Hurrah For HARO: Peter Shankman Helps Reporters Get Sources

For journalists, especially (us) freelancers who get assignments spanning a range of topics and beats, one of the biggest (solvable) challenges is finding sources (appropriate people to talk to for quotes, facts, background information, etc.)
(Harder-to-solve challenges include finding more work, and finding assignments that pay reasonable rates.)

In particular, finding “users” — people doing/using the topic — and sometimes, finding third-party experts — consultants, analysts.  Finding vendors — companies who make/sell/provide the products or services involved is comparatively easy (although to be honest, some vendors often don’t respond or make themselves available to the press).

I write mostly technology-oriented articles, where, sometimes, vendors can provide names of users/customers.  But not always, especially if they’re selling consumer products, or sales go through resellers.

When I remember to do it, Google and Wikipedia have become part of my initial topical research, to get up to speed, learn key terms, identify likely players.  (Google isn’t, of course, a source per se, and unless nothing better presents itself, ditto Wikipedia.)  But finding user and expert sources, or vendors in an area I’m unfamiliar with, has remained a challenge.  I often query one or two mailing lists I’m on, do my best to remember who I’ve run into at trade shows, will ping some of my colleague friends.  I’ve tried via LinkedIn. But finding sources remains a bear, as a rule.

What’s helping out is the HARO (Help A Reporter Out) web site, which helps match up requests and sources, from Peter Shankman.

It’s simple: If you want to be a source, sign up at <http://www.helpareporter.com/>.  And “If you’re a JOURNALIST who’s LOOKING for sources, submit a query at <http://www.helpareporter.com/press/>.

According to Shankman’s (from the HARO site), “I built this list because a lot of my friends are reporters, and they call me all the time for sources. Rather than go through my contact lists each time, I figured I could push the requests out to people who actually have something to say.”

Shankman started HARO up in March 2008, on Facebook.  The sources list quickly exceeded Facebook’s 1,200-name limit; within a year, Shankman had nearly 70,000 members (including me).

Shankman sends out up to three email messages a day, labeled with [shankman.com] in the subject line, with anywhere from 15 to 30 queries per message, topically sorted (based on the checklist on the web query entry page).

There’s no charge to HARO queriers or sourcers.  Shankman is covering costs and generating revenue, currently through in-message text ads.  “HARO is profitable,” according to email I’ve just swapped with him. “We’re generating a fair amount of revenue.”

I’ve now used HARO three or four times.  It works.  In fact, so/too well … one recent query got at least 150 potentially useful replies!  (I’ve learned to include an “include HARO <topic keywords> <your name/etc>” in the subject line, to make it possible to organize and search within my mail files.)

I know there are a growing number of other ways to find sources.  I’m sure that there’s some way to leverage Twitter, etc…. assuming the folks I want to reach are on Twitter, etc.

But for now, HARO is so useful that I need to try and only use it when I’ve exhausted my other avenues; I don’t want to make it my default first port of query.

Thanks, Peter Shankman!

Include City/State Location And Date In All Event Invites/Reminders

Here’s the sanitized (anonymized) start email I got today:

Subject: Countdown: One week away! Register today!

[EVENT NAME HERE] Expo + Conference

ONE WEEK AWAY! REGISTER TODAY!

Last Chance to Register in Advance for the 2009 [EVENT] Expo + Conference!

What’s missing from the entire message is any mention of where — like a city and state — the heck this event is.

Yeah, I was able to determine the location within one copy/paste/click to Google in my web browser… but I shouldn’t have needed to.

Similarly, here’s a text-averaged version of a kind of message I typically get one or two of per week. (I’ve used a real month, for simplicity.)

[COMPANY] will unveil [NEW STUFF ]in October and would like to brief
you on the new offering at [EVENT NAME] if you will be attending.

If available to schedule on either Tuesday, October or 14th
or Wednesday, Oct. 15, [etc]…

Again, see the problem?

Here’s a reply I’ve put together… although I may not actually use it.
(I do have a standard “Thanks, but I’m not planning to attend this event.”
boilerplate message, which I do use frequently.)

Dear PR person,

Thanks for the invite.

There are a lot of events out there.  I haven’t heard of
many of them, and don’t know where or when most are.

While the odds are I won’t be attending most events, you’d
make it easier for me to consider your invitation if you
included the location and date in your email invite –
preferably in the first or second paragraph.  Including
the full name of the event, and URL, wouldn’t hurt, either.

Yes, I can usually suss this out in three seconds via Google.
But there’s no reason to make me do this.

Thanks,

In case it isn’t clear, here’s the take-away advice:

Include City/State Location And Date In All Event Invites/Reminders

You won’t necessarily get any more press to attend… but who knows?  I do my best to poke my head in at local events when I can… but won’t necessarily chase down the “where’s it at” that would let me know it’s local.

(I suspect you’ll also pick up more non-press attendees.)

(CES and other) Show Invite Emails Should Include Key Info! And Track ‘Em!

