In the past few weeks I have grown significantly in respect to media monitoring, newspaper clippings and monthly report. Now is the time for me to step up and do something that is much more challenging so far in my internship. As such my supervisor acknowledged this and began to make me involve in more significant media relations tasks such as media calls and meeting up with media for discussion. Media relation is one of the important work tasks of public relations consultant which is to primarily facilitate the communication between the client organizations and media. Therefore, public relations consultant must work collaboratively with journalists and editors to build positive long term relationship with media by regularly keeping them abreast on what is going on with client organization and giving them accurate newsworthy information in order to generate positive editorial coverage of your client organization, product and person in press, broadcast and internet.
The days of my involvement in these tasks finally let me to the moment when my
supervisor requested me to call the media. At that moment I did feel a sense of
nervousness as it is after all my first media call at H&K. Did anyone here
feel the same as me during your internship? Anyways I did finally managed
collect myself and remain calm as I realized that it was a very good opportunity
to get to know further in depth of how people in the industry actually
interact.
Before
calling the media, I must prepare a list that consists of the latest contact
number of various local media outlet. Different people have their different way
of working, so I always have a small habit that writing up a script about what would
I going to say or ask during media call. This script can ensure myself communicate
well and confidently with the journalists during the media call by asking them
the right question and giving them the accurate information to avoid any
confusion in the phone. The press and broadcast media outlets have various
editorial desks such as news, business, automobile, health, metro and others. Therefore,
we need to specify clearly which desk we want to find when calling up to the
main operator line of the media. Normally
I will make twenty to thirty media call in a day for checking whether they
receive the media invitation, the publication date of our client press releases
or attendance confirmation (RSVP) of journalist for cover up the client events.
The best time to make media call for checking up whether they would send
reporter to cover the event is around 5.30pm-7pm on the last day before the
actual day of event. Before that, I don’t know which publishing company own
which newspaper. But after making media call, I have found out that News Straits Times, Berita
Harian and Harian Metro are the press all under a same publishing company which
is New Straits Times Press (NSTP) that owned by Media Prima Company.
The
three key messages that must be disseminated during the media call for inviting
them to cover the event is the date of the event, the title and the company
name of the launching event and also must inform them if any big gun like
minister or famous artist would be attend the event to attract the journalist
to cover the news. Besides that, I also call up some of the online media like
Driving Motion, Mekanika and Autofreaks for enquiries about their media rate
card and readership of the website. Rate card is a document that shows the prices,
news values and description of various advertorial and editorial news placements
of the media. It is a very useful and important reference source for the PR
consultant to calculate the PR value and news values of the client media
coverage. I am so lucky that I got the chance to meet Mr. Leonard Wong,
Assistant Manager of Advertising Sales and Marketing from Big Oranges Media for
discuss further details about their rate card and advertorial sales. We also
had a small conversation about the brief overview of current operation and
readership trend of print and online media in media industry Malaysia.
 |
| It is a rate card for The Star Online (Rate Card 2014). Sources from: http://adrates.thestar.com.my/page01_welcome.asp
In
my opinion, a few tips that can ensure a smooth and pleasurable media call is
identify yourself clearly like you calling on behalf of client or your PR firm,
contact with the right person or editorial desk who in-charge the news issue,
straight to the topic, giving a clear and precise information, and speaking in
a moderate loud and polite tone. During
media call, normally I will speak in Malay, Mandarin and English accordingly to
the main language of the media. For example, I will speak Mandarin whenever I
call to Sin Chew Jit Poh and Oriental Daily. This action can make the media
feel the friendliness and honesty of us in working line. This eventually also
can improve the relationship between the organization and media as well as my
communication skill.
Lim
Min Yuan
Curtin Sarawak 15625074 / 7E0B7821 |
4 comments:
It will be useful to know who's the media you work with cause you might "use" them in one day in your career.
Thank for the sharing. I totally agreed with your view that we need to build and maintain relationship towards the media, this will really help us during an immediate call. I also same with you, I did prepare a script myself whenever I need to call the press for media conference, this really help me a lot. Besides, before I make a call to the media, my supervisor always prepare a list for me as different media outlets have different time zone for pick up their phone. For example, for the English media outlets, you need to call them before 5pm, while for Chinese press they only available after 6:30pm
Hey Min Yuan, I agreed with your point of view which media relation is really an important work tasks of public relations consultant which is to enhance the communications among organizations, media and clients. Thanks for sharing. :)
Thanks for sharing your tips before making the call to press. It's good to be prepared with everything that you need so that you won't have any trouble answering and providing information to the receiver. This would also leave an impression that you are prepared and thus, can enhance communication among your clients or the media.
Post a Comment