One of the biggest factors in whether a PR person is successful or not in raising the profile of an organization is knowing what exactly is news?
On the surface this appears to be a simple issue. News is, well, anything that is 'new'.
Yet, it's not as simple as that. Many organizations think that anything that is 'new' is therefore news worthy. Opening a branch office, beta testing a product, releasing a white paper... the list goes on and on. PR folks are often confronted with items that colleagues think are news worthy, that aren't.
The media ignore these things and you actually can do damage wasting their time pitching them with non-news items. If you pepper them with non-news items, it will diminish your ability to have them take your actual news items seriously in the future.
So what makes something news worthy?
News is something that adds to an existing conversation in the media. It's any item that changes the landscape of a given topic that the media (and their readers) are interested in. It's news because it matters (or has the potential to matter) in the big picture - it has ramifications for how people view a certain issue.
I think one of the best things about social media - blogs, twitter, youtube - is that it gives an outlet for announcing all kinds of important items whose importance just isn't wide-spread enough to be considered news.
Many items may be relevant to a specific sub-section of stakeholders, while totally irrelevant to others. Social media is the perfect outlet for making niche announcements - items which matter, just not to the media. Or items that are still in the maturation phase... beta products are a perfect example...while they have the potential to have huge ramifications down the road, the 'news' is when they actually are having huge ramifications.
When it comes to the media and news releases, announcements should be kept to milestone achievements. New products, news partnerships, significant strategic decisions, customer endorsements (ie. real-world impact statements) etc. - things that redefine an organization's relevance in relation to an existing issue, topic or landscape relevant to the media outlets audience.
One of the toughest questions for a PR person to ask is "Does this really matter?" (you often won't make friends asking this question, but it's part of your job to ask the questions that others don't want to ask).
With colleagues bearing down on you that x, y or z is monumental and earth-shattering, it's sometimes hard to step back and say "Ok, it may be to us, but it isn't to others because it doesn't add anything new to the existing conversation in the media."
With the advent of social media though, PR folks now have an outlet for unveiling important things within an appropriate context. Passionate stakeholders that follow an organization closely want to know about these things- they want to know about items in their infancy that will lead to potential future developments.
Unfortunately, many PR folks (although not the majority) treat traditional media channels the same as social media channels, basically as dissemination vehicles for all their announcements (whether they are news worthy or not). The commitment to keeping news releases dedicated to news (milestone) items and using social media outlets for niche announcements will help organizations garner respect from both the media and their stakeholders.
I'll use a simple analogy that I think works fairly well to summarize the notion of news versus interesting developments that aren't news.
Take your average teenager in high school.
* News is their report card - it's a final statement on how they are doing.
* Getting an A on a test is not news, even though it's interesting (but it may, or may not, turn out to mean something in the end).
* Joining the school science club is news - because it's a unique development that not all students engage in.
* A teacher praising a student as being one of the best in the class at a teacher-parent conference is news - because it's a definitive statement on progress being made.
* The student doing a project on bacteria is not news - interesting yes, but news no, because it may or may not turn out to be of importance to their final grade.
To the student, everything above seems important. But some items are merely developments which will ultimately add up to news, but in and of themselves, are not news. Some are developments which are significant enough as predictors of how they are going to do that they count as news.
We often think news is anything that satisfies the five W's - who, what, where, when, and why - and while these are the elements of a 'story' they are not the deciding factor on whether something is news. In PR we often use the four C's - clear, concise, complete, and correct - and think that if we've frame something with these things in mind that we've created a news hook.
But the truth is that both these guides are missing what's most important - Relevance. If it's not relevant to the conversation currently unfolding in the media, if it's not relevant to a wide spectrum of stakeholders, then it's not news. It may be interesting, it may foreshadow important future events, and it may be a significant achievement for those within the organization...but that doesn't make it news.
Can you imagine how frustrating it would be for journalists if every organization in the world pestered them over every little development that they felt was important? Journalists are already swamped with hundreds of significant announcements every day - the last thing they need are minor developments being over-hyped as significant news items.
As you can see, what is news and what is simply interesting to a sub-section of stakeholders, is not always easy to differentiate. But the ability to differentiate the two is an important process in developing a brand and voice that is taken seriously by the media and stakeholders.
One more analogy that helps drive home the point. A friend calling you at midnight to tell you that they just bought a new pair of shoes (and they are the best pair of shoes they've ever owned) is not news. Yes it's 'new' and yes it may matter to your friend a lot (if they are calling at midnight then it's clear that it obviously matters a great deal to them), but it's not news and it could have easily waited until morning (or next month for that matter).
However, a friend calling at midnight to tell you a loved one has died, or they won the lottery, or they've got a new job and will be moving cities - these things are news. They are of such high relevance that knowing about them as soon as possible is warranted.
I've posted a funny cartoon below that captures how difficult it can be for us to understand relevance - because what's relevant to us is often times not relevant to others, and vice versa. Being good at PR is always about having your finger on the pulse of knowing what is, and is not, relevant.
