How do I hire a PR agent for myself on the d/l? (Is this a dumb idea?)

December 11, 2013 5:55 PM

I'm a professor, at a pretty good school in a non-STEM type field. I like my current gig. I would like to move up to an even better gig, in a better location. The standard m/o for such things is a) produce a lot of good research, and b) wait for people to notice it. I'm already doing a). I don't really want to wait around for b). Catch: blatant shameless self-promotion both looks icky and off-putting and signals lack of commitment to current gig. Possible solution: hire a very discrete PR person. To do... what? Does such a thing exist, for individuals, who need attention from really specific groups of people? Or is this just a really ridiculous idea?
posted by anonymous to Work & Money (15 answers total)

Does your school have a department that does this? Many schools are sending out press all the time and have compiled information about experts for local and national and niche media.

If you can be the guy wire services call when, say, a serial killer is taunting law enforcement with poems aboabout frogs and peaches and they need a frog and peach themes in literature expert, that's a start.
posted by Lesser Shrew at 6:04 PM on December 11, 2013

Your school has a PR department (I can't imagine a university that does not have one) and it is their job to help promote you -- if, in fact, you have done some newsworthy research. Call up the "communications" office and chat with them. They will be happy to hear from you. No need to hire someone.
posted by Lescha at 6:28 PM on December 11, 2013 [2 favorites]

Hi there. I do this. Your university's communications office should have someone covering beat areas. If your university is large enough, your school or college may have its own communications staff, too. Your department may have one, as well. And then there's your alumni group, with whatever publications they have, etc.

Good communications professionals will have the kinds of connections and knowhow to promote your work in the proper channels, whether it's more popular or more academic. Rule of thumb: the higher up your communications office is, the more general their work will be (unless stated otherwise). For example, if you have a big paper coming out, our staff would make a communications plan that would get in touch with larger news outlets, schedule you on TV, etc. But your school/college or departmental communicators, if you have them, will be more familiar with field-specific publications. (STEM folks tend to be a bit more specific, but this all depends on what you and your school are known for.)

Here are the school-related options for you:
--Experts list: do they have one? (If not, why not?) Get on it. List as many areas of expertise as you can, in media/public-friendly language. Make your profile as easy to use/peruse for members of the media, members of the public and communications professionals as possible.

--Do you have a faculty/staff newspaper, or any other internal communication? Don't discount this; your local media folks will likely be on the mailing list and pick up stories from there.

--Same goes for the alumni association and their alumni magazine. (While you're at it, how about an alumni profile at your alma mater(s)?)

Don't assume your communications professionals know who you are. They may be focusing their time and energy on rock stars, but most likely they haven't ought you out. And if you aren't on their experts list, they may assume that you don't want to be contacted by media, not that you just haven't signed up for one reason or another.

So call up your communications folks and make a coffee date. If you reach out to them, they will be super likely to put your name out there when media folks call.

Outside your school, or at least in conjunction with it, how else can you get your name out there? Can you do a segment on your local radio station in conjunction with anything? We have some very popular weather guys, or people telling stories about rural life, or animal care experts... all sorts of options.

Do you have a blog? WHY NOT? Make one. Do it well. Network with both people in your field and others.

Those two things are things that your communications professionals can help with. They will be more than happy to link to both your scholarly research and other, more media-friendly outlets.

Best of all, this is all stuff you can get for FREE if you work with the communications professionals in your current university.

Overall, the best advice I can give you (from the POV of a communications professional) is to play well with others. You can set up boundaries, and that's perfectly fine. But if we put you on an experts list, please answer the phone and be nice about it. You can say no, but please don't bark at them and tell them you only answer questions about the role of hoof polish in the Crusades and how dare they call you about saddlebags.

All this is advice that could probably apply just as well if you hired your own PR person. But, again, you can get someone to do this for free!
posted by Madamina at 6:30 PM on December 11, 2013 [17 favorites]

Great advice above. I'd also suggest signing up with a service called HARO (Help A Reporter Out). They send out emails daily with things from reporters like "Looking for someone to talk about why more women are getting jobs in high tech. Want statistics from 2010 or later" with contact info for the reporter.

A lot of it won't apply to you but I think the people who do this best are versatile. I know of an academic who researches the effects of social relationships on age-related cognitive decline. He was quoted in articles about the importance of relationships after the DC Navy Yard shooting - not at all to do with aging but he made it work. Perhaps discuss with your university communications people so they don't get blind-sided when you're quoted.

