Just a few quick tips here for anyone staring at a blank piece of paper wondering where to find journalists to contact with your news about your product or service.
For businesses in the UK, http://www.mediauk.com and www.journalisted.com are the best places to start and revisit regularly. However Google has a portfolio of search services which can all be used to build up – and monitor – a targeted list of media contacts.
- Use the Google Blog search (http://www.google.co.uk/blogsearch) and search for competitors and sector key words to uncover bloggers currently writing about your sector.
- Don’t underestimate the power of Google’s general search either. Search: ‘<insert your keyword> magazine’ or ‘<insert your keyword> news’ and see what you get.
- Set up a Google Bookmark list www.google.com/bookmarks When you find a useful online media outlet add it to your list. There are some great browser add ons that will do this for you in a matter of clicks.
- Use Google reader http://www.google.com/reader/view/ to monitor RSS feeds from the magazines/blogs you track down. Organise them by subject / competitor etc.
- If you prefer (or as well) set up Google news search alerts http://www.google.com/alerts for competitors and keywords. If the blog / magzines / news are writing about them they should be writing about you too!!
- Here’s a clever trick. Include the names of, say, three publications you do know, in Google sets: http://labs.google.com/sets then search to reveal all the similar publications that Google can find. Mixed bag of results here – but occasionally very valuable.
