This section covers finding a story that works for the media, but it's applicable to all PR channels. So before we proceed, let's get a better understanding of how the media works. Here are some things to keep in mind when it comes to dealing with journalists or anyone who went to publish your story to their audience. Journalists are timekeeper, which means your story has to really jump out to them. If they don't get it in the first few seconds, they probably won't continue reading your email. Journalists get thousands of emails a day from companies hoping to be featured in their outlets.

Yours therefore needs to be better than all the approaches and pitches they're getting a lot of approaches or journalists gets frustratingly poorly timed and planned. If your email is not targeted and intelligent, they could block your address which ruins all future hopes of getting results with a journalist. It's not a journalist job to tell your story. Their job is to tell a story that their audience will be most interested in. Often, they'll want to tell the stories that you don't want told. So what stories will be interesting to journalists, audience relevance, journalism and online publishing, even if it's just a social post are all about building a loyal and engaged audience.

So if you want to know what stories will resonate, the best way to answer this, is to put yourself in their audience's shoes. For example, if you're a couple expecting their first baby, you might be interested in reading about a new brand of nursing bras or maternity clothes. You probably weren't be interested in the fact that the company that makes maternity clothes has launched a new website. If you're co reading the business pages of a newspaper, you probably will be interested in reading about a survey of other business owners and how they're experiencing the economic changes around an election. That will be valuable to you. But you probably won't be interested in the fact That an accounting software company has updated its app timeliness.

We like Christmas stories in December, Valentine's stories in February, and some holiday stories in August, at least in countries that have summer in August. So if you release your story at a time when publishers and journalists will already be interested, you have a much better chance of success. Although it is worth noting that some artists plan well in advance and start planning their Christmas issue as early as July. This is called finding your hook. And we have a whole section on how to do that in the next lesson. Good hooks include important anniversaries such as 10 years after the launch of the first smartphone, special days such as World Environment Day in June, major events such as the Superbowl or the World Economic Forum, or authority.

Unfortunately, it's much easier for people and organizations that are already well known to get publicity. For example, when Kim Kardashian has a baby thousands of media Let's cover the story. When I had a baby, the media didn't care. This works for organizations too. When Apple releases a new iPhone, it makes news headlines around the world. When a new tech startup releases a new gadget, it will be much harder to get the media interested.

This doesn't mean you need to be famous to get more famous. It just means you need to work a little harder if your brand is unknown witness if your story has a bizarre or unconventional element, it's much more likely to get noticed. For example, when a collection of mummified mice were found in a tomb in Egypt, that made world headlines and social media trends match more than any dead mouse in a city like London could ever hope for. If you can just do something completely different from anything they've ever heard of. You'll catch their attention. newness, it's not news if it's not new, and by new we mean a first, such as the first drone delivery service launching research that shows A new angle that the media might not have thought of such as a survey revealing how Christmas spending habits have changed over the last decade, your news needs to be authentically new.

Don't try to package something as first if your competitors are already doing it. Journalists can be pretty cynical about that. extremes, anything at the extreme of your industry will likely catch attention. The largest ever Python found makes news as does the hottest February day on record. impact the number of people affected is also important. Your company's new office only really affects your employees.

So most people wouldn't be that interested. A new piece of legislation restricting vaping in offices affects all office workers everywhere so it's much more significant impacts more people and is therefore much more likely to get traction location. If your story is about people living in Chicago, then it's most likely only going to be relevant to the media with an interest and readership interest. Kaga strong opinion. Having a strong opinion particularly a controversial one is a really good way to pique media interest. For example, Barbra Streisand made comments about the two men who accused Michael Jackson of sexual abuse.

She said, you can say molested. But those children, as you heard them say they were thrilled to be there. They both married and they both have children, so it didn't kill them. those comments went viral, and I'm sure she very quickly regretted them. expertise, genuine or third sort of expertise can be a real media draw card and give you the opportunity to showcase your own knowledge while helping the media's audience. A story doesn't need all of these things to be relevant, but it needs at least one and the more you have the better.

Quick recap. Reporters like to cover stories that are locally relevant or new or related to a specific event or day. A weird or unusual effect. there already. Are authoritative or include strong and surprising opinions. If you don't think that your business has any stories that meet these criteria, then move straight on to the next lesson where we'll cover some proven tactics for creating newsworthy stories.