How To Get Media Coverage - CJ Arlotta

00:00 Josiah Would you like more media coverage? Well, stick around because today we're getting a PR masterclass in how you can work with journalists to get coverage for your hospitality business.

CJ, thanks for taking the time to chat. To set the stage, could you tell our listeners just a little bit about your career journey to your role today? And then we're going to dive in to talk all about PR, which I'm really excited about.

00:42 CJ Yeah, sure. So I'm CJ Arlotta, managing member of CJ Media Solutions. We are a B2B PR firm in the hospitality space. I've been doing this full-time now since September 2019, just in time for the pandemic. I started off my career actually working in politics. I was doing communications for some elected officials in New York state, as well as working on some campaigns here and there. After moving out of politics, I became a journalist. I began covering the IT channel, the tech space, moved out of there after a few years, and started covering the healthcare space briefly. After that, I moved on to covering the hospitality space, ended up at Hotel Business Magazine, and then I branched out and started my own business. So here I am today.

01:31 Josiah Well, the rest is history and you are helping many, many people across social media just understand what is the opportunity with PR. If you built something cool, how do you get it out there to the world? How would you define PR maybe to start out with? And I want to hear your take on why it matters today.

01:47 CJ Yeah, so a lot of people think about PR, they think about media relations, and I think it's more than that. I think it's about communicating effectively to all of your stakeholders. So that could be owners, it could be investors, it could be the media, it could be employees. I think all of that is important for the messaging. All of it has to be cohesive and every stakeholder wants something different, but at the end of the day, the message has to be relatively the same and on point. And you have to also assume that one stakeholder may see another stakeholder's messaging, right? So it really has to be uniform when getting the message out there. But I think it's really getting that message out effectively to all the relevant stakeholders.

02:33 Josiah I think the consistency is actually a really good point because it's funny, I spent some time working in revenue management. And if you kind of think about that, a, let's say a revenue management story, if it's communicated inaccurately, or just partially, you could have this whole narrative around, oh, we're charging all these, you know, resort fees that ...it could almost come across as nickel and diming. Right. And then you have kind of your consumer focus story, which is maybe doesn't cover that and the consumer sees the business story. And so you have to be very thoughtful. It's like our media environment now is not super segmented and people are going to see other stuff.

03:03 CJ And even, you know, you bring up something really interesting and that we primarily focus on the B2B space. So we work with a lot of the trade publications in the hospitality space. But I always remind my clients that those stories may also be seen by consumers or consumer publications. It's really easy to Google a company's name. All those stories are going to come up. So you have to assume that the consumer and the guests are also going to see some of the stories from those trade publications as well.

03:31 Josiah I love it. For people listening to this, let's say they've built something cool, they're really proud of it, and they think it would be amazing if we had more talking about this. How do you walk with your clients through that process of, you know, some of the first conversations and beginning to think about a comprehensive media strategy?

03:48 CJ Well, first, you have to start with a strategy. You have to figure out who you're trying to target and which publications that market is reading. So are you trying to target a B2B publication? Are you trying to target a consumer publication? That's really the start. And you have to figure out what you want to say and who you're going to say it to. You've got to find the right journalists in that space. Are you familiar with that industry? Do you know the publications? If you are, you should really get to know the players in those publications and in those industries. Or you can hire a PR professional who is an expert in those PR, in those industries, and he or she can help you. And it's really about learning what they're looking for, those journalists, to get your messaging out there. You always don't want to come across that you're always wanting something from the journalist, right? You want to go out there and you want to figure out a way to add value to them and also add value to their audience. So figure out what they're interested in learning more about, figure what their audience is, figure out some of the trending topics, the narratives that are going on in the industry, and determine how you can fit in those narratives.

05:00 Josiah I love it. And just to give people a glimpse of this, I think it might be helpful to share a little story from behind the scenes. I've gotten to know you a little bit over the past months and appreciate your work. And we were talking about different stories that you see out there in the industry. And we're talking about My Place Hotels. We actually just went live with that story. today, but you approached it in a way that I found really helpful. You and I both have been on both sides of this equation and so we kind of have seen this done well and not so well. But I think you framed it as extended-stay hotels are really hot right now. There's a story here that's worth talking about. And you know that from your experience in the media, you have this knack of here's what's interesting, here's what's not interesting. And then the other thing I want to call out that is really important is you and Ryan and the MyPlace team were really easy to work with. I think that's sometimes where I see a lot of pitches where it's very tough and I've gotten, I get dozens and dozens of pitches a day. And what happens is a lot of times it will be a generic pitch. And then I'll say, yeah, I'm interested or something like that. And then they'll hit me with a whole bunch of homework. And I'm like, wait, it was you, you wanted to talk about this. They want me to create this 30-page discussion guide. And I'm like, I have, I don't have time for that. And so you were really easy to work with and you kind of recognized that every media outlet's a little bit different. You know, this show is very conversational. It's unscripted, which is a little bit scary, but it's edited afterwards so we can focus on the points that provide value to listeners. What kind of led you to operating as you do today? Because I don't see a lot of other PR professionals operating this way and I think it's really effective.

