Here are 6 tips on how to generate publicity from breaking news.
Update: We’ll be discussing these tips and many others during the webinar “How to Tie Your Story Pitch to Breaking News and Make the Media Interview YOU” tomorrow, Wednesday, July 21.
1. The local angle. If you’re the “local angle” to a national breaking news story, let the media know. Example: Coffee prices nationwide skyrocket. You own a coffee bar. How will you deal with the price increase? Let your local newspapers and TV stations know. (This blog has an entire sub-category on the local angle.)
3. Pay attention to weather news. Your area has just had 4 weeks of rain and people are bailing water out of their basements. You’re an expert on how to remove mold from houses. Contact every media outlet that’s covering the weather and offer your comments.
4. Target industry journalists and bloggers. If there’s breaking news within your industry, or an industry you target, and you’re a part of it, or you can offer expert commentary, contact business reporters and bloggers who write about that industry. How do you know who they are? You create a Google Alert for the topic.
5. Share your expertise on the social media sites. For any type of breaking news on which you can comment, be sure you write about it at your blog and the social media sites, where many journalists are looking for sources.
6. Pitch photos, not just stories. It’s the harvest season. You own a farmer’s market and you have a gargantuan pumpkin in your field. It might not be worth a story, but it’s worth a photo in your daily newspaper.
She’ll share tips for the best places to find breaking news quickly, a terrific free resource she found online that gives media contact information (saving you thousands of dollars on fancy media directories), and examples of emails to the media that resulted in fabulous publicity for her clients. You can use the same elements in your emails that she used in hers.
[…] Get a taste of the type of tips she’ll be discussing, and register for the session, at https://publicityhound.com/blog/?p=6699 […]