By my calculations, this is the first anniversary of my Roxstar newsletter, so happy birthday to me. No presents, please (although would it have killed you send a card?)
Looking back over the past 12 months, I think there’s one piece of advice that I would pick out above all the other musings I’ve shared with you, and that is to encourage you to try to think like a journalist. Tune in to our wave length and you’ll reap the rewards.
Easier said than done, you might reasonably say. We’re PRs not journalists so how are we supposed to do that?
So let me unpick it a bit more by telling you that the job of the journalist is to think like a reader. Would I want to open my newspaper/magazine/browser and read this story?
Would it serve a useful service, whether that is to educate, inform or simply entertain?
Those are the only questions I ever need to ask myself when I write or commission a story. If it’s a yes, then it goes in.
So my advice is to ask yourself the same. Have your found a way of making your press release interesting and relevant? Would you bother telling your friends about it in the pub?
Let’s not pretend it is always possible. Sometimes, to use the modern cliché, “it is what it is”, but if there is any detail you can work into a point of interest, it’s always worth giving it a spin.