06:32 CJ Well, thank you. I really appreciate that. I think it has a lot to do being a journalist and being on the other side and receiving so many terrible pitches. Now, I'm not saying that I always have a perfect pitch. I really think the perfect pitch is a myth to begin with. But I think if you have the right information, I think if you're Email is concise, and I think if it hits the narrative the journalist is looking for at the right timing, I think that goes a long way. Also, it's really about the long-term relationships. I think that's so important. You mentioned that the pitch I sent over is really interesting, and it hit what you were looking for, and you wanted to dive a little bit deeper into that. It also helps having relationships with journalists. Because instead of having to sit there and maybe write this huge, long, elaborate pitch, I can reach out to you and say, hey, I have a client that's interested in speaking about this topic. Is this of interest to you? And if so, I can provide you with some more information and get the right executive for you. So it's really figuring out what exactly the journalist needs, because every journalist is different. Every publication is different. When you're somebody like me who gets to work in a couple of industries, you get to know the journalists and you get to understand what they want. So I always look at it from the perspective of I'm here to help you, the journalist. Obviously, I have my clients, but I also want to go above and beyond to help you as well. Maybe you are working on a particular story. and I don't have a client for it. But maybe I moderated a panel and there were a couple of panelists I think that could be relevant to your story. I want to connect you with those panelists. So it's not always thinking about what's in it for me. I want to think about how I can add value or how my clients can add value to the journalists.

08:20 Josiah It's a really good perspective and it shows. I'm sure you received these pitches when you were an editor and I get them around. So-and-so is hired or promoted and I'm happy for that person, but it doesn't take into account I'm doing this job where I'm here to educate others. And so it doesn't matter if somebody was hired. But it might in some publications because some publications do track those moves. And I think there's value to that. So I think what I'm picking up for you is an attentiveness to what each journalist or writer is looking to do. Yeah, absolutely.

08:49 CJ Sometimes we have to send those press releases out about appointments or some press releases that may not be necessarily relevant to you. But I think it's also good just so you know what's going on with our clients because maybe you are working on a story. that I'm not aware of and you saw a press release that went out, you saved it and you went back into your inbox and said, oh, this might be something interesting, part of a larger story. So sometimes it's not just about getting that quick hit. It's again, it goes back to that long term with the relationship, letting you know what's going on. Maybe you're working on a, maybe publications working on a particular list. And I sent over a press release a few months ago and they saw and they see that, right? So I think all of those little things are important to help you with getting the correct narrative out there that you're looking for.

09:35 Josiah It's a fair point. I want to talk a little bit about how to prepare for an interview because usually I'm on this side of the mic. But a couple of weeks ago, I was interviewed by someone else. And it's interesting because there's still, even though I've done many of these, there's still a little bit of, OK, how do I prepare? And I, you know, part of me does recognize it would be nice to maybe have some questions and I need a framework to prep. And how do you guide your clients to think about preparing for an interview?

10:02 CJ Well, first of all, don't be late for an interview. Always try to be early. That's usually my number one rule. Always, always be early to an interview. You want to make sure everything's working, your mic's working, your headphones are working, things like that. Prepare as much as you can. Sometimes you can do an interview and sometimes the person interviewing you will send questions ahead of time. Sometimes they don't. I know when I was a journalist, when people would ask for questions, I would send maybe, if I were going to ask 10 questions, I would send maybe five out of the 10. Because I think it's good sometimes to have the person think about the questions, depending on what those questions are. You want somebody to give thought to them. Then I also like to ask five other questions, perhaps just to get to see what they'll ask in a conversation, answer in a conversational way. So if you can prep, if you can get questions ahead of time, that'd be great. Usually if you can ask ahead of time about a particular topic. That would also helps you really know the direction. And I usually ask that for reporters too. And sometimes you won't get those questions and you won't get those questions, but I think it helps with finding the right executive for a client, right? Because depending on the client you have, maybe a large company, you have to find the right executive for that topic you're interested in, you know, be prepared ahead of time if you can. Also, a lot of it has to do with confidence. And the educational part of it, talking about what you do on a day to day, your perspectives, you do that on a day-to-day basis. So, you know, the industry, you know what you do. So don't be too worried so much about that. The part that people have a lot of problems with is the confidence issue. So make sure that you look at the publication ahead of time. You look at interviews ahead of time. You know who the person is and how they conduct interviews. It just makes you feel comfortable. And also I suggest to thought leaders in the industry, that you can do certain things to get things going on certain topics you may be speaking about in your industry, and you can do that by journaling, right? So a lot of people journal personally, but maybe you could keep a journal for the business. Maybe you can also keep track of different ideas. I talk a lot about this for thought leadership, if you're looking to contribute articles or perhaps be on panels. Throughout your day, just try to keep track. If it's an Excel document or a Word document, you want to write it down, just keep track of ideas that come out throughout the day that goes, oh, that could be an interesting topic for a thought leadership article. When you do things like that, when you're interviewed, you'll pull that up and you'll remember some of the things that you wrote down. So then when you're doing the interview, you're probably saying things that you thought of before. You're not sitting there wondering what to say next. So you can't always prepare for every interview, but you can prepare as much as you can. And I would say that the confidence part is most important.

