By Stephanie Soldo
For anyone grappling with the grey matter that is free-press exposure, we’re here to explain how publicity works.
To do that, we first need to explain media. Media is the medium we use to generate publicity. Imagine this: you hear sirens and raised voices at 3:00 a.m. but have no idea what is going on, and the commotion is too far to walk to in your pjs. So the following morning you consult your local media. Because without newspapers or television, you’d have to knock on doors, call neighbors, or badger the local police station to know all goings-on of the neighborhood. To save ourselves the trouble, our society designed something called media to be our “one-stop-shop” for community or world information.
Now, if media is the vessel bringing us our daily info, publicity is the cargo on that ship. Something we’ve heard from (typically) younger clients is: I don’t read the newspaper, or I have Hulu and Netflix – I don’t watch TV. Why would I want stuff about my business published there? To these clients we say – think big picture. Just because you personally might not read the newspaper (or watch TV, or listen to the radio) doesn’t mean all of our information isn’t still funneled through those mediums. Did a friend tell you about the upcoming lemon festival this weekend? Did they learn about it from a post on Facebook? Chances were that post came from someone reading about the event in the media. Saying you don’t read the newspaper is like saying you’ve never visited the reservoir your water comes from; you don’t have to physically see the source to still drink H2O coming from your tap.
Newspapers, magazines, TV and the radio are our information reservoir. By employing publicity efforts, you are filling society’s “press-basin” with importation news about your business, and from that EVERYONE will drink.