Providing up to the minute news and information as it happens: The Bloomberg Terminal
I had the opportunity of attending a panel held at the New York news bureau of Bloomberg Media where I learned about the all the media properties owned by Bloomberg Media and how to get your story on to Bloomberg Television. Karen Toulon, the NY Bureau Chief for Bloomberg News gave the presentation and told the story of the formation of Bloomberg Media in 1990 starting with six people and is now one of the largest media companies in the world employing 2300 people in 147 bureaus with news and information that is syndicated to 450 newspapers across the globe. Bloomberg covers economies, markets, government, health, arts, and sports delivered in realtime and in the moment.
Bloomberg Media is comprised of:
– Wire service
– Bloomberg Televsion
– Markets Magazine
– Bloomberg.com
– Bloomberg Radio
– Bloomberg Mobile
– Bloomberg Business Week magazine which has 4.6 million readers and 300,000 subscribers.
So what is the best way to approach a writer that you wanted to pitch your guest/story idea at Bloomberg? For Bloomberg Television Karen advises that an ideal guest would be someone that is a newsmaker, newsbreaker, good on television, and someone that is an expert in a specific field that can easily explain things briefly. When you submit your information be sure to provide all background information on your guest and why he/she would be relevant. Make your pitch like a news story – provide the news first and then background on why Bloomberg would want to cover your story, and send a link for any video/television appearances in the past.
What gets her attention:
– Concise
– First words count
– Subject line
– Is it news? Game changing? Actionable?
– A familiar person?
– Exclusives
When Karen receives a pitch she may reach out to television, radio, or even the magazine as she knows where it will fit best, and if there is no fit she will circulate the information internally and let others know about your story idea/guest/topic. To contact a specific writer the contact information is usually at the bottom of the article or you can email release@bloomberg.net or call GCUS 212-617-2000 for direct calls.
You may also be interested in these posts:
How to Get the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg Businessweek to Cover Your Story, Book, or Guest
How to Get Your Story or Event on New York News Shows
How to Get the Associated Press to Cover Your Story, Book, or Client
How to Get Your Client or Book on CNBC, Huffington Post Live, The Chew, and Better TV
How to Get Your Story or Event On Television and Radio Shows
How to Get Your Guest or Book on Rachel Ray and CBS This Morning Saturday
How to Reach and Foster Relationships with Mommy Bloggers
Get Your Products and Stories Featured in Mainstream Magazines
And I thought more college students would be using an iPad. So what does this mean for your marketing strategy/budget? You may want to funnel more of those dollars to these devices if you are marketing to the college student demographic. Hint for mom and dad: I think you know what your college age son/daughter may want for Christmas this year.
Left to right: Marcia Parris from WPIX, Enez Paganuzzi from WNBC-TV, Eric Gonon from NY1, and Leyla Fayyaz, Good Day New York.
The New York chapter of the Public Relations Society recently held a panel featuring four television producers from WPIX, WNYW, WNBC, and NY1 shared tips on how to get your story/event/ news item covered on their shows.
The four producers on the panel included:
- Leyla Fayyaz, Good Day New York (WNYW-TV)
- Eric Gonon, New York 1
- Enez Paganuzzi, WNBC-TV
- Marcia Parris, WPIX-TV
As a television producer, Leyla Fayyaz’s role at WNYW’s Good Day New York is to make information more engaging to the viewer. To get her attention when sending an email provide vital information at the start, and if it takes her too long to figure out what you are pitching she will quickly delete your email. It is best to break down a complicated topic into a simple easy-to-understand form. You can send your story via email to: desk@fox5ny.com.
Eric Gonon’s producer role at New York 1 is to provide the fabric of New York stories. Eric suggests that you familiarize yourself with NY1’s programming and reporters that would be a good fit for your story or topic. Email your story or news item to the assignment desk at desk@ny1news.com, then call the day before your event at 212-379-3456 to followup. If you receive a call from NY1 that your event will receive coverage, it is best to have specific names and titles spelled correctly and all contact information if the producer/reporter has to follow up.
As the Planning Manager Enez Paganuzzi books New York Nightly News at 7 p.m. with Chuck Scarborough on WNBC New York (which also includes New York Nonstop). Enez refers to the AP daybook for events of the day and the NBC New York Facebook page to see what viewers are commenting on and to get other story ideas. Best way to reach Enez is through email at enez.paganuzzi@nbcuni.com and have your pitch be simple, smart,and have it jump off the page. And final words of wisdom: please get the spelling of her name and WNBC shows correct.
For Marcia Parris of WPIX-TV she gets ideas and news from reading magazines, watching trends, and listening to what public relations folks are telling her. An e-mail pitch that is brief, short, and to the point of why your story/guest would fit the WPIX news shows works for Marcia. She also advises that you know what topics/segments are covered during WPIX’s on-air programs. Planning/pitch meetings are held once a month where ideas and stories are put before the entire staff and crew and then the Executive Producer decides which ideas/stories become segments. If you have a story/idea/product for Thanksgiving and Christmas best to let her know 2 to 3 months ahead. WPIX original content gets picked up by CNN and there is also an app for smartphones. Marcia also encourages you to send your client list if they need to get someone due to a cancellation, it is a good resource to have if she needs to get a replacement at the last minute. If you have any news/events, email the WPIX assignment desk at wpixnewsdesk@tribune.com.
You can follow Leyla Fayyaz on Twitter @leylafayyaz.
You can follow Enez Paganuzzi on Twitter @enezps.
