So this evening I saw a tweet from @mayhemstudios (a RT from @the_gman - good lord it's hard to keep track of these complicated crediting of information sources these days) referring us to an article on The New PR:  How to write effective press releases in the age of Twitter.

Since I'm responsible for media for both Head2Head and Retired Worker - a quick Google of 'Sarah Welstead' will reveal just how shameless I've been in the past few years - I of course dashed right over to the article. 

If this tweeted-about article had some handy hints, then I was prepared to be all over it.

Well, the article was okay, I guess - though I personally haven't ever seen any real advantage to adding multimedia to a media release, and they didn't give any concrete examples - but I've been doing this a while now and I've come to the conclusion that there are only 2 factors which make any kind of real difference in how much media coverage you get.

Here they are:

1. A stunning factoid that maps into the current zeitgeist, used as your lead headline.
   Use any number you like, but make sure it's dramatic, based on some kind of study, and correlates with the current mood of the media.  The reason the Head2Head 2007 Salary Report got a lot of coverage was because we led with "Recruiting salaries up 20%" - which was a big enough number to catch the eye of editors, even if they knew nothing about recruiting.
   
   If the headline of the 2008 report had been "Recruiting salaries down 15%", we would have had huge coverage (see below for the comparison between 2007 and 2008), because at the time, the media was actively looking for 'bad news' stories - the media was all about the doom and gloom of the recession.  Unfortunately, even I can't spin that much. 

 

2. Use a 'Tips for [whatever]' model - that also maps into the media zeitgeist.
   In the absence of 'factoids' (though SurveyMonkey and a little judicious Twittering can get you whatever factoid you want in 24 hours), you can almost guarantee yourself some quick and dirty media coverage if you put together a list of 'handy tips' (5-7 tips is best) for something that has some mass appeal.  Could be "Tips for older job-seekers", could be "Tips for recession-proofing your resume" - both of which map into current media trends - it doesn't really matter.  They sound helpful - and unbiased - so editors think "Yay!  That's 11 column inches I don't have to think about!" and copy and paste.

[Of course, it should go without saying that to be properly effective, a media release needs to be sent out across a paid newswire service - I use Canada Newswire - because for all that we're supposedly living in a social media world, most of the news channels we think of as mainstream (national newspapers, radio and television networks, etc.) are still accustomed to checking the wire services every morning, and tend to give more credence to information that comes across 'the wire' than information that turns up on a blog somewhere.]

But getting back to PR in the Era of Microblogging.  How do my two tips (see?  see how this works?) tie in?

Easy:  A stunning factoid is easily tweeted ("84% of Canadian recruiters plan to hire in the next 6 months") and retweeted with a link.  And a 'handy tips' article is one of those things with a life of its own - the December blog post about The Top 5 Job Search Tips From 2008 continues to be the #1 post on the Head2Head blog, even though it's not exactly Pulitzer-worthy journalism.  (If you feel ambitious, Google 'Retired Worker job-seeker tips' and you'll see just how that kind of thing basically disseminates itself across the web, over a long period of time.  But you may want to take my word for it.)

'The New PR' article recommends that you use all the online channels at your disposal, and they're right:  once you've distributed a media release, you should make sure it's on your website, write a blog about it, Twitter about it, post it to your Facebook and LinkedIn pages, etc. - this is how your 'news' will have a longer shelf-life and contribute to your Google rankings. 

Don't panic if you don't get the response you were hoping for right away.  PR is always a crapshoot:  Head2Head's 2007 Salary Report got a whole lot of media attention, but the 2008 Salary Report got a whole lot less.  Why?  Because, as I wrote in January, the 2008 report revealed good news (salaries were up 6-15%), and at the time, the media just wasn't interested.

At the same time, I can almost always get good media coverage for Retired Worker - there's always some radio station looking for a 3-minute soundbite on 'boomers' and  'the changing face of retirement'.

(If people knew just how much of their 'news' was being driven by people like me, writing media releases at midnight in their home office, they'd never believe anything they read ever again.  And the Toronto Sun - among many other supposedly legitimate publications - basically just reprints media releases without any attempt to turn them into articles.  But don't let me scare you.)