 in our series Caring for Yesterday's Treasures today. Since we launched the series in January, we've completed six courses with a seventh on its way. If you missed any of those courses, or you're simply interested in going back through the material, everything from webinar recordings to resources are archived on the online community. Today's course and this entire series has been made possible through a Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. We're also fortunate to have learning times on board with us to help with both website and webinar support. Now our speaker today Ann has a lot of great information for you, so I'm going to make my intro really quick. As you guys know, today is our third webinar. We'll meet one final time this Thursday and you'll log in just as you've done today. As you know, we ask that you register, watch each webinar, and complete all homework assignments if you're interested in officially completing the course, and everything will be due no later than Thursday, November 21st. You'll continue to find everything that you need for this course on the course webpage, including transcripts, links to the homework assignment, PDFs to the PowerPoints, and extensive list of resources that our speakers have compiled. And as always, if you have questions, please feel free to call us or email us. So without further delay, I am so pleased to introduce to you all Ann Edgar, Ann is head of Ann Edgar Associates, a New York based media relations company that promotes exhibitions, museum openings and expansions, and urban planning initiatives. And for nearly a decade, she has taught public relations and marketing for the arts, and New York University and the Graduate School of Art and Art Professions. We are in really great hands today, and I am going to move this out of the way and I'm going to hand things over to you. Well, I am so, you know, honored and pleased to be here. I have to tell you that while I'm a pretty good publicist, I can do crazy things with technology. So for a moment I got off screen, so I'm now coming back, so I'm now seeing everybody. So anyway, I had a moment of crisis there. But anyway, it looks like I'm here. So there's a lot that I want to cover today, and I want to first of all explain how I tried to shape this much information. I have talked as a part of this program before, and while in my work, you know, I might be, you know, retained or hired to open a major building by Renzo Piano or something like that, and I send releases and media alerts out around the world. Well, you know, I also work in very different ways and in ways that I think make a lot of sense in terms of how you guys are working. Like I'm looking at the screen here and I'm seeing that institutions are represented from Seattle, from Italy, from Little Rock, from Hudsonville, Michigan. So today we're going to be talking about the fundamentals of publicity, which, you know, I can call media relations. But we're going to be talking about the way the news industry works, not completely, but to agree, a degree, and we're going to be working and talking about the principles and strategies for successful publicity. So you guys, you won't hear me talking a lot about the digital age. It's not that I don't think it's important. It's just that these principles and the strategies pretty much stay the same regardless of the delivery system. So let's, you know, kind of begin. Let me see if I can get this screen moving. Is it moving to page two, you guys? No, Anne, so do you... Oh, there you go. Oh, good, good, good, good. Okay. Now, many of you are very experienced publicists or very experienced in what you do, so please don't take Umbridge at this question, but it's a basic question. And it's the question of how is press coverage different from an advertisement? I wonder if someone wants to store something up on the chat board, or if that's appropriate, let me take it from there. So how is press coverage different from an advertisement? And I'll be looking to see if anybody puts anything into the typing. Exactly! Yeah, so Jennifer from Naples, Florida, yes, you pay for an advertisement. And what the difference is is that one can totally shape an advertisement. You know, we at institutions can design the ad, we write the ad, we decide the day we want that ad to run, and we decide how large it wants to be. Well, that sounds like a really great idea for getting the word out about our institution and our collections, but the only trouble is is that advertisements have one drawback. Aha! So I'm seeing something from Carla, from the Council Bluffs, who's saying, we also get better response from press coverage. Why might that be? Why do you think that an organization gets better response from press coverage than from an advertisement? Does anybody can hazard a guess on that? Yes. Christina, thank you from London. Press coverage is an imprimatur. When your local newspaper or a regional magazine, a national magazine, a television program, when one of those entities decides to cover your museum, your library, your archive, in a way, it's a third person, a respected third person saying this is a good organization and what they do matters. And a paid advertisement, you know, we're all savvy enough today to know that paid advertisements while, you know, valuable don't carry that kind of a recommendation. So let me see if I can get this slide to move one thing further. Let's see. We've got a poll question coming up. I wonder where that is. Let's see. And so you see the two arrows in the bottom left-hand corner of the PowerPoint? Aha! You'll just click there. And then whenever you're ready for that poll question, I have them and I can bring them out. Okay. So I'm seeing it and I'm... Let's see. Aha! Okay. Yeah, and I am pushing those buttons. I'm terribly sorry. Oh, it's okay. It doesn't seem just... There we go. Thank you. Thank you. So you guys, I'd like to start with a poll question just to kind of figure out who we are here today. So if you please, you know, click and let's give both me and the rest of the group a sense of kind of what we're made up of. And this is beautiful. I love this chart. We're coming in so far mainly as archivists, which is great. Some conservators I see are here. Curators, wonderful librarians. It's interesting that I'm not yet seeing a press officer, which is just fine. I've tried to design this PowerPoint in this presentation today to be useful for a person who's not a professional press officer. And so much of what we're going to be talking about is common sense and using the skills that you have as a librarian, a curator, an archivist, or an educator. Okay. So let's... That looks like that might be it. So let's see if we can get another slide to come on. Okay. Now, this is probably something I'll just ask you to quickly, you know, put into the chat, just type very quickly, but what percentage of time do you as a curator or archivist whatever spend on publicity outreach each week? Yep. Thank you, Pam. This is great. This is great. And then yet I see Melissa from Michigan doing 8 to 10 hours. That's in 5%. Okay. 10. So some of you guys are devoting quite a bit of time, I mean a whole lot, and some of you quite a little. What I'm... Does daydreaming mean count? Yeah, it really does actually. It comes in handy. So this is fabulous. 