What’s new in grassroots publicity?
April 16, 2017 7:09 PM Subscribe
I was a reporter on a weekly newspaper in the late 1990s, before e-mail was widespread. I have recently become a political activist. Building on both those roles, I will soon give a talk on “How to Work with the Media.” Can you help me bridge the gap of the last umpteen years?
The talk is part of a larger training event with an audience of people from lefty nonprofits in the Albuquerque area. I expect that all of my audience will be volunteers and that many of them will be new to publicity and some will be new to activism.
I plan to talk about news values, media advisories and other press releases, and a little about cultivating relationships with the press. I plan to make the session interactive by writing a mock press release together. I will suggest that they focus on local media. If time permits, I might talk a little about interviews. At least one other session will cover social media in general.
My questions are:
* What has changed about publicity in the past couple of decades that I might not be aware of?
* Is there anything about TV and radio (which I have no experience with) that I should pass on to my audience?
* Do you have any other suggestions?
The talk is part of a larger training event with an audience of people from lefty nonprofits in the Albuquerque area. I expect that all of my audience will be volunteers and that many of them will be new to publicity and some will be new to activism.
I plan to talk about news values, media advisories and other press releases, and a little about cultivating relationships with the press. I plan to make the session interactive by writing a mock press release together. I will suggest that they focus on local media. If time permits, I might talk a little about interviews. At least one other session will cover social media in general.
My questions are:
* What has changed about publicity in the past couple of decades that I might not be aware of?
* Is there anything about TV and radio (which I have no experience with) that I should pass on to my audience?
* Do you have any other suggestions?
I work in public media and previously worked in marketing for a regionally well-known nonprofit, so I'm both on the receiving end of a lot of pitches and I've had to make many pitches myself. I've also worked for a variety of news outfits over the last few decades.
—News media overall is much smaller than it was. The reach, the staff size, and the revenues could be anywhere from an eighth to half of what they were 20 years ago, depending on the market and media type. As a result, it's harder than ever to get the attention of what's left of the media that primarily produces original news content based on tips from small companies like yours.
—The press release is dead. It marks you as out-of-touch if you use it. I know some companies still use it, but take a look at who they are and you'll see it's the types of companies you don't want to be like.
— Related to the two items above: there's not enough time or news staff and no time left for nonsense, so use straightforward, brief one-to-one pitches like you're sending a personal email. Media people want it all spelled out more than ever! Don't hide the football, don't tease, don't do the "you'll never believe" bullshit. Who by, what, when, where, why, how much, who for, for how long, what's first, what's last, etc. Get in, get out, and get it done. Also don't be like one media person I know who STILL sends 2000-4200-word emails with a dozen pictures attached.
—News media that primarily makes its own content is also a much a smaller percentage of all media. Most media output is the rehash/regurgitate/reblog/rewrite sort. So, you have to package your items with a hard eye towards complete clarity by sussing out places where it could be easily or intentionally misunderstood or misinterpreted. You also have to be fine with your story leaving your hands and ending up on dubious sites you've never heard of.
— When you send out text content to try to hook media into running it (guest blogs, editorials, letters to the editor, other op-ed), write short, medium, and long versions of your content so they have even less work to do if they want to use it almost (or actually) as-is. Write several suggested headlines. Always have the photos already ready and already included in a link. (Don't attach them to the email! Corporate mail servers still stuck and still have file size limits and you don't know if your recipients are reading your message on their phone with crappy signal.)
—Always reach out to your local public media outfit. They tend to have careful news listeners and often have public affairs shows that would be glad to have your well-spoken, well-informed, well-presented staff person on the air.
—Despite the rise of social media, old-school media is still amazingly effective at getting your message out.
—The number-one thing I ever did that worked the best was to keep an email list of all local media. That's it. It's still the most effective way to reach out. Keep it clean and updated so it's ready when you need it, then do a mail merge — it's machine-sent but it looks personal.
