When blogger Connie Bennett comes across an article on the dangers of sugar, she posts an item about it to her Sugar Shock! blog.
She links to the article, then takes an extra little step that will generate publicity down the road. She emails the reporter who wrote the article and mentions that she linked to it.
Connie, a member of The Publicity Hound Mentor Program, says it’s a great way to make contact with health reporters, freelancers and other journalists who are in a position to write about her blog and her forthcoming book on sugar.
Connie, by the way, knows firsthand that reporters love it when you stroke their egos. She’s an experienced journalist who has worked at or written for The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, TV Guide, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Dallas Morning News, The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Living Fit, Entertainment Weekly, US, InStyle, Daily Variety, Hollywood Reporter and Billboard. So she’s been on the other side.
Here’s another tip.
Offer to fill in at the last minute if the journalist or broadcaster needs someone to interview, or if a TV or radio talk show guest cancels.
If you extend this invitation, do everything possible to help them when they call on you, even if it means canceling other appointments. If you can help them when they’re in a jam, I promise they will remember you, and it will go a long way toward cementing the relationship.
One excellent time to extend this offer is over long holiday weekends, and particularly during the weeks before and after Christmas when many newsmakers disappear. While other people are doing their last-minute shopping or are on vacation, you could be the lucky Publicity Hound who winds up on TV, simply because you were available.
Those are two of the tips in my newest special report. It’s “Special Report #49: 17 Ways to Build Valuable Relationships with Media People.”
Building relationships now can pay dividends down the road because if you can position yourself as a great source, reporters will return to you again and again.