Joel Jelen, would like to offer our readers some PR tips on the most successful ways to work with journalists.

Every good story has human interest at the centre of it. Our favourite clients to work with are those who are genuinely making a difference. Whether it’s www.team-nico.com aka The Nicholson Group and their regeneration commitment to the Borough of St Helens. Or Simon Maurer’s Simed Global www.simedglobal.com/ bringing medical devices to the market to allow instant screening for illnesses in the population. It’s important to ‘humanise’ every product or service.

It’s true that many of Ubiquity’s journalist contacts love bad news but many like good news too! I’ve seen many commissioning editors over the years reach out to us looking for positive features. That’s especially true of late given the difficult economic times and global outlook since the pandemic. People want to read positive stories! Upbeat stories and businesses going beyond the call of duty are big news right now!

How good is your angle or, how ‘zeitgeist’ is it? That’s everything to a journalist. Otherwise, you’re looking at a social media post or advert instead for your product or service promotion.

Again, if you have a client like Natalie Reeves Billing DL and her social enterprise project Planet Pack, you are going to get mass coverage because it’s a heartwarming story about helping to educate whole cities.

Simple enough but…you might be surprised how many people don’t put their phone numbers on their signature in 2024. Media sometimes need quick results. I know of someone who missed their chance of being in Forbes magazine because the journalist couldn’t reach them quick enough without a phone number. Ouch!

If you or your client can write expert opinion pieces, provide content, or be interviewed on your specialist subjects, go for it! Just don’t use marketing content and loads of hyperbole words. Make it friendly, likeable, helpful and most of all, interesting!

A good image is worth a thousand words. That’s never been truer, but I hear editors complain all the time about poor-quality photos. That could be resolution-based, or the nature of the image just doesn’t fit the story well enough!

Finally, and I often get asked this. Feel free to send a journalist a thoughtful gesture in the post as a thanks for their support. But i recommend asking beforehand if they’d mind.  What form that takes depends on your brand and product range. What’s critical though is don’t ever use such a gesture to shmooze a journalist in the first instance. It’s not a good look if you’re expecting a favour. Journalists use their integrity in writing about your brand. It’s not about favours. It’s about building relationships and then at the right discerning point in time, offering something as an authentic thank you.

Joel and the Ubiquity Collective’s work can be found at www.ubiquitycollective.co.uk