—One of the biggest revolutions of the internet era is the ability to skip traditional media and speak directly to the consumers. However, most social media is ineffective for most small nonprofits. I bolded that because when I say it people usually respond with some campaign they saw that looked grassroots but that was actually astroturf: it was designed to look non-corporate but had a ton of money and talent behind it, the kinds of things most small nonprofits don't have. There may be true outliers of small nonprofits that made it big on social media, but they are outliers and you can't force that sort of thing to happen. (The classic small outliers are the animal adoption orgs! They always get great numbers as long as they keep telling great stories and posting cute pictures.)
—In my experience, the only social media that really works — by that I mean really pushes revenue, whatever kind of sign-ups, and other concrete metrics) — is Facebook and even then only if you already have both tens of thousands of followers and a meaningful advertising budget to promote posts.
—An evergreen piece of advice that's still true: use good subject lines! They should be some of the best, briefest writing you ever do! Bad: "Join us April 30!" Better: "Beer and tacos fundraiser 4/30."
posted by Mo Nickels at 5:19 PM on April 17, 2017 [2 favorites]
—News media overall is much smaller than it was. The reach, the staff size, and the revenues could be anywhere from an eighth to half of what they were 20 years ago, depending on the market and media type. As a result, it's harder than ever to get the attention of what's left of the media that primarily produces original news content based on tips from small companies like yours.
—The press release is dead. It marks you as out-of-touch if you use it. I know some companies still use it, but take a look at who they are and you'll see it's the types of companies you don't want to be like.
— Related to the two items above: there's not enough time or news staff and no time left for nonsense, so use straightforward, brief one-to-one pitches like you're sending a personal email. Media people want it all spelled out more than ever! Don't hide the football, don't tease, don't do the "you'll never believe" bullshit. Who by, what, when, where, why, how much, who for, for how long, what's first, what's last, etc. Get in, get out, and get it done. Also don't be like one media person I know who STILL sends 2000-4200-word emails with a dozen pictures attached.
—News media that primarily makes its own content is also a much a smaller percentage of all media. Most media output is the rehash/regurgitate/reblog/rewrite sort. So, you have to package your items with a hard eye towards complete clarity by sussing out places where it could be easily or intentionally misunderstood or misinterpreted. You also have to be fine with your story leaving your hands and ending up on dubious sites you've never heard of.
— When you send out text content to try to hook media into running it (guest blogs, editorials, letters to the editor, other op-ed), write short, medium, and long versions of your content so they have even less work to do if they want to use it almost (or actually) as-is. Write several suggested headlines. Always have the photos already ready and already included in a link. (Don't attach them to the email! Corporate mail servers still stuck and still have file size limits and you don't know if your recipients are reading your message on their phone with crappy signal.)
—Always reach out to your local public media outfit. They tend to have careful news listeners and often have public affairs shows that would be glad to have your well-spoken, well-informed, well-presented staff person on the air.
—Despite the rise of social media, old-school media is still amazingly effective at getting your message out.
—The number-one thing I ever did that worked the best was to keep an email list of all local media. That's it. It's still the most effective way to reach out. Keep it clean and updated so it's ready when you need it, then do a mail merge — it's machine-sent but it looks personal.
—One of the biggest revolutions of the internet era is the ability to skip traditional media and speak directly to the consumers. However, most social media is ineffective for most small nonprofits. I bolded that because when I say it people usually respond with some campaign they saw that looked grassroots but that was actually astroturf: it was designed to look non-corporate but had a ton of money and talent behind it, the kinds of things most small nonprofits don't have. There may be true outliers of small nonprofits that made it big on social media, but they are outliers and you can't force that sort of thing to happen. (The classic small outliers are the animal adoption orgs! They always get great numbers as long as they keep telling great stories and posting cute pictures.)
—In my experience, the only social media that really works — by that I mean really pushes revenue, whatever kind of sign-ups, and other concrete metrics) — is Facebook and even then only if you already have both tens of thousands of followers and a meaningful advertising budget to promote posts.
—An evergreen piece of advice that's still true: use good subject lines! They should be some of the best, briefest writing you ever do! Bad: "Join us April 30!" Better: "Beer and tacos fundraiser 4/30."
posted by Mo Nickels at 5:19 PM on April 17, 2017 [2 favorites]
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posted by salvia at 8:56 PM on April 16, 2017