25%, I think that's a good amount of time. So I think what I would really wish for it is to empower you that, you know, where at the end of this presentation you feel able to spend an increased amount of time doing this work and that you understand how it can be done really naturally as the outgrowth of your work and your passion for your collection, where you don't have to take a course in publicity or learn a new field or a new skill. I think we should get today enough to really get you going. So let's see what we have here as the next thing. Okay. First of all, there's no mystery about what we do as publicists and what you do in your job. And it's not so different. They're kind of the same thing. The news media exists to tell stories. Often there's stories about war, the politics. Sometimes there's stories about, you know, bodies being taken out of burning buildings. But there are also stories about culture and there's stories about why objects mean something to a whole region, to a town, or even to a whole country. And that's what we do as cultural publicists. We try to tell stories that matter about objects, exhibitions, or museum expansions. It seems like I'm trying to get this to move. We're going to be talking a lot today about the idea of what's newsworthy and the idea of what's newsworthy is more than just what's interesting. I can tell you an interesting story today about me, my job, why my firm is interesting and why I'm an interesting publicist, how I came from Tennessee to New York. I think that's very interesting, you know? But it may not be interesting to the media because there are lots of people in New York with interesting stories that come from other places. So what we're going to sort out today is the idea of not just what's interesting, that's a given. We're going to try to sort out what's newsworthy. Let's see if I can get this to move a little bit more quickly. I've been clicking for you. If you just want to let me know when you're ready and I can advance it for you. Okay. We could probably just team it together, right? Feel free as you feel me coming to an end and just advance it and I'll be grateful. And if I don't like it, I'll ask you to hold it. So let me ask you guys. Let's start off with an example. Imagine that the sentence you see right here is a headline. Is it newsworthy? What do you think? Is that newsworthy? The Museum of Motorcycle History receives its first Brown motorcycle. So if somebody just give me your opinion. Oh, I agree. I agree. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You know why it's not newsworthy and Jenny, I don't know if you're the one advancing, but if you'll advance. Yeah, thank you. And then advance again if you will. The reason it's not newsworthy is something that I wanted to bring up because it's something that we all are prone to and we need to be asking ourselves the question. We all tend to invest our work with a sense of importance because we devote so much to it. Like, you know, if you're an archive and say, you know, a small town, say Athens, Pennsylvania, and say you're the Museum of Motorcycle History in Athens, Pennsylvania, and you have looked for 12 years for a Brown motorcycle and you have finally found one. Well, that might be something for your local paper, but it's not really going to be newsworthy much further and maybe not even there because there are probably a whole lot of Brown motorcycles out in the world and they're probably in a lot of other museums. And I share this with you to ask you to always ask yourself, is this just interesting to me because I'm so invested in it or is this of genuine public interest? Like, yes, I know we've spent two million on this new installation for our archive on Abraham Lincoln, but given that there are three other similar installations in town, is this really going to make news? Sometimes being institutional and nonprofit people, we can devote money and resources to projects that are really valuable and they're exactly what we should be doing, but they're not necessarily newsworthy or they're not necessarily newsworthy outside a small group of people, maybe like our newsletter, it could go in a newsletter for friends or perhaps the daily paper. So if we could advance a slide and begin talking about the kind of things that make things newsworthy, joke, yes, man, bike, dog, yes, that's newsworthy. Once again, maybe we find another reason. It's a first, it's new. What are some other ideas or knowledge that you guys have out there? What are things that make, what makes something newsworthy? If it's a first, if it's new, it tends to be newsworthy. What else makes something newsworthy, particularly in the field we're talking about, archives, any other suggestions about what makes something newsworthy? Anniversary is perfect. Lisa from Boulder Creek, yes, we're getting to that. Anniversary is a wonderful reason for making something newsworthy. I'll talk about it in a second. Widespread interest for many people, yes, that's right. Completion of a major restoration, yes, that can be newsworthy. Pertons to the reader, yes. And that's a really good point from Abraham that you've got to put yourself in the mind of a reader or a television writer or the public and think, what matters to people? And let unique, rare, nostalgic, all totally true. Uniqueness, again and again, something that's rare, unique. A discovery, yes, yes, as always. And, Jenny, if I could ask you to do some more advancing, because we've got some of these on the slide. So many of you have already said this, but an object that's never been seen before or never been seen before for hundreds of years, extremely newsworthy, a rare object, something that's unbelievably old, strangely enough. You know, if something's new, it's newsworthy, but if something's unbelievably old, and I always think of that body that was uncovered maybe it was a decade ago from ICE, and of course it was the body of a person who I think lived in the Bronze Age. So, you know, that's completely newsworthy. And again, you know, earlier when someone said, and I guess it was Abraham, said pertinence to the reader, well, you know, we know that people are impressed by extensive things. Maybe we as educators or academics sometimes wish that weren't even true, but it is true. And so, you know, we think of maybe over a decade ago when the Smithsonian sent their collection, you know, on loan traveling around the country. They emphasized some of their diamonds, some of their jewelry collection. And part of what made those objects newsworthy was that they were unbelievably rare and expensive. There were things that you and I, an ordinary person, probably be able to own. Okay, if we can have an advance, please. Thank you. And I see that someone is saying, highlighting a life when an important person dies. That's Carolyn from Houston. And that's really true. And so much of your potential as storytellers as archivist curators and conservators comes really from human interest. And, Jenny, if you'll advance a few times, we'll get, you know, a lot of it, a lot of these are human interest stories, which is kind of category of news stories. But, you know, if you ask yourself, what's, who owned this object? Who made this object? Who found and saved it? And perhaps who's conserving, who's doing the preservation work on the object right now? And provenance, yeah. Phillip, I see that you put that up there. And yes, I didn't have that on news, but that's definitely for museums and archives and collections, sometimes a really powerful thing. And again, it kind of gets back to human interest because I say, who owned a work? That's provenance. So it's, if you and your collection, if you're able to say this was owned by George Washington or this was owned by Madame Papador, it's interesting, it's newsworthy, and it's something you can sometimes spend a pitch, and that's the term that we use, of course, in media work. It's a pitch that you can develop to bring to a journalist. So if we could advance a little bit more. Now, this is something that's kind of, to my mind, counter-intuitive, but I bet each of you understands it. Cultural news, art news, and the kind of news that you have, like human interest, it's often interesting news, but it can, sometimes it gets to be ignored because it can almost be told anytime. Like, I don't know how many of you have gone to cocktail parties and you've talked to a journalist or you've talked to someone about a new object that you've just got in, and it had been owned by the Middletons and no one knew of the existence and it sheds light on this or that, and people, perhaps the journalist you're talking to says, gosh, that's fascinating. Will you send me an email about that? But even though you do send that email, you never quite get that story written or published or online. And that's because your story is what is called in the news industry an evergreen. And if you could advance the slide, and an evergreen is just the kind of slang in the news industry for a story that can be told anytime. And rather than making an evergreen, by being evergreen you'd think it would be told more easily told because you can do it anytime and any