media relations

Five Lessons for Integrating Social Media in PR

Heather Sliwinski 1 Comment

I remember being a junior in college and setting up a blog for a class assignment. At the time, blogging was still a new form of communication for our industry (wow, that makes me sound old!), and I remember wondering when I was going to use it. Little did I know, blogging and using social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter would become part of my everyday job.

As public relations professionals, we strive to find the best medium for distributing our key messages to target audiences. We are challenged with making our messages succinct, timely and transparent. And with social media, our job really is no different. Social media is just another tool in our kit that doesn’t necessarily replace traditional media but instead complements it. In fact, when done correctly, social media is treated as a channel rather than a tactic.

I’ve learned five lessons in my career about social media’s role in our profession:

  •  Don’t set out looking for a job in ‘social media public relations.’ I think every practitioner should have a working knowledge of the platforms that exist and how they can potentially apply to client strategies. It’s part of our job to know all the communication tools out there regardless of whether your title has social media in it or not. Yes, I leave Twitter and Facebook open all day. That doesn’t mean I’m on it every minute, but it needs to be easily accessible to make sure nothing is missed. For me, it’s just like having my email open. Plus, you never know when a reporter is going to post that they are looking for a source. Trust me, it will happen!
  • Social media is constantly evolving. Whether it’s a new photo sharing site or changes to the way brand managers get Facebook Insights, there always seems to be something new to learn. Don’t ever grow overconfident in your social media skills.
  • Try new things. When I hear of a new site, I usually try to use it on a personal level before trying to incorporate it into any campaigns. This step would be the research part of the RPIE process. You wouldn’t start a campaign without research, and you wouldn’t jump into social media for a brand without doing that research. Using it personally will give you great insight into how a user will be viewing and interacting with your brand.
  • Listen, listen, listen and then listen some more. If you don’t listen, then you really shouldn’t have a presence on these sites. People want to interact with your brand, and they want to be heard. It takes time to build the relationships, but it’s worth it in the end. After all, the goal for using this channel should be dialogue and engagement.      How can you accomplish that without listening?
  • Be careful what you say. Given the real-time nature, it’s easy to want to respond quickly. However, it’s  important to think through your response and even have someone do a quick review of it before posting. Once it’s out there, you can’t take it back.

How are you using social media in your postition? What other things should new professionals know about social media’s role in our profession?

 

Christina MortonChristina Morton is an account executive at Fry Hammond Barr, a national advertising, public relations and interactive marketing agency that’s been connecting people and brands for more than 50 years. Fry Hammond Barr has offices in Orlando and Tampa.

My First Six Months in PR or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Job by Heather Sliwinski

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About one week into my job, I wondered if I oversold myself during my interviews. I’m not saying I lied—no one should ever lie in an interview—but I had to question if I made it clear that I had zero PR experience when I landed my first position at a PR agency in August.

I took the advertising and PR classes in college, toiled at the obligatory unpaid internships in marketing and promotions and gained more than two years of marketing experience after graduation. With that said, I still didn’t know what a media list or subject matter expert was.

I had a lot to learn, not only about our clients’ businesses, but also the business of PR; I was terrified.

I had more than a few sleepless nights in the beginning, worrying about how I was going to tackle my projects. But in the past six months, I’ve embraced agency life and realized that, when it came to my early fears, there was more than met the eye:

Phone pitching is daunting.

I’ve never been a big phone talker. Calling up complete strangers (reporters) and telling them to cover a story idea made me feel like a telemarketer. I couldn’t believe that this was a common practice in PR. Why would a reporter care about me, someone they’ve never met, and my client, a company they’ve never heard of? Little did I know, with a good story idea, a knowledgeable expert and some flexibility, reporters do care.

Phone pitching is part trial and error and part knowing your stuff. I still get intimidated by phone pitching, but when we have a great idea, know our client’s expertise and go into the call with the intent of having a conversation, the results are always positive.

Plus, reporters are just people, too.

Media lists are crucial.

If you start with the wrong reporter, your pitching will get you nowhere. My first media lists were terrible. I relied on Cision to tell me who to pitch, rather than going to the source and figuring out who would want to cover our story. Having reporter history and past articles is great ammo for pitching and makes having an intelligent conversation with a reporter much easier.

My colleagues had me work and rework the early media lists, partly because I didn’t know Cision could be wrong (I would say it’s 50/50 on being right/wrong about a reporter’s beat). I feel that I am getting better at gauging who would cover a story, and I still edit, add and delete as I get on the phone with folks.

Seeing red doesn’t make you a bad writer.

