Making the Most of a Media Tour

by Kate Sutherland, Vollmer Media Team

As a member of Vollmer’s Media Relations Team, I am regularly challenged with introducing our clients to a variety of media, from national morning show and producers to local print reporters and social media influencers. Whether the client is a travel expert for Travelocity or the CEO of Helix Energy Solutions, all clients want to know how to become the media’s “go-to source”.

While the media continues to evolve and change, there is one tried and true tactic for building strong media relationships – meet them! In a world connected by blackberries and “friending”, many people forget the basic fundamentals of getting to know someone.

Sitting down for an in-person meeting not only helps you learn more about the media, but it helps them learn more about you. Actually putting a “face to a name” is a great first step to helping the media view you as a trusted resource, and conducting a media tour over one or two days is the easiest way to meet a lot of media, in a short amount of time.

Regardless of industry, the best place to start a media tour is New York City. While it seems easy enough to plan some meetings, there are a few tricks to coordinating a successful tour, especially in the Big Apple! Here are some of Vollmer’s top tips on how we help clients prepare for media tours.

• Check the Local Calendar – While it doesn’t seem likely that New York City’s fashion week would impact a major construction group, such as Skanska, it could. Most media outlets (even the Wall Street Journal!) will be understaffed and unwilling to make time for meetings during this busy week. Always keep an eye out for major events and industry/competitor tradeshows, and avoid visits during those times.

• Avoid Mondays/Fridays – These are notoriously bad days to set up meetings for obvious reasons, so always stick to Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.

• Think Outside the Box – If you are having trouble securing a meeting with the editor for the New York Times, consider bloggers that cover your industry and freelancers in the area. This is a great way to build credibility with media who may be just as influential with your target audiences and often also write for more than one news outlet.

• Fit In Other Business – While the focus of these tours are typically to meet with media, consider setting up a time to meet potential partners in the city you are visiting, including vendors, potential clients or long-distance networking contacts you may have developed.

• Create Itinerary & Verify Locations – Input all locations, times, contacts and their phone/email addresses into one easy to access document. Always double check the address of the meeting with your contact, or call their receptionist. It’s helpful to ask for exact cross streets, and if there are special check-in instructions (for example, if ID is required, or to enter through a side street)

• Confirm 24 Hours in Advance - Send each person a confirmation email 24 hours in advance of your appointment, reconfirming time and location.

• Check the Weather – Seems silly, but if you are relying on public transportation to get you to and from meetings, realize that there will be delays if it rains! This is especially true in Manhattan. It will be hard to rely on cabs in bad weather so consider renting a car or booking a car service to ensure you make it to every appointment on time. If you will be driving, add in a few more minutes than usual.

• Don’t Forget the News! – And the number one tip is....Bring news! If they agree to meet with you, the media will want to know what is going on with you or your company now, how it’s related to what’s happening in the rest of the world and how it will affect your target audiences – their readers.

If you are interested in learning more about Vollmer’s media relationships and coordinating a media tour, contact a member of our team – Kate Sutherland, kate@vollmerpr.com or Mary Kate Smither (marykate@vollmerpr.com).

Where Do You Get Your News?

by Meredith McKee, Vollmer Dallas

I recently attended a BusinessWire breakfast where they shared some of the new stuff they are up to.  They also shared a study from The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project that was very interesting.

As we all know, news is available everywhere – and people today aren’t particular about where they get their news.  According to Pew “the overwhelming majority of Americans (92 percent) use multiple platforms to get news on a typical day, including national TV, local TV, the internet, local newspapers, radio and national newspapers.  Some 46 percent of Americans say they get news from four to six media platforms on a typical day.”

This wasn’t that surprising to me, or you I’m sure.  But it did get me thinking.  Where do I get my news?  I watch the morning news at the gym, and as I’m getting ready I scan any news alerts that have come in on my cell phone.  I listen to the radio on my way into work.   I scan the local newspapers online and sometimes even the print editions on certain days (yes, I still read the actual paper).  And throughout the day you can find me checking various RSS feeds and news updates online of the national news sources and my favorite blogs. 

I’m not even going to attempt to try and figure out the actual sources.  Pew reports that most people use between two and five online news sources and 65 percent report they do not have a single favorite website for news.  However, 21 percent do rely on just one site for their news and information.  I’m not sure how that is possible – these are the people I want to meet.  Either you must be so focused, or you found the most perfect news website ever. 

Even our relationship to news is changing.  With 33 percent of cell phone users accessing news on their phones, you can be downloading the latest breaking news story on the go.  28 percent of Internet users have customized home pages to include news from sources or on topics of interest to them.  And with social media being all the rage, 37 percent of Internet users actually have contributed to the creation of news, commented on it, or shared it via their social media outlets.

More information on the study can be found here – definitely worth the read.

