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A present wrapped in newspaper.

Matchmaking: A TRG Approach to Getting Media Coverage

Written by Beth Casteel on . Posted in Increasing Awareness.

When people ask me what I do, I sometimes say I’m a matchmaker — but not the romantic kind. I match our clients’ needs and narratives with the needs of journalists to bring attention to the organizations’ expertise, accomplishments and issues. In the jargon of public relations, I specialize in earned media.

To be an effective matchmaker — whether the desired result is a romance or a media splash — you need to be familiar with both parties to a potential union. In my media relations role, I pay close attention to client goals and priorities and take every opportunity to learn the nuances of their work. I’m constantly on the lookout for newsworthy nuggets and new resources that would appeal to journalists.

At the same time, I am immersed in the world of journalism, particularly in health care — the primary domain of most of our clients. This dual expertise allows me to orchestrate matches that work for both journalists and for our clients.

At The Reis Group, we’ve honed several techniques for matchmaking to secure impactful media coverage. Tactics include “newsjacking,” creating finely targeted pitches and packaging together multiple elements to make it easy for reporters with limited resources to create compelling stories.

“Newsjacking”

When a major political figure had a heart attack, we reached out to journalists who we thought might want to interview a medical expert to explain the situation, and we landed interviews with The Washington Post and Reuters with a cardiologist from a hospital client. We knew this story was ripe for this approach because it was big enough to be newsworthy for at least another day, and health reporters from major outlets would be eager to get in on the coverage with a sidebar or a piece of the main story.

Targeted Pitching

For a client that supports refugees relocating in the Washington D.C. area, we used a targeted pitching approach to generate media interest in their work. Working on another project with this group, we learned about their efforts to help newcomers who had advanced degrees from their home countries gain credentials that would allow them to use their professional skills in the U.S. Highly skilled immigrants, such as doctors, lawyers and economists, often must work in convenience stores or drive Ubers because their credentials don’t transfer. We knew highlighting this problem would make a compelling story for local journalists that would also bring attention to our clients’ important work. We landed interview opportunities with a local NPR reporter for our client and professionals they were helping.

Packaging

Understanding the challenges faced by smaller media outlets, we try to package multiple elements of a story so that overworked reporters can get the complete story with minimal effort. We were recently tasked with generating coverage for more than a dozen federally funded health care informatics training programs around the country, including Native American communities served by the University of Minnesota’s program. We wrote a short blurb about the effort that could easily be pasted into various newsletters and publications of the many tribes served by the program, and we paired it with a pitch for interviews with the Native American coordinator of the program. Some larger national outlets and tribal publications took us up on the interview, while many smaller local and tribal outlets published the complete article we provided.

From promoting health care informatics training programs to ensuring local coverage of COVID-19 vaccination clinics, this packaging approach involves creating concise, ready-to-use content, which can include brief ready-to-use news items, interviews and photos with captions that make it convenient for editors to run our stories, particularly in small, less resourced outlets.

By understanding how journalists operate and appreciating their distinct and pressing needs, we create successful strategies for getting our clients in the news. By knowing when to jump in on major stories, how to target compelling narratives and packaging stories for effortless pickup, we consistently get meaningful media coverage for our clients. In today’s complex world of media, it’s all about knowing when and how to make that special match.

Zoom webinar.

How to Conquer Zoom: Webinar Edition

Written by Tiana Ware on . Posted in Elevating Reputations.

Since the start of COVID-19, we all experienced a mass migration into the virtual world. Over time, as America’s businesses and organizations are moving to a hybrid work environment, it’s still clear that Zoom is here to stay. Realizing that this would be our new normal, The Reis group has concentrated on how to maintain—and improve—our high level of client service by mastering this ubiquitous platform.

A key service that we provide for our clients is conducting virtual media briefings through Zoom’s webinar feature. As a health care PR agency, it’s our job to think through the key logistics of the platform, set benchmarks for materials development, and become experts in the platform and all its features. Conducting a Zoom webinar incorporates many moving parts. It’s not rocket science, but there are some important things to know.

Here are a few “tricks of the trade” to ensure your next webinar is a success!

Know the platform. Zoom, like other platforms, is constantly making changes to improve the user’s experience. As a designated “Zoom guru,” it’s your job to stay updated on updates. One of the best ways is by engaging with the platform at least once a day leading up to your virtual event and scheduling several practice sessions with your client. Recently, during a practice session, we noticed that Zoom’s annotation feature had been unexpectedly enabled. This could have been disastrous because it would have allowed non-host panelists to make live annotations or comments on the PowerPoint slide deck. Could you imagine the disruption that could have caused? We were able to quickly disable the feature and add that to the growing list of items to check each day to ensure a successful event.