My roots are in journalism: up until sophomore year of college, I thought I was going to be a reporter. I have adequate knowledge of AP style and proper grammar. I’ve been published in a few outlets. I thought I was a decent writer. When I started writing for PR, I lost most of my confidence.

My press releases, emails, media alerts, pitches—anything I wrote, really—came back with red ink all over the page. Seeing all the edits was definitely a blow to my ego. In time, I’ve seen that seeing red actually makes you a better writer. Considering I came from marketing, I wasn’t expected to know how to write a pitch. My writing style was much more focused on sales for marketing purposes, where PR is more about featuring news. My writing evolved. I learned to dig deep into a pitch and figure out where the story is, and I see less and less red as a result.

Social media isn’t the devil.

After coming from a few corporate cultures where using social media at work is frowned upon, I was excited to see that not only was I allowed to use social media at work, it was encouraged! The transition was difficult in the beginning. I felt a little naughty, checking Twitter for updates, retweeting during the workday and actually responding to messages between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.

Social media is part of my job, and I’m expected to stay on top of the news, retweet important content and interact with journalists during the day. I’ve had a handful of pitches that have sprouted from a breaking news tweet or friendly correspondence with a reporter. You never know what future opportunity can come out of social media.

You always have something to bring to the table.

When I joined my agency, I didn’t know what a ProfNet was. I didn’t know how to use Cision. I didn’t know how to write an expert available pitch. I knew nothing about my clients. Having every task in your job be completely new can weigh heavily on you.

However, not knowing the PR ropes didn’t mean that I didn’t have unique skills to contribute. Being a relative news junkie, I was able to spot breaking news stories and find angles where our clients could comment. My background in marketing has lent to assisting one of our clients with a website revamp. Having knowledge of graphic design programs allows us to offer additional design services to our clients, if needed.

And, we all have ideas. I was reserved in meetings, reluctant to share my thoughts. What do I know? I’m the new kid—my colleagues are the experts. But, we all read different publications and have different skills, experiences and approaches to thinking. I try to share my opinion more now, since there is no ‘wrong’ in brainstorming. No matter your level of PR knowledge, the next big idea could be yours.

My first six months in PR were definitely a roller coaster. I’m still adjusting and always learning, which I don’t think will ever go away. If we’re lucky, we’ll keep adding new clients, changing the game all over again. PR is never dull, and much like snowflakes, no two days in PR are ever the same.

While the unknown of each day used to stress me out, I try not to waste my energy worrying about what I don’t know and instead revel in the small victories that make it all worthwhile: being ahead of breaking news to land our client in the New York Times, securing an interview with a Reuters reporter, watching our client on live TV at 7 in the morning.

Don’t you just love PR?

What were some of your biggest challenges when you started your first PR job? Did you recently transition to PR from another field? Share your experiences below!

Heather SliwinskiHeather Sliwinski is an account executive at KemperLesnik, a Chicago-based public relations agency, providing media relations and social media services to a variety of B2B clients. She has held positions in marketing and event planning for corporations, nonprofits and higher education. She earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and mass communications with an emphasis in strategic communications from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Sliwinski is the blog co-chair for the PRSA New Professionals Section. Feel free to connect with her on LinkedIn or Twitter.

Where’s my news release? Dos and don’ts of PR distribution by Zaneta Chuniq Inpower

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The goal of every news release is to become accessible by its target audience through a selected medium. In current times, many articles may be published online via media websites and/or printed for distribution inside magazines, newspapers, newsletters, etc.

For those who have the responsibility of producing media awareness about a brand, product or client there are definite protocols to making sure that your news is read, heard and distributed successfully. As a new professional, it is important to safeguard your reputation as a PR professional and that of your company and/or business by keeping in mind these helpful tips when drafting and distributing your news release.

  1. Don’t blindly email journalists and bloggers
  2. Do use your own social media networks to distribute
  3. Do make your headline catchy and interesting
  4. Do take time to make the intro/opening engaging.
  5. Do write your news release to your audience. If its not relevant, no journalist or media source will pick up your release
  6. Do research for your pitch and have all your facts and information organized
  7. Don’t email journalists attachments! This may lead to an instant delete or even block from their inbox.
  8. Do spell check, then read your news release aloud. Any typos or grammatical errors will ultimately lead to your news being discarded and ruins your reputation as a PR professional.
  9. Do optimize your news release for SEO. Use necessary tags and relevant vocabulary for your news release to become searchable online.
  10. Don’t send any news releases that do not contain news!
  11. Don’t use fancy fonts, colors, font styles and other text attributes in your news release. Keep it simple.
  12. Don’t make your news release too long! Keep it under 650 words maximum
  13. Do include relevant links for background information. Make it easy for your journalist to conduct further research.

