1. Know What You’re Writing About
I think this is the first and most important thing to remember when writing about publicity. Before you write about anything, know your topic well. When I was in high school, I used to write articles for my school newspaper, but it was hard because I didn’t really know what I was writing about a lot of the time! Most of my articles were “Why College is Fun”, “How to Get Good Grades”, and a bunch more cliche high school topics like that that everyone else wrote about too. These weren’t very interesting topics, so they only got me printed once or twice a month at most. The good marketers know that you need to have a very specific topic in order to get published. If you want to be a good marketer, you need to know your topic inside and out.
2. Find the Right Publication for Your Article
I’m sure everyone knows about this, but just in case: it’s very important when writing about publicity that you find the right publication for your article! The best way I’ve found is by using Google News (or other search engines) and searching for articles on your topic! When I was trying to write about “How to Get Publicity”, I searched on Google News for articles with “publicity” or “public relations” in the title. It wasn’t hard at all because there were so many great results! Then, once I had found several possible magazines and newspapers that might print my article (see next point), it was time…to check their submission guidelines! Talk about a cliche thing that everyone knows…but it is true!! For example, one of my favorite online magazines is called “Prospect”. They are a magazine that focuses on job hunting and careers. I chose to submit my article to them because they have great articles that I love, and they also have a very clear submission guideline. The submission guidelines said that “Prospect” welcomes submissions from college students and recent grads, so it was perfect!
3. Read the Submission Guidelines
You should do this with every publication you want to submit your work to! If you read the submission guidelines thoroughly, you’ll know exactly what they are looking for in a piece of writing. This is an important step in writing about publicity because if you don’t follow these guidelines (and maybe even if you do), your chances of getting published decrease exponentially! For example, if I were going to write about “How to Get Publicity” for my college newspaper during freshman orientation week, my first step would be finding some publications on Google News with “publicity” or “public relations” in their titles. After doing this research (which is not hard at all!), I would look through all the results until I found one that fit my audience: freshmen students who want help getting into clubs and making friends. I found a great article about this in the school newspaper, so I know that it’s the right publication for my topic. The next step would be reading their submission guidelines. They want students to write articles that are 1,500 words or less, and they want them to be specific to freshmen college students! If I were writing an article like this, I would make sure that it was 1,500 words or less (that’s also important!!), and also make sure it was specific and targeted toward freshmen college students!
4. Know Your Audience
When writing about publicity you must always remember what your audience is! Remember how I said that my main audience for “How to Get Publicity” is freshman college students? Well, when writing for any publication you need to know who your target audience is because then your readers will relate more with what you’re saying! As an example of this point: let’s say one of my favorite magazines was called “College Magazine”, which focuses on helping university students find internships and jobs after graduation. An article on “How to Get Publicity” would not necessarily appeal to College Magazine readers because they are looking for ways tp get a job after graduating from college…not during their time at school as a freshman student! So if you’re looking at two different publications with similar topics.
When writing about publicity, you need to know what your topic is, where to send it (the right place), and for whom you are writing it. You also need to know that when writing about publicity, you have a specific target audience in mind! If you do all of these things…you’ll be on your way to being a great marketer!