CES — the big annual Consumer Electronics Show (www.cesweb.org) is a few weeks ago, and, since I preregistered as Press, I’m getting lots — probably several dozen or more — “we’ll be there, can we set up an appointment” or similar messages daily.

I have no problem with this; it’s the nature of the beast.

But… and especially in the case of mega-large events like CES, vendors (and their PR agencies) could make it easier (well, less hard) on us press folks by MAKING EMAIL USEFUL and TRACKING YOUR INTERACTIONS WITH US.

Keep in mind that even though YOU can dispatch email to hundreds, even thousands of journalists, editors, analysts and bloggers with a single keystroke, it takes each one of us time to respond to each message, whether it’s as simple and quick as “delete without reading” or “add to spam filter,” or taking the time to read, respond with a personal (or personally tweaked) message (I’ve got at least three just for CES — “Yes,” “Maybe,” and “Sorry, but…”).

INFORM US! Start by making sure each email message includes the info we’ll need.

• HAVE A SUBJECT LINE. Hard to believe, but I’m getting a lot with a blank subject line.
• Put KEYWORDS in the subject line; in particular, the COMPANY NAME, PRODUCT, and “CES” …and if possible, the location (site, hall, booth number). And if there’s room, also the year, since email builds up over time.For example, “CES 2009 – MagMonopoles’ New Drouds, LVCC SH3 33333″Phases like “Come see” or “Stop by” or “Meet with” or “Invitation” are OK, room permitting.
• PUT KEY INFORMATION IN THE FIRST PARAGRAPH, including:
  • The company — if you’re a PR agency, don’t just say “our client(s),” be specific.
  • Product(s) — CES 2009 will have 2,700 exhibitors. Don’t expect us to remember who you are and what you do — or have to take time to look you up online because you didn’t take the three seconds to add five or six helpful words.
  • WHERE YOU’LL BE. The location is important, especially for a mega-show like CES, which has exhibits in two convention centers, plus two hotels… and the convention centers aren’t small, either. For the Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC), include the Hall, and for South Hall, include the Hall number/level. E.g., “LVCC South Hall 3 (upper level) 3333.”While we could look this up, if it’s right there in the email we can enter it then-and-there in our planner.
  • What associated events/locations will you be at? E.g., will you be at the CES Unveiled, Lunch@Piero’s, Pepcom or ShowStoppers multi-vendor events? Will you be doing any press conferences, or have any meeting rooms? Again, include full location info.
• PUT IT IN TEXT. Don’t just send the info as an attached image, e.g. a GIF, JPG, PDF or whatever. That may be more work to open, it’s more file space… you may lose our attention before we ever see what you’ve sent. You want to include an image, fine, but put the key stuff in text in the message body.
• INFORMATION BEATS CUTENESS. The first three cute messages from whoever sent them might have been tolerable. By the hundredth — or even the tenth — it’s “just the facts — PLEASE!”And — I wish I could say, “Of course,” — use a mail tool that doesn’t include a list to hundreds of TO: names. Sheesh.
• TRACK ‘EM. Now that you’ve sent a well-crafted informative message, KEEP TRACK! And use an email system that lets you modify your list as you go. I’m getting the same message from some vendors every three days — including to ones I’ve already acknowledged.
• DON’T BUG US. If you’ve gotten a response — by email OR phone, don’t (re)send another copy.
• DON’T BUG US. Unless something changes, don’t send a message more than twice.
• DON’T BUG US. Unless the reporter’s registration form says, “OK to contact me by phone,” don’t. Especially if you’ve sent email. Especially if that email’s been responded to.

See you at CES 2009.

(Not all of you, of course… I don’t cover EVERYTHING, and even if I did, there isn’t time to see everything. See my posting from last year, A Few Words (Well, Paragraphs) AboutThe Multi-Vendor Press/Analyst-Only Events, on the inherent infeasibility of this, and why events like Lunch@Piero’s, Pepcom and ShowStoppers don’t just help address this problem, but go a long way to solving it.)

Don’t Use Pop-Ups For Your Press Releases

The whole idea of posting press releases on your web site is so that the press can read them. Easily. And quickly. If a reporter is on deadline — or is doing a topical article, where one of your competitors would be just as acceptable as your company — you don’t want to inject unnecessary obstacles.

So I’m trying to look at press releases for this site — it doesn’t matter which — and while I’ve found the web page that has a list of them, and when I click on the links, nothing happens.

Right-clicking suggests this is some Flash-based thingie. I can zoom the view of the list. But I can’t actually get any of the press releases.

I notice that FireFox has prevented a popup window from opening.

I could tell Firefox it’s OK to allow pop-ups for this site, et cetera. But it’s not worth it, at least this time.

Bzzt! Time’s up. Off to find a company who wants me to be able to access their news information quickly and easily.

Steenkin’ Badges, We Don’t Need No

Event badges, like street signs for yard sales, have two essential requirements.

