3 MINUTE READ
When I received the email, I was surprised but delighted too. It said, “Congratulations! You have qualified as a finalist in our 2022 Public Relations Today MVP Awards. But you haven’t won yet, so make sure you get your peers to vote for this fantastic thought leadership!” The official announcement was nine days later, so I had to keep it to myself during that process. I wrote a press release describing that I am one of only eight finalists in the Media Relations awards category, and then decided on the best places for me to be seen in the media. I had to be strategic about when to place my press release in the hands of various newspapers and magazines because I wanted the press to have the “breaking news” and not something that I shared on social media. You could call it my PR strategy. It was challenging to keep a secret when I was so excited by the news, but it was worth it because when I finally did share it on social media–it had a massive impact–during the voting period.
Here is the link to the article chosen as a finalist:
Media Overexposure: How to Take Back Control of Your Media Presence
and the voting page for the Public Relations Today MVP Awards 2022 Voting is Open Until 28th November 2022
Full Warwickshire World Article:
Writing your own press release is difficult because we need to work on newsworthiness rather than promotion. A human interest angle can help to position the piece as factually based. For example: “The Public Relations Today Most Valuable Post Awards are significant to me because I’ve been times in my life when I’ve not been able to read more than a few sentences.” It took me three-and-a-half hours to write the press release when I usually take an hour and a half, maybe two at the most. The newspaper covered only some of my first press release in the local newspaper. However, they did include the essential elements. That enabled me to use the rest of the written material in social media posts. The full press release was published on their various business websites. I chose to share the news with my friends, family and connections on social media. I was unsuccessful with the television and radio; however, winning the award would mean a follow-up! I also reached out to a charity I worked for many years ago because I am a Media Volunteer, and they were very pleased to see my success and wished me luck.
Full Business Mondays Media Article:
Midlands Entrepreneur Gets Recognition As PR Industry Awards’ Finalist
When the story went live, I knew then that I wanted to share it on Facebook with my friends and family first. I then shared it on LinkedIn, which benefited the results. I deliberately shared the newspaper’s Facebook page post to my personal Facebook newsfeed, including their comment. Friends of mine could then see an additional statement from me and the newspaper’s original post. When writing this blog article, I had 113 comments and 60 reactions to the post. There were 22 reactions on the newspaper’s Facebook page and 15 comments. I do not post on Facebook often, so I was able to analyse the results from it as it happened. On LinkedIn, I have a very different audience on my personal profile, and the effect was similarly responsive, with 43 reactions And 42 comments. I shared the same weblink to the same newspaper article on my LinkedIn business page, which has a more B2B business-related audience. I always expect less interaction on the Linkedin business page because I use it as my portfolio rather than social engagement.
So what was the ultimate ROI of this one press article I posted on social media only three times? Apart from having lots of support and well wishes to win the awards, I noticed how varied my friends and connections who commented are. Friends and family are essential supporters. However, this shared article reached even further to new connections and friends which included mentors, potential clients, PR industry professionals, media people I’ve not heard of, communications professionals and a selection of past and present clients. Directly related to posting three times about this one article I received two direct messages about potential PR work and gained an influencer on Instagram. So apart from the feel-good factor, free publicity in my local paper has enabled me to increase my authority and go-to expertise as a thought leader, which is what I want for my clients. PLUS by the end of the day, my digital footprint improved because my story in the local paper was now on the front page of Google when you searched for my name Abbi Head. I have learnt precious lessons through this process: when I slow down my social media so I can follow and track myself, people ask me to do their press releases because when it’s your own, you tend to overthink it. I love writing them for others, so do ask if you need one as I I know just how challenging it can be.
