Turn your media placements into content

You invest blood, sweat and tears into landing your media placements. You ought to squeeze as much utility out of them as possible, like the team I’m going to introduce to you today did.

No doubt you already share your hits via social media (and tag the authors to make sure they know you’re doing your small part to help them with page views). You likely also post to your online newsroom.

What about your email newsletters that go to customers, members, or prospects? A placement isn’t enough to warrant a special email, but including such a link is a great way to add third-party credibility to a message that’s already going out.

Also establish a process to share your placements with your sales or fundraising pros. Some of them will ignore the hits. But others will find ways to use them to warm up their cold calls or stay in touch with their prospects. And they and their superiors will increase their appreciation for media relations.

Your significant placements can also provide a great angle for an original article or blog post on your site. Sharing how the hit came to be (not bragging about yourself, of course) or giving a behind-the-scenes look at its production can be a great way to intrigue your fans while reminding them that your organization matters to key media.

That’s what the media team I advise at Georgia Tech did after they landed a live Today show segment two weeks ago.

Staffer Jason Maderer made the trip to New York with the faculty and student who’d be appearing. And instead of simply advising them, he documented the experience with his notebook and camera. Then he produced this strong multi-media piece for GT’s web site (inside 24 hours!), including the gut-freezing moment when the featured technology broke and the team worried it wouldn’t work for the segment.

Surprisingly, Jason said the producers seemed perplexed when he asked permission to photograph the process. Apparently not many PR pros are maximizing this opportunity, at least on the Today set.

To be sure, this kind of treatment isn’t going to attract new fans. But it will thrill a significant swath of your existing ones. At Georgia Tech, faculty, students, alums, and donors are taking pride in seeing their school highlighted on the national stage, even though most of them probably missed the segment when it aired.

This stuff is also catnip for media junkies like you and me :).