Journalists Offer Pitching Tips at SoCal Media Breakfast

August 6, 2012
by Kathy Tomasino, Client Services Representative, Business Wire/Newport Beach
Kathy Tomasino

Kathy Tomasino

It was a full house last month when Executives and PR professionals from Southern California attended Business Wire Newport Beach’s Meet the Media event in Costa Mesa.

The event was moderated by Daniel Rhodes, VP Public Relations at Global Results Communications, and our panel of experts included Tom Berg from the Orange County Register, Chris Casacchia from the Orange County Business Journal and Kyle Ellicott from TechZulu.

The event was focused on how to best pitch your company’s story to both local and national press and how reporters are now using social media sites such as Twitter for story leads.

Below are a few tips captured from the event:

  • Make introductions with a reporter before you pitch your story idea.
  • Reporters use social media sites such as Twitter to find story leads.
  • Email is the preferred way to pitch over a phone call.
  • Have a story and be genuine about how you present it.
  • Find a way in – use “nuggets” to grab reporters’ attention.

Although Twitter is a great resource for story ideas, Casacchia advised our audience to only tease their story ideas on such sites and to also use a wire service such as Business Wire for the full press release. (Business Wire does automatically tweet press release headlines via dozens of industry-specific feeds.)  Casacchia also recommended that you know your audience when delving into social media.  Although social sites such as Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest are great outlets to promote your story ideas, you must only use the outlets that fit your company style and business as not all may work for a bank or law firm, for example.

Ellicott mentioned that mobile ads have a huge potential especially since more and more people are using their mobile phones for news and all other things.  Luckily for our clients, all Business Wire press releases automatically feed into the AP Mobile app and other mobile applications.

Berg is a great storyteller and uses sites such as Twitter for story ideas.  He recommended our audience use social media to get the buzz going about a story, although the wire is still the first place he will look for news directly from the source.

All of our speakers may be followed via Twitter at @OCStoryteller (Tom Berg); @ccasacchia (Chris Casacchia); @kyleellicott (Kyle Ellicott) and @GlobalResults (Daniel Rhodes).

 

 

 

 

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Posted by Phil Dennison, Senior Marketing Specialist, Business Wire

The World’s Biggest Media & Facebook – An Evolving Relationship

April 11, 2012

By Michel Rubini, International MRT Specialist – London

In 2007, Rupert Murdoch joked about Facebook overtaking MySpace as the most popular social networking site on the web.  Not long after, it was no laughing matter.

While Facebook might not be the best social networking site, or offer the best user experience, or even the most innovative solutions, it has been accepted as the standard by most internet users. Facebook has now reached the 600 million user mark, so it is no surprise that media organisations across the world are looking into ways to tap into this pool of potential readers.

At a recent News:Rewired event (a periodical digital journalism conference) in London, I listened to speakers from some of the world’s biggest media organisations explain how they are facing — and mostly embracing — Facebook.

The most enthusiastic evangelist was Martin Belam, User Experience Lead at The Guardian. Belam explained how their new Facebook application has been hugely successful. The application allows users to share Guardian content easily with their friends, and so far, six million people have downloaded it. One of the most exciting things, according to Belam, is that 54 percent of the users are under 24 – the kind of audience the Guardian has always aspired to reach.

Belam also explained that a younger audience means a younger kind of content becoming popular on the application. He denied there was any danger of a “dumbing down” The Guardian. “To my mind, if we are producing that content anyway – which we do – then why wouldn’t we want it to reach as wide an audience as possible?” he asked.

Belam also noted that there is growing evidence that the Facebook application alone is producing as many views for articles as the guardian.co.uk site, in practice doubling the amount of traffic a story gets.

Liz Heron, former social media editor of The New York Times and current director of social media and engagement with The Wall Street Journal, seemed to agree with Martin. “In the new landscape, the question is no longer whether we do social media, the question is how. How can we make our social media experiences stand out?”

She went on to note that fifty New York Times journalists offer Facebook subscription streams; and that all reporters have been encouraged lately to try Facebook, especially foreign correspondents. The advantage of Facebook, she said, is that it offers great crowdsourcing opportunities and can yield insightful comments and debates. However, the majority of New York Times journalists are still using Twitter. This is due to the fact that most journalists are aware of the dangers of mixing personal profiles with professional lives.