Now I’d like to ask you a question.  Where are you getting your news every day?  Please respond in the comments below. 

Back to the Drawing Board

by Julia Weede, VOLLMER New York

2008 may be the year that we saw the passing of an era. For the last several years PR professionals and others have closely followed the occasional news reports of staff cuts at the nation’s large and small newspapers. We have known that we are experiencing change in American journalism.

Yet for the last several years even as staffs were cut, someone always has been at the end of the phone when we called a daily paper. That “someone” was usually a senior beat reporter with 20 years of experience who was able to know a good story, report and write it to fit into an ever-shrinking news hole.

But it may be that we remember 2008 as the year when it all changed. As buyouts and cutbacks escalate and thin the ranks of American journalism – some counts say more than 6,000 positions have been eliminated so far this year-- we are witnessing the loss of some of the nation’s most knowledgeable journalists. Lawrence Downes recently commented in the New York Times, “As newspapers lose money and readers, they have been shedding great swaths of expensive expertise.”

Growing numbers of senior reporters, editors and columnists are leaving mainstay dailies like the Washington Post, the New York Times and the McClatchy and Gannett papers. Reporters that remain at papers like the Wall Street Journal are being reassigned to entirely new beats or double beats. The shift is sudden and increasingly dramatic.

To fill the gap, editors are turning to freelancers, or dropping coverage altogether. As one top section editor of a major national newspaper said when we asked if someone on the editor’s staff might be interested in a story, “Staff? I have no staff. I have two people and a bunch of freelancers.”

This shift is changing the content of stories that American read. Editors are often forced to set aside well-researched stories on tough topics to cover expedient stories written quickly on short turn-around. Recently a major industry reporter with more than 10 years tenure responded to our query, “Sure I think this is an interesting story, and it should be covered. But it will take me three days to research and report, and my editor won’t let me take that much time any more.”
What does this mean if we want to participate in thoughtful dialog on critical issues? How do we have a dialog when the most experienced journalists are no longer there to chronicle the discussion?

Certainly new media, the catalyst for this evolution, are part of the solution. Organizations will always need to engage with their stakeholders, and many see a boon in the ability to have that conversation with customers directly. At VOLLMER we love seeing company leaders risking open, honest dialog with customers in creative new ways – they are almost always handsomely rewarded for their transparency.

In some cases it is time to rethink traditional media roles. Who says you can’t create and distribute your own content? What do you have to offer in this brave new world that people want to know? The barriers to entry are surprisingly low, and the potential is yet unknown.

And for those who believe a story in a national daily newspaper is still a gold standard of PR, it is time to do what we do differently. Now, more than ever, we need to focus on what journalists need to do their jobs:

• In this environment even the best reporters don’t have time to connect many dots. We must help connect research, summarize and offer links to supporting material.
• Don’t just talk about your best attributes; provide simple, direct access for journalists to see those attributes being demonstrated.
• Remember that the number of stories that are making it into print is shrinking – offer up your best and leave the routine press releases to online distribution.

Recently we happened to catch a veteran Washington Post reporter on the day that she and her editor took the buyout. When I jokingly asked, “Who am I gonna call now?” she only half-jokingly replied, “Beats me. We were just sitting around the newsroom speculating that it won’t be long before there is no one left to pick up the phone when you guys call.”

While no one yet believes the Washington Post will disappear, it was a jolt to the system. The good news is that she will continue freelancing. The unbelievable news? She’s going into PR.

(Excerpted from the Council of PR Firm’s The Firm Voice)

Grumble Grouse Gold

by Helen Vollmer, VOLLMER Houston

Ah, the Glorious 12th!

At least that’s what today is called in the UK as Red Grouse season begins. In listening to NPR this morning, it would appear that this is a huge economic deal in rural areas of Brittania as hunters take to the field to stalk field birds. I think for the rest of us, we should take a more literal approach to the term Grouse Season and use it to complain about more frivolous but still newsworthy items.

For example, where is the news coverage during the Olympic Games? While I’ve been a total couch potato watching Michael Phelps rack up his well deserved medals, I periodically have been searching , mostly in vain, for real world events. Come on, news media—something HAS to be happening in the world that deserves more coverage. Also on my grouse list—on a more mundane level—is why Americans don’t get more vacation time. Has anyone else out there tried to find anyone doing business in France lately? If the EU can all go to the beach in Torremolinas for the month of August, why not us?

One more grumble before I let someone else take the mantle of Grouse Season. Coming from a South Texas hunting family, I think all you anti-gun folks should thank hunters for helping to keep game populations under control. You folks living in Austin who have deer munching your gardens know what I’m talking about. Hunting—whether its deer or grouse—is a great sport if done responsibly. The rule in our home is if you kill it, you clean it and you eat it. And as for sport—oops, it brings us full circle back to the Olympics again—anyone been watching the shooting events?