Have a plan, but also be agile! Developing a detailed step-by-step timeline is super important. This ensures that all players are aligned on key activities such as developing the slide deck, disseminating the registration links, scheduling practice sessions, etc. The reality, though, is that we sometimes will be forced to scrap our plans to meet a client’s evolving needs—and that’s ok! I recently experienced this with a client, so we immediately scheduled additional check-ins, adjusted the timeline, and identified areas where extra support was needed. Clear communication and quick strategic thinking helped us to produce a high-quality webinar.

Remember to breathe. Doing your homework and having a good plan are crucial. But even with safeguards in place, things can go wrong—and often will. Recently, we were live during a webinar, but instead of sharing the slide deck, the host’s email inbox was shown by mistake. We quickly informed them privately and hardly missed a beat. When things go wrong, it’s easy to panic. Instead, I was able to remember to remain present—and to breathe! Remaining calm gives you a chance to respond in a timely thoughtful way and diffuse your anxiety. When the inevitable mistakes are made, our best service to our client is to just stay cool and carry on.

Running a Zoom webinar can be intimidating but it’s also an opportunity to build skills and position yourself as an expert. I often look at conducting webinars as a reminder to be committed to the process of learning—being open and hungry for new information. The Zoom platform is ever evolving but if we plan ahead and stay cool, we evolve too.

Bridge To Success: Enhancing Media Outreach by Building Connections

Written by Matthew Porter on . Posted in Elevating Reputations, Positioning Issues and Brands.

We come across bridges in our everyday lives, and rarely think about them; that was me, until I started working in public relations. Now, every time I see one, I think of how it relates to our work in media outreach. As public relations professionals, we are often tasked with elevating the reputations of our clients’ organizations. One of the primary methods of this is media outreach – researching past coverage and trends, determining what our clients’ expertise is, and formulating an outreach strategy that marries those two factors by selecting reporters from targeted publications and crafting an enticing pitch.

According to Muckrack’s State of Journalism 2023 survey, an annual survey of journalists that track their habits and the ways they do their jobs, nearly 50% of reporters reject pitches due to the lack of personalization, extended length, or awkwardly worded subject lines. All these are things that smart public relations professionals can control, especially personalization. If your pitch is vague, it becomes obvious that it is not really aimed at them but is part of a larger e-mail blast that countless others are getting. If you look at it from their angle, it makes sense that they might not be interested. So, what’s the solution? Start forging a relationship by building a bridge.

Create Your Blueprint

Just as any structure (especially the ones we drive or walk over) needs a carefully crafted plan, the foundation of a solid earned-media outreach campaign is a well-thought-out strategy. You can create your blueprint by first figuring out what precise message your client would like to get out. If it’s, for instance, science promotion, then we thoroughly review the research paper or scientific abstract, but we also pair that with a media scan to get a feel for the existing landscape of media coverage on that topic. Which reporters are talking about this topic, and in what sort of outlets? Is national coverage worth pursuing, or is a trade outlet the best option? If one reporter seems to cover this topic frequently, consider forging a relationship with them by first reading their coverage to determine their specific interests.

Get Building

And then, you can get to building your bridge! Bridges need to be suited to their unique geographic areas and be durable enough to weather difficult challenges. Personalization is key. Since journalists often lament the lack of personalization in pitches, you can immediately grab their attention by writing a pitch that specifically references their past coverage of a topic. This tells them that the person making the pitch has done their homework and knows what they’re talking about. It could entice them to reply to your inquiry and possibly interview your subject-matter expert or cover your abstract.

Fortify Connections

After bridge-construction is done, testing the strength of your connection is important to ensure that you have a proper foundation. If you were successful in increasing awareness of your clients and their issues, it’s valuable to sustain and build the relationship for future opportunities. The reporter may feel that your client was very helpful to their coverage, and will want to remain in contact when they write about a similar topic. Public relations professionals can play an active role in this process by following up with the reporter with relevant and timely information. Becoming the “Go-To” source for a topic is an aspirational goal that can be achieved with time and sustained effort.

Just as a bridge connects two places, a skilled public relations professional connects journalists with people who can tell a compelling story. Our clients, whether health systems or medical societies, all have access to the latest medical innovations and the newest research on compelling treatments. So, it’s our job to be continuously building credibility so that their impact can be felt and their content can be magnified. But building that bridge to credibility can only happen if public relations professionals have already built a solid, lasting foundation.