day, if there's a slow new day, they'll tell it. But it doesn't work that way, strangely enough, because editors and writers have to field so much news, so much is happening, so much is coming in over the trans and in their emails that they see something every day that needs to be covered that very day, that week. Maybe they need to send a photographer out that very minute. So even though they're interested in your story about the Middleton family, it ends up being pushed aside because there tends to be something more oppressing. So one of the things we're going to be talking about today is how do you take a story from your collection and make it something that needs to be reported on that day, that week, or that season. And there's another industry term for doing just one that which is creating a reason for your story to be told right away or soon or rather making your story newsworthy. And to advance the slide, we call that a news peg. So how do you create a news peg? How do you create a news peg about a group of objects in your collection, about a donation? Advancing the slide, we'll see there are a number of ways to do it. Sometimes you can create a news peg by the very process of work that's right in front of you. Say you're a small museum in the middle of, say you're a small museum in Council Bluff and you're a museum devoted to, excuse me, automotive and early automotive and farm equipment. And you know, maybe it's a Tuesday, and you know that on Thursday, two vintage 1930 trucks are going to have to be lifted into your museum by a crane. You know, you might tend to think of that as just a regular process, a work day, and you go about your business. But you can think about that as a photo op. You know, I have to tell you anytime a crane lifts anything into a museum or into place, that can be an interesting picture. And you don't have to do anything fancy to get word to your newspaper, your local newspaper about that. All you can do is call and say, hi, you know, I'm Roberta and I'm from the Council, excuse me, the Council Bluff Archives, you know, I'm making up a name here, the Council Bluff History Society. And I just wanted to tell you, I think we might have a good picture for you because on Thursday we're doing this and that. So one thing I want to emphasize in this talk is low tech. You know, don't feel that you have to write up something in a particular way or be a public relations expert to do something like this. You can just get on the phone, identify yourself who you are. You can even say, you can even say, I don't really know what I'm doing because I'm an archivist and I don't usually call them media. And the person on the other line is liable to help you all the more. So let's advance the slide and think of other things. And someone, as someone earlier said, anniversary, is really brilliant because, or at least smart, I don't want to get tied properly here. But, you know, one thing, one way we make our collections relevant is by thinking, trying to tap into what the people around us, the community around us is thinking about. Sometimes it's the headlines and sometimes that's, you know, sad. Like, you know, sometimes you're reading about a flood in a state, in an adjacent state. And, you know, maybe it's an opportunity for you as a conservator to call and say, I'm calling from a conservation lab and we've constructed, we've already put together a 10-point guide on what to do with water-sogged objects and we're happy to share that with your readers and your viewers. So sometimes it's seeing yourself as a resource during an emergency. Sometimes it's responding to seasons. You know, you can think, I think I need to ask you to back up for a second in terms of the slide. But, you know, sometimes we think of it as a season to start thinking picnicking, so, or gardening. And so in late March, as you, if you have a collection that has perhaps, you know, really vintage, rare farm implements from even the 18th century, you know, think in terms of the fact that it's beginning to be time where some people in your farming community will be thinking about planning and it might be a great time to invite a journalist to come into your archive and see these implements. Anniversaries, you know, is it the hundredth year of your, since the founding of your library, is it the hundredth year since your town was incorporated and you have the ephemera and the materials on that? Sometimes it's something like social traditions, excuse me, social traditions, like you can think ahead and excuse me, I'm just taking a sip of water. You know, maybe you live in a town where everybody is crazy with, you know, the Little League and baseball and everyone is attuned to the rhythms of the baseball season. You know that the baseball season jump starts and launches in April. It might be a good thing in the fall to look into your collection. Maybe you have, and you, of course, would know this already, but maybe you have a collection of antique gloves and bats, et cetera. So anyway, and maybe Babe Ruth was born in your town. So let's advance and just kind of go through the next slide, which is, you know, primarily just kind of showing what I have been talking about right now. So going on to the next slide. Now I want to pause here just for a second to build on what I've been talking about, but bring in a kind of different thought. So say you've identified a part of your collection that's really interesting. And say you even kind of have an idea now of how to connect it to the world around you. Still might do well to try to collaborate with another collection in your community or even further afield. Because say it's occurred to you that you've got a really great collection of baseball mats. But say you also know that the history collection in the town next door also does. You have a better chance at getting more media coverage. The larger a story is. There's a term that we use in publicity called bundling and it's called building a story bigger. So if you've got time say it's September and you can talk to one more organization or three or four and collaborate and making a bigger story with all your collections and maybe even if you're able putting them all on view at the same time, you're going to get a bigger story because your local paper is going to cover you. Their local paper is going to cover you. Maybe a regional paper or something like the Washington Post if you're in the Virginia area in northern Virginia. So it's a way of building. Another strategy that I bet a lot of you guys do and know about is piggybacking. It's about knowing your collection and understanding say if you're at a party or you've just looked online and you see that the Philadelphia Museum is mounting an exhibition on a local painter. Oh gosh, maybe one of the peels or maybe a name I've never heard of but he's an American painter who's born and raised in your town and maybe you work at his house where he was born and was raised. This is a moment for you to piggyback which is just what it sounds like if the Philadelphia Museum's show is opening in say June of 2016. Call them and ask them if you can cross-program with them if they can put information about your historic house and their information and time something that you do like an open house with their show whether it be maybe a week after it opens or whenever but let some of their firepower help you because believe me these major museums as you know are awfully smart and let some of their light shine on you. Okay, let's advance a second. Now, one thing I've really wanted with this session is to create and toward still really in you a sense of what you could do almost by using nothing else but email and a telephone. So I'm not going to say a lot about a press release here. At the end there's a resource I'm pointing you to if you'd like a kind of really good description of how to write a press release but I kind of want to tell you something that I think is funny or at least not very well known but for me as a publicist I sometimes don't even worry about writing a press release until I've spoken to a journalist or two because I think sometimes a press release is as being most useful as following up on press contact. And I'll tell you when I first began this work which