Mistakes When Following Up

Issue #724 June 11, 2013
Publisher: Joan Stewart

“Tips, Tricks and Tools for Free Publicity”

In This Issue

3 Mistakes When Following Up
How to Grow Your Twitter Following
Help Journalists Quote You
Hound Video of the Week

This Week in the Hound House:

Had a blast at my niece’s wedding in Ohio on Saturday. The old farts boogied to Michael Jackson, Van Halen, The Doobie Brothers and Earth, Wind & Fire. Then the DJ played “club songs” the old farts couldn’t recognize. So we sat down and the kids took over. Back and forth it went, the whole night. Note to Family: What happens in Mansfield STAYS in Mansfield, including all those videos of us dancing.

1. 3 Mistakes When Following Up

Here are three major mistakes people make after they pitch a story to a journalist or blogger, and then follow up:

–Expecting an answer within a day or two.

If you hear nothing but silence after pitching, never assume the journalist isn’t interested. I’ve heard of cases in which business owners and publicists pitched ideas, heard nothing, and got a call from a journalist two years later!

–Continuing to follow up until you receive response.

This is the surest way to convince a journalist or blogger to blackball you. They hate being pestered. The only thing they hate more is being stalked.

–Calling or emailing and saying, “I’m Mary Jones and I’m just following up to see if you got the story idea I sent you a few days ago.”

“Who’s Mary Jones? What story idea? Why are you bothering me?”

If you pitched, never assume the journalist received it. If you suspect your email pitch ended up in a spam folder, you’ll have to try another method of contact.

There’s no one perfect formula for following up. But there’s a long list of things you should never do, and another list of little tricks and workarounds that, if used correctly, could get you the story you want.

Join me this Thursday, June 13, for the webinar “The New Rules of Following Up Pitches to Journalists.” This includes bloggers.

It will be from 4 to 5 p.m. Eastern Time. If you can’t make it, register anyway because I’ll email you the video replay and all the bonuses within 72 hours. Register for the webinar on how to follow up pitches.

Publicists, if you’d like to share your own experiences with me, and how many times you follow up, I’d love to hear from you.

2. How to Grow Your Twitter Following

Do those big infographics, crammed with a ton of hard-to-read information, make your eyes glaze over?

If so, you’ll be entranced by this gorgeous infographic on “How to Grow Your Twitter Following” from social media trainer Chris Voss. The design is by @BlinR. Love the colorful parrots!

3. Help Journalists Quote You

Subject matter experts are under every rock.

That’s why you should do everything possible to help journalists quote you:

–Concentrate on short, pithy quotes. And remember that some journalists will be reading your quotes on a mobile device.

–If responding by email, let the journalist copy and paste your quote.

–Don’t ever send a link to an article you’ve written and expect the reporter to visit the website and spend time reading the article. Excerpt two or three quotes to accompany the link.

These tips are from Dan Janal of PRLeads.com. Read more in the article he wrote on “11 keys to getting a journalists to quote you”.

4. Hound Video of the Week

Thanks to Publicity Hound BL Ochman for this beautiful webcam video of Olive and her eight newborn pups. Mom looks exhausted as the pups suck, lick and frolic.