Virginia’s Community Colleges Advancement and PR Peer Conference


Posted: June 6th, 2007 | By: Steve Mullen | Filed under: Media Relations Tactics, Speaking Engagements | 1 Comment

I was invited today to attend and present during a roundtable discussion at Virginia’s Community Colleges (VCCS) Institutional Advancement & Public Relations Peer Conference in Staunton, Virginia. That’s a long fancy name for a conference of folks who promote and advance the messages of Virginia’s community colleges. There are 23 schools in the system, spread all over the state.

The day started with a luncheon where I was seated (I think intentionally) next to Karine Joly. Karine is a very interesting French Canadian woman who manages a blog about higher education and launched her own social networking site for college educators. We spent quite a while talking about my PR/SEO PR business, podcast production service, and Startup BizCast. We also discussed how she ended up in the US writing about US educational institutions.

After we’d eaten, we were treated to a presentation by Dan Heath, author of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller “Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die.” Karine was armed with her laptop and a video camera, and I didn’t take any notes at all. So, as you may guess, she’s able to blog a bit more coherently on what was said. I’ll send you over to her blog for more, in her post titled VCCS Conference: How to make your marketing messages and ad campaigns stick.

My speaking opportunity was in a breakout session called “Pitching Stories that Stick”. It was designed for the PR and public information officers in the group. I was part of a roundtable Q&A that included Andrea Burney from Danville Community College, Jennifer Wishon from the Richmond bureau of Roanoke, VA television station WDBJ, and Laura Bland, the online content coordinator for the Charlottesville Daily Progress newspaper.

Our discussion was supposed to cover how to pitch stories to the media, but while it covered that fairly well, we also wandered slightly off of the reservation (sort of my fault, but mostly directed by our moderator) to talk about how social media like blogging, podcasts, and vidcasts can be used to promote your institution.

The most interesting comment of the roundtable session was from Ms. Bland, who disagreed with my statement that one strategy for getting news coverage is to build personal relationships by meeting with reporters in your area. Ms. Bland said that at newspapers, since the beat system is dead/dying and reporters are so busy covering so many different stories, it’s pointless to ask for those kinds of meetings. She suggested instead talking to the managing editors. I didn’t argue with her during the session but I stand by my initial statement. In my experience, calling the managing editor of a larger newspaper isn’t going to get you very far. If you get a response at all, you’ll likely be directed to a section editor. Additionally, while dealing with editors can be useful, there’s nothing like having a reporter fighting to get some print for your story. It is more difficult to build relationships with the climate in newspaper newsrooms, but it’s still worthwhile. There is one case where I would call a managing editor — when you’re talking about a small community newspaper. At those publications, the managing editor is also a primary reporter.

To wrap up this long post, I want to thank VCCS for inviting me. I even enjoyed the two hour drive from Richmond to Staunton. I don’t get to see the Blue Ridge Mountains much anymore and, since I grew up looking at them from my front yard, I do miss them sometimes.

Comments

Comments for this post

  1. Jeff Kraus says:
    June 8, 2007 at 4:14 pm

    Steve,
    Thanks again for being part of our conference. Your insights were key to making the panel so interesting and informative.
    Glad you enjoyed yourself.
    Thanks,
    Jeff Kraus

 
 

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