The 7 daily rules of PR

The 7 daily rules of PR

The 7 daily rules of PR

By Sara Nugent | Posted: September 17, 2013
 
 
There’s a daily rhythm to public relations that can help anyone in the business be more effective in the relentless pursuit of client results. Sure it includes the basics: 

Checking news feeds, reading top stories of the day, monitoring the Web for client mentions, and responding to clients and media.

There are specific things you can do to sharpen your strategic focus, though, so we surveyed our staff at Gregory FCA and came up with seven daily to-dos that help them get breakthrough results for clients:

1. Run your job like a newsroom. 

(From Mike Lizun, senior vice president)

Start each day reviewing breaking and trending news stories. Look for opportunities to inject clients into the conversation. Would American intervention in Syria spell more opportunity for a client who relies on government contracts? Does a website outage provide an opportunity for a software client to provide commentary? What do the latest consumer confidence numbers mean for a financial services client? New stories break every moment of the day. Convert your office to echo a newsroom, constantly identifying the breaking news that provides PR opportunities. 

2. Closely align media outreach with your client’s schedule.

(From Bradd Delmuto, vice president, and Alicia Buonanno, associate vice president) 

Access and availability alone can often trigger media interest. Synchronize media targeting with your client’s travel schedule, using availability as a reason for making introductions and securing briefing and on-air appearances.

3. Refine your story according to past media coverage.

(From Greg Matusky, president, and Jimmy Moock, vice president )

The media often tells stories and finds angles better than clients and PR agencies. Closely track how the media is covering your client and adopt future pitches accordingly. Reuse compelling turns of phrases and convert past headlines into subject lines as a way to build on past media success.

4. Stop using Cision and Vocus as crutches. 

(From Greg Matusky, president )

Media databases all too often promote lazy, shotgun pitches that alienate the media. Instead, do your own research to target reporters by their beat and better understand their interests. The era of mass pitching is over, and so, too, might be canned media databases, now that everything is online.

 

[RELATED: Find out about our November event that has instruction for your entire communications team.]

 

5. Coordinate Twitter searches with trending hashtags. 

(From Jessica Attanasio, associate vice president, and Matt McLoughlin, associate vice president)

Adjust Twitter search criteria throughout the day in order to identify trends and breaking news. Use Twitter to stay on top of breaking and trending stories and inject clients into the conversation. 

6. Have shareable content at the ready. 

(From Alicia Buonanno, associate vice president, and Bradd Delmuto, vice president)

Re-work, reuse, and repurpose past content in new ways to give it fresh life on social and digital media. Now that content is king, there’s no such thing as a slow client news day. Keep bylined stories, commentary, infographics, and infotoons nearby, and use them as a way to constantly share insights with the media or directly to the masses via social media.

7. Build a fire under your clients.

(Katie Kennedy, associate vice president)

Hit them daily with new ideas, trending stories, and opportunities to comment on any moving story that impacts their viewpoint, business, product, or profitability. By doing so, you train clients to realize that news flows by the minute, and that there’s always an opportunity to gain coverage, provide comment, or add to the conversation. 

Sara Nugent is an associate editor for Gregory FCA. A version of this story originally appeared on the agency’s blog, Gregarious.

 
 

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Pete E Cento was born in Havana, Cuba. He's an alumnus of Archbishop Curley Notre Dame College Prep, Miami-Dade College, Florida International University, and U.S. Fire Administration, Emergency Management Institute, (EMI), Emmitsburg, Md. Peter Cento is an experienced film and digital photographer, and multilingual MarComm, Social Media and Public Relations strategist with more than 30 years of experience helping clients, academia, government, ​and not-for-profit organizations. Cento is the principal & founder of Wild Cats Photography (formerly Atlantis Photography & Design), The Cento Group, & Wild Cats Enterprises, Inc. Cento first made a name for himself in broadcast journalism in the late 80s as a writer, news assignment desk editor/planner/manager, news producer, special project producer and managing news editor at CBS Miami 4, ABC 7 Fort Myers, NBC/Telemundo Miami and Univision Miami WLTV 23. Cento is also a disaster survivor in the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew, a category 5 hurricane impacted south Miami-Dade County in the early morning hours of August 24, 1992. While working at WFOR CBS 4, he was a part of the station’s community rebuilding through Neighbors 4 Neighbors which recently celebrated its 20th Anniversary. Cento was also part of the award-winning Univision Arizona news team that was honored with a newsroom Emmy in 2003 for developing a comprehensive bilingual water safety and drowning prevention campaign aimed at educating the Hispanic/Latino community in Arizona. Cento has successfully managed crisis situations for BURGER KING® Corporation, University of Miami, BellSouth, AT&T Wireless, USACE Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan and the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority during the annual Atlantic hurricane season. From 2005 to 2013, Cento was deployed as Multilingual PIO and External Affairs Field Specialist with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) covering more than 45 natural disasters from California to Massachusetts and has managed crisis communications for numerous clients. As the face of Wild Casts Enterprises, Inc., clients are assured that Peter Cento will be heading their team and getting them the quality results they expect. Cento’s well-earned reputation, extensive multi-industry background, ability to “pitch” the media and uncanny ability to connect people, presents a great benefit to all of his clients.