Good luck - as a communications person, I get excited when I hear people want to be more proactive about their outreach. Done right, it makes everyone look good.
posted by kat518 at 6:44 PM on December 11, 2013 [3 favorites]

I work in Communications. If you want to do this on an individual level i.e hire someone personally, I doubt you would be able to afford it - and it certainly wouldn't be worth the investment.

However what might be worth the investment is hiring someone - and don't just pick a PR from the phone book, get a recommendation - to put together a plan that you can then execute yourself.

If you're looking to hire someone because you have neither the time nor inclination, forget about it. Good pr takes a lot of time and work to pay off. But if you want to hire someone cause you don't have a clue, they could really help. You'll want someone with experience representing individuals, preferably academics, they do exist, though they are often agents.

I wonder though, if you have a really good understanding of the kind of PR (really, more brand management for you, I would think) that would actually help you, here. If you haven't already, I think it's definitely worth networking with some successful academic friends that have the level of job/prestige that you want about what they would consider. You may find you need to do less than you think, or that nothing would help.

Nthing that the Uni has its own PR and you should definitely touch base with them. You may not like what you have to say to promote your work in a broader environment!
posted by smoke at 6:55 PM on December 11, 2013 [1 favorite]

I suspect that networking would be a good way to move to a nicer setting.
posted by theora55 at 7:33 PM on December 11, 2013

The standard m/o for such things is a) produce a lot of good research, and b) wait for people to notice it.

(b) is wrong. You _can_ wait for people to notice it but you're much better off going to conferences, giving talks, making friends and contacts, networking, etc. Maybe this is self-promotion, but hardly icky or signaling any lack of commitment. Then, when you've done enough of this, you actively apply for better jobs. The early/mid-career (as I'm assuming you are) people I've known who have successfully moved up (or just sideways) have all done this process. I guess maybe the idea is to wait until someone targets you for a hire -- this does very occasionally happen (really just to people at full professor, in the cases I know of) but this seems to me approximately like waiting to win the lottery without even buying any tickets.

(A bunch of the answers so far seem to be aimed at some kind of public recognition of the research? That is largely orthogonal to getting a better academic job; not really what the question seems to be asking as I read it.)
posted by advil at 8:42 PM on December 11, 2013 [2 favorites]

(A bunch of the answers so far seem to be aimed at some kind of public recognition of the research? That is largely orthogonal to getting a better academic job; not really what the question seems to be asking as I read it.)

I agree, but honestly, this is what PR agents do. The "p" is for public after all. Maybe you could clarify in a follow up comment OP? I don't think few publicists would be useful if your target audience is outside the general public (whether it includes academics or no).
posted by smoke at 9:23 PM on December 11, 2013

I don't know about a PR agent, but you might check out The Professor Is In to see if the advice and/or services on offer there might be helpful to you. (I'm not affiliated and have never used the services, only read some of the advice there.)
posted by number9dream at 9:28 PM on December 11, 2013

If I understand correctly, you want to be noticed by Faculty Members in departments of "better" institutions than yours in the hope of landing a similar position there? If so, contacts through a PR person would have the people you want to impress laugh at you and likely dismiss you as a lightweight. Instead, I would contact the Chair of the Department at those institutions, ask if they have someone in charge of an invited speakers series, get in touch with that individual yourself proposing some interesting talk on your research.

Also, go to the highest rating conferences in your area and present your research. While there, make a point of talking to as many colleagues from other institutions as you can.
posted by aroberge at 6:01 AM on December 12, 2013 [1 favorite]

Also, don't just attend but organize conferences, conference sessions or panels, etc. Either in your research area, or on topics relevant to the profession. There are often other high-profile professional service opportunities as well. Sounds like you want to focus on research-related ones. Maybe get on a committee to review grants for a federal or other high-profile granting agency? Probably less immediately visible, but editorships? (I hear that in the humanities it's more about books than journal articles, so that may be less applicable for you.) This gets your name known, but (assuming you do a good job and follow through on committments) with positive, pro-social connotations as well as being known/respected for your research output. In other words, people don't mind self-promotion when it's a side effect of you doing useful and positive things for them.
posted by eviemath at 7:53 AM on December 12, 2013

I also work in communications where we often get calls from reporters asking for experts.

HARO (Help A Reporter Out) is good.

We often refer reporters and media to professional associations for expert contacts, so if you are part of any professional associations or groups you may want to check in with their communications staff to see what they advise or whether they keep an experts list on file.

Also, you likely don't need a pro to do a little self-promoting. Most broadcast folks will want someone who is local for filming, do a little research to find out which local reporters (TV, print and radio) cover your area of expertise. If you find yourself trying to pitch a story or something timely comes up in the news send them a concise email with your credentials and availability. Once you start getting quoted in the news on a particular subject it becomes a lot easier to become a "go to" person for everyone else covering it.

