Tricks of networking

It’s all about networking; developing strong relationships with those contacts you have acquired and making sure to keep them. In PR, professionals need to build and maintain strong relationships with media in order to get their client exposed and at the same time protect them when things do not go in the right direction. As a media representative of your client you are the “liaison” between them and the media, without you your client would not know who to contact. You need to have a list of people to reach at any moment and for them to be reliable enough not to mess things up. That is why one of your major priorities as a PR professional is to create a media contact list, but not just people in media, friends in the media. But how do you make friends with people you don’t know and in such short notice?

In order to create these friendships you have to provide for them so that they in turn will provide for you in the future; not just call them when you need something from them, but keep them updated weekly and you will be on a first name basis with them in no time. You also need to know how to grab the media’s attention, these people get hundreds of press releases daily and why should yours be any more important than the next? Like it says in the Marketing Monster blog, “Think stickiness not hits.”, even though this has to do with blog sites and how many people visit versus how long they stay, it also involves both print and broadcast media stories. If a story sticks with a person, whether it be because of a video or headline they saw or read, they are most likely to come back and want to write about it. You have to know what type of stories your media connections look for or are looking for at the time and how your client fits in the picture; all you need is that one hook that will wheel them right in. Now I will leave you with this quote that I once read, “Knowing what to do is just as important as knowing what not to do.”, think about it and let me know what you think.
* Picture from Google Images