Using Current Events to Gain Media Attention

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While public relations and marketing professionals have lots of tricks up their sleeves, one tactic that continues to work, time and time again, is to leverage media attention based on a current news event.

Relax my fellow PR colleagues; I’m not releasing anything proprietary that is top secret. In fact, this is pure common sense.

There are two kinds of public relations that generates media attention: proactive and reactive.

When you are “reactive” to something that happened to your firm or business, it signifies that you were largely unprepared for the situation at hand. Here’s an extreme example. Suppose one of your clients was in trouble with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), with the media covering all aspects of the client’s activities. When the media knocks at your door for comment, it puts your firm or business in a reactive stance.

Instead, the better solution is to proactively seek out the media and tell your part of the story. Although not all situations involving sensitive information can be handled this way, contacting the media before they contact you shows you are smart and really know what you are doing and saying. You’ll also gain the media’s respect much faster by contacting them in these situations before they contact you.

As you can see, it’s better to be proactive than reactive. This stance carries over to just about anything regarding your firm’s media relations and public relations programs.

Now to the matter at hand: leveraging a current event to gain publicity for your firm or business. Once you begin thinking more “proactively” about media coverage, you can turn any event into an opportunity for you firm by contacting the media and telling them how what your firm or business offers can complement the event. Here are three examples.