Bean to Barstool
A podcast exploring the intersections of craft beer and craft chocolate.
Bean to Barstool
Media Relations for Craft Chocolate Makers: Building a Media List
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Welcome to Bean to Barstool's Media Relations for Craft Chocolate Makers series!
I’ve been a full time food and beverage journalist for about a decade now, and my wife and business partner, Melinda Guerra, has been a freelance PR professional helping brands tell their stories and connect with media for even longer than that, and in this series, we’ll be sharing what we’ve learned over our careers to help craft chocolate companies of any size identify their stories, communicate them to media members and outlets, gain new customers, and keep the ones you have curious.
In part 3 today, David and Melinda talk about building a media list. They talk about understanding different types of media, making a list of media you might want to reach out to, the information you need for prospective contacts, how to find contact info, how to initiate communication, and more.
Media Relations for Craft Chocolate Makers series:
Podcast Episodes
Why You Need a Media Plan
Identify Your Company's Stories
How to Build and Manage a Media List (you're listening to it!)
All About Press Releases
How to Maintain Media Relationships and Communicate New Stories
How to Get Started, and Common Pitfalls
Blog Posts
Why You Need a Media Plan
How to Identify Your Stories
How to Build a Media List
Adding Industry and Unexpected Outlets to your Media List
How to Write and Send a Press Release
How to Maintain Media Relationships and Communicate New Stories
How to Get Started, and Common Pitfalls
Check out David's book Pairing Beer & Chocolate: A Guide to Bringing the Flavors of Craft Beer and Craft Chocolate Together.
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Pinterest
Sign up for host David Nilsen's beer newsletter for regular beer musings, and the Bean to Barstool newsletter for pairings, collaborations, and maker profiles.
Hey everyone, welcome back to our Media Relations for Craft Chocolate Makers series. I've been a full-time food and beverage journalist for about a decade now, and my wife and business partner, Melinda Guerra, has been a freelance PR professional helping brands tell their stories and connect with the media for even longer than that. And in this series, we're sharing what we've learned over our careers to hopefully help craft chocolate companies of any size identify their stories, communicate them to media members and outlets, gain new customers, and keep the ones you have curious. In part one of this series, we talked about why media relations is so important no matter the size of your chocolate business, and why you need to have a strategy for this. Doesn't matter if you are your only employee or have a hundred employees. This is relevant and accessible to your company. In part two, we talked about making a story list, identifying stories, understanding what constitutes a story, different ideas for stories about your business. Hopefully, you've started making that list. This can actually be a really fun thing to do because you get to identify all the things that make your business interesting and unique. Both of those episodes are available to listen to now. And both are now on the Bean to Barstool site in blog form as well. In this episode, we're going to talk about building a media list. We'll look at understanding different types of media, making a list of media you might want to reach out to, the information you need, how to find contact info, how to initiate communication, etc. We're going to hear a lot in this episode from Melinda and her expertise and experience from working in PR for many years. Heads up at the outset here, there is a lot of information in this episode. I would encourage you to take notes, but also I'll be summarizing a lot of the major points toward the end. And this will be posted as most likely a few blog posts containing all this information. So don't be overwhelmed. The goal of this entire series is not to give you a ton of extra work, but to make something you probably have wanted to do more approachable and digestible. You might not be able to tackle everything right away, but just getting started is important because anything you start doing with media relations is something you weren't doing before. How to build a media list and find and make contacts can vary based on the type of media in question. There are a lot of different kinds of media. Media outlets can be local, national, or international. They can be primarily shared in print, online, or via video or audio. And they can be a formally recognized news source or something more grassroots. A few are craft chocolate specific, but for most, they won't be. They might be food or beverage focused or even unrelated to those at all. I want to bring Melinda on now to start our conversation. A lot of what she's going to talk about throughout this episode is more focused on local and legacy media, but I will be talking about adapting some of that to other types of media as well. At the outset, I asked her to introduce us to the types of media that she is working with and how she kind of breaks those down into general categories.
SPEAKER_01I'm looking into a couple of different areas. I'm going to start by looking at specific legacy media that covers their areas. So when we're talking about legacy media, we're looking at things like major TV stations, radio, print newspapers. So I'm looking at those like those big things, but then also at community publications or online media that's specific to towns and neighborhoods where people live and also where they have their business. So in Chicago, where I'm generally doing this at, I'm going to look at our TV news media, ABC, CBS, NBC, WGNs, and then also at our print newspapers. But I'm also taking a look at the news media that's going to cover the specific neighborhood of Chicago that a person's from or the suburbs that they live in.
SPEAKER_00So what type of media would we be finding in those neighborhoods or suburbs that would differ from some of those legacy examples that you gave?
