Make the most of good publicity
By Jerry Brown, APR
www.pr-impact.com
If it’s not already there, “The Hurt Locker” will soon be coming to a theater near you.
As the big winner at last night’s Academy Awards, the little-seen movie will be cashing in on its new celebrity — as it should.
You probably won’t win six Oscars in one night. But don’t forget to cash in on positive publicity that comes your way. When it comes to media coverage, the coverage isn’t the goal. The goal is to reach your audience in a way they’ll notice and remember.
Some things to do when you get positive media coverage:
- Forward it to your customers / constituents by email or via your company newsletter.
- Put a link to it on your Web site. Consider making a PDF copy of the story and linking to that if the story’s likely to disappear from the news site where it first appears.
- Link to the story from Facebook, if you have a Facebook account. You don’t have a Facebook account? Why not?
- Get reprints and give them to your sales staff as collateral, if appropriate.
- Frame the story and display it at your place of business.
You probably can come up with more ideas. Here’s the point. If you get positive coverage, do whatever you can to leverage that coverage as much as possible by spreading the word yourself. Even if your company gets a lot of news coverage, there will be stories worth sharing beyond their natural reach. Failing to broaden the reach of positive coverage is a missed opportunity to tell your story.
That’s my two cents’ worth. What’s yours?