was 1986 before the internet before voicemail you know all the before but when I began then I had a different idea of what I do. I thought that what I did as a publicist was write a press release and send that press release out to my press list in envelopes and that what I did was like sprinkling seeds and once I sent out that press release I just sat back and waited for people to call me. That's not how you do it. It's not how it was ever done right and it's certainly not how it's done right now. So right now I would say to you yes you can write a press release but you don't have to worry about it and you don't have to worry about it being perfect. Now what you do need to think about because basically the press release is going to function for you as a and I think we can go to the next slide. It can serve as a follow up for a phone conversation it legitimizes your announcement as you you know when you follow up with it you know people can say oh well this really is a person from a real organization and this is happening nice to read about it and it can provide more information and you're liable to get a chance to talk about it in a phone call. I would also say that a release of course can be used to send out by email I'm not saying that you shouldn't I'm also not saying you shouldn't mail it but I'm just saying that if you are an archivist and you don't have time to write press releases and send them out and the whole idea scares you don't worry about it. Think about the main thing you need to think about is the conversations you're going to be having with journalists. So let's go to the next slide. So you know one of the first things you're going to ask yourself is who do I call and if I do have a press release you know who do I send it to. Let me just be really obvious and talk about the low hanging fruit and the things I'm sure you guys are already familiar with but start with the low hanging fruit. You know the best thing the most important thing I can tell you is to know who to contact for your organization you've got to be an avid consumer of news outlets. You've got to read your local paper you've got to read all of them even the maybe the ones you consider hacky free giveaways at you know a discount store sometimes they can really matter too. You read your regional paper your weekly you've got to read listen to radio and watch a television. So if you know that there's a state magazine if you live in New Jersey you know New Jersey monthly follow the regular columns and follow the art and information guides if again you in New Jersey and you know that the New York Times they do an arts and information guide so follow it. And the next slide please. Now this is something I want to kind of slow down because I feel like I'm giving you guys an awful lot but besides being an active consumer of media where you begin to know by reading by line and by being a reader where you're always cutting out clippings and saving them so when the next time you have a good story you'll know who to go to but I also urge you to give a little consideration to what kind of story you have and what's the best medium for it to be in and what do I mean by that? One time I was working on a big citywide festival in New York to celebrate the anniversary of the death actually of Walt Whitman and while I was working on a project one of the scholars found something that no one knew existed and it was an audio recording of Walt Whitman reading a you know poetry I think it was from like in 1893 it was one of Edison's first recordings so you know all of a sudden I thought I was just publicizing a festival and then all of a sudden I realized I had this huge discovery so I knew I was going to talk to the New York Times about the festival but I was you know to an experience to have understood this that I was working for someone and she said to me and go to CBS Sunday Morning because you can promise them that they will be the first to ever broadcast the sound of Walt Whitman speaking and it kind of gives you chills even you know 20 years later it gives me chills as I think about it but you know I followed that direction and I went to CBS Sunday Morning and of course I got an amazing piece had to be you know guided to do it but so you know I know that you know a few of us today are going to be public relations professionals you know at the end of this or you know in a year but you know if you just give this a little bit of thought I hope you'll keep this power point and as you think about what story you have just look at this and be guided by it and if it's something that is spoken word or that sort you know think about paying special attention to radio or television so now let's advance a little bit more now I hope that heads aren't swimming out there hope I'm not getting too much let me pause for a second but trying again to keep it you know just like you are the person let's keep going on this baseball thing you are the person you're an archivist you're not a publicist but you realize you've got this amazing trove of baseball stuff and baseball ephemera and say you've realized it you know you've known it for years but it's now fall and maybe you've even gone to some other you know your peers and you kind of see that you've got a great story it's stuff that's antique and rare and never been seen before and you remember from other places and from this presentation you all of a sudden know gee the very moment when people are going to be most interested in this is when it's when the baseball season opens it's when they throw that first baseball opening day so you've kind of got your ducks in a row you know you know your stuff you kind of itemize things here but how do you know when to contact something now I put in this PowerPoint a grid to give you a sense of that because there's no reason if you're not a publicist for you to keep this in your mind and I'm doubtful that you would I wouldn't but using the baseball idea as a kind of example let's say if you want your story to come out say maybe March 20 I'm looking at the calendar say March 29 right before April because glossy magazines like Vogue like sports illustrated like Smithsonian so many of the glossy magazines that come out every month well believe it or not they may have deadlines even as long as four months certainly three months long it takes them to put together a glossy if you get it printed and get it distributed so if you believe you've got a story for the print Smithsonian and you very well might think about calling them in October same way if you're thinking of your local paper you know if you're thinking about if you live in Memphis if you're thinking about the commercial appeal if you're thinking about the Atlanta institution you need to think about giving your paper about I would say a month's notice weekly a weekly newspaper or weekly magazine I'd give six weeks I won't go on and on because again there's no way we can memorize it here but if we can let's advance to the next slide okay I hope that you'll feel free to use this PowerPoint as a resource and I would really just leave it where if you're ever in doubt feel free to call that publication or that television station and say that you're calling from a nonprofit from a small museum that you think you have a good story and you're thinking you know it's going to open or should be told in 1st of April and just ask them say why should I contact you should I send you the news now or should I wait till later so always if you're in doubt try to be early and please don't hesitate at all to ask for help okay let's advance now I'm going to take a break and look a little to see if there have been any comments that I need to respond to oh that's a that's great about the weekly artifact for the the weekly artifact that's great that's great I know you know for a while the Wall Street Journal was you know pulling out artifacts from museums and devoting half a page to them you know just talking about nothing but that a Facebook page that's another great idea looking back that's a great thing to bring up because I know that a lot of local papers including one I read from Nashville always looks back 25 years 50-100 which is so perfect for you guys I mean it's just meat and gravy so I hope that some