SPEAKER_01So sometimes this is going to be your smaller town papers. There are going to be some communities that have their local newsletters that they kind of type up as blogs and email out to people. Sometimes they're going to be online communities. A lot of cities nationally have the surrounding suburbs or on things like patch newspapers that have community editors that are giving things for online publications that are specific to a given neighborhood of a city or a given suburb of that. Sometimes they're alt weeklies. So I like to note here, and David, I know that you've talked about this already, that no media is too large to consider. Major outlets will often cover stories by small businesses, and there is no size requirement in order for your story to be uh worthy of news. It's not a matter of how big is this company. What the news cares about when they're making that decision is how compelling is this story. And so I think particularly when you're working with people and companies who are getting used to sharing their story with the media that can be a turtle of making people really understand that there isn't like a size cap. There isn't media that you're too small for. If your story is compelling, they're going to be delighted that they found you, regardless of how small your business is. Next, I'm going to look at any specific industry trust that might relate to their business or to the people involved. So for my real estate clients, I'm looking at affordable housing papers, at uh online publications that are going to cover real estate broadly for clients who focus on things like beauty. I'm going to look at those publications. So, what are the people that are in that industry already? What are the publications that they're getting their news from? If there's something that covers nonprofits and I'm working with a nonprofit, I'm going to take a look at publications at spotlight nonprofit work. If the individual that I'm profiling is from a minority group, there are often going to be publications that are specific to those demographics. And so taking a look at that, if this is something that they're open about sharing their stories of being an immigrant from this particular place, there are probably media that cover that community. So I want to take a look at those two. Then backing up and looking at potential story ideas. And I know that you've addressed some of this already, but I want to look at what are these story ideas that we have for a particular client and then include potentially relevant media that would line up with that. So if I have a uh businesswoman who is in her 50s or 60s, and I know that I've got a magazine that spotlights women over 50, then I'm going to note that down because that's a potential place to pitch this client to. If their uh new product ties in with a historical or cultural or local figure, then I'm going to look for publications that have covered those kinds of individuals or publications that might cover those individuals. So that's where knowing what a client's potential story ideas are comes in handy because usually once I've got a good handle on those and there are more potential media outlets that I can add to an outreach list to get tailored to those specifics. So broadly within this, what we're looking at is legacy media, more local media that are going to be focused on a particular neighborhood, industry media, and then these other that's really going to come from those uh potential story ideas.
SPEAKER_00You most likely won't have too much trouble identifying legacy and local media examples for your area, but the industry specific and that broad other category of media can be a bit trickier for a niche market like craft chocolate. So I'm going to explain in just a little bit how to look at those sections as they pertain specifically to Kraft Chocolate. I next asked Melinda to talk about how you go about identifying the specific media outlets and members that you should reach out to once you've had an understanding of those broad categories as she broke them down.
SPEAKER_01That's a mix of spending a lot of time on the internet searching and reaching out to people who live or work in a given community. So when I'm talking with my clients, I'm going to ask them, like that's an easy place to start. What's the news in your neighborhood or communities? What are those news sources? And that's where I found out about a lot of these, you know, community blogs. Sometimes there's the town will have a chamber of commerce that will list the local media for a given place and have contact information. But a lot of times it boils down to me spending a lot of time on the internet doing searches. So any searches that I'm doing in a for something like that, I'm also going to duplicate that on social media sites because somebody might not have a website that they're hosting their town news on, but there might be a Facebook page, or this is a media that really runs on um video content or something. So I'm getting a lot of that on um Instagram or I'm finding this on other social media. And then if, and I think that this is probably going to be more a city thing than what you're going to run into in smaller places, but some cities have already existing media lists online. So for Chicago, I've run across this where people make that available for nonprofits or for people doing like social justice organizing. Those can be out of date. But even knowing that this was last updated a year or two ago, it's a good cross-reference for me if I'm publicizing a client in a given area. These might be some news publications that I might not have had on my radar yet. So I'm still going to go through and check to make sure that my people are right and that the contact information is still correct. But uh it can be an easy way to fill in some of those holes. And then the other thing that I want to take a look at is the names of other businesses that are doing similar work in a given area. Uh, sometimes this gets directed to clients with tell me a little bit about some of your competitors, or if we aren't being as contentious in language, like what are some other uh companies that are doing similar kinds of work? And if I know where they've been featured, then that tells me that here is a publication that already has covered this industry before or is interested in these kinds of stories. So I'm adding them to my list as well.
SPEAKER_00So all these options that you've just shared, when you're kind of thinking about them abstractly in your head, they can get kind of unwieldy. You've got all these different moving parts and possibilities and options. And the way that we simplify all that is with a media list. How do we go about actually beginning a media list? What is this? Where do we start?
SPEAKER_01A lot of times people get really scared of the idea of it because we're just starting with a blank page. So, entry points for how to get started. You just start by making a simple list and then we're gonna go ahead and fill in all of the bigger details. So you can brainstorm as many media outlets as you can come up with. And it doesn't even matter the category yet, or if you ultimately end up pitching them, but just what are the media outlets that register for you and then start filling in the details under each of those. So think about the TV stations that you can come up with, radio stations, newspapers, uh, news sites, magazines, zines. Once you've gotten all of these together, as far as you can come up with off the top of your head, each of these then probably has a national, local, and industry component. So you can brainstorm broadly or you can try to like dive into that. But what you want to start with is just make the page less blank, right? Like make the page less empty and what's as many as you can get onto this list. Some people really hate brainstorming. So if the idea of that is overwhelming, um, then a different way to start might be to look at the kinds of stories that you already like reading and start there. So as you're reading a magazine or a website or a blog, just take note of the stories that stand out to you. Write down where you're finding this information. And if there are certain reporters or editors within that, you know, that are catching your attention, we're consuming stories all the time. And we're consuming those from somewhere. And so starting to be more intentional about paying mind to where you're consuming those stories from and just adding it to a list can be helpful for people. And then the other thing I tell people to think about is crowdsourcing. Ask your peers, family, friends, colleagues what they've read recently that stood out to them and who's telling compelling stories. People who have favorite media love to talk about that media when I find a new media outlet or media group on Blue Sky or something like that, you can't shut me up about it for a while, right? So the people who are paying attention to this stuff really, really care. And there are probably some of these people in your network. So finding out, you know, what are other people consuming can be really beneficial. And that's helpful because while most of us can name the legacy media that's been out there for forever, like we all probably have local ABC news networks somewhere around us, independent media is popping up all the time. And we don't know about that until we are ourselves coming across that or a friend is sharing something from them. So being intentional about asking our people those questions can really help.
