email and chatroom images, then to the rise of LOLCats (which now has over 100 million views a month), right through to Keyboard cat, grumpy cat and Nyan (who isn’t even a real cat). One of our panelists even commented on a later post featuring a dog, that it’s nice to have a break from cat pictures.
Truth be told, we will never know for certain why this image was so popular. In my own personal opinion, as OnePoll’s online community manager I have come to realise that people take an interest in your post when it’s either humorous or potentially offensive. Also it was a Thursday and people were feeling tired and stressed out. The dog in the picture also reminds them of their own pet, which invokes a multitude of emotions. It’s relatable, both on a personal and professional level and who doesn’t love a photogenic dog! Turns out, from further investigation that it’s a famous dog, called Tusk. You can visit his Instagram and Twitter accounts. Bottom line though…everyone loves pictures of cute animals. It’s human nature and sometimes that’s all it takes.
Written by Jade Easton and Ruth Davison
Breakfast News: How Media Consumption Has Become Routine
Most mornings I’ve looked at my phone before I’ve even had a chance to open both eyes.
Swiping off my alarm, I’ll immediately raise the handset above my hideously scrunched face and, with one gunky eye half-open, allow the glare to bring me round to full consciousness.
First, I’ll deal with push notifications. Not thirty seconds awake and I’ve been pushed by my own technology. My bastard phone has the audacity to wake me up and then it bosses me around.
That’s how it is now, to get read, heard, noticed it takes a good old-fashioned holler in your face. Not a nice ‘here we are, how about a little read of this, in your own time of course’ but a loud, playground-style shove.
Following the alerts, usually BBC or Sky news updates, I’ll deal with emails. A scan of the work inbox is followed by the familiar barrage of living social deals, Metro’s news stories of the day, the Buzzfeed newsletter and, would you know it, Amazon have more stuff for me - I love stuff! Also Zizzi are still cooking food, Spotify have music and ASOS have a clothes sale.
Next, the mandatory Facebook check. First, it tells me I have memories (Facebook tells me what to remember now). Then I’ll browse the timeline because I may have missed a vital update in someone’s life in the seven hours since I last checked.
It’s only at this point that I’ll get out of bed and address the basic issues of hygiene (shower), nudity (clothes) and sustenance (cereal). But while shovelling heaps of Coco Pops (When ‘grown up’ cereals turn the milk chocolatey I’ll consider switching) I’ll be reading BuzzFeed. I’ll jump onto Vice and then back to Facebook probably ending up lost in an article a mate’s liked, posted or commented on.
The commute sees more consuming:
Road crossing. Red man. Loads of time, I’ll just look at my phone a bit quick.
Train platform - sure as hell won’t be making eye contact with anyone, phone out.
Carriage – I’ll grab a hard copy of the Metro- cover-to-cover scan.
Even when finally at the desk, I’ll still do a whistle-stop tour of the basic sites, a few news aggregators, a few football sites, another look at Facebook because I may have missed a vital update in someone’s life in the 46 minutes since I last checked.
Then I’ll try and do the work I’m paid to do in between my non-stop news consumption. But, as we all know, when we’re sat with access to the big everything machine that is the internet at our fingertips, we’re never far from a quick scan of a few sites, a sneaky minimized window behind the work, a few more push notifications from our attention-seeking smart-arsed phones.
The way we take in stories is changing and, as research shows, we read more, we read mobile and we’re pickier because of the volume available. Whether it’s at the desk, on the commute or in the toilet even, we’re editing our own constant stream of news and consuming in spaces we didn’t before. We’re watching more videos and curating our own news from what friends are posting, liking, moaning about.
As ever though, story is king and no matter how much something is pushed to a publication or an audience, knowing your content will set tongues wagging or have the strength to cut through the noise remains more crucial than ever.
Now, a quick look at Facebook, because I may have missed a vital update in someone’s life in the 22 minutes since I last checked.
Reinventing the Wire
In 1978, a small news and pictures agency was founded in Bristol providing news and pictures to local and national press.
Almost 40 years on, SWNS is the biggest independent news wire in the UK supplying some of the world’s most hard-hitting content to major newspapers, magazines, broadcasters and websites employing more than 100 editorial staff across offices in London, Plymouth, Cambridge, Birmingham, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Yorkshire.
The commercial success built on the back of SWNS’s growth is evidenced by the wealth of coverage secured for our clients on a day-to-day basis. Using the first campaign as a case in point, Harris Brushes were able to secure coverage in the Daily Mail, the Daily Express and the Mirror, among others, because national and regional press trust our content and trust that we can supply them with material that works across all their platforms.
But the digital generation has shaken up the media industry. Our research revealed 76 per cent of people now consume media ‘digitally’ and almost one in ten consume more than 16 stories a day, with the average Brit consuming 5.9 media stories a day.
