Using Current Events to Gain Media Attention

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.

1. A new retail development designed to strengthen the
local economy has just been announced for your city, but first, an economic
feasibility study must be conducted to ensure the project makes sense from
a financial, long-term leasing perspective. What’s the land worth, and
what can the owner expect long term?

These are questions a business valuation expert can best answer …
and it just so happens your firm offers that service with a qualified CPA/ABV
or appraiser on staff. In this case, you would contact your local paper and
business journal, and introduce the professional to the reporter covering
this beat or area of news. Explain your story angle to the reporter; perhaps
your proposed story has to do with how the land itself is valued, for example.

2. Leveraging a story on changes to the tax code is always
a good idea. However, since most firms have a tax practice, you’ll have
to think about how your practice is different. Most of the time, I find the
differences within the firm’s clients themselves … and that’s
where your story can take on a more exciting tone.

Let’s say, for example, that you have a client that owns a popular
chain of restaurants. Your story has just become “consumer” oriented
to generate interest from the media on how your client will handle the new
change to the tax code. While the tax information itself may sound mundane,
the chain, itself, will generate interest and it’s a win-win situation
all around. You and the client gain publicity.

3. Veering somewhat away from the accounting angle, how
about leveraging a human resource story about recruitment or retention? Recruitment
stories are great media stories around graduation time in the spring because
reporters are looking for new or fresh ways to cover the same information,
year after year. What is unique about your recruitment program and what are
you finding is the reaction on college campuses? Don’t be shy about
reporting the “negative” story either; if the reaction isn’t
positive, speak up to the media as to why you feel this way.

Returning to the story of the fictional client in trouble with the SEC discussed
above, try to brainstorm all the different story angles you could propose to
the media if something like this were to happen, either to your own firm or
even outside your firm. Have the story angle list ready and waiting; you’ll
be able to contact the media right away should a situation occur … and
it will show you’re ready and willing to speak up as a firm.

These simple tactics should generate attention. Good luck!

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For more than 20 years, Scott H. Cytron, ABC, has worked with CPAs and accountants,
providing public relations, marketing and communications services, and teaches
firms how to use social media more effectively. Author of The CPA Technology
Advisor’s MarketingWorks column, he tweets, and is on Facebook and
LinkedIn. Contact him at scottcytron@cpata.com.