SPEAKER_00Okay, now that we've established this basic project of creating a media list and how to begin populating it, let's talk about the industry-specific category. The media ecosystem for craft chocolate is not terribly robust. We don't have any kind of craft chocolate news outlets. That tends to be done much more informally, word of mouth. Uh, there are a few things to look at. We've got Chocolate Professor, who publishes articles on craft chocolate. Of course, we used to have Cacao Mag, which was a beautiful print publication that unfortunately is no longer in existence. We don't currently have a dedicated print publication for craft chocolate, though, in full disclosure, it's an idea that continues to come up around Bean to Barstool headquarters. So put a pin in that. Maybe we will work on that at some point. What craft chocolate does have, though, is a robust grassroots media landscape. And what I mean by grassroots is outlets or individuals that tell stories to the public outside of a traditional professional media establishment. So this is podcasts, blogs, newsletters, and social media accounts. I know we tend to roll our eyes a bit when we hear the word influencer, but that's the fault of only the worst examples of these types of creators. Craft chocolate has a lot of folks filling this type of role, and it's lucky to primarily have pretty conscientious people sharing stories rather than doing so in an exploitative, manipulative, or artificial way, like the worst examples of influencers. Because the craft chocolate world is relatively small, it doesn't take a huge following to reach a pretty significant portion of the scene. Being to Barstool's download stats and Instagram follower numbers aren't setting any records, but I'm consistently surprised when I'm at industry events to hear how many people are following along. So for the industry part of your media list, look at the podcasts, blogs, newsletters, and Instagram and Facebook accounts that are dedicated to sharing craft chocolate news and stories. Because besides being run by nice people, you'll probably enjoy getting to know. Those can be a really great place for getting a story out to an audience who is predisposed to caring about what you're doing. To start out, just add all of the examples you can think of or find to your list, and then you can check out their content. And if there are any that don't feel sympatico with what you're doing, you can always remove or just deprioritize those later. I would really encourage you to do this. When we're looking at media coverage, it can be easy to be seduced by the promise or illusion of big numbers when it comes to exposure. You know, this magazine has a circulation of 100,000 or this TV station reaches a metro area of 2 million or whatever. And you should pay attention to them as we're discussing in this episode. Definitely pay attention to those outlets and use them for certain types of news stories. But for a small craft chocolate company, there can potentially be as much or more value to your business in 300 dedicated craft chocolate fans reading or hearing your story than 300,000 people in the broader public hearing or seeing that story. The next thing to look at is that vague other category Melinda mentioned. This is media that isn't dedicated to our industry and isn't necessarily local to you, but you could potentially have a story that fits for them. When you think back on the story list we talked about in the last episode, a lot of those ideas are for this kind of outlet. This is magazines and professional podcasts and websites and zines and whatever else that don't cover craft chocolate, but might find your story or one of your stories compelling. These are primarily freelance-based publications in which journalists like myself are pitching stories. They aren't typically running off assignments but off accepted pitches, which shifts the focus away from the outlet and onto the individual journalists and other media members who write for them as where you should be focusing your attention. In the case of craft chocolate, this creates an overlap between industry and other media because while we don't have much in way of dedicated media outlets, we do have a number of freelance journalists who cover craft chocolate, usually among other food and beverage focuses. I'm in this category. You want the interest of these freelance journalists, and then you can see where they take those stories, whether that's for current or future craft chocolate publications or most likely other food and beverage outlets or even further afield. Building relationships with journalists is a worthwhile use of your time because they will do the work of getting that story to a media outlet for you. So make a list of all the chocolate writers you know. Everyone who has published articles or books or done reporting on craft chocolate, add that to your media list. In food and beverage media broadly, very few of us only cover one industry. If we find one artisan food or drink interesting, we'll probably find another compelling as well once it's introduced to us. So as you're reading stories about any kind of food or beverage, if you appreciate a writer's work, add them to the list as well. All right. So once you've got this working list, and we should point out that with all of these different steps that we're talking about, even across these different episodes, this is not always necessarily linear from beginning to end. You're going to be adding things to different lists as you come up with them, even after you've already done a lot of these steps. But once you've got this working list, you've got media outlets that you want to pitch to, what is the information that you actually need to get to be able to populate the individual names that are on this list so that you're ready to actually share information with them?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So what's going to be most helpful? We want to have the media outlet name and then note contact names. And roles. So if you're reading a story and you're reading that byline, it's going to tell you that Joe Smith is a staff journalist or is the editor or is the producer on this story. So you're going to want to note their name and also their title, their beat or story type. And we'll get into this a little bit more later, but you want to make sure that you're pitching people stories that they're actually covering. So you don't want to be sending pitches to a food and beverage writer that are about your real estate building that's popping up, right? So knowing what they actually cover is going to be helpful to you. And then their email address so that you can actually contact them.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And I will say on that beat and story type, while that is definitely very important. And I'll talk about some uh some negative examples of that from my perspective as a journalist later on. That this isn't always as cut and dried as it looks. So you might have a story to pitch to a journalist or media outlet and you look and they have never covered craft chocolate in their life. That doesn't mean that that person is necessarily not going to be interested in your story. You need to think a little bit deeper about what is the what are the stories they're telling actually about? Are they about local small business? Are they about food or agriculture broadly? So even if you're not seeing the specifics of your business in their existing work, look a little bit more broadly at like what are the stories they're actually telling under the surface, not just what is the, you know, one sentence summary of the actual content of that story.