It also probably doesn't hurt to have a website, maintain some social media on your topic, and generally making yourself easy to find on the internet in relation to your area of expertise.

Also please keep in mind that many reporters get totally inundated with random PR pitches, so to avoid alienating them try to keep it relevant and concise.
posted by forkisbetter at 8:03 AM on December 12, 2013

A few more tips:

Your PR/communications folks can help you learn to be a better media person. They often can organize media trainings so that people who don't typically get in contact with the media (or haven't in the past) will be more comfortable doing it. Topics include coming up with a game plan for appearing on TV, how to work with interviewers, how to handle tough questions or controversial issues, etc. (That's getting into issues management territory, but I guarantee you will have to know about that someday, so it can't hurt.)

Remember that they are here to help you, not to rag on you for the fun of it. With apologies to Vidal Sassoon: if you don't look good, we don't look good. I can't tell you about all the crap we've gone through with random professors whose attitudes (from reasonable to loony, academic to nonacademic) have screwed over the university in one way or another. It doesn't matter at all whether you're right or supported by data or not; it only matters what people think. And they're often crazy.

Also, we tend to think about everything in relation to hooks. What's a news hook that can make your work more relatable?

Example: which do you think is going to interest reporters more and make them want to work with you?

A. "Hi; this is Professor X and I want to tell you about my research on mutant children and their superpowers."
(Reporter: "Um, yeah, that sounds great, but I don't think anyone really cares about mutants right now since things are pretty cool in the world and nobody is getting their feathers ruffled.")

B. "Hi; this is Professor X. I know our city has been experiencing a glut of attacks by this Magneto guy, and I think I have some research that could be of interest to your audience."
(Reporter: "O rly?")
"Yes, rly. I work with this great group of mutants who are actually very nice, and I'd love to share my experiences about this fabulous school that I run. Also, I have a long personal history with Magneto, and I'd be happy to add my personal recollections to any piece that you're doing."
(Reporter: "You're my hero.")
posted by Madamina at 10:00 AM on December 12, 2013 [1 favorite]

...And I know that this is all about getting recognized in public, not necessarily moving up to a better institution, but honestly it all falls under the purview of Playing Well With Others.

Your potential colleagues won't know about your work, or want to collaborate with you, unless your work gets out there. People will want to know who you are as a person to see how you fit into a departmental ethos. Why are conference cocktail parties often more important for networking than the panels themselves?

Unless your work can unequivocally speak for itself and get people excited just by existing -- which it probably doesn't, because that only happens for rock stars -- you'll need to master the social puzzle. Which is not always easy for academics (particularly, I've noticed, with those humanities folks who don't do a lot of outreach and hide away in their offices/on listservs). Co-sponsor events on campus with people from other departments. Make friends from other universities. Then co-opt THEIR PR people, too :)
posted by Madamina at 10:16 AM on December 12, 2013

I work in university PR but Madamina beat me to it--that is almost exactly what I would have told you.

I would add: Say "yes" as often as you can to your PR office, because the more willing you are to work with them, the more often they will call you. Get comfortable talking about things in your field that are beneath your pay grade or not exactly what you study. The people who do this tend to see themselves as doing outreach for their field (or their part of the field) more than just publicizing their own research. It doesn't matter if the thing in question could be explained by any college freshman who has taken the 101 course in your field, or looked up on Google--the reporter wants to be able to put quotation marks around it and attribute it to an expert. I have a long list of experts I could call (my school is pretty big) but I have a shortlist of people I call first because I know they will always pick up the phone for me and almost always say yes to an interview. For example, my favorite political scientist to call on is a guy whose expertise is in political messaging, but he is totally willing to go on our podunk local TV station on election night to explain how the electoral college works or what a ballot initiative is. (Well, not so much anymore, because now the national networks want him. But that's how it works.)

Caveat: Your mileage will depend greatly on your field. If you're in poli sci, sociology, law, business, medicine, women's or hyphenated-American studies, or psychology, you'll probably be able to develop a decent list of clips as long as you are willing. If you're a French professor or theoretical physicist, the demand is simply going to be too low.

We have a few professors at our school who retain their own PR person--but they usually do it for their non-university activities (nonacademic books, speeches, punditry, etc.)

Edited to add: Madamina makes a great point about coopting other university's PR people. If there are other universities in your area--particularly if there is a more prestigious one--try to participate in conferences/events with your counterparts as much as possible so their PR gets to know you. So if they can't line up one of their people for something, they can say, "Try xyz at abc college."
posted by elizeh at 8:41 PM on December 12, 2013