This resonated from coast to coast

I recently concluded my busy spring speaking season (this year it extended into summer). And I noticed one principle that resonated from coast to coast.

In Times Square, it hit home with consumer product PR reps the same as it did in a lakeside hotel in Anchorage with oil & gas pros.

In a leafy Georgetown neighborhood in DC, policy wonks took note the same as stretched-thin social justice PR people in Indianapolis.

[My next public workshop is Secrets of Media Relations Masters in NYC in September].

Here are some examples of this principle in action:

– A consumer tech company reaches out to the US Postal Service and gets a nice third-party video on the USPS web site to drive traffic to

– An oil & gas company connects with a trade organization to land an item in its well-read daily email

– A stationery company provides a high-traffic article to the blog of a hobby training company

This isn’t a requirement to apply the overarching principle, but in each of the above cases, the placement resulted from reaching out to a fellow PR professional!

The principle is:

Expand the definition of “media” in “media relations” to include any third-party that is trusted by an audience you need to reach.

This pushes your media list past traditional media, past trade media, past digital-only or blogs, and into the content marketing or brand journalism of other organizations. And before you know it, you’re “pitching” folks with the title of “Brand Content Director” instead of “Reporter.”

Pitching traditional media still works, in the right cases when done properly. But your audiences’ eyeballs are spread further over an ever-increasing number of information sources. To stay relevant, you’ve got to follow those eyeballs elsewhere.

What are the companies or non-profits in your space that need new material each day to keep their successful content marketing machines going?