Katie Krause

Lots of posts out there this week on why media relationships don't matter in PR. Sure they do, all relationships matter. But debating if knowing an editor gets your client a hit isn't the only conversation we should be having. You, the PR pro, matter. You have to be able to think like a journalist, you have to understand who they write for and what that audience reads for. Then, you have to have the creative skill to see all the potential in your client. Maybe it's not breaking news. There might not be a product launch, an event or even a widely noticeable differentiator. This is where relationships come into play. Your relationships with the storytelling of the moment, the current conversations in the industry, the pressures on the business. And, can you find a way to enter that conversation with the things your client DOES have? I won't trouble my media relationships with things I know they don't write about. So some of my relationships, therefore, won't mater to my client. What should matter is if our team can mold the clay of the client into something my relationships DO want to hear about. Rely on great PR thinkers before you rely on their contact list.

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Well-prepared spokespeople are an essential part of any crisis communications strategy. But how do you ensure your spokespeople are prepared and have all the tools they need to succeed? Click on my piece below and find out. Then ping me! ICR

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Not getting responses from journalists? Try pitching stories about these topics: 💡 Lessons learned from failure 💡 Industry viewpoints that are surprising or controversial 💡 Data only you can provide Do that and journalists will start to care about what you have to say.

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Does your PR team know how to explain the work we do? In too many instances, asking different members of your team how to explain public relations may bring many different answers. The obvious problem with that is that it creates confusion. As we all already know, too many people already don't get what we do. It is less about saying the exact words but more about general cohesion of the story. If your agency hasn't gone through this exercise with your team, it is something to think about.

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If you have PR and marketing questions, drop them under Dan's post for the next episode of our podcast, OTSS Podcast.

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This article from Columbia Journalism Review is fascinating, and an argument for the importance of a reputation management communication plan. There are volumes authored by PR pros advising against ignoring reporters inquiries, yet this article documents how frequently it happens. Throughout my career, I can count on one hand the number of times I have made a calculated decision not to respond to a media request, and 99.9% of the time it was after multiple engagements with a reporter who repeatedly misrepresented or distorted information (even if not intentionally). I suspect, more often than not, reporters get ghosted because the brand is caught off guard. They haven't planned how they will respond in a reputation crisis. Or haven't socialized the planned response with stakeholders. If the PR team is haggling with executives and lawyers on what to say or how to say it when the reporters' questions start rolling in, the opportunity to frame the narrative is quickly lost. Thanks for sharing the article Jennifer Johnson Avril! https://lnkd.in/gYmTA9CW

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You're an executive about to interview with a top-tier reporter and publication. This is your chance for significant coverage. Ahead of the call, the PR team prepared a smart briefing email with talking points and background notes on the reporter. You didn't look at the briefing notes and left an opportunity on the table. Why? ▶️ Because research and preparation are key. ▶️ Because your PR team put information in the document based on working with this reporter several times. ▶️ Because journalists can be particular, and each outlet has its own style and POV.

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As evidenced by the dynamics of the presidential election, women continue to be held to a different, much stricter standard than men. In my book "WOKE: A Cultural Competence Guide for Communicators, I delve into why and how women continue to struggle for equality and representation. "Women’s quest for equality is the longest-running struggle in the history of the world. Men have ruled over humanity for millennia, and nowhere has their dominance been more pronounced than over the lives and bodies of women. Although women have made great strides toward equality in the last few decades, they continue to be held to a different standard than men, and society holds many unconscious and deeply rooted biases against them. Nevertheless, women continue challenging traditional gender norms, advocating for equal rights, and reshaping female empowerment narratives." https://lnkd.in/gsTAMAbc

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Attention PR folks and heads of marketing❗ Muck Rack released its State of Journalism 2024 Report 📰 (I'm a little late to the commentary party). There's a lot of great information included (see link below to the report). But I wanted to highlight some stats I found interesting (yes, with some of my reactions): ➡ Nearly a quarter of journalists produce 11 or more stories a week. (That's a lot folks. Help'em out by making their jobs easier. Understand what they cover. Give them all the relevant info up front. Don't pitch garbage. Consolidate asks. Etc.) ➡ 82% rely on subject matter experts for credible sourcing, followed by researchers at 77%. However, 70% of journalists say PR pros are either important or very important to the success of their jobs. (Good job y'all. However, only 22% see PR pros as a credible source, so we still have lots of work to do.) ➡ 48% either use or plan to use AI in their workflow, primarily for brainstorming and research. And 60% report their org has no policy for AI usage. (I'm all for streamlining process, but this second stat is scary.) ➡ 51% say social media is very important or important to producing their work (a small decline from 59% in 2023). And 70% say social media is very important or important to promoting their work. (Be there, be relevant, try to stand out...enough said.) ➡ X/Twitter is still the most valuable social media site for journalists, but it fell from 78% in 2023 to 36% in 2024. (This is a huge drop, and probably why 44% plan to use LinkedIn more this year. Furthermore, 19% of journalists suspended or stopped using their X account all together. The dumpster 🔥 is real.) ➡ Half of journalist ignore PR pitches, with 73% saying it's due to lack of relevance. And almost half get at least 30 pitches a week. ( 🤷‍♂️ How can we do better? They told us...44% want the pitch before noon. 51% want one follow up, 3-7 days later. 65% want the pitch under 200 words...wow that's a lot. But really folks, it's simple: pitch great stories.) Check out the entire report. What stat blew you away??