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's a really good point. And then the other thing that I want to take a look at is pitch guidelines, uh, which this will often show up right on uh these same places where you're finding this information. Your pitch guidelines uh for a publication are going to give you not just the contact information for how you can reach the outlet or the you know general news tip line or this given producer, but it's also going to give you helpful tips for what they're interested in or things to avoid or lead time that they need on certain kinds of stories. Um, and it's really important to pay attention to that. That said, you're dealing with different kinds of coverage. So some information might be more relevant than others. If you're preparing this media list the first time that you sit down and you're doing that for news stories, like you're opening up a new location for your business, or there's a special event that you have coming up, then you want to pay specific attention to here's how we take event submissions, because some publications will only take those through a particular email address. They might give you timelines, like we need at least six weeks in order to consider including you in this. So you want to pay attention to those kinds of things. But also, if you're looking at those earned media coverage stories that we talked about, which is where the media coverage is highlighting interesting stories that you have that might not be news stories, some of that stuff might not apply. But pitch guidelines are going to tell you something about how to send information to this publication. Some media, and I've run into this more with TV. If your attachments uh are too large, uh, your photos or video or something that you're trying to include, it will just get directed to spam. Um, and a lot of times they'll tell you this on their uh on their pitch guidelines. Also, we hate Google Drive links, so only send things through Dropbox, right? Like these are helpful things for you to know going into that, because if you're sending things through the way that they specifically said, don't do this, then you're creating a barrier to them covering you. So what I try to remind people of, and this is specific to pitch guidelines, is you want to reduce the barriers to getting people to do what you want them to do, right? So here that is covering my story. And if I want for these people to cover my story, then what I want to do is make it easy for them to do that. I want to give them this information in the way that they have told me that they want to receive that. So paying attention to that stuff helps and helps get noticed uh for both not doing the things that they've asked you not to do, but also here's someone who's who's read our pitch guidelines and cares, right? Like I know that that's something that we've run into before. There is just this joy of somebody's actually read the thing that I've taken time to put together and they're giving me what I've asked for, and it makes it easier to want to respond positively to that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I it can feel sometimes like those are artificial hoops that people have put in place for you to jump through. Like uh, you know, they're just almost like gatekeeping in some way. But I know we can both say as editors that that is in place to be able to streamline information so that we can actually work with that in one place and not have to be chasing down information or risk things getting lost. But as a freelance journalist who is pitching actual stories to editors, uh every place does it differently. And it can feel sometimes like, uh, why can't I just do whatever? It's to your benefit to follow those pitch guidelines. They are not trying to make anything more complicated than they need to. They're trying to make their job as simple as they can. And you want to do what makes their job as simple as it can be, because that means they're actually going to notice and pay attention to what you're sending them.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. The other piece here that I have started paying attention to over, I don't know, the last five or six years is to socials for professional journalists, especially as so many are freelancing. A lot of professional journalists just have that contact info easy for them to find on social media, whether their socials sometimes like they'll say, DM me pitches. Sometimes their social bios will say, here is who I am writing for, here is how to send me pitches. Like they're giving you that information right there. Um, so I want to note that down as here are their socials to check for that. But the other thing that I'm actually doing is following them. I find a lot of breaking news for places, and I'm constantly sending my parents something, and they're like, How did you know about this thing that's happening in my town? And I'm like, well, because I follow 12 different journalists who are covering your town, right? Like my social media is largely news sites and journalists. And I think that that's been really helpful for me when I am trying to build relationships because you have a chance to follow somebody to see what kinds of stories they're covering, to interact with their stuff on social media. And also if they're changing jobs, I know what new job they're at. So, like all of that, that whole world that ABC might not post, that so-and-so left us and now they're actually reporting for this other station. I follow that journalist on their social media. So I know, and I'm following them for any information they're giving me about how to connect with them at the new place and whether their beat has stayed the same or it's changed and all of that stuff. It's a new access to people. And, you know, with anything, we want to be respectful about that, right? Like if they it's like pitch guidelines, if they're saying, like, do not DM me pitches, like a really easy way to piss them off would be to start DMing them pitches, right? Like, and you never want to be the person who has a bad reputation for that, but it has changed the way that I interact with folks that you know, some reporters that I now consider friends because I'm also commenting on their photos of them like taking their kid on college visits as I'm taking my kid on college visits, right? Like all of that stuff is it's building relationship and it's an easy, low effort thing to do because we're already on social media anyway.