Nate Lanxon, editor of wired.co.uk was very clear about the importance of Facebook. He admitted that for 5 years WIRED had ignored Facebook.  That has recently changed. He has now printed a big photo of Mark Zuckerberg which is passed around the office. The person with the photo is the editor of the WIRED Facebook page for that day. The physical presence of the photo has helped the newsroom embrace Facebook in its daily publishing routine.

Lanxon said one of their key discoveries was that having a presence on Facebook wasn’t about driving fans to WIRED, it was about driving WIRED to fans. Lanxon also noted that Facebook follows its own news cycle. Facebook items seem to increase in traffic around the late afternoon and evenings, when users log in to check their latest feeds.

These three examples seem to show a clear shift in how well regarded (and global) news organisations are fully embracing the enormous readership potential offered by Facebook.

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Posted by Phil Dennison, Senior Marketing Specialist, Business Wire

Is The Next Big Thing a Lot of Smaller Things?

March 7, 2012
by Chris Metinko, Media Relations Specialist, Business Wire/San Francisco
Chris Metinko

Chris Metinko

Remember MySpace?

Remember when Facebook was going to be the next big thing?

In social media — just as in everything — there always is the “next thing,” and many are pointing to the exploding popularity of niche social networks as exactly that. Many such sites have seen tremendous growth in the past year, as they cater to specific interests, hobbies and likes.

According to the online data measurement firm comScore, the online virtual pinboard site Pinterest saw the third largest percentage jump in unique visitors from December 2011 to January 2012 — behind only the IRS’s and the Department of Education’s websites. Also according to comScore, it became the fastest user site ever to hit 10 million monthly visitors.

As Business Wire media reps attended programs held in San Francisco during February’s Social Media Week, some of the talk was not on the titans of social networking — Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter et al. — but rather these niche sites that seem to be taking up more and more of social networkers’ time. According to some officials in the burgeoning new category of social media, the migration of users is easily explained.

“There’s a lot of noise in the system right now,” said Oliver Hsiang with StumbleUpon, a search engine that creates virtual communities to rate and rank search results. “People want something to filter through the stuff you don’t care about.”

Niche sites allow users to focus on certain subjects and likes instead of Facebook’s all-encompassing style, which some can find hard to navigate. Sites such as Reddit, a social news site where users post, rate and rank news stories, have gained increased notoriety and users. Jena Donlin, business development manager with Reddit, said the site even allows users into different communities and subcategories to more narrowly focus on interests.

Such niche sites also can potentially be gold for journalists, because they reach a specific, targeted audience. For instance, if a reporter is writing about weight-loss and wants to talk to someone trying to lose weight, going to the uber-popular social network DailyBurn seems logical. If someone is writing about the public’s take on a new, hot restaurant, going to food-obsessed network Foodspotting should do the trick. While these sites may not reach the audience numbers Facebook does, a journalist knows the site’s members are extremely interested in their specific topic or beat, and the site can let writers know what people are talking about on a more regional or national level — not limiting reporters by geography.

Despite the current popularity some of these sites, they still face obstacles in their battle for users’ time. One, obviously, is they are exactly what they are suppose to be — niche sites — meaning they are not going to interest everyone.

Donlin said increased popularity also can bring issues, as it can become increasingly difficult to “keep up with the conversation” on sites. Hsiang added niche sites also face the same problem nearly every website eventually confronts — coming up with fresh and new content to keep users coming back and spending time on the site instead of doing other things like watching television, reading or using other social media.

“You compete for discretionary time with everything,” Hsiang said.

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Posted by Phil Dennison, Senior Marketing Specialist, Business Wire

Los Angeles Tech Reporters Offer Tips for Pitching Tech Media

April 6, 2011

by Amy Yen, Marketing Specialist, Business Wire Los Angeles

Last week, Business Wire LA hosted “LA-Area Technology Journalists Discuss Reporting Trends and How to Pitch Tech Media,” a media breakfast and panel discussion with technology journalists discussing what makes a good story and best practices for pitching tech media.

