Understanding Media and Publicity for your Business

Many small and medium enterprises do not really understand how to work with the media to generate buzz and publicity. They often have a misconception that the media publicity is exclusive to big companies having huge budget for public relation specialists providing strategic counsel.

Media relation is both an art and a science. Knowing your basics and adding some creativity and flair will produce an effective pitch.

Understanding what constitute news and knowing what the media and press want will give your company a head start in gaining publicity. Having good publicity about your product and branding will always enhance the public perception on their value.

There are basically two types of news. The Hard News which are primarily basic facts and figure. The soft news is news of human interest. The press usually prefer news that are :

i. Unusual
ii. Current
iii. Local
iv. Abnormal
v. Sensation
vi. Socially impactful

A Public relation practitioner once told me that if all else fail, there will always be three issues which are of interest to the media. They are MONEY, Sex and HEALTH.

The press and media are powerful stake holders of your business. The press usually likes to develop a story while the media prefer to explore different angles. For example, there is no story if you announce to the press that your company is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. However, if your company plan to denote 20 million to charity to celebrate its 20th anniversary, it will be a big story!