Top 10 reasons media relations will get easier in 2010

Jeremy Porter of Journalistics.com wrote out his predictions on how networks, tools and analytics will make media relations easier this year. These go hand-in-hand with what Mary, Jonathan and I talk about in our book, Bite-sized Marketing, and deserve to be repeated. Jeremy's full post is well worth reading, but here's the quick list:

1. Social media. Social media (i.e. Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook) make it easier than ever for us to connect with journalists outside of a static media database.

2. Research tools. Beyond social media tools, there are a wide range of improved research tools for searching information across all online channels.

3. Commercial PR products. Most have adapted to serve our needs better as PR professionals, improving workflows to make our recurring tasks more efficient, while building in functionality that is more pro-journalist.

4. Analytics. Better analytics solutions, be it traditional Web analytics or emerging social media analytics toolsets, will better equip public relations professionals to measure the results of their pitch efforts.

5. Collaboration tools. There are far too many PR teams managing media relations efforts across a static or shared spreadsheet.

6. Diminished reliance on press releases. Improvements in the distribution format of news, such as social media releases or short-message pitches (i.e. Twitter pitches), give PR professionals more options for quickly getting news into the hands of the most interested journalists.

7. Expanded media options. We are no longer limited to print, broadcast and Web sites for our media targeting. A quick tweet from a journalist can be just as valuable to our PR results as a full-page article in the Sunday paper.

8. Mobile and the rise of location-aware apps. Next year’s list will include augmented reality, for this year, we’ll just focus on the rise of mobile and location-aware applications.

9. Improved distribution. Although I’m firmly against mass distribution, evolving technologies for dynamic “targeting” of contacts can help us better target relevant information to journalists, while working around the intricacies of exclusives and preferential treatment of news.

10. Improved filtering. Journalists are learning how to better manage and process information. For the truly overwhelmed journalists that had resorted to building complex e-mail filters and PR blacklists, this means many of them may be more receptive to pitches again. Reputation-based systems (like the one we’re working on) or social networks that give journalists access to reliable information on us, helps them respond faster to our requests. They can more accurately gauge who among us is a reliable source, and who regularly “spams” journalists. As journalists are better equipped to filter out “PR spam,” those of us with “good” pitches will see better response rates.