of you will in the question session or if not right now bring up some ideas for places that you use examples for where you use that connect to your collection yeah that's great thank you Ginny for doing that for Amy now what we're going to talk about for a little now is what I hope will empower you more than anything else because I've been again a publicist I guess what is 86 till now 27 years or something like that but I still primarily scan newspapers magazines web magazines blogs I go I look for bylines whenever I find a story that's anywhere near in topic or subject to the work I do I also use a commercial database I'll talk about that more in a second I wonder how do you guys find the names and contacts do you have an up to date press list that you're always adding to are you stuck with an out of date one is there another way that you go about finding journalists if I could have just a few ideas or ways other people are going that websites thank you, thanks Tammy I do that too you couldn't do that of course years ago and now it's the most valuable way yes, yes, yes Melissa that's exactly right, you email the reporter yes I'll say it says coming from Wheaton Illinois it says our college has a media relations department it's on top of that so you use that media relations department then as a resource but you also it sounds like a free to go directly to that source once you've kept your department in the loop that's great Amber from excuse me from Athens, Alabama I think that's a problem isn't it when you're kind of at the mercy because so often the PR department may want to get to your story and think it's valuable but just have too many things on their plate but I'd be interested to know from you whether that works or not so Dave to see you update the master list sometimes our company works with organizations that are such good organizations but the list we give are really not usable so good, good, good okay so if I could go to the next slide please there's one behind that okay so basically this slide really just repeats what so many of you have just told me which is great you know right now with all my experience and all the work I do I basically do exactly the same thing that you do and that's because it's the right way to do it and you're doing it right but if I know that I see something that could be right for Smithsonian magazine I go online I look for staff and sometimes it's not easy sometimes I go online search their website find out that there's not much there so I find a phone number and I'll call and I'll ask but sometimes going directly to the website of the news outlet is the smartest thing you can do I'm really a believer in crowd sourcing I think that most of us are so generous with each other so I am really shameless and asking colleagues for names and sometimes I'll even say like a friend of mine works as the PR person at the Guggenheim and I'll even say you know, gee Betsy that article was so amazing and I've never worked with that person before you know I saw his byline what was he like and what is his interest in and then you guys are so shameless that at the end I'll even kind of say and could you share me could you share his email with me we know how to do that right so if you do it nicely and if you process it with I hope I'm not being inappropriate or forgive me if I am and then ask people really aren't going to take it badly so use those around you that's a way of making friends really Google will talk about that in a second I use Google people sometimes find out how to you know get to them and what they're interested in using Google and you guys we also here in this office use something that's called you know decision or Brewell's database but I have to tell you my company spends $4,000 a year for that database and I know that some of the major museums use it and it's fabulous I mean if everyone in the world could afford it I would say do you use it it's just incredible what you do is that I type a name in or I type an outlet in and I get all the contact and you know information about when people like to be called etc etc but I don't I'm positive you don't need that to do good work and with the decision that we have I often do exactly what I've been telling you I search websites, I Google and I ask people so I mean just kind of letting you know what exists but I wouldn't want you to feel at all as an asset that you need or that you need or you're really out of luck it's very far from the case so we go to the next slide not an I think need to spend a long time here because these are all ways of keeping up with journalists that I use, I don't use them as well as I could and you know one thing I would say about the work I do and I would say to you please don't ever feel bad about doing it imperfectly because it's only it's only possible to do it imperfectly I mean I would love to say that I'm always out checking and finding people more and more just not possible there's too much to do in any work day or even in any 24-hour period so I try to keep up but I end up tailoring it to my needs and so will you you'll find twitters of your local people who are the best suspects for you follow them, don't feel that you have to do all these things I would hope that as a upshot of this presentation that it's not that you're going to be doing things perfectly but you're just going to be doing them more and that you're going to be doing them better so let's move on to the next slide if we can you know make your own list you know make a list again it doesn't have to be a press list with a capital P and a little L but and you know as you put information and I think it's I always find it helpful to put the date that the name and publication was entered because if you keep a list and you keep it over years as you might I hope you will you're going to start looking back and say oh gee I put that name in seven years ago I bet it's quite likely they're not there anymore so you know add to the list you have or make a new list but again don't worry if your list isn't perfect just do the best you can so let's go to the next now you guys of everything I said here today the most important thing I have to share is that the best way to make a placement to pitch a journalist and to contact a journalist is to do it one by one is to go directly to that journalist if you have a list of two thousand names that you've gotten from Cision that relate to your baseball collection and you send that out by email and you send a release that's even fairly interesting it is entirely possible that you could come up with nothing zero, zilch, nothing so you know it's again it's about putting yourself in the mind in the other person and in this case that other person is a journalist is an editor and you figure that journalist that editor might be getting a hundred emails a day all pitches and they're not just pitches from organizations like yours which are pretty worthy you know like archives, museums where you really have something that's important for the public realm they're getting emails from pet stores and hair salons and I mean all kind of things and not that those things aren't worthy but they're not necessarily their stories aren't perhaps but I think anyway it's important to the community of yours but that's the kind of undergrowth you have to cut through so let's go as we might to the next slide and you know again I say to you that sometimes all it takes sometimes it's surprising that you can pick up the phone and actually get that journalist and if you do I promise you will remember your story because so few people call them these days everybody's emailing them and because you'll come through as a real human being you know sometimes as you guys know it's really frustrating because when you call and all you get is voicemail that happens to me too so I know it happens sometimes when that happens I still use the phone because what I'll do is I'll send an email and I'll direct it right to that person to their name I've been reading your column for a couple of months now and I think that we at the Albumin History Association might have something that's of interest to you so I send them an email but then right then I pick up the phone and I call and I say Sharon my name is Ann calling