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I think it might sound odd for us to say that this is new because obviously we've all been using social media for one or two decades, but it is more recent to be able to look at professional communication in what has been viewed as an informal setting as perfectly legitimate. And I think that's what is maybe new to the last five to ten years, is that where at one point social media communication was kind of the bottom of the pyramid, and then like a tier up in professionalism was email or phone. Now, yeah, you can send DMs, and that is a perfectly acceptable form of professional communication, provided that the person has not specifically said, don't DM me or don't, you know, whatever. But as a journalist, I never mind when somebody is reaching out uh through social media DMs to let me know about something in the industry that I'm covering. One thing to note specifically here, I know a lot of us have mixed feelings about LinkedIn, specifically because uh as a social media platform, it is directly devoted to uh promoting yourself, to kind of selling yourself professionally. And that can feel uh a little icky sometimes. It can feel like it's it's insincere. And the social part of that is just a mask to actually be able to sell. But that can actually work to your advantage a little bit once you understand how the platform works. The fact that that is why people are on LinkedIn removes any of that need to be concerned about the appropriateness of promoting yourself and sharing what you have to share. This is why people are on LinkedIn. So it can be a really great place to uh you know connect to journalists or people in the media and then be able to reach out and say, hey, this is what I do, this is what I sell, this is what I make, uh happy to be a source if a story ever fits for that or whatever. And you can use LinkedIn for that without feeling uh quite as icky as that might feel to do right off the bat on Instagram or Facebook or Blue Sky or whatever it might be. So LinkedIn isn't most people's favorite social media platform, but it can be a really good asset here because it is specifically where people are going professionally to do this kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And I related to that, sometimes when I'm looking for contact information for a journalist to see where they have landed after my last email for them has bounced back. LinkedIn is often one of those early places that I go to because they might not have updated their Instagram with that information yet. But LinkedIn may well have been part of their job search. And so they are wanting for all of those professional connections to know immediately on LinkedIn that this is where they've changed their uh job to. And so a lot of times what I'm saying there is I don't have my email address set up yet, but in one month, I'm going to be covering this beat at such and such publication. And so I can immediately like put that onto my calendar to make a point to go back and check LinkedIn.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So you talked about following on social media as a great way to familiarize yourself with uh the types of things that different media individuals are covering. And you talked about the fact that you've been able to build some friendships this way. I think this can work in that other direction as well, of this being social media being an easy way to break the ice, even if your intent is to directly pitch a story, commenting on things that they're sharing on social media is a a good way to make them familiar with you in a very non-confrontational way before that very first time that you're actually sending them something with a purpose.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. And one thing with following them on socials is that sometimes, and it's going to be specific to the kinds of media that we're talking about, but sometimes they'll be crowdsourcing for stories and just put those on socials. Um, that, hey, does anyone know someone who was at such and such event that happened last night? We're trying to source a quote, or I'm looking for dog owners in this vicinity to talk about this new law that's coming up or whatever, and being able to jump in on those. And I've done that sometimes for my clients, but sometimes I a couple of years ago, there was a Chicago publication that was looking for um people who worked with like cat colonies who did the trap neuter release programs, and I have an aunt and uncle who like have, I don't know, 20 stray cats or whatever that they tend to around their home in this way. And so I sent them a text like, Hey, can I can I pitch you for this story? And uh and I and I did, and the reporter connected with them. So I got I got my family like, you know, in the news and it was fun. And I only knew about that because I was already following this publication online, but that created now a rapport with this uh reporter that I had never worked with before because she had a need. I was following her publication, I responded to her need. Now I've connected her with somebody, with somebody who's actually worked out and been responsive. And so, like now she knows that I can be trusted for stuff like that. So that stuff is hugely beneficial, even when it's not directly relevant to the kinds of things that you're actually pitching them.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And as a journalist, I do this all the time. Uh, we're gonna talk in an upcoming episode about how, especially looking at that earned media coverage that we've talked about, how some of those stories come together. And it's usually not a single subject focus where you're profiling one place most of the time. A lot of stories are going to involve multiple sources. So you get different perspectives and different examples, which means there's multiple opportunities for businesses or individuals to become sources who can be quoted in that. So when I'm putting together a story, I might have a couple of those, but I know that I'm missing a few pieces or I need a few more examples. So I'll put out a call on my Instagram stories, on Blue Sky, on LinkedIn, being very specific about what I'm looking for and direct people to contact me if they have that information. And I've picked up sources that way that I never knew about before. So even on uh being to bar stool on the Instagram there, I have put out calls in stories for stuff related to craft chocolate and uh the cacao industry. So definitely pay attention to that stuff because uh like Melinda said, even if uh the story that they're looking at is not a center line to what you're doing as a business, the most important thing about media coverage is people being aware of you and you getting your name out there. Uh so if you if it's something that you could speak to, even if it is not uh the single message that you would choose to share, that can still be a really beneficial way and gets you in with that uh media outlet and that journalist as a reliable source, and they might be able to look to you for something more significant down the road. With a lot of this, I mean you talked about social media as being a one way to do this, but with a lot of these individuals that you're trying to contact, it can be hard to find the actual final piece of contact info that you need to be able to reach out to them. What are your tips and tricks for being able to track that down if it's not right on the website or right in their social media bio?