In summary, simply because a PR pro has submitted a news release to a journalist or editor does not mean that it will be printed or read! To help alleviate the pressure of playing the waiting game with media outlets and obsessively checking your Google Alerts or media monitoring service, the above tips will help you get your news to its desired audience.

Zaneta Chuniq InpowerZaneta Chuniq Inpower is owner and president of Chuniq PR, an independent media and marketing management firm. Additionally, she is the digital communications coordinator for Douglas J Aveda Institutes and Salons, editor  for Supreme Design Publishing and social media manager for COIN Handlers Management. Her personal interests include reading, international travel and culture and community revitalization. Inpower received her B.A. in advertising from Michigan State University. Zaneta Chuniq Inpower is a member of the Central Michigan PRSA chapter and is the PRSA New Professionals Section Executive Committee Blog Co-Chair.

Intro to Government PR by Doug Matthews

Heather Sliwinski 1 Comment

I’ll be honest. I never made a formal decision to get into government communications. Would you believe that I was actually a forensic science major for my first two years of school? Yep. I wanted to be CSI before David Caruso inexplicably made it seem cool. Now, how David Caruso and “cool” found their way into the same sentence is a subject for another time. Suffice it to say, I’m a bit of a nerd at heart.

It was a combination of life experience, timely opportunities and great mentors that guided me to where I am today, and I couldn’t be happier with the result. So here’s my first bit of advice: create your own opportunities, but don’t get so focused that you fail to see the new, unexpected ones that present themselves along the way.

I joke that I was “infected” with the public service mindset. I blame my parents. My father was a career law enforcement officer and police chief, and my mother was an emergency room nurse. The first “marketing” I ever did professionally was working at the city pool, getting families to show up for “Dive-In Movies”…in between fits of whistle-blowing and telling kids to “walk, not run” on the pool deck.

So, after an epiphany while sitting in Applied Calculus II (another interesting, albeit off-topic story), I left class and changed my major to advertising and public relations. I secured my first internship as a sophomore doing marketing and events for the county recreation department. (Another aside here: get as much job experience as you can before you graduate–it’s the single best thing you can do to differentiate yourself from the thousands of other job-hunting graduates entering the work force.)

I continued that work until graduation, with a short stint in between studying in London and interning with Fleishman-Hillard. It was during this venture into corporate public relations that I had my second epiphany. The assignments were interesting enough, and the people were great, but I had trouble finding satisfaction with the work I was doing. For me, there was a satisfaction and fulfillment that I got from serving the public that I didn’t get when serving a client or a private industry.

That’s something I love most about this career: the absence of a traditional “target market.” Sure, you’ll always have specific audiences for specific programs, but government service is a great equalizer. After all, everyone needs their garbage picked up, right? And every one of you expects the lights and sirens to arrive when you call 911.

There’s also unbelievable variety in what our team does. I mentioned garbage collection and public safety, but we also do engineering. We do public health. We manage parks. We build roads. The work we do truly touches the lives of everyone who lives here in Austin and I get to be a part of that. We help people understand, appreciate and connect with the products and services they have invested in as taxpayers. We help make good government.

In my role, I get to be both the PR pro and the media pro. We run an in-house agency, with teams spanning media relations, Web development, employee communications, project management, community engagement, marketing, events and interactive media. We have our own television station and graphic design shop. The opportunities for learning and development are limited only by your desire and willingness to expand your horizons. The work environment is what you make of it: there is more space to try new things and take risks than you might think!

We do, though, have to talk about the other side of that coin. When you sign up as a public servant, you do so with the understanding that virtually everything you do is public. The work you do belongs to the taxpayers, and they can be a fickle and demanding audience. Likewise, there’s always an undercurrent of politics. Ultimately, my boss (the city manager) works for seven elected officials, so you can’t escape it. You can, though, maintain a distinct line between political and professional communication.

If it sounds interesting, you can start by looking for internships in your local jurisdiction. I learned as much interning with Orange County Parks & Recreation as I did in four years of coursework. Get involved with the International City/County Managers Association or the City/County Communications and Marketing Association. Look into public administration and public affairs courses as a supplement to your normal coursework.

The work might not be for everyone, but for someone with the passion to serve, a love for the art of governing, and the willingness to wear virtually every hat in the haberdashery (or millinery), there’s not a better job on the planet. 

