Three ways to get a journalist to run your story

With funding so tight it’s important to keep spreading the news about the good work you do in the public eye. Good publicity gives your organisation status and raises awareness for your users, potential funders and other stakeholders, which explains the high turn out for a recent workshop about ‘Promoting Your Group Using the Press and Social Media.’

While social media is an exciting new way to spread your message, don’t forget the traditional ways of getting noticed in the press. In most instances, a good news story is likely to reach a much wider – and often a new audience than simply telling it through social media networks. The difficulty is getting busy journalists to notice your press release or event when they are bombarded with competing pressures on their time and attention.

Brighton-based Journalism.co.uk, a website aimed at professional journalists recently published an excellent piece on ‘How to get noticed by a journalist’. Their advice on press releases, making your website functional for reporters and the importance of Twitter makes useful reading for anyone wanting to maximise their impact with the press. Here are three top tips extracted from the story:

1. Make company information easy to find and clear
Imagine the journalist reading the brief is in the back of a taxi on the way to an interview, skim-reading it online, perhaps on a phone, or on a print-out. Include basic facts in your release and link to a more detailed factsheet posted on your site which can be read online or downloaded.

2. Put a selection of your images on your site or on Flickr, assigning creative commons licences
Don’t just expect them to use a picture you send as an attachment - make it easy for them to choose an image that works for them. Make sure you have permission when you take the shots and then make them easy to access for the people who will be publishing them.

3. Send media releases in the body of an email
PDFs, word documents and other attachments are a pain in the bottom if you’re trying to decide whether a story is worth pursuing. use plain text and drop it in after a brief intro paragraph. Send it as an attachment as well but don’t rely on that approach.

Read the whole article at http://www.journalism.co.uk/skills/how-to-get-noticed-by-journalists/s7/a546747/

For help with social media download the social media planner at http://www.scip.org.uk/news/planning_your_social_media_campaigns