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If you want to share your brand story with journalists, you have to know how to pitch the story to them. We often tell clients there are three ways to pitch reporters. In many cases, you can use these approaches in combination in order to target and reach the media professionals who are most likely to reward your brand story idea with space in their next article.

Three Ways to Pitch Your Brand Story to the Media

1. Traditional – Despite the ubiquity of social media, or perhaps, because of it, phone and email aren’t dead yet! Make sure you know how the journalists on your media list prefer to be contacted. If they prefer a phone call, prepare what you are going to say in advance so you’re not rambling when you call. If you are sending an email, keep it brief and to the point. If you are including a news release, append a text-only version to the end of your email. And don’t send an attachment! Reporters don’t have time to open and read your Word documents and PDFs.
2. Social – Social media is being used by more journalists as a way to locate and contact expert sources. You can use social media to connect with journalists and share their stories. Forget wit; brevity is the soul of social media. When you have only 140 characters to make an appeal that a reporter will want to follow up on, it forces you to think about the core of your pitch. There are a number of resources you can use to locate reporters and writers using Twitter, including Media on Twitter, Twellow, and Sulia, The Interest Network.
3. Expert – Ultimately, the best way to connect with a journalist is for them to reach out to you and your experts. If you want to be sourced, quoted and referenced by the media, then you need to make your experts available via source repositories and databases. Among those we recommend are Help a Reporter Out (HARO), ProfNet from PRNewswire and NewsBasis.

Let me know what works for you.

In 1984, Gillette coined a slogan that it used in a very successful series of ads for its Dry Idea deodorant: “Never let them see you sweat.” The ads featured a series of period icons from fashion designer Donna Karan to sports coach Dan Reeves, all offering three tips to viewers that started with “Never something” and all ending with the famous “Never let them see you sweat.”

It’s good advice – particularly when you’re doing a live broadcast interview. If I were going to give you three tips to survive a broadcast interview with your deodorant intact, they would be these:

1. Never let yourself be backed into a corner. Tough questions are nothing more than an opportunity to reframe an answer you were already prepared to give.
2. Never forget the anecdotes. A good story goes a long way when people try to remember what you said.
3. And, of course, never let them see you sweat. This is the hard one. When you’re being interviewed live, unless you’ve had some media training, it comes as second nature to use “placeholders” in your speech that buy you time to think – things like “uuummm” and “uhhh” will detract significantly from your message even if the message is good. If you are not experienced with live broadcast interviews and you have one coming up, get some media training from a professional.

Remember the three “p’s” for a successful interview: Prepare ahead of time; Practice your message; and Pinpoint your weaknesses before you are on the air.

After all, you can’t rely solely on your antiperspirant to keep you sweat-free.

Karen Franse is an account manager at Communication Strategy Group and has over two decades of experience in media strategy and outreach, copywriting, creative services and editorial project management.

Just a quick note today. I was interviewed for two articles last week.

The first appears in Newsday and discusses Social Media Marketing Mistakes to Avoid. In the article I note that “Failing to Engage” and worrying about “Collecting Followers and Friends” are areas destined for failure in social media marketing.

The second article from Long Island Business News is called Wise Counsel and discusses the impact of the economy from the POV of consultants.

In both articles, I was able to take some of my own media training advice and use some of the media training tips I’ve created:

• Keep to your message
• Think in Threes
• Use specific examples and anecdotes

Please take a look at the articles and let me know what you think.

There are times when your company becomes involved in an incident that gains unwanted attention from the media, not to mention bloggers and shareholders. When your spokesperson, CEO, CFO, president, plant manager and so on are prepared, their comments can often diffuse a situation before it becomes much larger.

But there are certain phrases that always make me cringe when I read them. Most often they are part of a quote that someone has made to a newspaper or magazine. Someone, that is, who thinks he or she doesn’t require media training. Here are a few shining examples:

We have no comment at this time.
We are investigating that internally.
Above [my/his/her] pay grade.

The first two seem innocuous enough, don’t they? If you’re a company spokesperson or even a CEO, you may not be able to comment about some incident. You may not have all the facts, or you may have all the facts, but your attorneys (got to love your attorneys) tell you that whatever you say can and will be used against the company. So you decide to say that you can’t say anything.

Actually, there are better things to say to a reporter that don’t make you look unprepared. I mean, come on, you knew that you were going to be asked about the incident, so why weren’t you prepared with a better statement than “no comment”?

“We have no comment at this time,” is actually a pretty damning comment.

“We are investigating that internally,” sounds like you’re saying “we’re trying our best to shred any evidence.”

If you have a policy not to comment about former employees, publish that policy and make sure that the reporters who cover your company are aware of it. If you are investigating some incident internally, or if you are cooperating in a larger investigation with the local police/FBI/SEC, then tell reporters that you are doing so and that you will provide them with details as soon as legally possible.

But, whatever you do, don’t correct one of your employee spokespersons after the fact by telling reporters that the person provided an incorrect answer about something that was “above his pay grade.” That comment is just plain stupid. Get some media training!.