13:04 Josiah I don't see a lot of people talking about confidence, but I like the specificity of your advice, of knowledge is power, learn about the publication, the journalist. But there's also something about the practice and the reps. I was talking to a media personality this morning who frequently gets coverage on TV and newspapers and different digital media. And she's been doing this for 10 years plus. Right. And on a daily basis. And so it's you know, we all want to snap our fingers and be super polished and off the cuff. Right. But it take this stuff takes practice. And the good news, though, is I feel like digital media provides opportunities where you can build a more frequent rhythm. and you can, there's nothing holding you back. I'm curious as you look at the media landscape today, it almost feels in a sense like this Cambrian explosion of so many media formats happening. It's pretty exciting. What are you most excited about when you look out over the media landscape today?

13:56 CJ I'm most excited about the educational aspect. I think you're seeing a lot of publications are really focusing more on educational materials. I think LinkedIn is focusing a little bit more on some of the posts, on some of the educational content. I think that's what people are really looking for. They want to see what their their peers are up to, what they're saying, and how they can help others. I think when you go about it that way, I think it speaks volumes and I think people get the most out of that. You mentioned earlier about LinkedIn and how I'm trying to do my best to get that type of content out there and educate people on PR. I think that's so important because that shows people my knowledge and it also helps people who may not be a client of mine and is looking to start in PR and helping them. And I believe that when you look at it that way, it's very fulfilling. And I think you see the returns on that as well.

14:57 Josiah I think what's cool about your work is you're mixing it up. I don't think there's one magic solution that solves all of the challenges here. You're not only very active on social media and digital media, but in conferences, right? You're hosting panels, you're at a lot of these shows, and it's got to be a combination, right? I don't think it's just one thing that's going to solve all your problems.

15:15 CJ And you know, it's, it's funny, just going back to what you were talking about before, before for preparation, the same thing is with panel discussions. People sometimes, usually they're not confident when they're up there. So it's all about that prep work. Maybe I do a little more than most people, but I like to get to the conference the day before, if I can. I like to go and find the room if I can. I'll go and I'll talk with the AV guy, to see what type of mic we're using. I'll go on the stage, walk around on the stage. So I know all these things. I'm basically something, you know, something is always going to happen while you're on stage. So you're trying to mitigate all the risk possible. You're not going to be able to mitigate all of it, but maybe you can mitigate 90 percent of it. You know where the room is, so you won't get lost. You're going to be there on time. Right. Maybe you won't be able to mitigate the fact your mic goes out. But, you know, if you're able to do those little things, you it increases your confidence. Right. And I think it just makes so much of a better panel. You're not worried as much. And the audience is going to enjoy it a lot more.

16:18 Josiah This is an interesting point. And I think some folks talk about positive visualization. You kind of see yourself in your mind's eye succeeding. Is it helpful also, I don't know if it's negative visualization, what the word is, but almost play out some of these scenarios. So where if something goes wrong, it's like, you know, I'll be okay. I'll be okay here.

16:35 CJ Well, I think it kind of goes back to that risk mitigation, right? Just trying to figure out what could potentially go wrong that you can prevent if you don't know the room. You know, if you don't know the room number, you're going to show up late. You're going to miss part of the panel. Figure out that's so simple. See where the room is. Maybe you're not comfortable speaking in front of thousands of people and you get to the ballroom and see that, oh, it's only actually a couple of hundred people. I'll be fine. All these things just to kind of mitigate that risk for the day of the discussion.

17:03 Josiah I love it. CJ, I'll link to your profile in the show notes, but any specific thing you would invite people to, if they want to learn more about you and your work and this whole kind of topic of how to engage with the media? Yeah, sure.

17:13 CJ You can follow me on LinkedIn, or you can shoot me an email at cj@cjmediasolutionsllc.com.