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​A [MOSTLY-GRAMMATICALLY-CORRECT]
PUBLICIST'S BLOG


PR Your Self: Social Media is your Bestie

2/28/2023

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PR Your Self delves into practices for earning media coverage without a Publicist
By Melissa A Vitale
It may be surprising to hear from a professional publicist who companies hire to execute and maintain campaigns that garner media attention that earning media coverage is actually very easy for entrepreneurs and startups even without a PR agency or freelance publicist. News publications get their classification because they cover what is new, exciting. The very existence of a successful startup that hasn't been featured before is newsworthy. Like the journalists who covered Apple or Microsoft in the 80s and 90s, editors and writers want to feature the latest solutions, technology or products on the market. 

Earning one article about your company great, but I like to think of aiming for only a single article as playing checkers. Media relations plays Chess. Rather than focusing on placing one story about your company, prioritize creating a relationship with a journalist. The resulting coverage from a single relationship can be meaningful profiles, company announcements and thought leadership in industry-turning trend stories. Journalists often refer back to their own network for sources of insight or quotes in an article. 

If you don't have any journalists in your network who covers your industry, don't worry! When I was growing up, I was given lectures by my parents, girl scout leaders, teachers, and even a priest who told us not to make friends on the internet. Now, I've made initial acquaintances with most of my colleagues and friends through online sources. Social media is your best friend for meeting new journalists and editors who could cover your company or expertise without a publicist. Almost all journalists have public social media handles for their writing, often aimed at keeping in touch with sources. Some journalists will immediately reach out if your social media bio raises their interest. Linking your companies handles, website and relevant awards always helps.

When you're reading an article about your industry or related to your expertise, especially if you think "Wow, I should've been in this article," find the journalist on social media. Most journalists have their social media profiles linked to their author page when you click on their byline in the article. Make it a practice to follow journalists whenever you read an article related to your industry. Journalists regularly make calls for commentary on stories they're working on. Even if they're not following you, they are often looking at their DMs and replies for new sources. This is a great way to start a long-lasting relationship. 

Social media makes it easy to stay in touch with journalists and editors you've connected with. Unlike emails where you have to go out of your way to contact them and then wait for a response, with social media, their updates wind up on your feed. A quick like, comment or reply is an easy way to easily maintain a relationship. Once you've been doing this for a while, it gets easier to get a follow back. When editors and journalists see that other mutual connections following you, they assume you're an industry source and will immediately follow you back. Always send a quick introduction if they follow you back. You can send an intro without a followback, but they may not see it as their DMs are much like their email inboxes: full of cold outreach. 

Like building any relationship, media relations takes time. It's unreasonable to think that following one editor on social media will lead to a report's-worth of press coverage. Take fifteen minutes today to find and follow ten key editors in your industry. Editors will often tweet out stories and tag the writers who wrote the story. Follow anyone relevant these new connections tweet about. Make it a point every quarter to follow ten to fifteen new media connections. Over time, you'll go from not knowing anyone who could cover your company, to having a soft or even a close relationship with a number of leading journalists who want to feature your brand. 

After you've been covered in a published story, prioritize keeping in touch with a journalist; writers often tap their past interviewees first for new stories. Let these connections know about any launches you have coming up in advance in case they want to break the news or cover the launch. Bonus points if you meet up with your journalist connections for drinks or lunch a few months before the announcement; they will appreciate the special attention to the relationship. While social media is a great way to keep up with a journalists' achievements, those who will want to know about your company's news, won't like finding out with everyone else on social media. Make a point to tell them in advance; embargo if needed. 

Before embarking on your social media relations journey, make sure you remember your etiquette 101. As stated above, journalists inboxes and DMs are often full of cold pitches. Avoid pitching them in their DMs. Start with an introduction to yourself, and an offer to support them on related articles. Ask them how they would like to receive company announcements or pitches from you. Respect their boundaries and if they don't respond, don't get disheartened. If you followed ten other people like I told you above, someone else will respond. In my experience, non-response is often due to missing the message or being too busy to respond, and they will usually respond well to a follow up at a later date.  

