AHA

Mark Naples has an excellent piece on Imedia Connection: 6 Ways To Sabotage Your PR Efforts. Anyone working with an agency, a contractor, a freelancer, or even with in-house PR should read this and take an honest look at how you work with these people; people like us at AHA!

In the piece, Naples focuses on interactive companies and/or start-ups, but what he writes applies to many organizations and industries. The first point that he makes touches on unrealistic expectations. I think that’s an important topic. I happen to be a strong believer that you need to reach high and go for the brass ring.

At AHA, we’ve had clients on CNN, The Today Show, The Late Late Show, Letterman, Canada AM, Maclean’s, and many other high profile media outlets. However, it doesn’t happen in the first week of our working with a client. It takes time to develop an effective pitch—one that is filled with facts, stats, anecdotes, information and interview opportunities.

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There is an interesting piece by Jeremy Porter at Journalistics.com listing the 10 reasons why media relations will get easier in 2010.

Porter hits the nail on the head when he outlines the challenges that any of us who work in media relations face—one is that journalists are busy. Getting their attention isn’t easy, even when you have a good story. The profession of journalism has changed drastically because of social media. Journalists now have more work than ever (technology makes the world a much more connected place), there are less of them to do the work, and media outlets now expect their reporters to blog, tweet and shoot video for the website, no matter whether you are a print publication or a broadcaster. And competition has heated up; there are some hot bloggers out there that cover specific beats that are of interest to them.

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Chris Brogan has an excellent post on the point that social media needs to be a team sport. In it he focuses on social media and the need for a team approach, but I think that it is worth applying that approach to communications as a whole.

Connecting with your stakeholders, with your public – with your community works best when it is approached holistically. You can have a great PR strategy and not be able to execute on the plan if there isn’t a connection between what you want to share, how you want to start and maintain the conversation and where the content comes from.

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