In today’s video I’m going to be talking about freelance journalists and how they can fit into your PR strategy.
Many media outlets today are grappling with how to stay current in the digital world. And as a result many full time journalists are going freelance, either by force or by choice.
Now the difference between a full time journo and a freelancer is that a full time writes for one media outlet and is in a salaried position. Whereas a freelancer writes articles for a wide range or range of media outlets and they are only paid per article. Freelance journalists are regularly pitching story ideas to editors and they are successful when an editor commissions them to write a particular story that they’ve pitched. And they’re constantly pitching ideas because their livelihood depends on it. And this is where you can help them.
Now often freelance journalists specialise in a particular topic or industry area. So if you are involved or your business is in that industry and you can pitch them story ideas that they can successfully pitch on it’s a win win for everyone.
So how do you find these freelance journos? Well good old LinkedIn is awesome for that. So on your home page in the search bar just type in freelance journalist and then click on the people tab and up will come a long list of freelance journalists. When you click into their profiles you’ll actually be able to see what topics they write about and what media outlets they cover which is fantastic to know because then you can really target that relationship and make sure the story ideas you’re pitching are totally relevant.
As with all relationships on LinkedIn, tread slowly, you don’t just go straight in for the kill, but you start liking commenting and sharing their posts. Every now and then drip feed information that you think they’ll find helpful and eventually you can start pitching story ideas. Eventually what you’d want is to line up you know a coffee or a phone chat where you can learn more about them what their needs are so that you can actually really help them in develop you know coming up with content that is right up their alley and that they can successfully pitch to editors.
So working with freelance journalists is a really golden opportunity to get some mass media exposure and when done the right way you really will be creating a win win scenario. Give it a go. I’d love to hear how you go with it. As always if you have any questions feel free to ask and I look forward to seeing you next week.