Building relationships is an ongoing process, and it is important to use all channels to get your story out there. Press releases are used to communicate with the traditional media, and they can be repurposed for social media, into 140 characters for Twitter, short posts for Facebook, blog posts for updates and often overlooked, personal eblasts to Centers of Influence (COIs).
Every organization has a base of allies, interested business and community leaders, legislators and others who have a direct interest in their continued success. These COIs are an integral part of your communication strategy; that is why when you have significant news, sending a short informative email through an email provider, like Constant Contact, will achieve the following:
- To personally inform centers of influence of worthy news, to give them a sense of being an insider —by getting the news directly from the company principal at the same time it is distributed to the media.
- To recruit advocates to spread your good news—Include in your eblast a call to action—“Please feel free to share with your colleagues…”
- To drive traffic to your website—Include links in the body copy that takes the reader to a special page on your website.
- To provide additional information that might not be included in an email or press release. For example, you may have a project listed on your website with multiple press releases, you may want to have the link go to the landing page explaining the project and then have the links to the various press releases easily accessible.
Caution: It is important to respect and nurture these relationships, which is why only truly newsworthy information should be communicated. On the flip side, in the case of really significant news, personal phone calls can be added to the process, to take the relationship up a notch. Personal outreach is a lost art, but when you have good news to tell or significant announcements, it is the only way to continue to build your base of allies.