Sallie Olmsted (far right), Executive Vice President of Convergence at Rogers & Cowan, moderated the panel, which included (left to right):

  • Brian Deagon, Business and Technology Journalist, Investor’s Business Daily
  • David Sarno, Staff Writer, The Los Angeles Times
  • Natalie Jarvey, Reporter (Technology), Los Angeles Business Journal

Here are some key takeaways from the discussion:

  • Journalists are extremely busy and have little time to look at each pitch they receive. Be succinct and get to the point immediately.  Don’t try to set up the story. In a press release, the point of the pitch needs to be in the headline or first paragraph; in an email pitch, it needs to be in the subject line. David Sarno says to think of the headline and first paragraph of a press release as the entirety of your release, because most people don’t read past that.
  • In pitches, press releases and all corporate literature, journalists value clarity and authenticity over flowery language.
  • Stories are rarely just about one product. They usually have more to do with a trend or how people are doing things differently. Think about that as context for your pitches.
  • Reporters still like face-to-face meetings, demos, visits and webinars, but just don’t have much time. Trade shows are one place where you can meet face-to-face, particularly for tech companies. Get in touch with reporters who are attending in advance.  If you’re doing a demo or webinar, make an archive available so reporters don’t feel like they only have one chance to see it. Transcripts are also helpful and should be provided promptly.
  • Although many reporters are on Twitter and Facebook, pitching by email is still generally more reliable.
  • If you are pitching over the phone, make sure you know what you’re talking about and are able to answer questions! This is especially applicable for low-level PR professionals and interns who are asked to pitch.
  • Quotes in press release do get used, especially if the reporter doesn’t have time to get a quote on their own. However, to get used, the quote must give insight and not just be a generic “this is great” type quote.
  • Most reporters will honor an embargo, but the panelists say they don’t see it as an indicator that something is important. Embargoed items get treated like any other news item.
  • If your company uses a general media inquiries mailbox (such as a press@abccompany.com type address on your website), make sure it’s monitored regularly.   If a reporter sends an inquiry to that address, it should be responded to promptly. Better yet, list your media relations person.
  • Great tech/business news sites: TechMeme, TechCrunch, ReadWriteWeb, Bloomberg.

For more upcoming local Business Wire events or to see what’s coming up in our award-winning webinar series, visit http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/business-wire-events.

Follow Business Wire events on Twitter! Hashtag #bwevents

3 Comments | Business Wire Events, Press Release Tips, Public Relations | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Amy Yen, Marketing Specialist, Business Wire

Business Wire New York Hosts Howard University Journalism Students

December 2, 2010

by Nikelle Feimster, Media Relations Specialist, Business Wire/New York

Howard University Association of Black Journalist (HUABJ) hosted their third annual Multimedia Tour November 11-12, 2010 in New York City. The journalism students visited several news organizations for a chance to tour their offices and speak with professional journalists.

The students were divided into two groups. The broadcast group visited media outlets including ABC, WBLS, WABC-TV, and Radio One Interactive. The print group visited NYU Graduate School of Journalism, HarperCollins Publishers, The New York Times, Amsterdam News, The Wall Street Journal and Business Wire. Both groups visited CBS Interactive and CUNY Graduate School of Journalism.

HUABJ Print Group

Overall, the students learned so much from the professionals on their visit. “Seeing the tour turn out so well was such a rewarding feeling,” said Mary Godie, President of HUABJ. “It was evident that the students got more out of it than they expected. We changed a few elements up this year so that students were able to get a well rounded view of the industry. And, I know they got that and so much more.”

Business Wire was very excited to be a part of the tour this year. Led by Mike Maguire, Northeast Editorial Supervisor at Business Wire, the students were given a step-by-step overview of Business Wire’s news distribution process. Following the presentation, the group witnessed the day-to-day operations of the editorial newsroom and saw how press releases are formatted and transmitted over the wire.

HUABJ Broadcast Group

“Business Wire has always had an interest in educational efforts that are happening at universities across the country,” said Maguire. “One of the ways Business Wire gets to show off what we do and act as teachers has been hosting students and faculty members at various colleges and universities. The students of Howard provided an audience that was keen to take in the opportunity we presented.”