Our thirst for media and our ability to digest various forms of media - 95 per cent of respondents said they consume media on multiple platforms 48 per cent take a multi-channel approach to media - has given birth to a wealth of new digital platforms that aren’t easily serviced by the traditional news wire.
Which is why we reinvented it.
Bloggers, vloggers, digital editors and influencers can now source content on our new digital news wire that caters exclusively for online publications. The emphasis is on rich, visual content and news releases that encourage social sharing, with news copy, images, audio and video bundled into one downloadable file.
The wire has been launched as a one-stop-shop for editors on the hourly hunt for news, with a simple, four-click solution to capturing the story and publishing it. This ensures that we appeal to time-poor bloggers, editors and influencers by delivering content in a timely manner.
Since its launch, hundreds of users have registered with the Digital Hub for survey news, lifestyle content and releases from across the web and social media. With a target to get that number into the thousands in the near future, the hub is steadily becoming the go-to place for digital media outlets.
For 72Point clients, that means that not only do they have a pick of the national press, but also of the increasingly influential online publications that have surfaced in its wake. With the lion’s share of media consumers taking a ‘multi’ approach to media, having all the bases covered is a surefire means of receiving unparalleled coverage.
To find out more about the Digital Hub, click here.
To download our Generation Editor report, click here.
Generation Editor: a report by 72Point
The marriage of social media and mobile technology has opened the door to round-the-clock media in our lives. According to Crowdtap research, individuals aged 18 spend an average of 17.8 hours a day with different types of media, often simultaneously handling multiple media types. But does that indicate a deluge, or an evolution?
Our report, Generation Editor, has revealed we have adapted to the 24/7, immersive media environment by developing editorial controls and filters. Consumers have become agents in the media cycle, choosing who to follow based on the content they’re most keen on receiving and becoming more powerful as a result.
Our survey of 7,500 UK adults shows that the perception that consumers can’t cope with a wealth of content needs to be challenged.
Some 56 per cent of people say they don’t feel bombarded by content or messaging and more than a third (36 per cent) say they feel more in control of the news they receive since owning a smartphone or tablet with only 11 per cent saying they feel less in control. Seven in ten say social media has made it easier to access news, with more than four in five 18-24 year-olds and three-quarters of female respondents saying they feel social media has brought them closer to the media.
The study, based on the responses of 7,500 people, shows that the perception that consumers can’t cope with a wealth of content needs to be challenged. Using avenues such as social media, we have greater control over who our media ‘suppliers’ are. Almost a quarter of people say they have friends or follow people who they regard as authorities for news and almost one in five (19 per cent) say they trust their friends to source news. A quarter still rely on media professionals, but a similar amount (23 per cent) say they rely on a mixture of both journalists and friends.
This is a shift we have termed Citizen Editorship, a movement predicated on choice and preference. Media consumers now demand the liberty of choosing which platform or channel they consume media on. A massive 95 per cent of respondents said they consume media on multiple devices and almost half (48 per cent) take a multi-channel approach to media. On social media, we only wait 22.3 days before unfollowing or unfriending a news source we no longer find useful.
For media professionals, infiltrating these editorial controls means delivering flexible, relevant content that transcends channels and platforms. With social media an increasingly important part of the media mix, it is essential that a variety of media is delivered in order to reach intended audiences.
Multi-Platform Content (MPC) is a must in this current climate, which is why it is at the heart of everything we do at 72Point.
Eschew All Those Beastly Adjectives
Sorting through a chest of old letters and photos recently, I came across a yellowing envelope marked ‘Roald Dahl’.
Memories flooded back as I opened it. This was a hand-typed reply I’d received from the great story-teller to a letter I wrote to him when I was 17, pleading for feedback and advice on an A level project I was doing about short stories. I’d included one of my own.
I remember how I felt when he replied – astounded, and then, with the callowness of youth (see pic!), a bit peeved that he’d been so terse:
Dear Jay,
You are asking too much of me. You must realise that I get an awful lot of these letters and you can’t expect me to write your thesis for you. It should be fairly obvious to you what the role of the short story is in modern literature. It’s a big one. Study particularly the American short story writers like O’Henry and Runyon and Hawthorne and Poe, and lots and lots of English ones.
If you want any dope on me there have been an awful lot of profiles in English magazines over the past year starting with the February 1979 issue of Vogue.
I have read your story. I don’t think it’s bad, but you must stop using too many adjectives. Study Hemingway, particularly his early work and learn how to write short sentences and how to eschew all those beastly adjectives. Surely it is better to say “She was a tall girl with a bosom” than “She was a tall girl with a shapely, prominent bosom”, or some such rubbish. The first one says it all.