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Thinking of sending an article to a journalist for media coverage? Think again! The most common mistake businesses make is confusing an article with a media release. While some publications accept articles, what you really need to grab a journalist’s attention is a media release—a document that teases the story, just like the smell of a BBQ sausage sizzle entices people. A media release creates interest and invites the journalist to explore more. Want to know why this difference matters? Read the full blog here:

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I've been reflecting on my time at PR agencies and how too many teams end up running programs of what I call "empty calories." This is by no means exhaustive but some initial thoughts... 1) Clients set arbitrary and meaningless KPIs, forcing your team to chase down junk placements to keep the business. This can include podcasts you've never heard of before or eMarketingTimesToday or whatever flim flam newsletter they can find. 2) Related, comms has little to no visibility into the product or company roadmap, so their efforts are not building towards anything meaningful. 3) You expect a constant stream of media coverage. This leads the team to create crap pitches that go nowhere and erode media relationships. 4) Junior and middle managers are guiding the PR agency and block access to senior execs in the company. The output is only as good as the input. 5) Your team is writing a lot of press releases. This request often comes from some out-of-touch old coot on the Board. Tell your Board member, respectfully, they have no idea what they are talking about.

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Worth reading from NiemanLab: Readers prefer to click on a clear, simple headline — like this one By David Markowitz, Hillary Shulman and Todd Rogers In an era when people trust news less than ever, how can journalists break through and attract the attention of average people to provide information about their communities, the nation and the world? By not complicating things. Our research, published in Science Advances, shows that simple headlines significantly increase article engagement and clicks compared with headlines that use complex language. In our research, typical news readers preferred simple headlines over complex ones. But importantly, we found that those who actually write headlines — journalists themselves — did not. We first used data from The Washington Post and Upworthy to see how language features, such as word length and how common a word is, changed how many people clicked on an article’s headline. These datasets included over 31,000 randomized experiments — also known as A/B tests — that compared two or more headline versions of the same underlying article to determine which one generated the most clicks. Headlines with more common words — simple words like “job” instead of “occupation” — shorter headlines, and those communicated in a narrative style, with more pronouns compared with prepositions, received more clicks. For example, The Washington Post headline, “Meghan and Harry are talking to Oprah. Here’s why they shouldn’t say too much” outperformed the alternative headline, “Are Meghan and Harry spilling royal tea to Oprah? Don’t bet on it.” This example illustrates how sometimes a more straightforward headline can generate more interest. In follow-up laboratory experiments, we found that typical news readers focused more on simple rather than complex headlines because the writing was easier to understand. When journalists participated in the same experiments, they didn’t show any preference for simple headlines over complex ones. Put differently: Those who write the news appear to be less responsive to simple writing than regular audiences. Generations of communication consultants have advised that communicators follow the rather crass acronym KISS: Keep it Simple, Stupid. We suggest a modified version applied for journalists. Since KISJ isn’t all that simple, we propose: Keep It Simple, Staffers. Simplicity increases the number of people who click on a news story headline and improves reader recall of the material in the article. Most importantly, simplicity boosts reader engagement, such as how much attention they pay to the information.

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On this week's #MetricMonday we're looking at sentiment, a tricky data point to come by, but an inherently critical one to understand #crisiscommunications challenges in real-time. First, let me say that NO algorithm or tool allows you to push a button and get a perfect sentiment analysis – it just doesn’t work that way (i.e. "cool" means something different to a fashion brand than it does to an HVAC company). However, in most cases, you can train tools to give you relevant directional data on sentiment based on publicly visible conversations. Once you have a well-trained monitoring tool in place, the granular approach to assessing individual posts matters a lot less than how you plan to use the data. Typically, I'm using sentiment data to: 👉 Determine the scale of an issue: While sentiment tells you the balance of negative, neutral and positive conversation, it can also showcase how much of each can impact your reputation. For example, if there are 10 product reviews on an item with 2M SKUs sold, does it matter that 6 of those reviews are negative? Perhaps, but it's worth noting how big or small an issue is relative to the conversation volume. 👉 Understand trends over time: Net sentiment is typically driven by events in a company's history. A positive net sentiment can change overnight on the whims of a bad newscycle. Analyzing sentiment before, during and after a critical issue will typically indicate whether the issue will persist or dissipate, helping you determine what the proper next steps might be. 👉 Understand topical relevance: Within all the comments and reposts are natural indicators of what topics are driving sentiment. The public will usually TELL you why they feel the way they do, and thus give you data on what the proper response might be, what channel to share it on, and how that statement might be received. Example: If your brand experiences a wave of negative comments on Instagram, does it make sense to issue a press release to tamp down the noise? Perhaps, but there's a case that it might not work based on where the conversation volume originated. If you’re planning to issue a response during a crisis that doesn’t include the trending keywords among negative responses, how might that message be received? Hard to say for sure but your odds of shifting the narrative are narrow without letting the data guide your hand. In all, sentiment is a great signifier of brand health, but as with all metrics, it's only a good tool if we use it to full capacity. And one more thing...can we not use neutral sentiment as a leading insight? It's perfectly fine to note that your audience isn't impassioned at a given moment, but neutral sentiment is easily the least impactful metric when facing a public issue. If it's all you have, shrink the data set and retrain your monitor based on influencer, channel type, publication or post type. There are insights there somewhere, sometimes you have to hunt for them.