HUABJ is a student chapter of the National Association of Black Journalist (NABJ). HUABJ was chartered in 1998 with a mission to cultivate, teach and prepare students for careers in journalism.

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Posted by Phil Dennison, Senior Marketing Specialist, Business Wire

Newport Area Communicators and Media Talk Industry Trends, Pitching Tips

November 19, 2010

by Amy Yen, Marketing Specialist, Business Wire LA

Last week, Business Wire Newport Beach held a media breakfast for more than 70 Orange County area communicators and PR professionals to discuss trends in the media industry and tips for reaching out to Newport area media.

>>Download a full audio recording of this event here.

The panel of Orange County/Inland Empire media members included (left to right, pictured with Business Wire Newport Regional Sales Manager Tasha Huang, far right):

Here are some of the insights provided by the panelists:

Gillian Flaccus, The Associated Press:

  • On trends in the news industry: Social media, interactive and mobile remain on the rise. The AP is active on all three of these fronts. They’ve trained their reporters to get video and also supply footage to broadcast media. Multimedia is very important to them, and while they often have their own photographers in the field, photos with press releases are especially important if they are images the reporters cannot easily get themselves.
  • Mobile has revolutionized the news industry. The AP has been extremely aggressive about adapting to mobile. AP Mobile is a very popular news app for BlackBerry and iPhone.
  • The AP is on Facebook and Twitter and has also been experimenting with blogging. Many of their beat reporters have their own Twitter accounts and that is one way to find them.
  • When pitching to the AP in Southern California, your best bet is usually to send it to the Los Angeles bureau, as the Orange County bureau is very small. Their reporters share information all the time with each other, so if it’s relevant to a specific region, it will be passed along to them.

Lisa Liddane, Coast Magazine & OrangeCounty.com:

  • Reporting is starting to be very personality-driven. The lines in objective reporting are blurring as trends like blogging become more popular.
  • The best way to reach Coast Magazine is email. Be very clear in your subject line. It’s very helpful to you to find a local angle and include it in your pitch.
  • Know who you are pitching to and what their publication schedule is. For example, a print magazine versus daily newspaper or broadcast news.
  • Print publications like Coast Magazine need high res photos at 300 DPI. If you don’t have a high res picture, sometimes they can still use a lower resolution one for online.

Jerry Sullivan, Orange County Business Journal:

  • Do the research to find the right reporter to target. For the OCBJ (and many publications), you can find reporters by the beat they cover on the publication website.
  • Look for trends or a local angel to incorporate your company or news into. For example, the OCBJ is interested in stories about media companies buying smaller companies, or stories involving local executives.
  • Press releases can lead to media coverage in roundabout ways. They might just call attention to your company and cause a reporter to look into them when they otherwise wouldn’t have thought to.
  • When including photos with your release, identify the people in the photo left to right whenever possible.

For more upcoming local Business Wire events or to see what’s coming up in our award-winning webinar series, visit http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/business-wire-events.

Follow Business Wire events on Twitter! Hash tag #bwevents

Leave a Comment » | Business Wire, Business Wire Events, journalism, Press Release Tips, social media, video | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Amy Yen, Marketing Specialist, Business Wire

Business Wire Opens Office in Austin, Texas

September 10, 2010

by Monika Maeckle

Business Wire opened its doors in Austin, Texas this week, planting its flag just south of Ladybird Lake at 510 South Congress and Riverside. 

A team of four veteran Business Wire staffers are delighted to have a foot in the Live Music Capitol of the World, a city we have been working from our San Antonio location for more than 10 years. 

Christye Weld, Austin-San Antonio Sales Manager for Business Wire

“It’s about time we planted the flag in Austin, too,” said Christye Weld, Austin-San Antonio sales manager.

Business Wire Austin staff is looking forward to lunchtime bike rides around Ladybird Lake, foraging the food court at Whole Foods Market headquarters, bonding with our Austin clients, and generally doing what we can to ”keep Austin weird.”

For full details on our move, see the press release that ran on our favorite wire service.

