THE TEN COMMANDMENTS TO PERFECT PR

PART ONE.

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS TO PERFECT PR

To most business owners and commercial artists, how to launch a successful PR campaign or operation can seem like an impossibly complicated puzzle or a daunting and inscrutable mystery.

But the truth is that stories and segments in the national media come about as a function of an understandable process, and effective PR comes from knowing how that process works, and thus how to influence it.

Understanding the basics is obviously critical if you're going to do your own PR. But it is also critical if you have a publicist or a PR department otherwise you won't be able to make an informed decision about whether your media strategy is working, or not. And understanding how effective PR happens is essential for any business owner looking to create a commercially significant social media presence: the way to achieve 100 followers or fans is to go person by person by person by person; the way to achieve 10,000 fans and followers overnight is to be on a talk show with 1 million viewers. Solving the social media equation is, in fact, that simple.

So if you want media coverage for your business or creative venture and, by extension, to exponentially increase your social media presence but you don't know how to go about it, here are the 10 commandments to perfect PR:

Know What PR Really Is

PR is not a press release; it is not an event; it is not having someone officially represent you. PR happens when an editor, writer or producer knows about you. Period. After all, they can't cover you if they don't know about you. So PR is simple awareness of you. If you are hired to handle the PR for a business, your primary goal is to create that awareness on the part of the target media that the client exists, everything else, such as sending out press releases or representing them in communications, is simply a tool for that.

Be Precise When It Comes to Whom You Pitch

The best, most salable idea in the world is absolutely useless when sent to the wrong person. As an editor and writer one is deluged with pitches in areas that you didn't cover. The point is that a media list of 10 media targets that you know for a fact cover your industry and are currently in that position is vastly more useful than a list of 1,000 dated misfires to the wrong people. But if you send your pitch to the right person, you're in the game. So the first thing you do as a publicist is build a made-to-measure media list that is, above all, precise.

Don't Just Give the Media a "Press Release" - Give Them a Story

The first step toward writing an effective press release is to understand that the editor, producer or writer doesn't care about your press release. They care about producing their story or segment. So if you give them a corporate sounding, internally micro-managed to death, self-important "press release," it is most likely going to be deleted, thrown away, or simply allowed to disappear forever into electronic oblivion. If you want a powerful press release that is read by the media target and results in media coverage that is consistent with what you want them to say, you have to start off where they are, not where you are. So when writing a client’s press releases, the targeted audience should be in mind. For example, do you have a new inner wear product? Tell them what's new about it in relation to what they've already covered, and why they should be interested. Are you opening up the first business of its kind? Tell them that, back it up, and give them reasons to care. Understand that they care about a story not that 10 executive vice presidents have signed off on an official statement and you'll be giving them a press release they might actually use... because you've done their work for them. .........