SPEAKER_01So a lot of times it will be kind of hidden on the website. So it's not like a main page. Here's how to contact our journalists. But a lot of times these media sites will have a contact us section hidden under more about us or something like that, right? Or a meet the team from the menu bar. And so you have to kind of go looking for it, but I'm I'm looking for those pages because once you're there, that's where you're going to find the to reach us about breaking news. Please email and here's that email address, and here's our tip lines from the pitch guides that we talked about. A lot of times what they'll do is they'll have like photos of their journalists, then those photos will be hyperlinked because we've all gotten put onto more spam lists than we know what to do with or how that happens. So a lot of places have gotten more cagey about just putting a long list of like here are easy ways to just copy and paste these emails uh into their. So sometimes uh they'll have like a meet our team and we'll have the photos or the names of their reporters and those will be hyperlinked. Um, anytime that I'm seeing a contact us link, I don't want to fill out the stupid contact us submission form on those, right? But a lot of times those links, if you hover over them, you can look for the hyperlink that would come up if you click there and it will say, you know, Rob Smith at wgntv.com or something like that, right? Even though Rob Smith's name isn't on the page that I'm looking at, right? So paying attention to when I'm hovering my mouse over things that are hyperlinked, what are those email addresses that are coming up? And those same pages, like those same meet our teams pages, is going to be where I'm going to grab social media handles for those reporters and editors. A lot of times you can click through on those and they'll give bios about those same people. Um, so I'm also, and this goes back to the source of things that I'm noting on the list, paying attention to those bios. And I think early on when I was doing this work, it felt like having to read the life story of a person before I get around to the recipe that's like on the page and the recipe is what I came here for. But if I know that this reporter volunteers for a humane society, then if my client is partnering with some uh group that does funding for animals or something like that, this might not be in this person's actual beat, but they might have some leeway with what they cover. Or I can say, Hey Natalie, I know that you really love cats and I've got this story. If is this something that's that's up your alley? And if not, do you know who might be good for it? Because a lot of times reporters, if there is a spark of a story that they're connected with, if they can't cover it, they would love to put you in touch with a colleague of theirs who will. In physical publications, uh, so newspapers and magazines, a lot of times this information is going to be either toward the front or toward the back. In magazines, like it used to pretty consistently be on mastheads, and there would be an entire section that was every single reporter, every single editor, here's how to contact each of these people. And all of that information was uh listed in that section with their contributors and all of that. If you've got a physical copy, it'll be something like that. When we're looking for a writer who has written something directly, so if we're checking that online media, those websites will sometimes either link to a bio for the writer or link to their own website, which will have their information, or sometimes stories will actually say that this was written by so and so, and to contact this writer for more about this story, uh, here's their email address. And I love it when people do that because it makes it very easy for me to follow up with a specific writer on there. Um, and then if I've tried contact us sections and those aren't yielding something, then that's usually when I go scouring their social medias, checking out their Blue Sky and Instagram and Facebook and LinkedIn and seeing what information, if any, they're giving about how to contact them. There have been times, I think it was. NBC in Chicago, I had not needed to pitch them on something for, I don't know, nine months, 10 months. And by the time that I went to pitch them again, every single email address I had there was bouncing back and it was terrifying because I needed to reach them. Um, then realized that they had completely changed the uh domain for their email addresses. So I had no way of reaching them at all. I called. I use the phone very rarely on first contact with uh legacy media in particular because I'm always assuming that somebody's on a deadline, right? Like you never want to be the person who was calling to check in about something, and now this person is pissed off because they had to answer the phone because it might have been breaking news, but I'm calling about something unrelated. I had to use the phone though to reach this particular publication and explain hey, last time I emailed you guys, everyone's email address was at blah, blah, blah, domain. Those are all bouncing back. And the person who answered the phone was like, let me transfer you over to the department. That person gave me, uh, it took like 30 seconds once I got connected with them, but they gave me the new domain. They gave me the, you know, we're now first initial dot last name at new domain. And then that gives me enough to go um and move forward. I'm a millennial and I hate talking on the phone if I can avoid it. But also I don't want to be paying in going to like ask somebody to give me this information over the phone because I know that I'm interrupting something that they're doing on that side.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so everything we've been doing up to this point has been gathering information. So we've been making lists, we've been brainstorming, we've been searching for contact information and all that stuff. Then it comes time to actually begin making contact. Now, we're gonna talk in uh the upcoming episodes about in more detail about how to handle communication with the media. Um, we'll talk more about ongoing communication and looking at some of that earned media coverage and like how to communicate that big list of story ideas that we came up with to the right people. And we're gonna talk about press releases, but let's talk specifically about news stories and how to handle outreach on those. So once you have the information you need for local news outlets, uh legacy media outlets, for things that have a timeline to them, have a call to action of some sort. How do you actually make that connection and begin that outreach?
SPEAKER_01So, this is going to go back to the last thing I was saying, which is assuming that people are busy. Um, we want to keep our communication with people brief. Uh, I had a boss who said that, you know, you're assuming people will read your subject line and like the first one or two lines and then like the next two things that are in bold, and that's about it. It has definitely impacted how I interact with this kind of media specifically about news stories. So I'm assuming that the producer or editor or journalist or whomever is busy. So I want to get in and get out. I want to grab their interest, give them a quick pitch, um, and whatever that call to action is, and then say thanks and bye. Uh so gonna say hi, briefly mention a recent story of theirs that I've actually read and liked. And then I'm going to uh go into whatever it is that I want to share. So I've got this interesting event or partnership um or uh news piece that's going on. And I think it might be up your alley because blank. And then I'm going to offer some kind of a call to, I mean, less a call to action and more of like what do I think that you might be interested in doing with this information. So would love to connect you with our founder who can come into the studio or do an interview. Uh, would love to get you uh tickets and set something up for you and do a private tour if that fits into your schedule. Uh, would love to share more about this. I want to show them, like, not just here is the thing I think you might be interested in, but here is how I think you might be interested in it. Let me know if that if that works for you. Hope to talk soon. Thanks. And then I'm giving them my name, my title, which for some clients I am their communications person or their PR externally, just depending on what that is. My email address, even though they are getting this from my email, I'm also always including that because sometimes people are printing these off or wanting something easy to copy and paste. So including that as your signature line is easy. And then I'm also always giving them my phone number. Um, and again, I'm a millennial who doesn't love to talk on the phone. But if I am grabbing the interest of a media person, then I want to be available by phone because again, I want to reduce the barriers that would exist between them covering my story, right? Like in me. I want to make that as easy of a follow-through as possible. So uh once I send one of these emails, I am making sure that my phone and uh that my ringers on, that my uh emails, I'm getting immediate notifications when I get emailed, like I'm paying more attention to my phone in the 72 hours after I've sent this kind of outreach, uh, more attention to it than I usually do. Um, because if media is going to respond to me, I need for my response to be immediate back to them. So I try to keep that down to like an hour between when they're responding to that and they're getting a response back from me because I don't want to potentially lose a story if I do catch their interest.
