What is Media Relations?

Media relations 101 - it’s one of the most important classes any PR professional will take, but it’s a “PR art” that’s often misunderstood.

While over the history of PR, media relations, and media pitching have changed, achieving PR coverage still remains one of the most important tactics to build your brand.

Read on to see why media relations and PR pitching are critical to building your brand. Plus, take a direct look at the effect of achieving coverage for one of my clients had on their website traffic and growing their reach.

Also read: How to Prepare for a Media Interview

What is media relations?

In a nutshell, media relations defines the relationships between a brand and different media outlets.

In the past, media relations used to refer to relationships with traditional media such as print newspapers, radio and television news shows.

Today, media relations encompasses all of traditional media, plus, blogs, vlogs and even influencers.

Examples of media include:

• Magazines and print media

• Television and radio shows

• Podcasts

• Industry forums

• Blogs and vlogs

• Certain listicle sites

• Sometimes influencers

Why does media relations matter?

Media relations matters for three critical reasons:

1. Media can hold the keys to reaching your target audiences

2. Media often have sway or influence over your target audience

3. Your relationship with the media can make or break the coverage you achieve

Let’s break down these three points more carefully.

Using media relations to reach your target audience

Media coverage is one of the best ways to generate more attention and reach new audiences.

Having your brand mentioned or linked to via media coverage still remains one of the number one ways to extend your brand reach, growing sales opportunities and reaching new clients.

Here’s an example of how high website traffic grew each time I achieved digital PR coverage for one of my clients:

Using media relations to build brand capital

There’s no better way to build trust for your brand than to have someone else endorse you, and if that someone else is a recognized media personality or media brand - even better!

Being featured on a high quality site improves the authority of your brand, not only in terms of impression, but also if you achieve a backlink, for SEO as well.

I often use any top media coverage achieved for a client I work with as a way to build brand capital via re-sharing the story, promoting the coverage on their website and in email marketing.

Building strategic relationships with the media

Achieving media coverage is MUCH harder than it sounds. I once had a mentor of mine tell me that for every 100 times you pitch the media, expect to achieve coverage ONCE.

Luckily, my own personal track record is better than that, however I’ve been turned down many times.

So, what's the key to achieving media coverage and not wasting hours upon hours of pitching? Building strategic relations with the media and maintaining these relationships.

Journalists want to know that you are a credible source, and they’ll only pay attention if you give them good content. It takes time to build this reputation up and often the relationship should be mutually beneficial (i.e. you’re giving reporters exclusive access or a great story).

Creating a media relations strategy

Media relations shouldn’t be an afterthought or something you just decide to pick up and do.

It requires a plan for targeted outreach, and putting together the right story or content to ensure pick-up.

Below are 8 steps to take when creating a media relations strategy:

1. Clearly define your target audience

2. Identity targeted media outlets that reach your target audience

3. Ideally, begin building relationships with these outlets ahead of time

4. Know what makes a good story

   1. Credibility

   2. Human interest

   3. Timeliness

   4. Impact

   5. Conflict

   6. Prominence

   7. Proximity

5. Time your outreach right

6. Personalize your outreach

7. Customize your pitch

8. Be prepared to give access (to media, people, behind-the-scenes, etc)

Who should pitch to the media?

There are a number of ways your brand can build its media relations capacity up.

Here are just a few options:

1. Build relationships between the owner/CEO and media directly

2. Work with a PR consultant

3. Hire a media relations agency

4. Release pitches on the wire

Regardless of how you go about approaching media relations, work with a professional who understands what it takes to make a good story to secure coverage.

Also read: Fractional Leadership - Why bring on a part-time leader?

Bonus: Good stories are good stories

One of the secrets to my success - yes lean in, this is a genuine secret - is whenever I create content I pretend I’m creating it for the media.

Why?

Because good stories are good stories.

Well…obviously…

But, here’s exactly what I mean.

The reason why media have such a large reach and influence is because they deliver content of value to audiences. They’ve discovered the art of storytelling and the delivery of consumable content.

So, why not use the same criteria media use for your own content?

I once had an extremely experienced PR pro tell me they always pushed themselves to create content that was newsworthy and if they didn’t get pick-up, at least they had great content to use on their website and across their channels.

Now I use this strategy for content I create too.

Good content is good content. And now, I always push myself to create newsworthy content regardless if it’s going to be pitched or not.