The Value of Staying Aware
One thing I’ve learned as a member of JeffreyGroup is the value of staying abreast of any developments that might affect my clients. This sounds simple, but I’ve come to learn that being successful in PR is about a lot more than having a big Rolodex and being a good people person. In fact, I’m learning that many of the skills and interests I honed on my way towards earning a political science degree come in handy here at JeffreyGroup. One in particular is my interest in following and writing about current events.
This is especially important for clients who have less immediate appeal or recognition among journalists. It is my job to find ways to make these client a relevant part of a broader conversation. One way I do this is by dedicating a portion of my day to reading the news and jotting down anything that catches my eye. Whether that’s 5 minutes, 15 minutes, or more, you never know when you might come across something that might spark an idea that could help you create a perfect narrative for a client, based around an issue that is either a hot topic now, or potentially in the future. In fact, the more you follow the news the more you are able to anticipate coming trends, making your insight even more valuable.
Of course, there are only so many hours in the day, and cutting through all the irrelevant information can seem at times an insurmountable task. Fortunately though, there are tools built for exactly that purpose, some of which are free. The number one gadget in my toolbox is an RSS feed, curated with content from specific relevant news sources I trust, and filtered into easily searchable categories. There are a plethora of options out there for RSS feeds, but having tried out several of them over the past several months, I’ve found Feedly to be by far the best. I supplement this with subscriptions to a small number of weekly newsletters from key outlets on topics relating to my clients. With a properly curated RSS feed and a manageable number of newsletters, following the news becomes a reasonable task, allowing me to serve my clients with more insightful information and ideas every day.