Media & Communications: Upgrade Your PR Game!

Admit it: You've been doing the same thing for too long in an attempt to get your firm in the news. And it's just not working anymore. Below are five ways to be more effective in 2016.

1. Rethink Releases

Twenty years ago, releases were hands-down the most efficient way to announce your exciting news to the world, and paying for their distribution via wire services was a no-brainer. Journalists read them and picked up the phone. Nowadays? If a reporter reaches out after seeing a wire release, the typical marketer passes out. So, is it a waste of time, a necessary evil, or actually valuable?

Releases can still hold value. The key is to determine your intended outcome. If you're looking for media coverage, simply uploading a release to Business Wire isn't going to do the trick. But if you're merely after an online record of an event ' a high-up hit people scoping out your firm online will come across for some time to come ' that may be just fine. Then again, solely posting the release to your website and sharing it via social media (saving the firm upwards of a thousand dollars) can be similarly effective.

Why do many firms continue to send out a dozen small-news releases annually over the wire? Old habits die hard ' and it makes new hires and attorneys who have won cases or accolades feel important. But wouldn't they feel more important if they were actually featured in articles read by their peers, clients and prospects? Wherever you publish the release, it's critical to send it (copied below your sign-off, not attached) to targeted journalists along with a short, tailored pitch. Don't just rehash the release ' yawn! Say why the news fits into a bigger trend or story about the firm, and why its readers will care.

Formatting tip: Use hyperlinks! It's astounding how many releases lack this basic tool for driving traffic to your site. Link to the firm as well as featured practice areas and attorneys. And please, drop that extra space after each and every period.

2. Be Smart with Social

The number one mistake marketers make is to underestimate the time commitment involved not only in continually cranking out intelligent and timely content and updates, but in building a base of followers. While it looks a bit peculiar if your firm doesn't have social media profiles on the big two, it looks downright pitiful if you have profiles that haven't been updated in months. If you can't maintain a social media account, your contacts and prospects may think the firm will show a similar lack of follow-through. Don't launch ' or reboot ' until you have mapped out a plan you can commit to.

Take Twitter. Learning how to tweet isn't hard: Follow relevant accounts. Several times a day, tweet compelling news, favorite (“heart”) or retweet others' compelling news, and push out your own. Use hashtags to grab extra eyeballs and highjack trending topics. Rinse and repeat. Speak in your firm's voice to not only show its smarts, but its culture. You can use Twitter management tools like Hootsuite to schedule your tweets so they automatically go out throughout the day, and Bitly to shorten and track your links. But if you're not spending a couple hours a week amassing followers (aka, enticing people to follow you), you may as well stop tweeting.

Popularity counts for a lot on Twitter, both in making a good first impression and in actually getting your name and brand messages out there. Set aside 20-30 minutes every day, particularly in the early days, to aggressively build your base. Start by following every journalist who covers relevant legal topics and every employee at the firm with a Twitter profile, and then network (retweet, favorite, and follow) like mad.

LinkedIn offers a more conservative and professionally oriented platform for your firm to raise its brand profile. But before you put the brilliant content plan you've developed into action, take a critical but oft-overlooked step: Ask every attorney at your firm to create or update his or her LinkedIn profiles to include their current role, and provide them with sample language to use to describe the firm. Make sure the firm's own profile is consistent with this messaging and with descriptors used on its website. Also, encourage attorneys to join regional, practice area and social groups ' increasing their business networks has a boomerang effect of helping to increase the firm's own network and the number of people who will see their posts.

Facebook offers questionable ROI in that it's akin to mixing business with pleasure. While most firms have a profile, do clients and prospects really care one way or another? The short answer: No. It's still seen as a place to play rather than one to work, and you're unlikely to gain a hefty following. If you do have a profile, include a link to your LinkedIn account, which is by far more important.

As for Instagram? 99% of firms can give that thought an instant “no.”

3. Modernize Your Media List

It can be tempting to fall into a media list rut and pitch the same journalists time and time again, regardless of whether or not they've bothered to respond in the past. Stop beating a dead horse. Give up on that reporter at The Wall Street Journal who refuses to acknowledge you exist. Find living, breathing horses who actually care about what you have to say.

Execute an effective three-step plan: If you subscribe to a media database like Cision or Gorkana, make a new, quick preliminary list of reporters who (supposedly) cover the relevant beat. Then set it aside. Next, do a Google News search for your topic, and note relevant reporters along with links to their articles. Finally, go directly to the source: Search targeted media outlets at which you still need to identify the best-fit reporter.

Compare your new additions to the list from the media database and you're likely to see a number of new names. Journalists jump to new pubs, change beats and go freelance more frequently than ever, and databases often just can't keep up.

Tip: When you pitch reporters you've found through your own sleuthing, mention the specific relevant article you came across that led you to believe they'd be interested in your story idea. Nothing makes a better impression on an overworked reporter than hearing from someone who has actually done his or her homework.

4. Suggest a Bigger Story, and Use Numbers

Reporters rarely have free rein when it comes to what they write about ' they typically have to win approval from an editor before hammering out an article. How can you help them do this? Put your news in context, and incorporate stats into your pitch whenever possible.

Did your firm just win a case with a significant jury award? How does it compare with other awards in the practice area/in the state/in the country? Did you open a new office, and are the third firm to do so in that city in a few months? What's happening there to drive this trend? Don't be afraid to share some of the glory by suggesting that your firm be part of a bigger story. Very few reporters ' or their editors ' get excited about covering matter-of-fact events, but if you can point to a trend and include interesting statistics, they may just jump on it.

5. Open Your Mouth

Who wants to talk on the phone when you can simply send an e-mail? Most marketers. That's a mistake. If reporters read every pitch they received, they'd have virtually no time to actually report ' but a fear of irritating a new generation of reporters via this old-fashioned method keeps all too many marketing and PR pros keyboard-bound.

Free yourself. Send an e-mail pitch, and then call anyone you don't hear back from within a reasonable amount of time. In many, if not most, cases, the reporter will say she hasn't received, or read, your pitch, and you'll be asked to summarize and then resend it. Some journalists will indeed act annoyed, as though you're interrupting Pulitzer Prize-level reporting. But most will embrace the opportunity to have a real, rare conversation that's not an interview, and it'll set the stage for a strong, ongoing relationship.

Lauren Gard brings more than 15 years of strategic public relations and journalism experience to her work at Zumado, most recently directing PR at VC-backed marketplace startups 99designs and Hired.