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Whenever a piece is published for a client or company, PR pro's immediately read every word and sentence multiple times. On occasion, the journalist has misunderstood features/purpose of a new product, didn't read the press release in great detail, what an executive was actually saying and or just jump to conclusions. Sometimes even the headline is negative and your client/company is immediately unhappy. This scenario can be very challenging and it must be met with empathy, respect and overall professional decorum. Remember, reporters are human and they make mistakes (like we all do) and/or have their own opinions on particular subjects. They will not change a headline simply because it's not flattering or change an attributed quote to include all of your core messaging. However, they will consider changes that are based on facts and not opinions or spin. I really like this article from Allison Carter at Ragan Communications and PR Daily on best practices for requesting a correction and how to manage an executive or clients expectations when this type of issue arises. #publicrealtions #corporatecommunications #journalism #relationships #articles #content #mediarelations #mediacoverage #thoughtleadership #pressreleases #announcements https://lnkd.in/g-7b95gS

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Today, in Cognito's Media Intelligence newsletter, I wrote about Hunterbrook Media, which is simultaneously a hedge fund and a news outlet. Like any news outlet, Hunterbrook will investigate companies suspected of bad behavior. Unlike your traditional news outlet, they will take financial positions that benefit from market movements once the article is published. What do you think? Is this a clever way to fund journalism or a slippery slope to unethical reporting and/or market manipulation?

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T-minus...not very many hours until Election Day. Are you ready? ***Those in the PR/Comms industries: How are you handling Election Day for your brand/org, your employees, and most of all...yourself?*** [Me: We have the editorial calendar planned this week with flexibility for important election-related pieces if they come in. I'm working on several election-unrelated pieces. Taking time out to vote on Tuesday. Taking walk breaks/cat cuddling breaks Tuesday and Wednesday. Buying MORE candy. Already decided on ordering out for dinner Tuesday night with husband. ] Take care. Be gentle with yourself and others. Eat as much candy as you want.

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#PR & #Comms folks: You're not being told "No" enough. The average response rate to pitches is in the low-single-digit percentages. (Not just "yes" responses. Responses in general.) But one firm I spoke to recently reported a 30% response rate to pitches. I asked them how many of those responses are "yes" and how many are "no". They said almost all of their responses are positive. I said that was too many. I told them they're not being actively rejected nearly enough. That's stupid, right? A firm that is enjoying nearly ten times the average response rate—and they're almost all a yes—is failing? I'm delusional, no? But let's look at it: Why do you get told "yes" on a pitch? Because your powers of persuasion are so great? Because you've perfected the art of the pitch? Because you emailed the journalist just the right number of times with "Re:" at the front of the subject line to trick them into thinking your pitch was part of an ongoing email chain? I mean, sure, concision and pith are important. Write like garbage and the pitch will wind up in the junk folder, no matter how good a fit it could have been. But at the end of the day, journalists say yes to a pitch because it was the right pitch at the right time. Which means you got lucky. You *can* create your own luck. You can attentively follow all the relevant publications and writers, keep your ear to the ground for trends, pore over editorial calendars and historical coverage like you're studying for an exam, and just generally be an expert on all things journalism in your beat. And most journos will still ignore you. You're not really creating the most luck you can for yourself until journalists stop ignoring you so much. Until they start making an effort to tell you no. When I wore my journalist hat, I wasn't looking to shield myself off from PR people; I wanted them to make my job easier. And I found that the only way I could assure that was by finding the ones who were willing to build a productive partnership with me. And you can't build a real give-and-take partnership with someone until (1) they're talking to you and (2) they're comfortable telling you no. Once those two things happen, you're in. On your side of things, you can now ask followup questions on the way to a productive conversation identifying good future fits. And on their side of things, they'll now remember you as someone who represents clients who know about X. These are the makings of the kinds of relationships I built with my favorite PR people. The kind either of us could cash in on over and over again. The kind where one of us could just ask the other for something out of the blue, and the other would move a mountain to try to make it happen. Because we each knew what the other wanted, and we each trusted the other to deliver. Invite a rejection. Welcome it. "Yes" is the result of luck. "No" creates luck.

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This is a good practice for any PR pros interviewing experts for blog posts, press releases, and other media products. Heck, it's a great question I always ask myself before writing any type of external comms.

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