from the So-and-So History and I just want you to know that I sent you an email because I believe it relates to your column so what you're doing is trying to pull your email out and kind of make yourself more real to that journalist so let's move on it let's advance one why were you you know a kind of question I'd be asking myself is alright I figured out what's newsworthy knowing that has helped me understand what newspapers or what television or what magazines might be the most interested I kind of figured out you know maybe I should put things on view I should collaborate with television because it lends itself to television so you've done all the right thinking and you know the you have maybe a sense of 10 or 15 possibilities for your story well who on earth what on earth do you call first well I'll tell you this is what I do I call the most important outlet first and the most important doesn't necessarily mean the most important in the world the most important to you it might mean the most important to your board maybe frankly you report to a director who's very demanding and who is always asking you gee whiz why are the collections of so and so historical society always in the star telegram but they're not in why aren't we in the star telegram so sometimes the most important outlet is the one that pleases your boss but anyway I contact the most important outlet first that's just because I want to be sure I get it done if something should happen to me if I get hit by a bus I want that outlet called and of course one also begins with the longest lead time if you are again thinking about that baseball story you're obviously going to start and you're going to call the Smithsonian excuse my language I'm going to cuss a hell of a lot sooner then you're going to call that radio station or that online outlet so let's move ahead if we might the next couple of slides are just tips that I hope will be helpful to you I try to pitch to freelance journalist as much as I can a freelance journalist is obviously someone who usually works from home they write for a paper but they're not on staff sometimes they write for four or five outlets you know if you're in West Virginia you might have someone in your town who writes for the Washington Post Smithsonian Sports Illustrated they might write for four or five things now oh I just saw a good mark given by Marcia Anderson yes let me in fact jump away a second to respond to Marcia yes being a source and that's a word that's a term used in the industry for someone who helps a journalist becoming a source for a journalist is a great thing because you know obviously if you help them they're going to be liable to help you so if you ever work on a story with say a metro reporter in your town you might say to him or her you might say thank you so much for covering the archive and you know my kid goes to this school and I'm on a number of boards and I hope you'll feel free to call me if I can ever help you get in touch with anyone and that person is liable to be a source and that's very powerful and wonderful for you because it doesn't even mean that you will want them to print something that you're pitching but you can go to them and say gee I've been having the worst time getting a story told and I don't understand it because I think it's so interesting do you have any advice for me and I can be sure the source will help you now you guys let me ask you why would it be a good idea to pitch to freelance journalists whenever possible I'm waiting just a second maybe greater coverage they get paid all that's good they are okay to me the one the answer that kind of goes right to it is they have the connections already so imagine it's Christy Van Hoven who answered that from Minnesota but you guys imagine it's me and Edgar calling from say Nashville, Tennessee and I'm calling oh gee I don't know what oh lord I'm calling More Magazine I think I have something good for More Magazine but when I call they don't know me from a hole in the ground you know who is Ann Edgar from Nashville, Tennessee but if you know that a freelance journalist in Nashville or doesn't matter that you know writes for More and you can if you pitch them and they think oh wow this is a great story you have relating to how women age and how to stay vital and active after your 40s that person has a connection and when they call the journalist at that magazine that journalist is going to know them they're going to take their call and what's more they're going to trust the journalist to understand how to work in the field to understand what's proper how to work as a journalist they don't have to worry that something's going to go wrong because they know that journalist is a professional and is on the up and up I've got to go quickly now I don't have as much time I will say I tend to try to call in the morning a lot of deadlines happen between you know excuse me five and later so it's good to get in there in the morning when people are still looking for stories or at the very least have time to talk to you if we could advance thank you and when you do get on a phone with the journalist say you've called in the morning I always find it helpful to do these things which is right away is identifying yourself as representing your institution and again imagine you're sitting there at a desk you're an editor you're tired you've received four pitches from a local wannabe the food, dog food salesman the sports arena person you've received a lot of meretricious phone calls and all of a sudden you're calling and you represent the only history historical association in the city you represent the largest archive in the city so say that right away so they can switch gears and realize that this is someone who's calling on behalf of the public realm that you're probably calling about something that matters to the town and even to society in a greater way and don't waste time with too many pleasantries get right into your pitch and once you've said your pitch maybe just say right away when what your story is happening say it right away because you've already done your homework you know that you've given them enough lead time so you'll get it right in there so they'll know it too and what you're doing is right away is that you're saying to them I'm a real person I'm calling you about something that should matter to everyone in this state and I'm giving you enough time to cover it and I'm kind of here to tell you why it matters now and let's go to the next slide I think we've got a little bit more time the person and I'm going back to um let's see you know Cindy who's writing from Buffalo in New York who thinks that freelancers are always looking for a story yes and it kind of relates to this slide because you know you really need to remember that editors and writers and freelance writers are people who are looking for stories and looking for information too you know they need other people too so if you're talking to someone say from um let's say the Brooklyn let's say roll call it's a paper and kind of political but it's in Washington DC say you thought you had a good story for roll call and you're turned down you know what that's just fine but see if you can convert that person to being a helper and you know just say thank you so much you know thank you Edith thank you so much I understand um I've called you too late I understand why it might work for roll call gee I think it's such a good story and our organization is doing such good work I wonder if you could suggest to me anyone else I might call who'd be interested and if you do it politely and in the right way you can convert that person to a helper because most of the editors and writers on the other end of the line are kind of nice people too and they're perfectly willing to help particularly a nonprofit you know kind of makes them feel you know pretty good you can even say if you've called the New York Times you can say gee I so understand that this is not a travel story but gee would there be anybody any other department in the paper that might work better and you know don't tell you they really will journalists are quite generous and they might even end up giving you a name excuse me I have to take another glass of water hold on they