1) (Font) Size Matters.

Essential badge information needs to be readable at the appropriate distance, meaning in big enough font.

For a yard sale sign, that means someone driving by, possibly one lane over. For an event, that means several feet away — certainly big enough that somebody standing at hand-shake distance can (assuming good enough vision/glasses/contact lenses) can read your name and title/organization without having to lean forward and squint.

Even for those who don’t have aging eyes, tiny fonts force us to get intrusively close, and make it hard to “scan the crowd” rather than having to be hand-shake-close, just to determine whether this is someone you’re looking to talk to.

Pick a decent font size — 36 or bigger. Pick a readable font, for that matter. Make a few test badges and see if you can read them on somebody six feet away.

(This is why, on my business cards, my name is in a large font — it means I always have a readable name badge with me.)

2) Include Essential Information.

For a yard sale, that’s the date, hours, address, and a directional arrow. For event attendees, essential information means first and last name, title, organization.

So if you’re doing an event where you’re inviting the press (and in general, for that matter, but this is about how to work well with the press), take a minute to check how you’re doing badges. It’s a small thing — but how you do it will make a big difference in how easy/hard it is for the press to find the people they want to talk to, and vice versa… and equally, for sales people to determine who isn’t a prospect.

And here’s some additional advice:

3) Tie a Colored Ribbon!

Make it easy to tell whether somebody’s with the press even before their name can be read. Use color — colored ribbons, labeled PRESS (or MEDIA) — or colored strips at the bottom of badge holders if need be.

And you should also have differently colored ones for speakers, judges, staff or other honored guests. Don’t simply include “PRESS,” “ATTENDEE,” et cetera in same-color all-caps at the bottom of the badge. Make it obvious, like bird plumage.

Again, you’re trying to make it easy for people to spot and sort who’s who even before they read the badge.

4) Wear ‘Em High

Provide clips, pins or whatever to make it easy for people — especially women — to wear their badge as close to neck/shoulder height as possible.

5) Make Sure Your Badge-Readers/Scanners Work

If you’re providing badge readers/scanners, make sure they work — and easily, not after five or six tries.

I’ve been to too many events lately where they didn’t — leading to a lot of grumbling exhibitors, not just because they’d shelled out hundreds of dollars for the device rental, but because this meant they weren’t capturing visitor information reliably.

You should have badges. But they shouldn’t be steenkin’ badges.

Welcome to Dern’s PR Tips, my PR (Public Relations, Press Relations) blog

Welcome to Dern’s PR Tips, my blog of tips for and about PR — how to work with the press (a.k.a. the media), and for members of the fourth estate on working with PR.

The primary intended audiences are:

• Vendors and agencies who want to learn more about what the press wants (and doesn’t want), and how to provide that better
• Editors and reporters who want to learn more about what vendors and agencies want, hope for, and think (including “what were they thinking!?”).
• Anybody who wants to get more/better media coverage, e.g. company owners, managers, network/system admins, end users, and sundry individuals (and why media exposure can be good — or bad — for your job and career).
• And anybody who’s interested in PR and the media, how it/they work (or don’t work).

What you’ll find here: tips (do/don’t do this, how to), blips, advice, Q&A’s, humor, horror stories and other instructive/entertaining items about PR. I may name-drop praiseworthy folks, acts, events, sites, products and services.

What you won’t find here: Don’t expect me any dissing or dishing, except maybe in cases where the name of the cat is already very publicly out of the bag.

Dern’s PR Tips is written from both the PR and press perspectives. (Changing hats accounts for the bald spot.)

Unlike many (but not all) of my fellow journalists/editors and PR folks, I’ve done, and continue to do both bylined journalism, and PR (and some things that are somewhere in between).

I’ve been an editor (Byte.com, Internet World) (see my editorial farewell to Byte.com), and do bylined tech journalism, writing for pubs and sites like ComputerWorld, eWeek, and Processor.

And I have also hi-tech PR experience. I’ve been a PR manager, handling editorial relations, speaker placement, freelancer writers, and customer case histories. I’ve been PR writer at a vendor, and have done and still do PR freelancing, e.g. writing press releases, feature articles, case histories, FAQs, backgrounders, and more, for a range of companies on a range of technologies and topics.

I have spoken at, and moderated, panels at BusinessWire, PRSA, and other (usually technology-oriented) events, and also written a number of articles and columns about PR, and working with the press, including my still-popular The Well-tempered Press Release”, which includes a Mad Libs-style “fill-in-the- blanks” press release form you can use.

Some of the posts for Dern’s PR Tips will be based on email I’ve posted to lists I’m on, LinkedIn exchanges, email I’ve sent, or things I’ve written in the past. (I won’t be using names, or other people’s words, except with permission and where relevant). Some will be based on something that’s happened recently, phone or face-to-face schmoozing, or the random percolations of my brain. And some based on things I’ve found on the net, including meritorious items from other members of the press and the PR trade.

So: read, learn, enjoy.