With newsroom cutbacks, the unprecedented opportunity for content (visual and text, and audiences moving to social networks for news consumption, PR has changed dramatically. This means that our tactics must also change. InkHouse's overview of these changes and our recommendations are outlined here.

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Public Relations in 2013

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Today’s PR landscape
• Newsroom cutbacks in 2012 put the industry down 30 percent since
its peak in 2000 and below 40,000 full-time professional employees
for the first time since 1978.
• Media properties from Forbes, to TechCrunch, VentureBeat, the
Atlantic Monthly, Harvard Business Review, Huffington Post, and
Wired (to name a few) all publish contributed content.
• 90% of the information transmitted to our brains is visual and we
process that content 60,000 times faster than text.
• Instagram, the popular photo-sharing app, hit 100 million users
earlier this year, and marked 5 million videos within the first 24 hours
of debuting the offering.
• Almost 25% of those between 18 and 29 rely on social media as their
primary source of news.
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Sources: Pew, Forrester Research, Mashable

3. How PR Has Changed
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For more, see the full infographic at http://www.inkhouse.net/the-re-imagining-of-pr/

12. BeforeYou Engage with the Press
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Do your research first
• Find out who is covering your topic and why they
should care about your
product/service/perspective.
• Know why your story is important to your target
audience and to the broader industry.
• The why is the most important piece of your
pitch.
– What problem are you solving and why does it matter?
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Then choose your channel
• Telephone? It adds humanity, and well, you can have
an actual conversation. But:
– Call wisely. Know reporters’ deadlines and communications
preferences.
– And don’t call unless your news is worthy of a call.
• Email. It’s is easy to ignore, so make it good.
• Social media. It gets tricky.
– It is not okay to post pitches in public places: @ messages
on Twitter, Facebook walls, and blog comments.
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15. Dos and Don’ts of Engaging
with the Press
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Write a good pitch
• Do: Lead with the news. What, when and are why
most important.
– Make your subject line good. If it doesn’t work, all is
lost in the trash bin.
• Do: Write like a person. Marketing brochures
need not apply.
– Brevity is always best. Use 3-4 sentences, max. 1, if
possible.
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Make it easy to understand
• Don’t: Use jargon, acronyms or marketing
verbiage.
– The average newspaper is written at a third grade
reading level. You’ve got 10 seconds to make your
point. Make it clear by using plain language.
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Understand the bar for coverage
• Don’t: Pitch blindly. Read the publication and
understand its audience first. Then tailor your
pitch.
– If your company is based in Pennsylvania, don’t pitch it
to Mass High Tech (it’s in the name).
– Likewise, if you’re pitching an enterprise technology
story, the technology reporters at Mashable are not
interested (they cover consumer tech).
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Make the pitch useful
• Don’t: Make it hard to find out more.
– Hyperlink. Hyperlink. Hyperlink.
• Don’t: Make it hard to reach a person to ask
questions.
– Include your phone number, email address and social
handles in all correspondence.
• Don’t: Make fact checking hard.
– Provide follow-up materials when you say you will after an
interview and make your spokesperson available for follow-
up questions.
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Build relationships
• Do: Be authentic. Say it with your own words and in
your own style. Authenticity trumps perfection every
time.
• Do: Be honest. Period.
– About which other media outlets you’re talking to.
– About who is the competition.
– And just about anything else they ask.
• Do: Be helpful. Always.
– As in any relationship, if you only go to the reporter when
you need something, it’s not going to be a good one.
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21. PR is Not Just Media Relations:
The Content Opportunity
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It starts with social content
Social content is about how you think,
not what you do.
When companies "publish promotional information
or tired case studies masquerading as thought
leadership, results fall flat.” – Forrester Research
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Make your POV the center
• Start with your point of view
• Your product or service offerings are the proof
of how you think
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Create a home for your POV
• Your blog. Why?
– Company websites that have blogs get 55% more traffic
than those that don’t.
– When making decisions about what to buy, consumers rank
blogs as the third most influential digital resource (31%)
behind retail sites (56%) and brand sites (34%).
– B2B companies that blog get 67% more leads than those
that don’t.
– It drives your audience to your site and supports your social
media channels.
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Sources: Technorati, HubSpot

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Don’t wait for them to come to you
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Resources: PR & media relations
• For PR and Media, Relationships Still Matter
– http://www.bulldogreporter.com/dailydog/article/for-pr-and-media-
relationships-still-matter
• The Re-imagining of PR (infographic)
– http://www.inkhouse.net/the-re-imagining-of-pr/
• When it Comes to PR: Less Product, More POV, Please
– http://www.inkhouse.net/when-it-comes-to-pr-less-product-more-pov-
please/
• Do Journalists Care About the Art of the Pitch?
– http://www.inkhouse.net/do-journalists-care-about-the-art-of-the-pitch/
• Does a Startup Need a PR firm?
– http://www.inkhouse.net/does-a-startup-need-a-pr-firm/
• The In-person Media Tour is Dead
– http://www.inkhouse.net/the-in-person-media-tour-is-dead/
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Resources: content
• The Opportunity for PR in the State of the News
Media
– http://www.inkhouse.net/the-opportunity-for-pr-in-the-
state-of-the-news-media/
• Is Blogging Passé?! We Say No Way.
– http://www.inkhouse.net/is-blogging-passe-we-say-no-
way/
• Why Should People Care about Your Viewpoint?
– http://www.inkhouse.net/why-should-people-care-about-
your-viewpoint/
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