 

Doug Matthews is an 18-year veteran of local government communications, currently serving as the chief communications director for the City of Austin, Texas. He served similar roles for the Florida cities of Largo and Clearwater before becoming an adopted Texan in 2009. He holds a master’s degree in public administration from the University of South Florida.

Intro to Healthcare PR by Christine Kotler

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Styrofoam wig heads. Wig heads?!? I needed two and I needed them fast because the news media was coming in one hour. My featured physician expert wanted to use Styrofoam wig heads to demonstrate a point about deep-sea diving and respiratory function. After a half-dozen calls and old-fashioned research in the Yellow Pages (years ago, in a pre-Google era), I finally found wig heads! I knew then that public relations, and especially healthcare PR, was going to be an adventure. This field requires resourcefulness, creativity, confidence, strategic thinking and endless amounts of energy. With more than 20 years in the business, my career in communications has been rewarding, challenging, interesting, exciting and fun.

I currently serve as the assistant vice president for marketing and public relations at Baptist Health South Florida—the largest not-for-profit healthcare organization in the region—based in Miami. On a typical day, I grab coffee (essential!) and my iPhone and start checking email. I also scan news headlines and social media sites on my iPad to see what is happening locally and nationally. Most days involve meeting with internal clients, handling media requests, brainstorming with staff, strategizing about opportunities and developing creative communications plans. Whether promoting a new center, treatment or pitching a unique story, we are constantly looking for ways to position Baptist Health as the go-to source for leading-edge healthcare information.    

Healthcare is one of the few growth industries in today’s tough economy. Recently, the national dialogue on healthcare reform has cast a negative spotlight on hospitals and healthcare organizations. To me, this is a great opportunity for PR professionals to reframe the conversation and focus attention on what is right about healthcare through meaningful and compelling stories.

The realm of healthcare PR is broad – from promoting hospitals and physician services to developing patient education materials to promoting medical devices, new technology and new treatments. You may handle everything from crisis response to event planning, community relations to employee communications, to media relations and more. The variety is what makes this field so interesting – no day is ever the same.  

Whether you are just entering healthcare PR or considering a career in the field, you may find the following tips helpful. I try to keep them top of mind in my own practice.

Top 10 Tips for New Professionals in Healthcare PR (not necessarily in rank order):

1. Be flexible:  Every day is different in PR – whether you are in healthcare or another industry. You need to be nimble, ready to change course and quick to seize opportunities on behalf of your clients.

2. Ask questions: You are new at this. Your boss expects you to work hard and to bring your best each day, but she also expects you to learn by asking questions.

3. Listen, listen, listen: And then, listen some more. Often, I hear students and young professionals comment that they entered the PR field because they “love people” and they are “good communicators.” Good communication starts with good listening. Before you can offer a client a solution, you need to really listen to how they define the problem or challenge.

4. Appreciate failure: This field is not for the faint of heart. Despite neurotic planning and the development of a dozen backup plans, things happen. Your beautiful outdoor event is blown away with hurricane-force winds or your celebrity speaker is a no-show as more than 500 guests eagerly anticipate her arrival. When something goes wrong, learn from it.

5. Play nicely with others: Throughout your career, you are going to work with a lot of people – some of whom you will like and others you will not. Business is about relationships.

6. Be resourceful: Know how to find the Styrofoam wig heads. And many other strange things that you will be asked to magically produce minutes before they are needed. Thank goodness for Google and FedEx.

7. Accept criticism with grace: Remember to say “thanks” when a supervisor or boss offers feedback or criticism about your work. Appreciate the fact that an experienced pro took the time to provide guidance.

8. Do your homework: Healthcare is complex. As communicators, we have to sort out the clinical jargon and develop materials that are easy to read and understand. Learn the terminology. Take classes or seminars in marketing, budgeting, healthcare administration.    

9. Show compassion: In healthcare, we have the unique position of caring for patients and their families when they are most vulnerable. We have a tremendous responsibility to be thoughtful, transparent and compassionate in our communications to various audiences.    

10. Look before you leap: Your mom was right. Before jumping into a project or charging ahead to seize an opportunity, pause for a minute to make sure you have a solid plan. PR is fast-moving, but a wise mentor once taught me that “speed kills.” While you need to be ready for action, PR requires strategic thinking and careful planning.

Rapid change and growth in healthcare, coupled with dynamic changes in PR and communication, make it an exciting time to be in this field – for new professionals and for seasoned practitioners.

Christine Kotler is assistant vice president for marketing and public relations at Baptist Health South Florida. She is a member of the PRSA Health Academy Executive Committee. She can be reached at ckotler@baptisthealth.net. Follow Baptist Health on Twitter.