The big and scary Mayan Calendar
Happy “maybe our last Monday on Earth” fellow PR peeps! As you may or may not know, the world is set to end this upcoming Friday, December 21st as foretold by an old Mayan wives tail (although NASA took the time to debunk said rumours in their official BLOG, who knew they had a blog?!) SO you’ve got two choices:
- Hunker down in your new doomsday shed, with lots of beans, batteries and Spam (because who doesn’t love canned meat?!)
- OR you can rock it out this Friday and prepare for yet ANOTHER Monday in your quest to dominate the PR world and listen to this knowledge I’m about to kick your way.
Oh, you’re going to do #2? Good choice. So, today’s “SYNTK” is pretty quick and easy, there are only TWO terms: briefings and coverage. I’m going to give you the quick, nitty gritty on these two very important terms:
Briefings: Briefings are like interviews, well they kind of ARE interviews. When a product is released or a journalist agrees to cover your client or your event, usually a “briefing” is involved. This is where the journalist and your spokesperson (not necessarily a traditional spokesperson, but somebody chosen from your company that can speak on the subject of the interview, from the CEO to an engineer) talk, the journalist asks a lot of questions and the spokesperson answers them. How does the spokesperson know what to say? YOU, the PR pro, tell them! This is one of the fundamental job duties of a PR pro: media training. It is usually your job to make sure the client is polished and ready for the media. On of the ways we do that is the all-important briefing sheet, a briefing sheet is a document created by the PR team with pertinent information about the briefing, it usually contains:
-Date and time of the inteview
-Publication and journalist’s name and background info, recent stories
-Points of interest that the journalist will want to go over
-And any other info that may be useful to your spokesperson
The briefing sheet is a very important part of your PR arsenal and a good briefing sheet can be the deciding factor between a great interview and a lackluster one. Want to see an example of a briefing sheet? PRTini has got a great example and over at Crenshaw Communications they have an article dedicated to putting together a good briefing book (the same thing). A good briefing can only lead to ONE thing:
COVERAGE!!!! Coverage is the bread and butter of the PR pro, it’s what we spend hours pitching for, days and weeks prepping for. Coverage is anytime you get your client in a publication or on TV or on the radio. It is a super important part of our lives. Clients expect you to get coverage and they expect it to be good. So what’s the difference between PR coverage and advertisements? Simple, one if paid for (advertisement) and the other is gained (PR) and we work hard to get that coverage. Some coverage is put together in a matter of days, such as with internet outlets and some coverage takes MONTHS to see, like for a glossy magazine. Each pub has different lead times (the time you need to give them before they actually publish the story, usually between a few days to a few months, depending on the type if publication) and it is up to you to make sure you get your story in front of the right person in enough time to make the issue. I have some of my coverage here on the blog, under the “coverage/writing samples” tab, take a look!
Well, that’s it for today, although it was short, today’s SYNTK included two very important terms that are good for you to know in your budding PR career. In case the world ends before we chat again: it was nice knowing ya! In case it doesn’t, tune in next time
XOXOXO, Jess AsPRing
Jess AsPRing 