Who is your PR Haro, and how to get article leads to your inbox.

Hi, my name is Jim James and welcome to the Speak PR Podcast. I'm an entrepreneur who's been running his own company since 1995, including an agency called EastWest PR. And on this podcast, I like to share ideas and insights that I think can help individuals and companies that are owner-operated how to get noticed. Now, speaking of getting noticed, this morning I noticed that Apple has just released 13.5 update for my phone, which includes access to the passcode field on devices with Face ID. So it works when you're wearing a mask, but it also introduces the Exposure Notification app to support the COVID-19 contact tracing. So it's official, face masks are here to stay as far as Apple's concerned, and tracking apps which will complement health apps trackers are also on their way. So it looks as though COVID is creating the new world for even how we interact with our technology. And Apple is one of the first movers that I've seen to actually deliver to your phone the app that's going to respond to the way that we are dressed and the way we're going to work and the way we're going to social distance and social engage. Now, it's a good thing that Apple have done this because they are ahead of the game to what Kantar has recently said in their research, which is that 75% of all people surveyed would like to know how brands are reacting to the current pandemic. And another 78% of the people surveyed are urging brands to take care of their employees during this time. On an earlier podcast, I shared how only some 25% of employees are actually ready to go back to work, and most people would like to wait another month before going back to work. So lockdown at home with the family is not as gruesome as the thought of going back to an unsafe factory or shop or office or taking public transport. Now the question then is, what is your company doing, like Apple, to address the challenges that COVID is presenting that are going to be structural in the way that we work after lockdown. Now, if you've got a COVID strategy, how will you find the media? Now, we define an East-West COVID PR mindset as being compassionate, optimistic, values-based, informative, and digital. And we've created a Speak PR methodology that you can use to apply this framework. Now, one of the tools that we can use in terms of reaching out to the media are platforms like HARO, which is called Help a Reporter Out. And this was originally started by Carners and then was bought by Cision. And Luke O'Connor and I were talking, and Luke is the very helpful relationship manager at Cision, and he was explaining to me how there are some 800,000 people around the world using HARO. And what happens is I just subscribe to, you get a list of all the stories that the journalists are working on that they are looking for experts and input to. So this is really plugging into the veins of the journalists or into the minds of them. So the Decision guys have done a wonderful job in creating a channel for us directly into the media, but also what they've done is to create A recent report is called the State of the Media 2020. In fact, originally it was 2019, and they sent out an update list of questions to the journalists, and they had over 1,100 journalists from around the world responding, including America, France, Canada, Finland, Germany, Brazil, China, Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore. So a pretty comprehensive report really in terms of what the media are looking for. Now, interestingly enough, this report, which I've had the benefit of reading, but it is available online for free, and we'll also put it on our website too so it's easy to find, shows that the journalists top line are increasingly strapped for time. They say it's not so much the impact of AI that they're worried about, it's just the, the volume of stories that they're getting. Over 50% of them are getting over 50 stories a week, 50 pictures a week are sent to their inboxes. So they are just really struggling with the volume of things that they're being sent. So there are some tips that are given in this report which I would like to share with you. The first is that they say journalists really want to have email, email, and email. Use the email to pitch to journalists because that's the most simple way as far as workflow is concerned for them to manage the content. They would like you to make experts available for video interviews because everybody now wants to have video content. They're finding local news angles really, really important. So in this day and age where the media is global from a technology point of view, the readership is still local. And what they're interested in is local stories where your company is handling a global crisis, because obviously that's where their readers are. So they're looking for stories which also are positive. I'm happy about this because I had framed this idea of COVID to include optimistic, and in this report, their 4th item is, as one journalist says, we could all use a little positivity in this crisis. So being optimistic is the 4th response that they have given. And the final one is to be patient. So they must now start to think about how many stories these journalists have got to manage. And so therefore, the stories that you do give them really need to be researched. A key point that they give is that really not all media are the same, so why would you send them all the same press release? And I know from experience that clients would like to distribute their press release far and wide with the same information, and preferably as long as it can be, with input from everybody from the sales manager to the technical manager to the PR manager to the legal department and so on. And by the time this press release comes back, it's normally pretty woolly and pretty, pretty toothless and has lost all of its edge. When we recently issued a press release on behalf of Verosti, I worked with the management team in Malaysia and the UK, and we really got down to the heart of how 3D digital printing could enable companies to prototype medical devices within 72 to— within 72 hours to help COVID response. And we got over 90 pieces of coverage as a result. So the journalists are filing up to 10 stories a week according to this survey, um, by Cision. So they're getting nearly— they're getting over 50 pitches and they're filing 10. So they're just taking 20%, of course, on that number. But imagine if each story is 500 to 1,000 words, just how busy they're probably filing 2 stories a day. To give you an idea of the workload of these journalists, 36% of them still like press releases the most. 11% like to talk to an agency, and 2.4% visit the company blog. So they are saying that the most trustworthy source of the of the company news is the spokesperson. So