The Art of the Pitch

There’s no question that social media plays a very important role in the marketing of all organizations.  If you’re not on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, etc. then some may believe you don’t exist.

This had led some PR firms to focus on generating a constant stream of content for their clients.  Posts on FB and words of wisdom on Twitter are seen by some marketers as a winning marketing and PR strategy.

We of course do social media for our clients.  As stated above, it plays an important role.  However, if I ask a client which they would prefer — 100,000 hits on a YouTube video or a feature story in the Los Angeles Times, they will always chose The Times.

It is prestigious when a third party writes about your organization or company.  People want to point to articles that appear in the mainstream media as validation that they are doing good work and worthy of media attention.  Plus, everybody likes to tell their story to Anderson Cooper.

However in our age of controlled social media posts, it is worrisome that the art of pitching a story to a reporter, editor or producer is getting lost.  Young PR people are entering the field thinking they can make a client happy by simply writing and posting great things about them and trying to get others to “Like” and re-post.

It’s a mistake.  If a PR person or a PR firm doesn’t know how to position a client’s story so the press take interest, then they are doing a disservice to their client.  Pitching stories and getting media attention takes skill, practice, creativity and an understanding of how the media think.  That’s what real PR is — the heaving lifting, generating content written by others, not by yourself.

And that’s how you get your organization covered in the New York Times (in addition to your Facebook page).