SPEAKER_00And I think that this can be a sharp adjustment specifically for folks who are working in artisan food and beverage, because we're ever everybody's kind of broadly a part of like a slow food type of concept. And you've sent this communication out and it's kind of you're kind of now done with it in your head for a little bit, and you're gonna get back to whatever the actual work is that you're doing. You don't want to have wasted that time because now this person has tried to get back with you, you waited 24 hours to respond to that, and that that ship has sailed now, and now all that work you put into it is wasted, and you've potentially soured a relationship where they gave you a chance and you didn't come through on it. It is kind of frustrating to have to suddenly make yourself available like that, but you want to maximize the value of the time you've already spent and just make sure that you can get notifications. It might not happen, but you want to be available if it is, because they are working on usually a much shorter turnover and and deadline system than you may be working on in food or beverage.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So then the only other thing that for me goes under that signature block, and this is going to not be always, but sometimes it might be appropriate to include a press release beneath that message. So if I've got an event coming up, I'm going to have the specifics of the who, what, where, when, why. Like I'm going to include all of that information, and here are the dates, and here's all of that stuff. I don't want to muddy my initial outreach with that though, right? So this is going to be more information after my signature line. Uh, hope to connect on this, right? And then that information is going to go underneath my signature line. Like I want basically what I want is for them to see from my hello through my signature line should just like fit on one page. Like they should be able to see that when they're opening that up. Like I don't want for them to have to scroll through paragraphs uh to figure out what that important content is.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's great. Yeah, we're gonna spend the entire next episode doing a deep dive on press releases, how to format them, when to use them, what the rules are for all of that. So uh if that seemed kind of brushed over, we are gonna dive into that in much more detail for the next episode. All right. So, what are some other things to keep in mind when we're making that kind of outreach?
SPEAKER_01We want to hook them. Like you need to you need to catch their attention. This really goes back to brevity. And what I what I tell people is that you need to answer the very blunt question, why should they care? And I get that from a boss of mine when she would scan a press release from a from a client that we were working with, or was listening to a client explain the things that they thought were important, her attention span for that was very, very short. And so she would inevitably interrupt that conversation very quickly to ask, well, why should I care? Which comes across kind of rudely and blunt, but it it got to the point. They were paying us to care and losing her attention that quickly. And we don't have that benefit with the media. So learning how to take this idea and figure out why should this person care, I think that that can be really beneficial for ourselves when we're figuring out what are my story, what is my identity, what are the things that I'm conveying and why, and like what makes it unique. Like, if if we're starting a business or creating a product or doing something and putting in all of the investment of time and labor and money and all of that, it's it's because we really deeply cared about something, right? If we're going to go through all of that work. And so finding that like spark in these communications. And it doesn't mean that you like give them your entire life story or any of that, like when you're doing that, but like we want for them to be excited and want to find the thing that they actually care about. Um, so trying to figure out what that is and making that the focus of what I'm sending to them.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I think ironically, the fact that we care deeply about something can actually make it difficult for us to understand what would make this interesting to another person. Like, especially if you're running a business like craft chocolate, where this is something you're deeply passionate about. You are always going to be able to talk about this thing for longer than most other people are going to want to pay attention to it. And that that's just the nature of being passionate about something. So you need to be able to think about what are the simplest things about this that would make somebody else care. This is not the time for diving into that deep long story. It is like, what are the simplest things about this that would get somebody's attention that they might not know that would make them care?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's hard, uh, but good, right? And necessary. Paying attention, and you know, this goes back to what we talked about earlier, paying attention to people's beat before we're pitching them, um, and to the point that you made on that, like it doesn't mean that specifically they have to have covered the minutiae of what we're talking about, but knowing what they cover so you're not sending them something wildly off base, um, avoiding AI. Uh if if you don't care enough to share this yourself, like why should somebody else share it for you? Um, one thing that I ran into recently with a client, and I I loved it because it kind of underscored a point that I had been trying to make with them about AI. I was trying to email something that included a photo that they had provided to me. And so before I send this email to the media, I'm going to like set it up with this photo embedded. So I send it to myself first as a test email. When I got that email back, I got a flag that popped up that said warning, some of this content uh in this image like has been flagged for AI. So immediately, and I wasn't looking for that information, right? But immediately my email server is alerting me that there's AI in this. Now I know that I, as a publicist, can't share this photo and what I send to the media because they're going to get that. And that's going to impact not only how they feel about my client, but I'm also putting my own reputation on the line too, right? So I had to go through this to like find other um other imagery. But whether you're creating something visual or writing something, do it yourself. Um, professionals are aware of that when you don't. Uh, what we call PR speak, like avoiding PR speak, um, it might be more descriptively explained as hyperbole or that overly enthusiastic talk that this has never been done before. When you're talking to the media, and I know that we're saying to answer why they should care, do that without making it seem like you're selling them a product, right? Like we're all sensitive to being advertised at day in and day out. You are trying to sell them a thing, but instead of just trying to sell them a product, you're trying to sell them this idea and this story. And what you're trying to sell them as a story is going to be something that they can buy into as an idea and care about. So just avoid saying we make the world's best chocolate, we have all the best fans, like any of that stuff just kind of gets put into the BS filter because we know that this is just marketing speak. Like what you want to actually get at is the part and like the actual story there that you're trying to connect with them on. So don't put in that filler language that makes it seem more exciting because much more often that's just kind of making them tune out.
