How To Build Better Relationships with Journalists Without Pitching

What do you think could happen if you were to be featured in a top-tier publication?

Could it create broader awareness and give your company credibility and recognized as a leader in your industry?

You bet.

I’m sure you’ve seen it done before where PR can be used to drive qualified leads. And in order to get all of this coverage, it definitely helps to have an interesting and unique point of view on a product or service.

Harvard Business Review reports that major news outlets generally get three times the average amount of email in pitches alone. Unfortunately, there is a lot of noise that journalists deal with (actually, we all do) and most of it is irrelevant to the topics that each journalist covers.

Evidence shows that odds aren’t in your favor to have a large top tier publication to approach you for a story. Now I’m not ruling it out completely…there just isn’t a high probability for it to occur regularly.

There are a few ways to grab the attention of journalists:

1. You can either choose to pay someone to have access to those relationships (hence PR firms)  

2. You could go about building your own relationships on LinkedIn, which does take time and hard work to establish.  

In the end, it boils down to starting off relationships on the right foot and building from that solid foundation.

And who knows, you just might end up catching that big break just after all. Only this time, it'll be because you've strategically made it happen vs. relying on chance.

Here are some best practices on how you can leverage LinkedIn to build better relationships with journalists without a pitch.

Identify Targeted Journalists & Become Familiar With Their Work

One of the easiest things to do is to become a fan of the work your targeted journalists are producing.  Journalists also tend to have digital responsibilities, have personal blogs, and may write short or long form on social networks (examples of long-form being LinkedIn or Google+). Reading a journalist’s work likely requires finding multiple sources.

Once you find these sources you can easily subscribe to them via RSS feed or get alerts by several other means. And of course, you can also show your support for the writer’s content by sharing it (as appropriate) through your LinkedIn as well as other social media channels. I'll dive into that more later.

Build A Relationship with a Journalist Before You Actually Need It

Like you, journalists are busy professionals and don’t their time being wasted with long pitches. The reality is that they’re chasing another deadline and don’t have the time.

The level of accessibility that social media offers to connect with journalists in a very low pressure manner is unprecedented. LinkedIn and other social media platforms are widely used by journalists. This can help you stay up-to-date on journalist interests.

For example, if you think something could be of significant value to your network, share it. Furthermore, you can also individually message folks on LinkedIn or perhaps share it across other social networks. You can see exactly who has shows you who has shared articles so journalists have a visual on who is sharing what. It’s an effective way to build rapport with a journalist without having to take up too much of their time.

Additionally, if you happen to be in a situation without anything relevant to pitch, a good way to be useful would be to leverage your network and see if you have a connection that might be a good fit for a story.

Highlight Your Valuable Resources and Make Them Readily Available

One question to consider when building a relationship with a journalist is: How can I help them do their job better?

Full disclosure, this doesn’t mean pushing an irrelevant pitch with the pretense of “help.” No bait and switch here. That doesn’t work and will only label you in a not so great connotation. Be authentic. That means leverage the resources of your network, clients and yourself.

As mentioned earlier, offering your resources and connections to journalists could be a significant boost in your relationship trajectory. For example, make a quality introduction on LinkedIn or offer a subject-matter expert for an interview. You see, there’s a fundamental difference when you are reacting to the needs of a journalist rather than pitching a specific PR story.

When starting out the relationship, don’t be quick to “take”, rather look to give and help. You can save this relationship equity and cash it in at a later time.

When Possible, Take the Relationship Offline

Think about some of the most important relationships you have in your professional career.

What percentage of them are purely electronic?

I’ll take a leap of faith and say virtually none.

With your most valuable relationships, there’s going to be some form of face-to-face interaction involved.  Whether it's coffee, lunch, or perhaps attending the same industry events...these face to face interactions prove to be quite powerful in the long run.

Remember that you are starting a relationship and sometimes that takes time and nurturing to evolve over time.

Journalists are people, and many of them have average or above average social skills. Which means, forming lasting bonds extends past email or any technology mediums.

Face-to-face offers a depth and context that email and social media lack….if you can make it happen.

Closing Thoughts

Building relationships with targeted media outlets takes time, energy, effort and focus. It also requires a level of awareness, empathy, authenticity, and being nice – the same qualities necessary to build relationships with anyone, regardless of profession.

The secret to building great relationships with journalists is to offer more value than you want in return.  The rewards can be fruitful for a long time.

What other ways have you found to be effective when building meaningful relationships with journalists?