Yours sincerely,
Roald Dahl
Heeding his 35-year-old advice, I tweeted a snap of the letter with the message: “In 1980, as a spotty teenager, I wrote to Roald Dahl asking for advice on writing. Here is his priceless response”. Yes, I know that contains two “beastly” adjectives, but I felt they were justified.
A week later, and with no additional ‘push’ from me, the post had been retweeted over 1,000 times and favourited by more than 1,500 people, making it my most popular tweet by a country mile.
Obviously its popularity could be attributed to Dahl himself; his books are a part of so many of our lives. But for teachers and writers (and so many of the retweets have been by them) what resonates is the advice, specifically that passed on so memorably in the final three sentences. It sank into my teenage brain and led to a mantra when I worked as a reporter and then in PR: ‘keep it tight’, whether it be an intro or a pitch to a news editor.
I remember a team of in-house PRs coming into the SWNS newsroom many years ago to see their story being pitched to national newspapers news editors one morning. The PR director and two wide-eyed interns (I think they were from a rail group) watched as I made the call to desk after desk with the same 10-second spiel: ”Oh yeah, and we’ve got a fun one – a list of the weirdest items left behind at train stations this year, including a wooden leg, a stuffed gerbil and a jar of pickled eggs. With pix.” After the call, the PRs were mortified. ”You didn’t even mention the name! Or how many stations were included in the round-up! Or how amazing some of the things were!”
Of course, that wasn’t the point. It was about the story, and you’ve got about 10 seconds to tell it to a busy news editor. These people deal every day with the absolute extremes of story-telling – terrible human tragedies, major sporting achievements, business disasters – so to oversell or ‘overtell’ our/your survey would show we had no understanding of the way it goes. The mention of the client in the pitch would have been a switch-off. And to have called the results of the survey “amazing” would just have been beastly.
PR Seminar: Dealing With the Press and Coping With Christmas
I’d like to extend a big thank you to everyone who took the time out of their busy morning to join us for our first ever northern 72Point seminar on Thursday.
It was nice to renew a few old acquaintances, catch up with our best clients from that part of the world, and also network with a whole host of people who we haven’t previously met.
The high-point for me was the bacon rolls, while the low-point was the moment I unwittingly ‘brought the house down’ during Sam’s talk in the form of causing the collapse of one of our banners.
I have obviously apologised to Sam!
I hope everyone who was there took something from it. We will find out soon I guess, once we receive your feedback via our online poll.
I did explain during my talk that I would happily pass on the hints and tips which I discussed at length, so here is a transcript of the interesting bits:
If you do have huge pressure to sell in stories in the run up to Christmas, call news desks early.
When I worked on desks we would start at 6.15am
But bear in mind conference is at 10.30am or 11am, and in an ideal world the news list will be complete by 10am or 10.15.
That means the busiest and most fraught time of the morning is between about 8.30 and 9.45am.
And guess what happens at that time in the morning. That’s when PR people call up.
People always say to me that journalists need PRs.
That’s not necessarily true.
Specialist reporters do. News desks don’t.
There is always more than enough happening around the world to fill 39 news pages, especially considering their over reliance on citizen journalism, social networking sites and Sky News, for their content.
So if you don’t want to be shouted at, ring up between 7am and 8am.
Whether you ring up or not, you must get your story over in the A.M.
After this most stories which arrive on news desks will either be spiked – which is effectively the waste-paper basket – or they will be cut very short to fit into a specific space on a page.
That’s because later on in the day, is not the quality of the story which is the defining factor. Space on the page is.
If you have to create a festive tale, be different. Forget ‘Dads get socks for Christmas’, for example. It’s dull and is probably the most common Xmas PR tale.
Try and think outside the box and try and ensure your story isn’t just a stat. There IS a difference.
Six out of ten dads will be asleep on the sofa by 2pm isn’t a story.
‘Six out of ten dads will be asleep on the sofa by 2pm – after consuming six pints of lager, three glasses of champagne and a creme-de-menthe’ – is a story, because it has the crucial five Ws and the H elements.
This sort of story then becomes about Christmas, booze and dads, not just Christmas. And we all like a drink at Christmas so it flicks a little switch of resonance.
This sort of intro also gives you somewhere to go with the subsequent paragraphs.
When did dad start drinking? What was on telly when he started? How long before that did he get up?
Did he sleep through the Queen’s speech?
How much does he drink over the entirety of the festive period etc etc?
AND this sort of story does not have to be told in a negative way. It’s all about the tone.
Another thing to bear in mind is that the MailOnline DO run Xmas stories, quite a few in fact.
So if you have one which you think will sit nicely on what is now the world’s biggest free news site, write it in the style they prefer.
Include up to six bullet-pointed sentences at the top of your copy.
This way you have a chance of them copying and pasting the copy – which they seem to be a huge fan of at the moment – without changing much of it.
Getting your story on a news wire is also important.
