When I heard my client say “I was appalled,” I knew we had a story. It invoked emotion and played up the urgency of the topic at hand, which is cleaning up your social profile for the job hunt.
But it’s not the whole story. As I reflected on the success, I thought of Bill Murray’s wonderful adaptation of Julius Caesar’s famous tripartite: “We came. We saw. We kicked it’s ass!” There were essentially three stages to getting into that piece: Getting on the reporter’s radar, getting in the story, and getting the lede of the story.
Last week, Fresh Grounder Ruth Bazinet wrote about the importance of relationships in PR, reminding us that, while story is important, relationships and tenacity are just as important.
In this case, the story would never had happened without relationships and trust. Relationships opened the door and made my phone ring. Tenacity (not so much with the reporter in this case, but with other folks who might be able to help the reporter out) got both me and my client in the article. The story my client was able to tell got her the lede.
“Belgium Pastries” by David Blaikie
They say that cooking is an art, but baking is a science. That makes the PR pitch more like making pastries: you need a little bit of both.