might even you know give you a name and an email so don't be shy if we could advance a little bit more now this is some of the best advice I can give you and it's just advice it's nothing more but um and I'm sure many of you already do this but don't ever send to a general inbox like info you know info at girls life or info at antiques magazine always find and use the particular email address even when frankly even if you're told to send it to a general address try not to try to somewhere another by hit you know by trick or you know what however to find the journalist real email don't necessarily do everything you're told to do when you write the journalist again always send a personal note and without being gimmicky or manipulative in some way let the journalist know it is a personal note you know because sometimes email marketing that mass can be sometimes it can seem to be performance not so you know I'll say dear Joseph I'm writing from this so and so because I followed your last I really enjoyed your last story on baseball excuse me I'm fixated on baseball on bicycle collecting so in you know we'll see the real human being is just your last story and they'll really pay attention to you in a way they wouldn't otherwise in bed don't think that someone's going to be interested enough in you to click to open a news release or a media alert or anything that's presumption that's probably over presumptuous so when you can you know in bed you know your note of course is embedded but also in bed other materials as well maybe you can attach them to if you want don't of course enlarge JPEGs and this is one you might not think of and I wanted to mention which is don't over design your emails you know you might think oh gee if I send them one that is I created in Photoshop and it's you know has four colors and five fonts and eight pictures it's going to look more professional and they're going to think I'm a bigger organization well that usually backfires because journalists are looking for stories that haven't been told everywhere they're looking for stories that are unusual and if you send them something that looks like more like an advertisement than a pitch and if you send them something that looks like it's been prepared to send to everybody and their little brother they're going to ignore it most likely they're just going to delete you it's often better to send it's always better I would say to send a personal note that's straightforward conveys what's newsworthy why it's newsworthy and then if you want you know attach a picture that's not too big but you know I said it don't over design so let's go I think we've got just a couple of slides more obvious obvious I know you all know this but let's just say it together as a mantra a mantra because we all know that you know all we've got to be noticed in an email is the subject line really and the very top of the email so what do I do for an email I don't write from Ann Edgar nobody cares what's coming from Ann Edgar so I try to phrase it where it will be seen where it doesn't run off the subject line and you know I'll say something like if I were going to do the Walt Whitman thing I would say something like audio rare audio of Walt Whitman reading is discovered and you know maybe even if I can say it more but try to write a phrase that completely will interest the reader enough that they're going to look at the very top of the inside of your email and maybe even keep reading so let's keep going you know I've kind of already touted the virtues of telephones let me do the same thing for personal notes when someone's written a feature or even a little thing on your organization send them a personal note and get an email and it wouldn't hurt but a personal note will be remembered and you know make it make it real you know really thank them and don't be afraid to just say give an example of how much their story meant to your organization let's keep going if we could advance when I first started again going back those 27 years I was told by my museum that this envelope or small that I sent out had to be typed there couldn't be a typo because anything that wasn't typed or didn't look perfect reflected poorly on the museum well that was then and this is now now as you all know we all know this we all get so much direct mail kind of fake mail in our lives that's all typed and it's not really directed to us it's something trying to sell as something now my office and I think other smart offices we've gone the other way we nothing that leaves the office like a big envelope particularly you know that might have a picture or a present in it we make sure to hand write it we say you know because it's just my name there we say what museum it's for we say why and we say that it's maybe by hand if it is by hand but what we're really doing with this handwriting the subtext is this is being to you from a real person advance you can do all I've said you can do everything right you can get right to the end you've talked you know you've gotten the story you've figured it out you've talked to the writer you're right there and guess what you can lose your story if you don't have good photography let's advance once more something that's close up that shows an object that has impact let's advance and you know don't be afraid to be funny and even in your institutional voice we live in a different world we're able to be funny now in terms of the digital world and you know when you're talking to a journalist don't be afraid to be funny we're all human beings and people remember humor so if we could advance and this is the last thing I'll leave you with really except for telling you about a resource a book to read but sometimes if you've done your homework and you know exactly the one publication that's most important for your story and you're talking to a journalist from that publication maybe your organization has just appointed a new director and you almost have it placed and you're almost convinced that it's important enough to run that next week with a picture you're almost there and you know exactly where it could go advance please you can talk about offering an exclusive and an exclusive and hold that just there that's perfect but all an exclusive is it's saying I'm offering you the commercial appeal the first run on this story and why you might you do that because it might be the tipping thing that would make the commercial appeal decide well if no one else is going to have the news first yeah I really would like to run that and yeah I would like a picture of your new director and maybe if you're talking about a collection let's get back to that baseball for a moment it's as boring as that might be but let's say you're getting back to your baseball collection and the you know reporters a little bit on the fence how might you tip their interest well maybe you could say well let me tell you our collector is living in just another next town he is the most fascinating person he's a complete nut when it comes to baseball he can tell you everything he's the most amazing interview you've ever heard and if you would like if you're interested we could offer you an exclusive the first interview with him if that would make you interested in running a story let's have another slide please the same maybe let's go to the next next slide please maybe if someone's a little bit again on that fence and they're not really sure that your preservation lab is that interesting perhaps you could say we have the most fantastic lab it's been renovated it's state of the art I would love for you to come in get a behind the scenes tour and be the first journalist to report on what we're doing here now behind the scenes and then let's keep going and again the only thing I would say about an exclusive and this is kind of ending this presentation this webinar I would say be careful about using the word exclusive I would only use it if you're talking to just the news outlet that you really really want and it's clear to you that you need to say something more to get your story placed but you know it's something to consider and it's something to think about and if you're not sure if you should give an exclusive you may want to talk to your peers I think that roster is given out of