It's easy to get attention around the initial launch and big announcements from an exciting startup. Day-to-day however, entrepreneurs typically don't have the time to constantly come up with new angles for the many journalists and editors who could cover your brand. Maintaining consistent media coverage can be a full time job. Once you've seen a slowdown of initial media coverage is a great time to speak with a publicist. Your brand will still be fresh enough in recent coverage and a publicist can come up with unique campaigns and angles to revive interest in your company, even without a launch. 

For plant and intimate wellness brands hoping to to cement their name in history, become a client:
https://www.melissaavitale.com/become-a-client.html

To learn more about Melissa A Vitale PR, view successful Case Studies: 
www.melissaavitale.com/case-studies.html



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Five Books Every Business Owner Should Ready [Part 2]

8/30/2022

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By Melissa A Vitale
If you’re a business owner, you should absolutely be reading as often as your rest-work schedule allows. You don’t always have to read what I would call “business books”, but you should always have one of these in your rotation. With all the books I’ve read so far, I find myself thinking differently, often more competitively, than folks with similar professional backgrounds or education to myself.
 
Make sure to check out Part 1 here! 
 
These are five books I highly recommend business owners reading: 
So You Want to Talk About Race

by Ijeoma Oluo;

As business owners, we are leaders in our industry. We set the tone and often must speak up even when things are uncomfortable. Following Summer 2020, absolutely no business owner should be afraid or unwilling to talk about race relations and racial injustice. Almost all white folks are raised racist. You may not want to be racist, and you may be actively unlearning through social media and news sources. But books are 250+ pages of lived experience, of resources, of expertise. Even if you feel confident speaking about race, if you’re a white business owner, you should read this book.

Purchase Options here
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We Should All Be Millionaires: A Woman’s Guide To Earning More, Building Wealth, And Gaining Economic Power

by Rachel Rodgers;
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One of my favorite sex educators and BIPOC Entrepreneurs, Taylor Sparks of Organic Loven essentially required me to read this book – she wouldn’t take no for an answer. I’m so glad she did and in turn, I’ve sent this book as far as Amsterdam to a fellow boss babe who felt stuck. Popular yet outdated financial experts encourage folks to scrimp and save to build wealth, which being a conscious spender is one thing. Telling someone to deny themselves certain foods and experiences because they have debt while sitting on a yacht is, well to put it kindly, incredibly out-of-touch. Rachel Rodgers sets a different course. Rodgers argues that rather than yelling at someone that they don’t belong in a restaurant, we should teach marginalized folks how to make more money so they can buy the things they want and save like they should.

Purchase Options here
Anthro-Vision: A New Way to See in Business and Life

By Gillian Tett;
 
One of the smartest people I know recommended this book to me and it changed how I looked at business. Most entrepreneurs sit at the top and look down to a Birdseye view. Anthro-Vision encourages business owners to be anthropologists and look at problems from a worm-eyed view – aka right there in the center of the concern. Former editor of the Financial Times, Gillian Tett encourages curiosity, and preaches that one person won’t always have the exact answer at the top of their head. Especially if you love problem-solving, this book will help you approach issues with a whole new perspective.
 
Purchase Options here
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Hardball for Women: Winning at the Game of Business: Third Edition

by Pat Heim and Tammy Hughes with Susan K. Golant;

As women, we’re often raised differently than men. Unless you’re a sociopath, if you’re a woman, you were nurtured to think of everyone else before yourself, and this is what is holding you back in the boardroom. Hardball for Women lays out the framework to unlearn these niceties for the sake of your business acumen.

Purchase Options Here

Teamwork: How to Build a High-Performance Team

by Natalie Dawson;

If you’re like me and never planned or wanted to be an employer, but the chips landed that way regardless, you need to purchase this book, like yesterday! Teamwork gives business owners a roadmap and tons of resources to build a quality team. Maybe you’re not a good interviewer (guilty) or maybe you don’t know how to pick the best candidate from the bunch (also guilty). Natalie will walk you through these steps. Once you have a hired employee, Teamwork will walk you through and provide the worksheets to onboard them, grow them up and if needed, let them go.

Purchase Options here


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For brands looking to cement their name in their industry’s history, learn more about becoming a client: https://www.melissaavitale.com/become-a-client.html
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How to Craft a Quote That Doesn’t Get Cut

2/3/2021

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By Melissa A Vitale
 
Have you ever had an interview with a journalist, either written like via email or verbal, over the phone or in-person, but when the piece was published, your quotes and insight were excluded? Welcome to media. This is something that happens more often that any publicists like. It’s one of the tradeoffs we face because we’re relying on relationships, not advertising dollars for feature coverage.
 