Up until around five years ago I would have said that if you were placing your story on a news wire you wouldn’t really have needed to call up and actively sell it in as well.
But these days there are so few people working on newspapers that it’s likely your story may be missed or overlooked, so I would say call up anyway.
It can do no harm, and might make the difference between success and failure.
When you call avoid introducing yourself. It won’t make a difference. They are busy people and they are under immense pressure. They don’t want to make friends.
So when they pick up the phone and bark at you, bark back. Just say ”I’ve got a story for you”. This will stop them in their tracks and they will take the time to listen to you.
Then read the intro of your story. Don’t use the words press release or survey and certainly don’t mention a brand.
Once you have read them the intro, if they haven’t turned the story down or hung up, read them the second paragraph.
If they then give you their personal email address, you are in. There is now a chance they will use your story.
If they say: ‘Send it to news@the-sun.co.uk’, that’s the bin, or it certainly was when I worked on the paper.
And remember if you get a bauble in the Daily Star give yourselves a massive pat on the back, because this time of the year any news coverage is GREAT news coverage.
Have a wonderful Christmas.
Thanks for listening.
A Picture Paints a Thousand Words
It might not come as a surprise to you that more and more stuff is going digital. This is to some degree spurned on by the sheer speed and quality of technical advancements. It wasn’t that long ago that I had to plug my laptop into the phone line to surf the interweb. Now I can check my emails whilst on the train; 10 years ago that would have blown people’s minds, either that or I’d have been burned for being a witch.
The move to digital is also fuelled by a desire to make people’s lives more convenient. Whether it’s an app that tells you how long to cook your steak for or the e-reader which lets you have all your favourite books in one place. People are reaching out for things that make their life easier.
This trend is becoming more and more dominant in the world of press. As with books, people want all their news in one handy place and in condensed formats. In June of this year (2014), The National Readership Survey estimated a decline of 13% in the readership of national newspapers, yet an article in the Guardian reported an increase in their online readership. Digital news seems to be where it’s at.
I for one am an advocate of traditional methods; I like printed books, newspapers and magazines, but when it comes to finding out about what’s happening in the world my first port of call is to check twitter. I think it’s safe to say I’m not alone. As people get busier and busier, they want things at their fingertips, in small, easily digestible nuggets. People haven’t got time to read massive news articles anymore. You probably can’t even be bothered to read this blog, but as you’re here, you might as well persevere.
Infographics are a good example of how news and press is adapting to modern life. If people can visualise a story and take in the key points instantly, why bother reading a 3 page article on it? To put it another, more simplistic way, how many of you would rather read the Very Hungry Caterpillar over, say, Crime and Punishment?
The move to digital is also fuelled by a desire to make people’s lives more convenient.
A good example of this is the BBC. Earlier this year they announced that they would be launching daily infographics on their social media channels. In an interview with Jounalism.co.uk, the BBC’s editor of Visual Journalism, Amanda Farnsworth, stated that what they were ‘trying to deliver is a really salient, interesting nugget on a big story’. She claimed that the world of infographics was an answer to the question of covering the same story across all media platforms. Farnsworth added that “Visual journalism meets three audience challenges: distinctiveness; a modern and lively way to treat news stories; and an aid to understanding” with infographics ticking ‘all the boxes’.
It’s not just the BBC. More and more news sites are utilizing infographics to tell a story. Since the 6th October we found 8 infographics featured on the travel section of the MailOnline online, most of which were PR stories.
PR stories are one area of news that have always done well when in infographic form. As PR survey gurus… *cough* …we have first-hand experience of this. The British Airways infographic that we curated alongside our own design team, Drench, was featured on the MailOnline. Likewise the one we created for Monarch Airlines featured on Yahoo, as did our infographics for OnePoll and Tecmark. Both the Monarch and British Airways were also featured on infographic site Visual.ly, with the Monarch example making the homepage.
It is indisputable that infographics are becoming more and more popular, which is why we recommend using them in your campaigns. Visual media can transform a simple survey story into an online hit due to their readability and easily digestible content. Not only that but they can be split up into bite size chunks to either break up text or for use on social media.
We’re so enthusiastic about infographics that we have News-By-Design, our own site dedicated to showcasing both our own infographics and other excellent examples from around the web. The site is a true statement about just how popular infographics are and that is not just us showing off. The site has a huge following on both Twitter and Pinterest, including journalists and PRs within its diverse fan base.
Whether it’s a story about cats or a hard hitting piece about Ebola, News-By-Design really has covered it all. That is for one reason, and one reason only….because infographics work for every sort of story. There’s even one about why visual data works so well which is pleasingly topical. The infographics we have produced for clients have covered everything from yoghurt to back up relationships, from smartphone obsessions to vegetables. There really is no limit. All you need is an idea, some stats, and a design team……now if only there was a company that could do all that….