people who are in this webinar maybe you could call someone in the webinar I'm happy for any of you to email me or even give me a quick call if you have a question I'd be happy to give you advice you know it would be quick but I'd be happy to give it to you on occasion so you know don't feel that you have to do everything alone so I think we just got one more slide I was just asking you not to forget AP which is in fact I hope you use this slide as a kind of reminder to do it a little investigation to find out who's near you an AP you know who's the biggest town where your AP person is to call and introduce yourself and to remember that any time they do something for you it runs by almost 2,000 you know 1,700 newspapers in the US the last slide now I think yeah I haven't talked about a lot and I particularly haven't talked about how to write a persuasive press release this book is someone I'd recommend because it's 2006 it's like yes dinosaur land way before the internet was being used so it's out of date in that way but it is not out of date at all but it comes to the principles and fundamentals of doing this work and I think you it's a book you ought to have on your shelf and that you'd find helpful in the work that you do so I think we've got time for questions yeah and that was fantastic so I do have a handful of questions and if folks want to continue asking them feel free to do so I'm going to just quickly post up the homework assignment for today course webpage and I'm going to also ask folks for if you're watching in a group to go ahead and enter in everyone who's watching with you so Ian I'm going to go ahead and ask you a few questions thank you so Volinda earlier on in the presentation had mentioned do you have any suggestions about getting through the filter of a larger institution that already has its own PR department do you have any suggestions of working with an organization that does have their own PR but maybe their department is not the priority or there's a lot of departments that the PR department has to prioritize do you have any suggestions well I would do this first of all I would do my homework what we're talking about I would go there I would go to the next step probably the PR department I would go knowing about what stories I think I have maybe a handful, maybe one I would go even showing that I have some sense in understanding the possible timing and I would go with pictures in a way you're pitching the person above you to convince them that this is a story worth telling and in doing that a little flattery never hurt I know that you guys do wonderful work and you know a lot more than I do about PR but I wonder if you might allow me with your collaboration to reach out to this journalist because I know they're interested in this and we've got somebody here in archives who is so fascinating on this subject that I think if you could help me if we could put the journalist together, I think we'd be doing great so I mean I think you've got to, it's very frustrating but I think maybe you need to show and give the person in the PR department the larger department confidence in you both that you understand what's newsworthy but that you understand that they know things that you don't and that you would hope to collaborate with them but I think there are times when the person in the archive who really has a knowledge and passion like you know the person who asked the question I really think they ought to be talking to the journalist not the filter of the PR department what a great what a great response and setting it up as a collaboration and has to help I would think yes so we have another question from Amanda Pritchett in Oklahoma she's curious if you have any tips for getting a TV station to visit your museum they're 70 miles out from the Metropolitan area and they don't seem to have an interest and Carla also chimed in from Iowa and says she seems to have the same problem they're across the river from a large city and the TV stations it seems difficult to get them to come out to them do you have any suggestions gee I have that problem more and more working here in New York anywhere but here where you might think it wouldn't be such a problem because I know that so many televisions have cut stations have cut staff that it really is hard to think cruise out so I have two responses to that one is if you're having trouble getting them to come to you can you pitch them by coming to them can you think about a curator a collection a curator an archivist someone who's really dynamic who knows something well can you pitch a story and ask them if that person can come on a morning show or be a weather stand up I mean you can't ask the TV to adjust to you you've got to adjust to them you can see if there's a program someone to go on I would think though that in terms of getting them to you it's probably going to need to be positioned kind of hyperbolic it's got to be it's like Virginia I know I call you all the time hoping you'll come out and I know how hard it is but this is really the moment right now because we have work that will not be seen in this area in probably our lifetime we on Thursday we have the greatest expert in the world coming from Europe to talk about these works and this is really a moment and you know I would even ask them if they can't come out is it possible for you to shoot a video to be able to use on the evening news where you walk through and shoot things in your collections archive so again I would call the TV and ask them for help in collaborating with you to make something happen that's great so we have about four more minutes and I still have a couple questions so we'll try to get through them all Marcia had a question about press contacts and what are some of your thoughts about LinkedIn using LinkedIn to find those press contacts I think that's a great idea I'm trying to figure out how to use LinkedIn better because I don't use it very well but I want to so yeah I think that's great just great and then another question from Michael in Georgia he's curious would you put bloggers you know travel and cultural bloggers in the same category as journalists when you're creating your press lists absolutely and I didn't use to it's been different it's been a sea change so yes they're on the list and they're really journalists I mean yeah de facto and we have just one more question so we're going to get to them all Beatrice in Chicago Illinois is curious where does the press kit fit in do you send it before you pitch a particular story event do you send it after what would you recommend I think it's best after a contact and my thinking is just a kind of human thing which is when you go home and get free pencils in the mail from a charity you're not really thrilled to get the pencils you know I mean you didn't ask for the gift and that's sometimes the way it can appear if a thick heavy press kit hits someone's desk they didn't ask for it it's a lot of paper and it's a lot better if you can call them first and get their buy in like say you call and you say I know you're busy but I'm calling about this new collection we have and I have a press kit may I send it to you and if even just to get you off the phone they're going to say yes but what that means is when that press kit hits their desk they will have asked for it which is brilliant they asked for it and therefore they're going to open it with a different attitude so I would definitely never send a press kit this is the way I work you guys there may be other there's never something that doesn't have an exception but that is the way I work I don't send out press kits without advanced contact preparation well that was a great so that's all the questions we have and thank you so much that was really enlightening for all of us thank you all so much and I'm sorry that my technical malfunction but anyway I really appreciate being able to speak we work through it yeah yeah so to all of our attendees and the final presentation for this outreach course is this Thursday at 2 o'clock 2 p.m. Eastern and we'll see you there we'll be covering social media and again thank you so much and thank you to everyone who signed on well thank you to everybody for coming so bye bye talk to you later have a great