The Sound of Silence… Part Deux.

The Sound of Silence… Part Deux.

By Sara Preto

Emails, phone calls and the dreaded follow ups… oh, the joys of PR. We all fell into this industry for one reason or another but one thing is for sure, we can relate to this clever post from PR Daily. As someone who has been in PR for a few years now, this piece spoke to me the way church goers catch the Holy Ghost. Hallelujah! Finally, there is someone who feels my pain.

I particularly appreciate this portion of the article:

“And then comes the retooling and following up. Then the inevitable questioning of whether you even know how to do your job, wishing you had come up with the idea for Pinterest, wondering if you have enough money saved to start a vineyard… You’ve been there, I’m sure.”

I have, many a time. Clary gives a few tips to readers on best practices for dealing with the “sound of silence”. While these are helpful, here are a few that I use:

Don’t be afraid to be bold. Sometimes (out of frustration), I send emails or place phone calls simply asking reporters “yes or no”. Never have I received any negative feedback or responses when I take this approach and more than half of the time I get an answer.

 

What about Twitter? I know many people who have successfully placed stories by pitching ideas through social media. If you can get your point across in 140 characters or less AND the press hit, more power to you.

 

Instead of diving into the pitch, ask if there is any interest in the topic. A teaser or simply asking if a reporter might be interested in a specific topic can sometimes be better than just sending the pitch. Once you get the conversation going and garner their interest, then you can decide whether or not to give them your spiel.

 

These are just a few tips that I find helpful when my pitching efforts seem to go nowhere. If you have any that you’d like to share, feel free to add a comment below. Now back to pitching, let’s get those hits people!