According to the Chartered Institute of Public Relations, the definition of Public Relations (PR) is:
“Public Relations is the discipline which looks after reputation, with the aim of earning understanding and support and influencing opinion and behaviour. It is the planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between an organisation and its publics.”
Media relations falls under the remit of PR, as does social media marketing, content marketing, community relations, crisis management etc but it is not the same practice. Media relations is only one aspect of PR, which is a very diverse industry. Journalists are just one of the publics mentioned above in the CIPR definition. Other publics include shareholders, customers, consumers, suppliers, communities, government and so on.
Media relations is about building a two-way mutually beneficial relationship with journalists in order to obtain interviews, editorial coverage, event listings, product reviews, opinion lead articles for you and your business. This relationship needs to be beneficial to both parties and can take time to build. The journalist is looking for news and I am looking to get you into the publications or broadcast media read or watched by your publics by creating timely and interesting content for the journalist. I will work with you to develop story angles aligned with the PR strategy we develop together that are tailored for journalists who work for the publications read by your target audiences.
Another word for media coverage is publicity and is used more in the USA.
Contact me today to find out how I can help you to get media coverage.