On the surface this appears to be a simple issue. News is, well, anything that is 'new'.
Yet, it's not as simple as that. Many organizations think that anything that is 'new' is therefore news worthy. Opening a branch office, beta testing a product, releasing a white paper... the list goes on and on. PR folks are often confronted with items that colleagues think are news worthy, that aren't.
The media ignore these things and you actually can do damage wasting their time pitching them with non-news items. If you pepper them with non-news items, it will diminish your ability to have them take your actual news items seriously in the future.
So what makes something news worthy?
News is something that adds to an existing conversation in the media. It's any item that changes the landscape of a given topic that the media (and their readers) are interested in. It's news because it matters (or has the potential to matter) in the big picture - it has ramifications for how people view a certain issue.
I think one of the best things about social media - blogs, twitter, youtube - is that it gives an outlet for announcing all kinds of important items whose importance just isn't wide-spread enough to be considered news.
Many items may be relevant to a specific sub-section of stakeholders, while totally irrelevant to others. Social media is the perfect outlet for making niche announcements - items which matter, just not to the media. Or items that are still in the maturation phase... beta products are a perfect example...while they have the potential to have huge ramifications down the road, the 'news' is when they actually are having huge ramifications.
When it comes to the media and news releases, announcements should be kept to milestone achievements. New products, news partnerships, significant strategic decisions, customer endorsements (ie. real-world impact statements) etc. - things that redefine an organization's relevance in relation to an existing issue, topic or landscape relevant to the media outlets audience.
One of the toughest questions for a PR person to ask is "Does this really matter?" (you often won't make friends asking this question, but it's part of your job to ask the questions that others don't want to ask).
With colleagues bearing down on you that x, y or z is monumental and earth-shattering, it's sometimes hard to step back and say "Ok, it may be to us, but it isn't to others because it doesn't add anything new to the existing conversation in the media."
With the advent of social media though, PR folks now have an outlet for unveiling important things within an appropriate context. Passionate stakeholders that follow an organization closely want to know about these things- they want to know about items in their infancy that will lead to potential future developments.
Unfortunately, many PR folks (although not the majority) treat traditional media channels the same as social media channels, basically as dissemination vehicles for all their announcements (whether they are news worthy or not). The commitment to keeping news releases dedicated to news (milestone) items and using social media outlets for niche announcements will help organizations garner respect from both the media and their stakeholders.
I'll use a simple analogy that I think works fairly well to summarize the notion of news versus interesting developments that aren't news.
Take your average teenager in high school.
* News is their report card - it's a final statement on how they are doing.
* Getting an A on a test is not news, even though it's interesting (but it may, or may not, turn out to mean something in the end).
* Joining the school science club is news - because it's a unique development that not all students engage in.
* A teacher praising a student as being one of the best in the class at a teacher-parent conference is news - because it's a definitive statement on progress being made.
* The student doing a project on bacteria is not news - interesting yes, but news no, because it may or may not turn out to be of importance to their final grade.
To the student, everything above seems important. But some items are merely developments which will ultimately add up to news, but in and of themselves, are not news. Some are developments which are significant enough as predictors of how they are going to do that they count as news.
We often think news is anything that satisfies the five W's - who, what, where, when, and why - and while these are the elements of a 'story' they are not the deciding factor on whether something is news. In PR we often use the four C's - clear, concise, complete, and correct - and think that if we've frame something with these things in mind that we've created a news hook.
But the truth is that both these guides are missing what's most important - Relevance. If it's not relevant to the conversation currently unfolding in the media, if it's not relevant to a wide spectrum of stakeholders, then it's not news. It may be interesting, it may foreshadow important future events, and it may be a significant achievement for those within the organization...but that doesn't make it news.
Can you imagine how frustrating it would be for journalists if every organization in the world pestered them over every little development that they felt was important? Journalists are already swamped with hundreds of significant announcements every day - the last thing they need are minor developments being over-hyped as significant news items.
As you can see, what is news and what is simply interesting to a sub-section of stakeholders, is not always easy to differentiate. But the ability to differentiate the two is an important process in developing a brand and voice that is taken seriously by the media and stakeholders.
One more analogy that helps drive home the point. A friend calling you at midnight to tell you that they just bought a new pair of shoes (and they are the best pair of shoes they've ever owned) is not news. Yes it's 'new' and yes it may matter to your friend a lot (if they are calling at midnight then it's clear that it obviously matters a great deal to them), but it's not news and it could have easily waited until morning (or next month for that matter).
However, a friend calling at midnight to tell you a loved one has died, or they won the lottery, or they've got a new job and will be moving cities - these things are news. They are of such high relevance that knowing about them as soon as possible is warranted.
I've posted a funny cartoon below that captures how difficult it can be for us to understand relevance - because what's relevant to us is often times not relevant to others, and vice versa. Being good at PR is always about having your finger on the pulse of knowing what is, and is not, relevant.
Comments
Post a Comment