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Posted by Monika Maeckle

A Press Release By Any Other Name Would Be As Useful

March 2, 2010

Courtesy of a link from my former colleague Les Blatt comes this list, by Andy Beaupre at Ragan.com, of “Words and phrases that have outlived their PR usefulness.”  But it’s not just the words that Beaupre takes issue with in some cases; it’s the practices to which they’re attached, including printed press kits and news embargoes.  He’s getting some lively discussion in the comments, including a couple of people sticking up for the continued usefulness of news releases (or press releases), much to our delight here at Business Wire.  It’s good reading, though, for PR people to think about what they are and aren’t doing right.

3 Comments | journalism, Public Relations | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by Phil Dennison, Senior Marketing Specialist, Business Wire

Florida PR Pros: How To Get On “The Business Show”

February 9, 2010
Getting a glimpse behind the wizard’s curtain can often unlock the mystery of their magical success.  In this case the wizard is Niala Boodhoo, multimedia business reporter and host of the Miami Herald‘s ”The Business Show,” a weekly web show on miamiherald.com
Niala Boodhoo

Niala Boodhoo, host of the Miami Herald's "The Business Show"

Pilar Portela, media relations supervisor for Business Wire/Miami met with Boodhoo this week.  She took a tour of the studio, watched a live taping and sat down with the host for a discussion on how she finds her topics and keeps her show
fresh.   Here are a few other tips from the meeting you might find helpful.

  • Niala prefers to be pitched by email at nboodhoo@miamiherald.com or pitched over Twitter @nialaboodhoo . Do Not Call Her.
  • Keep your pitches related to current affairs and how they impact small businesses and their owners across South Florida.
  • Segments typically run about three minutes, so make certain your clients can get their points across concisely.
  • Niala encourages submission of  b-roll footage and static images,  and they will consider them for use on the show.
  • The paper recently launched “The Miami Herald Business Plan Challenge.”  Submit your recent business plan for consideration.  Your plan must be less than a year old.  Winners are highlighted on the web show and in the print publication.
  • New shows hit miamiherald.com every Monday and are recorded on Thursdays.

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Posted by Phil Dennison, Senior Marketing Specialist, Business Wire

Social and Mainstream Media Must Learn to Live Together

October 27, 2009

Business Wire/Phoenix account executive Malcolm Atherton recently attended Blog World, and had some observations about the interaction between mainstream and social media:

After spending three days at the 2009 Blog World & New Media Expo, I got the feeling that social media and mainstream media have some issues to work out.

 This was clearly illustrated when Don Lemon of CNN took part in a keynote panel titled “The Death & Rebirth of Social Media”.

 Don noted his positive and negative social media experiences, how he thinks social media and mainstream media can help one another and how social media “made me up my game [at CNN] – I have to be more accurate.” However, as JD Lasica wrote on SocialMedia.biz, when Don was asked “’Why should bloggers want to work with CNN?’ Lemon should have more artfully worded his reply — ‘The plain truth is that my platform is bigger than your platform.’”

 Perhaps that statement is part of the problem – mainstream media likes social media but doesn’t give it equal billing.

 On the flip side, during the same Q&A, one feisty blogger angrily stated that he would never share an information source with CNN or any other mainstream media outlet because “mainstream media is not interesting to me anymore.”

 Sigh.

Later that day, during a panel titled “How Social Media is Changing the Definition of News,” social media maven, journalism degree-holder, and panelist Robert Scoble stated that old school journalism doesn’t like that they have to publish in real time and do all fact checking later to stay competitive. Animated discussion ensued between panelists and the audience.  (And with good reason – mainstream media were slow to break the news earlier this year of Michael Jackson’s death, which had already broken on Twitter and various entertainment blogs; while other recent events have shown that with running with a story before fact checking comes the possibility of getting your fingers burned.)

As legacy media find themselves increasingly dependent on and successful with blogs, Twitter and other real-time publishing outlets, they’re going to have to learn to live with some different standards and protocols; social media, on the other hand, needs to account for the reputation, reach and impact of large corporate media outlets.  Bulldog Reporter shows how more journalists are dipping into the social media pool; while Search Engine Watch discusses how big players can earn respect in social media.

Follow Malcolm on Twitter at @MalcolmAtherton.

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Posted by Phil Dennison, Senior Marketing Specialist, Business Wire

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