With a 24-hour news cycle, shrinking newsrooms and plenty of levels of competition in bigger training, breaking by means of the sound to acquire nationwide media notice is much more demanding than ever. Regardless of these troubles, we at Southern New Hampshire College have experienced good achievements by focusing our media outreach on our learners and their tales. Around the earlier 6 several years, our pupils have been showcased in Men and women magazine, Inside of Version, the NBC Nightly Information, Are living with Kelly and additional. None of these tales transpired by incident, and they all took cautious setting up, analysis, execution and abide by-up.
Here are the major 5 techniques we use to harness the ability of student stories, and how you can use gained media to elevate your communications, internet marketing and brand approach.
- Construct a tale pipeline: Communicators are typically not on the entrance line with students, so building connections internally to source the greatest stories is critical. All people has a exclusive tale to inform, and they typically are eager to share. We created a “Share your story” url that we incorporate in university student emails, on social media and with advisers and faculty associates. Providing your team, school, college students and alumni a person simple-to-recall place to share their tales will help develop the pipeline. We get an average of 1,000 submissions per 12 months, which has served us yield much more than 350 media placements. Even if it doesn’t produce an fast media strike, we now have a curated and searchable list, which is helpful when a reporter comes to us searching for a pupil with precise attributes like “a doing the job mother in the nursing diploma programs” or “a scholar who is looking to alter careers to the tech industry.” This helps us connect pupils with reporters considerably quicker and raises our possibilities of getting bundled in a story.
- Put pupils initial: Pitch every single tale with an authentic, human-centered approach. 9 periods out of 10, we never incorporate SNHU in the 1st sentence or paragraph of a pitch. In its place, we guide with the student and their tale. If it’s a story about a person’s tutorial success, it’s unlikely the reporter or outlet will run the story without having mentioning the university they go to, so constantly put students first—it’s a acquire-win.
- Build and share media-completely ready deals: Shrinking newsrooms and a restricted media market necessarily mean it is even much more significant for communicators to assistance reporters convey to their stories. Just before pitching a tale, assume about the visuals and sources you can present. At SNHU, “diploma deliveries” are element of our model and our story—presenting diplomas, often with an component of surprise, to pupils who are not in a position to celebrate their major milestone at our in-individual commencement ceremonies, like 94-yr-aged Amy Craton and Broadway star Emily Walton. For both tales, we traveled with a photographer/videographer and captured the shock times. Alternatively of sharing a really edited clip that took days to place with each other, we rapidly shared just one website link to unedited b-roll, interview footage and however photographs inside of hrs of the event so that journalists and producers could use the assets to tell the story in their possess way. Two producers not too long ago said to us, “Thank you for often making it so uncomplicated!” and “This media offer was the best I’ve ever obtained. SNHU built it effortless for us to do our occupation.” Be a useful resource. Not only will journalists be eager to share your tale, but you will construct a potent relationship and belief with the media for long term options.
- Go nearby to get countrywide: Every single university leader says they want to be showcased in The New York Periods—but you don’t want to pitch a countrywide reporter to get national protection. We have had the greatest results by harnessing the power of local affiliates to enable a story get national traction. In the two of the illustrations noted over, broadcast affiliates in Manchester, N.H. Honolulu Boston and New York Metropolis ran the pieces that ended up then later recognized and picked up by Stay With Kelly, NBC Nightly News and several other countrywide outlets.
- Really don’t be scared of weekends and holidays: A lot of of us were taught to by no means pitch tales on weekends, vacations or immediately after hours, but remember—the information cycle is 24 hours, and if you have the suitable story at the appropriate time, you can established oneself aside. Just this December, my workforce floated a probable diploma shipping to 89-12 months-outdated Joan Donovan the week in advance of Christmas. I was hesitant. Would we be in a position to pull it off in time? Was it too shut to the holiday seasons? Is the workforce previously stretched truly skinny? Nevertheless the story attained traction in excess of the training course of three weeks, at some point remaining featured on ABC Environment Information Tonight with David Muir. At the end of a different tough 12 months, Joan’s story of perseverance and grit resonated with people close to the earth, and even even though we pitched the Friday afternoon in advance of Christmas, Joan’s tale yielded far more than 500 media clips with a possible attain of 561 million men and women.
It’s an honor and a privilege to share our students’ stories, and we hope that they inspire other people. Using these approaches, we extend our mission of increasing access to larger instruction even though also developing positive associations with the college, internally and externally. At a time when Americans’ faith in the electricity of increased training proceeds to diminish, we, as bigger ed communicators, have the distinctive prospect and obligation to share the stories of our outstanding students and how our marketplace is earning a difference in the communities we provide.
Lauren Keane is the associate vice president of communications at Southern New Hampshire College.
