There are many ingredients that make up a successful PR campaign, but at the very core of any activity lies the media. In order to truly maximise coverage and guarantee quality, your PR consultant will need to be well versed in media relations.
Many conventional PR agencies operate using a generalist model, where everyone tends to get involved in a bit of everything. While this undoubtedly works for many, at @WhiteoaksPR we are deliberately different. We function in specialist teams, meaning that we all have our own areas of expertise — one of these being media relations.
A media relations specialist at Whiteoaks dedicates the majority of their time to proposing stories, networking, and researching the media, so that when it comes to securing top quality opportunities we know how to walk the walk. By being able to dedicate our time solely to the media and building relationships with key journalists, media relations specialists at Whiteoaks know what will work and for who.
Establishing strong, professional relationships with your core media is mutually beneficial. Not only are we able to harness the feedback from these journalists to shape our content and strategy going forward, journalists build up trust in the consultants that they work closely with and can rely on them for a regular source of content that will be of interest to their readers. This often results in in-bound enquiries and requests — a true testament to the importance of strong media relations.
Not only do different journalists require different things, but different tactics require different strategies. For example, the media approach taken when responding to breaking news will vary greatly from the approach taken when discussing thought leadership article placements. A true media relations specialist has honed this skill, and knows exactly how to alter their language, style and even channel to secure the best results. Like riding a bike, this becomes second nature. But it does require passion, enthusiasm and a dedication for the role that we believe flourishes best when given in a media role fulltime.
Every Whiteoaks employee understands each aspect of PR, but it’s our specialisms that make us great consultants. Our clients are assured that the content we write has been written by a specialist content creator, their social media is being managed by a digital expert, and their media is being handled by a media relations guru.
