Media relations is dead, long live media relations

Media relation is dead. In the last 10 years, media relations’ professionals have lost the edge that made us a permanent fixture in the C-Suite, the ability to use data to make decisions about communications initiatives and the ability to articulate the value of media results to the business.

In a recent poll, I asked, “How are you using data to drive your media relations strategy?” The responses:

• 50 percent, I’m not,
• 35 percent, I’d like to, but how?
• 15 percent, It’s integral

What’s happening here? The Arthur W. Page Society reminds us of a time when public relations professionals engaged in the practice of media relations used data to track the success or failure of media campaigns and as a result spurred the “golden age” of public relations, elevating the communications professional as a trusted, core strategic advisor.

Today, we’ve lost our sparkle. The data behind our decisions and the analytics behind our results seem lost. As a result, the sphere of influence and the budget of corporate communications professionals continue to decline.

In August, The Holmes Report issued Influence 100: PR Spend Continues Multi-Year Decline. In the annual survey of the world’s most powerful brand and corporate communicators, respondents said their PR budgets continue to shrink. While PR budgets are being cut, sometimes by as much as fifty percent, marketing budgets are enjoying a steady increase because unlike their counterparts in media relations, those in marketing have mastered the use of data and analytics to prove they are driving business results.

I’m not using data to drive my media strategy

“I was an English major. I don’t do math.” The next time you hear someone say that or, “I’m in PR because I don’t do math,” share this reminder, we are accountable for delivering results and if we can’t prove how effective our results are at driving growth and helping to close business, we are an expensive luxury that will continue to see cuts and reductions.

Do better than you are doing right now. The ability to use data and analytics to not only show results but to predict news trends and where a story line will have the greatest impact transitions the role of media relations from a cost center to a contributor to revenue generation. Eliminate “I don’t do math,” from your lexicon. Replace that phrase and the attitude with “I use data and analytics to identify the right story, for the right reporter at the right time to reach the right audience to help influence buying decisions.”

For the fifty percent of survey respondents who said, “I’m not using data to drive my media strategy,” I’d suggest you take another look at your strategy and recognize you have an opportunity to be a disruptor or get disrupted. In the last five years, artificial intelligence has moved in on media relations. While AI is being assigned to “mundane,” tasks today, as one-article reports, “Media companies like The Washington Post and The Associated Press are using AI to crank out earnings reports or write news articles they wouldn’t typically dedicate staff too. Similarly, PR agencies are adopting AI, using it to predict media trends, turn speeches into text, monitor social media and more.”

I’d like to, but how?

Over two billion people are connected to the Internet, a number that continues to grow. In the next ten years, more than a trillion interconnected and intelligent devices will continue to evolve in the world of the Internet of Things with intelligence embedded into every interaction we have from the online order to the delivery to how we use the good themselves. This means we have the data, the information we need to reinvigorate the media relations practice. Here are a few ways we can use data in media relations:

1. Searchable Audio: Think about all the data that is lost in non-searchable audio. You can change that. Using AI and speech recognition tools like IBM Watson Speech to Text or Google Cloud Speech API, you can turn speeches and presentations into transcripts. Those transcripts become articles and blog posts that are now searchable, trackable content you can measure. Adding searchable audio to your strategy extends the value of any speaking engagements and expands storytelling options.

2. Media Calendar Planning: How long has your company or client had a blog? What if you could analyze blog traffic to predict what site traffic will look like based on engagement with your past content? Using AI you can track spikes and lulls in blog content and develop a week-by-week, month-by-month, content strategy that builds on your most engaging content. In addition, analysis of existing content and site traffic can help refine your pitch strategy to identify seasonal news cycles.

3. Social Media: I once worked with an old newspaper guy who stood up in our strategy meeting and said, “Twitter is a fad.” That guy was, to use a euphemism, put out to pasture. Today, Twitter is where news breaks. Our challenge, how do we turn social media conversations into actionable content? Start small. Focus on one specific communications string; build a list of the people having the conversation. Identify common themes and outliers and then feed your content into the conversation including direct interaction with the thought leaders your tracking. Now, you’re trending.

Long live media relations

Media relations has fallen behind the times in its embrace of the fourth industrial revolution. Communications pros can get back in the game if we let go of old ideas and evolve our practice. To stay alive we must:

1. Use data to create and deliver focused, relevant content to the media. A recent study found there are 4.8 media relations professionals for every one journalist. With this level of personal attention, one would think reporters are getting awesome information. They are not. In fact, like never before inboxes are being filled with meaningless junk.

2. Build relationships with reporters and understand what they need for their stories. While this is obvious when was the last time you did an analysis of your top tier media targets? When you do, you‘ll find reporters tend to use the same sources for their stories. Why? They are good resources that have built a trusted relationship. If you want to become that kind of source build that kind of relationship.

3. Diversify your approach to include snackable bites of shareable content. Incorporate tracking and leverage images, video and talk to text solutions to turn audio content into articles and blog posts.

4. Find out where your data lives and who has access to it. Data is being used to make decisions in your and your clients’ business every day. You need to ask the questions, “Where does it live?” and “Who can I partner with to get alignment and insight on how I can access and use data in my reporting?”

5. Align what you report with what other leaders are reporting. Leaders at the C-Level want an integrated picture of business performance. Dashboards with different results metrics, no matter how meaningful to you, show discord and can cause confusion.

Finally, make a greater effort to align with marketing. While marketing messages are not news, understanding the approach, the assets being used and the priorities, you can create stronger alignment and consistency in the marketplace, which is a competitive differentiator.

Machine learning and AI can’t write a press release today, but robo-journalism is not a far-off capability. Now is the time. Start using data and analytics to prove the value of media relations. With these tools you can be a disruptor who drives our industry into the future.