You can follow Marcia Parris on Twitter @MarciParris.
You may also be interested in these posts:
How to Get the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg Businessweek to Cover Your Story, Book, or Guest
How to Get the Associated Press to Cover Your Story, Book, or Client
How to Get Your Client or Book on CNBC, Huffington Post Live, The Chew, and Better TV
How to Get Your Story or Event On Television and Radio Shows
How to Get Your Guest or Book on Rachel Ray and CBS This Morning Saturday
How to Reach and Foster Relationships with Mommy Bloggers
How to Get Your Story, Event or Client on Bloomberg TV
Get Your Products and Stories Featured in Mainstream Magazines
Left to right: Bob Libbey of Pfizer, Audrey Gray from American Express, Bill Carr from Tiffany & Co.
How does a global corporation use their intranet to harness the specialized knowledge and information their employees hold to provide value and knowledge with engaging content? American Express, Pfizer, and Tiffany & Co. are three companies that are creating engaging information through their intranet as the New York Chapter of International Association of Business Communicators presented a panel that included:
Audrey Gray began her presentation stating that American Express is comprised of sixty-three thousand employees with business savvy offering a diverse range of knowledge and experience. Known as The Square, the corporate intranet at American Express, her first big test was live blogging an executive management meeting between various global American Express offices. Audrey wanted to provide those employees unable to attend the meeting with as much information as possible, but not all of the minutes from the meeting were able to go out. How would Audrey know what content would be allowed? Her boss sat next to her providing guidance on the content those employees viewing the live blogging would be able to view. Audrey advised that clear, crisp copy as well as video will make your intranet content interactive and authentic.
Bill Carr stated that with two hundred twenty Tiffany & Co. stores in twenty countries employing nine thousand people, their intranet known as Blue Tube provides guidance for new employees by giving them an understanding of the brand, culture, history, and products offered by Tiffany & Co. Bill presented a Tiffany & Co. holiday video that featured employees as well as the CEO Michael J. Kowalski that was created to inspire employees, and provide a platform for Mr. Kowalski to speak about accomplishments over the past year and goals for the new year. In the video Mr. Kowalski also spoke about store openings, and other Tiffany & Co. employees offered advice on successful strategies for serving customers better.
Bob Libbey explained that the goal for internal communications at Pfizer was to help colleagues deal with the large volume of news and information Pfizer employees receive every day. How do you control the volume of this fire hose of information? Before the re-design of the Pfizer intranet there were four hundred intranet sites but did not share a common link or access point which ended up costing Pfizer $10 million and no method to track what had been working. After the re-design, the Pfizer intranet (known as Pfizer World) now has:
– 16257 unique users
– 5.2 million articles
– Publishes three stories a day
– 60 million page views
With the new design there has been a savings of $7.5 million in development and maintenance costs per year. Editorial standards have been reset with articles no longer than four hundred words in length. What challenges remain? They have created Blackberry and iPhone apps, but the challenge is in promoting and creating awareness of these new apps to Pfizer employees.
You may also be interested in these posts:
Johnson & Johnson’s Social Media Strategy
How Pfizer, Tiffany and American Express Engage Their Employees
Inside Gatorade’s Social Media Monitoring Hub
JetBlue’s Social Media Strategy
How to Make Effective Videos That Connect With Your Audience
Hashtag Killer Psych USA Network Social Media Strategy
How CNBC, Pepsi, and American Express Harness Mobile Marketing and Commerce
Richard Laermer of RLM Public Relations and The Bad Pitch Blog
Has public relations lost its way? Are those working in the public relations/communications industry nice people or just flaks? Richard Laermer, author of 2011: Trendspotting for the Next Decade gave a presentation to the New York Chapter of the Public Relations Society and offered tips on getting your message out to those that will cover it. Even though we all receive the same information, Richard stated that each person chooses who influences them. When it comes down to it, what does every media type want more than a puppy or kitten? A story (they wrote or covered) that becomes shared, passed on, e-mailed, or sent along as the most e-mailed story. So how do you get to that point? Even in this era of social media specialization you should make yourself, even force yourself to become well-rounded in what you read. In another words: Stop. Reading. Same. Crap. Richard advised that to improve your writing there is no better way than to write, write, write. For tips on pitching Richard suggests that when making your pitch be sure to write or communicate what you think the person on the receiving end should know. When you call have something intelligent to say. Be considerate, and put some thought into the best method in how your recipient will want to be contacted and communicated.
Pitching is not just picking up the phone and telling someone what to write, so best to follow these tips:
– Create an alluring hook around a story worth telling
– Make passionate calls that get people (other than yourself) interested
– Either make yourself or the executives at your company experts that a television/radio producer can contact when they need an expert on a particular topic
– Keep your story/release concise since everyone now has a smartphone and your message has to be read all in one screen space.
If you follow these steps it will get you from where you are to where your evangelists are since no one pays attention when companies become pr hype machines.
You can follow Richard Laermer on Twitter @laermer.
You may also be interested in these posts:
Allison Fine and Beth Kanter The Networked Nonprofit: Connecting with Social Media to Drive Change
Gary Vaynerchuk and The Thank You Economy
Gary Vaynerchuk and Robert Scoble Discuss Business and Social Media
Ray Jordan on Johnson & Johnson’s Social Media Strategy
JetBlue’s Social Media Strategy with Jenny Dervin
David Meerman Scott, Author of Real-Time Marketing and PR
John Jantsch, author of Duct Tape Marketing and The Referral Engine
The Mike Johnson Blog 