what we're seeing here is that they like to get a release because to their email accounts because. That's the easiest for them to process, and they would like you to put your point in the first 5 words and skip all the blandishments, as one journalist said. Monday is the favorite day by over 37% of the journalists, so they'd like to get the pitch at the beginning of the week so they can plan their week, which isn't dissimilar to the rest of us really. Now interestingly, over 45% said that press releases could be more effective if they had the information relevant to their target audience. So this is key, really. So we're often asked to send press releases that are generic on the grounds that they think— clients think that press releases are standard. Well, of course, from the client's perspective, it's the same news. But as we put in our Speak PR, which is the, uh, P is for personalize, each media outlet has got its own readership. Otherwise they wouldn't be able to differentiate themselves. So think of the journalists as filters and finders of good stories, and those stories need to be tailored for each individual media. So we try and find a common ground between not taking the time to tailor each individual press release, but at the same time to make it so that it's accessible and relevant to the individual media outlet. So the media are time-strapped and they're receiving information which isn't always relevant to them, and so they're taking 20% at best of the press releases. But other, other respondents showed that it's possibly closer to 1% of all press releases actually become a story. So the optimal strategy then is looking like Sending a well-crafted press release on a Monday with the first 5 words being specifically directed at the journalist and that publication, and what does it mean for the readers. Help the journalist to understand why this is important to their readers, because that's the job that the journalist is doing. Over the years, I've done a lot of media training with clients, and the understanding has often been, especially with salesmen, that they have a media interview and they try and convince the journalist to buy the product. They end up in a sort of a sales or a technical presentation to a journalist. And what I always remind people is that the journalist is an intermediary. It's an obvious thing to say, and people understand that academically or intellectually, but what they then do is they say, I understand But then they don't modify the language that they use in order to mean that the journalists can understand what is being said. Now, some journalists in trade press do have domain expertise, but we've noticed over the last 20-odd years that the number of journalists that have survived later on into life as journalists has dwindled. So the old days when the journalists would know more than the spokesperson are pretty much gone, although in China, the journalists will still research very heavily before attending a press interview. So one has to be wary of that. In other markets, the journalists have different levels of preparation. But often we have the issues of language and technology, or technical speak and business speak, that loses the journalist when the spokesperson is speaking, which is why Weylau's Law, which I talked about earlier on in the earlier podcast about how all communication is bound to fail means that in order to reduce the impact of Weo's Law, we need to really be as targeted as we can with the information that we're giving the journalists in their press releases on a Monday with those first 5 words explaining why we're writing to them and why their readers would find it interesting. Now, Decision Report is fantastic, and the Harrow which you can sign up to, and I'll put the link in the podcast show notes, is a great way to start to receive leads. In Asia, there's a group called Telemedia, with a, a group led by Matthew Law and team, which have done a brilliant job in creating a database, especially in Australia and Asia. And so there are a few of these databases, not so many, that are available. Some are free and some on subscription. And some are on freemium models that as, as business people, as business managers, you can subscribe to and start to get an idea of what, what the media wants to write about. Now, the journalists, as we know, are looking for COVID-ready stories. They're looking though also for non-COVID-directed stories, but with a, with an overlay of what COVID is meaning for that particular story, that particular company. So as you look at your own company, you look at your own stories as you go back to work, how can you create a narrative? And as we say in the Speak PR, we have storification, personalization, engagement, amplification, and knowing. How can we create a narrative around what your business is doing where the latest chapter in that business is around COVID, and that you have a compassionate, optimistic, values-based, informative, and digital narrative which you can apply to your product or your service or your facility for your 3 stakeholder groups, which are your employees, your partners, and also for your customers. As we've seen from Apple, and as my phone has been uploaded now, I may be able to wear a face mask and still enable my Face ID. This is the level of customization that some companies like Apple are going to in order to ensure their products are still relevant in the post-COVID era. How is your company managing to continue, and if not to thrive, by acknowledging the changes that are taking place in the behavior of the groups of people that you need to talk to. Those of those audiences that you can communicate to directly, they will still need, just like journalists, accurate and tailored messages that give them reassurance and give them information, but also give them optimism. A big part of the role of leaders right now is to create a sense of hope and a sense of optimism because we're all going to get through this. We're all going to get through it in different ways. So if we look at the forward, I'm delighted that I've invested in Apple, for example, and that will gain my loyalty and continued loyalty of my family. How is your company creating, if you like, a new iteration? Apple calls it iOS 13.5. What will your new iOS look like? And once you've defined that, how will you use press releases to send to your target media to help them to spread your message out to your audience groups? Thank you so much for letting me share with you some insights that I've gained from 25 years of running PR for clients and building my own businesses in Asia and Europe. And these articles and Reports will be made available on our website, eastwestpr.com. Thank you for listening. I pray that your company is profitable, that your family enjoys good health, and that you keep on communicating. Thank you.