On Tue, 2005-08-16 at 12:55 +0100, Daniel Carrera wrote: > > Actually, the main message I got from Robin's talk was that you need to > contact the media persistently. That you can't expect them to just > magically know about the cool new feature in your project. That you have > to be intentional about keeping in touch, and send them stories to talk > about. > > It is better to send a poorly written email about an interesting story > than to send nothing at all. If the recipient likes the story and has > time, he will take care of writing well about it. Don't kill yourself > getting a perfect press release. If you do, you'll probably send very > few press releases. > > Bruce, as someone involved in this, would you agree with this advice?
Yes, persistence is essential. It's a common amateur's mistake to think that the media is already aware of your company or organization. Journalists may have heard about your company, but there's a lot to cover, and they can't possibly keep current on everything. As a result, most journalists appreciate a reliable source for good stories. But you have to know your market. I regularly have people asking if I'm interested in reviewing their product, only to find out that it's a proprietary Windows product (I cover Linux and FOSS only). Another important element is making your story interesting. If you look at any site that publishes news releases, you'll see that a surprisingly large number begin with a sentence that's about six lines long, and describes the company as a "world-leader" or something similar. Writing something that's hard to read and full of cliches is one of the quickest ways to ensure that your news release doesn't get read -- and that means that your story doesn't get out. In fact, it's a good idea to make sure that your headline and opening sentence both explain what's interesting in the story. That way, people are more likely to actually read it. At any reputable media outlet, it's also a waste of time to write a story that's really a hidden news release. At Newsforge, for example, I believe that such submissions automatically get bounced. At best, they get put into the NewsVac column. -- Bruce Byfield 604-421.7177 http://members.axion.net/~bbyfield --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
