Can’t pitch your story because of the weather? Tired of eating the cookies you bought during an “emergency” pre-storm grocery run? Sick of watching reporters get blown off their feet during live shots of the blizzard pounding your community?
Speaking from experience, I’d say most PR professionals and career communicators don’t thrive on downtime.
With news outlets in complete storm mode, forget unsolicited pitches.
Here are seven ways for communicators in marketing and PR to stay productive until the weather clears. Most can be done from your cozy couch. The good news: You don’t have to shovel anything.
1. Use SlideShare. Create a slide deck from a previous post that received a lot of hits and comments. Repurpose the post by grabbing a few key points from your written text. Add images and graphics to spice up your words. Post it on SlideShare, and cross-promote it on your other social channels. (In case you’ve never tried SlideShare, decks are created in PowerPoint, so it’s easy.)
2. Take photos . Original pictures can energize your blog, e-newsletters and presentations. So much better than stock photos.
3. Set your editorial calendar for the year. January is upon us. It’s time to get the framework together for 2018.
4. Check out Muckrack.com (on Twitter #Muckrack) and Help a Reporter Out (HARO). These are two places where news pros and bloggers are scouting out subject matter experts and trusted sources. There’s plenty of activity to pursue while your sluggish competitors watch the snowflakes accumulate.
5. Subscribe to the Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy. It’s a research center that provides in-depth studies and data on timely news issues. You’ll want to bookmark the Journalist’s Resource.
[RELATED: Join us in Miami for the Do-It-All Communicator Conference.]
6. Identify five blogs, and pursue opportunities to guest post. Get your name out there, and add some link juice to your web page.
7. Poke around on Pinterest, Instagram and Snapchat. You can discover how others in your field are using visuals to appeal to customers and prospects, and check out others, such as Kik, an app to keep you busy in mobile circles.
Even though there’s a blizzard—or a “bomb cyclone”—there’s no excuse for you to have a brain freeze.
If you opt for Plan B—binge-watching “The Crown” or “Master of None” on Netflix—we won’t judge you.
Be safe.
Susan Young is an a ward-winning news reporter, PR entrepreneur, storyteller and speaker. A version of this article was originally published on LinkedIn.(Image via)
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