SPEAKER_00I get so many press releases every day. And it doesn't make me immediately discard the story idea. But when I see that kind of language in either a press release or uh, you know, just a an email pitch from a PR company or a a direct producer. I know that I can't take at face value anything in there. So it might be worth pursuing as a story, but I'm gonna have to do more digging to be able to verify anything that's in that if you're using phrases that uh can't possibly be true. We have the world's best fans. Well, you should love your fans, and we're glad your fans love you, but that's a meaningless statement that you can't verify that. Just avoid it altogether. It might sound like you're hyping yourself, but it's actually just making it read kind of artificial and unreliable.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And then the other thing, it takes more time, but I am a big believer in sending up personalized individual emails to specific people. Now, a lot of that might be copied and pasted. If I am trying to reach 10 different journalists about the same event, some of that, you know, that content of that email is going to be different. But I'm going to say, hey, David, really loved the piece from last week about X, Y, and Z, or saw that you took your daughter to college last week, like, woo-hoo, congrats. You know, I'm gonna have something personal in there and then put in, you know, here's everything else that's been copied and pasted from what I'm basically sending to all these news outlets. I think that it we paid more attention to it and it's it's easier and all of that. If you are in a situation though, where you have to send out a mass press release or email communication of some kind to people, make sure that you're BCCing people instead of just sending it all to you and 50 of your competitors in the news media, right? Like 50 other stations that I'm sending this to. Media like understands that they aren't always getting an exclusive story. But boy are you muddying things when you are just letting them see every single other person that this is getting blasted to. And when they know that, okay, I am one of four morning producers, and they've also sent this to the other three morning producers on this team. So I'm uh interested in engaging with this because I don't know, somebody else maybe they're interested in they might engage in it. So, like if they see their peers on it, even from the same station, there can be less of a call to action like for themselves of actually interacting with the piece because there's an assumption that, well, maybe that's somebody else's labor. But if they're also saying that you're sending it to all of the other news stations, then well, cool, maybe that's not mine to have to deal with. So if you have to do it, make sure you're putting them on a BCC. But when you have the time, when you have the ability to make the time, doing those personalized individual emails to people is is helpful in relationship.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so that was a lot of information. Again, this will be going on the Bean to Barstool blog, probably in a couple parts, but still, it can sound overwhelming just hearing all those details. So let's summarize what we really need to do. The homework for this episode is making a media list. So you're gonna get out a notebook or open a Google Doc or wherever you make your list and take notes, and then just begin thinking of media outlets and individuals to add to it. This can include legacy media and local media, and there's some overlap there usually, and then places that are more focused on earned media coverage, which could be focused on craft chocolate or not. That means craft chocolate journalists, craft chocolate bloggers, podcasters, social media influencers, and other informal media, food and beverage journalists and non-chocate specific food and beverage publications, and then anything else that you come across you think might be worthwhile. Remember, anything you add to this list is something that wasn't there before, so don't worry about completionism. A lot of times with media stuff like this, finishing can be the enemy of beginning because you're thinking about the entirety of the project. Instead of just writing down the first name and then the next one as you think of them, just get started. Once you have a working list, which you'll keep adding to, you can start filling in information, the name of the outlet, the name and role of the individual, what beat they cover, and their email address and or social media handle. Then you'll want to make note of any specific instructions, such as a dedicated email address for event announcements for your local news, or a journalist request that you do or don't DM them pitches or advanced deadlines for time-sensitive news, etc. Finally, you're going to make contact. With more news-focused outlets and individuals, this typically needs to be a bit more formal because they are busy and working on tight deadlines. Follow Melinda's instructions for doing that. With freelance journalists like myself, it can be a little more informal. Tell them you like their work, let them know if you liked a specific story or project, and then a little bit about yourself. In two episodes from now, I'm going to talk about ongoing relationships with media members, especially freelancers like myself, and how you can share stories as they come up in a more informal way. So we'll get to that more later. For now, just get started on your media list. I invite you and even ask you to add me to your media list. Send me your news and story ideas. As we get further into this series, we'll talk more about what that can look like, but feel free to practice with me. Alright, the next episode, we're gonna do a deep dive on press releases. We're gonna talk all about what press releases are, when and how you should use them, when you shouldn't, common pitfalls, formatting, all that stuff. If you've ever wondered how to put together a press release and send it, that's going to give you all that information. If you have any questions about anything we're talking about in this media series, whether it's something we've already covered or something we haven't, something I've told you is coming up, please send us those questions. I will make sure they get answered on air if you have specific questions. I hope this is helpful for you. Thank you all so much for listening to this episode of Bean to Barstool. I'll see you next time. Cheers.