Providing commentary or quotes is often “in consideration,” meaning it has the potential to be excluded based on the direction of a story. Often times, commentary is excluded from publication for reasons even the most seasoned publicists cannot control.
 
These reasons may include but are not limited to:
  • The outlet a specific requirement of sources (ie: a credential or identity)
  • The other sources of the article provided commentary that took the article in a different direction
  • In cutting down word count, the editor removed that specific quote to save space
  • A similar quote was given by another source
  • A specific reason like the article or only wanting to include one company per industry
 
However, there are times when answers or commentary is excluded because it simply isn’t relevant to the conversation.
 
Because mainstream outlets won’t cover sex-positive or legal cannabis stories regularly, for Vice-category brands, making the most of every media opportunity is paramount. If your quote was excluded from a cannabis article on Allure, another opportunity may not come around for 6+ months. If you continue to give commentary that isn’t relevant, the opportunities may stop all together.
 
By keeping a couple things in mind while crafting your quotes, you can reduce the number of times your commentary gets cut from stories you have the opportunity to speak to.
 
Answer the question in your answer
At any given moment, journalists are often working on multiple stories with three-to-four sources per story. If on a time crunch, journalists don’t have time to fill out a quote. Journalists need to quote complete thoughts, so when you don’t repeat the answer in your question, you’re only giving them half a quote.
 
For instance, the answer to “Why do people enjoy cannabis consumption during intimate play?” should be start with “People enjoy cannabis consumption during intimate play because….”.
 
By saving the journalist time filling out a complete thought, you avoid your answers being cut because of a time crunch.
 
Short & Sweet
Journalists can source 2-5 sources per article. I know one journalists who will source up to 20 sources per article. This is how journalists provide complete and unbiased reporting as is their job. But for this reason, it makes concise answers all the more important when responding to a media opportunity. If a journalist gets 8 sources commenting on a topic but only needs a 15 word quote, he’s going to avoid the big paragraphs.
 
Diversify your answers
Unless you’re speaking as an expert in a niche area, answers to questions usually don’t need to be more than three sentences. Try to dedicate only one sentence to a thought. Keep your thoughts unique. Journalists are often puzzle-piecing commentary from a variety of sources. Having unique points betters your chances that your insight is complimentary to the other quotes provided.
 
Take your ego out of it
Like many things in PR, providing commentary for a story is more about helping a journalist out than it is centering your product. If your entire quote is all about your brand but the story is on a trend in the industry, your quote is not going to be relevant. Journalists often want to promote the brands that help them out and will include a description of your company and usually a link in your title. It’s far better to leave your ego out of your quote and provide non-branded expertise. Sure, you won’t get quoted talking about how wonderful your brand is, but you will establish yourself as a vital industry source, which can often carry more weight than a favorable mention.
 
Have a title (and website) ready
Once have an opportunity to contribute to a story, have a title ready for them that you send over with your responses. Your title should be the name you want known with your brand, your pronouns, a link to your website and a brief description of what your brand is. I also include a link to a drive with brand images in the title. This way, everything the journalist needs to drive traffic back to you is already given with your quotes. If you don't have a website yet, you're going to want one once you start getting press mentions. Site editors are less-likely to link to social media handles because it's so easy to change the name - which results in a dead link for them. Even if it's just a landing page with links to your social media accounts, it will help streamline all your traffic from press mentions. 

Return answers BEFORE the deadline 
Most times, journalists are sourcing from multiple experts. They're also working on other deadlines. If three of four experts have returned commentary for one piece, a writer may start their draft without waiting for the last source to return insight. Get your quotes in well before their deadline to make sure your insight is considered!  
 
This list is not definitive and due to the nature of organic media coverage, there is never a guarantee your quotes won’t get cut (unless the story is about you)
 
If you’re still confused on how to form a great quote that doesn’t get cut, you can always read trend stories by your favorite industry reporters to familiarize yourself with the style of quotes editors and writers look for.

​For vice brands looking to explore cost effective public relations packages, learn more about MAVPR via: melissaavitale.com/services.html ​
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