Banishing the Wooden Lead: Three Ways to Make PR Writing More Engaging

Written by Beth Casteel on . Posted in Building Credibility, Increasing Awareness.

One of the worst sins when I was in journalism school was to write a “wooden lead.” The grizzled—or should I say seasoned—editors who taught newswriting and editing at the University of Oklahoma would scowl at empty words at the top of a news story, crossing out one, two or even three dull opening paragraphs, and say, “There’s the lead,” pointing to the original fourth graph.

I was in J-school when journalists were reporters, not “content developers,” and the only way to access their work was through words printed on paper that you pulled from a newsstand for a quarter. But my old editors’ advice remains relevant—and is the key to making public relations writing stand out.

A wooden lead is an empty lead that fails to tell what is new and interesting. “The city council met in their chambers with 20 citizens in attendance on Tuesday.” Well, why did they meet and what did they do? Or “The parade was grand and exciting.” What exactly was grand and exciting about it? Provide details—as vivid (and accurate) as possible—to show readers how and why it was exciting.

My memory of the disgrace of a wooden lead followed me through my career in journalism and public relations, pushing me to dig deeper for interesting details.

Public relations professionals would be well served to spot and banish “wooden” openings from everything we write. Press releases, pitches, commentaries, social media posts and even client memos all should aim to intrigue readers from the first words. If you don’t have the nagging memory of a grumpy and slightly intimidating editor crossing out blocks of words and forcing you to find more engaging details, you can look for the signs of wooden prose and fix it yourself.

The most common wooden lead in public relations is the “pleased to announce” lead, or its equally dull cousin: “excited to announce.” These are so common that a quick search of a press release distribution site and the phrase “pleased to announce” quickly pulled 2.6 million results. It’s so common that I’ve been told by other PR people that this is what press releases are supposed to look like. But it doesn’t have to be. Why is our organization or our client “pleased to announce” this thing we’re announcing? What is important, exciting or pleasing about it? You can always find a better lead by taking just a moment to answer those questions. Make sure that you don’t leave the engaging details buried in the fourth graph or forget to include them at all.

Occasionally, “pleased to announce” may be the best approach, for instance when issues management puts constraints on what can be said. Usually, opening with that phrase is a signal that we can do better.

Some tips for finding an engaging opening that is good for advancing your earned media strategy, building credibility for your cause or creating a social media post people will want to read:

  • Watch your own reaction. As you review the draft and background material, look for details that are interesting that make you perk up a bit when you consider them. If it engages you, it will engage a reader or a journalist whom you are pitching for coverage.
  • Press yourself to find the telling facts. What, specifically, makes this announcement exciting? Why is the newly appointed leader so important to your work or your client’s work? Facts say more than empty adjectives.
  • Keep digging. Don’t settle for a generic template announcement or social post. Dig for what’s new, unique or insightful about the topic. That could involve a deeper dive into background materials, an internet search or some well-considered questions to the client.

It may take you a few extra minutes to find the details and the language that work better than the dreaded wooden lead, but it’s worth it to sharpen your craft and create communications that accomplish your goals.

Work desk with laptop and iPad

Building Successful Connections in a Remote Working World

Written by Madeleine Roberts on . Posted in Firm Culture.

When I joined The Reis Group in September 2021, I was starting a fully remote job for the first time. As an introvert, the thought of meeting new coworkers and clients, networking with reporters, and trying to get the feel of a new workplace already felt overwhelming. Knowing that I would be doing all these things over video calls meant that I knew I would need to have a strong plan in place to succeed.

Now, more than six months into my role at this Washington D.C.-based public relations agency, I’ve found a variety of strategies that have helped build relationships in the remote working world, especially as someone who is naturally more reserved. The key lies in finding a balance between being prepared and professional, stretching past your comfort zone to connect with others, and letting your personality shine through.

Building connections with reporters

Successful earned media strategy and outreach relies on two things: a strong story angle and a strong reporter connection. Building and maintaining relationships with reporters depends on establishing their trust that you are a helpful resource. Most importantly, ensure that reporters associate your name with someone who is quick to respond, who will always follow up and follow through, and who is easy to work with. But if you’re going to be working with reporters strictly on a remote basis, you may need to consider additional ways to make your connection stronger.

Don’t be afraid to personalize communications with reporters who you find yourself working with most often. For example, stay up to date with their recent stories, and reference them in pitches. Taking a few extra minutes to show reporters that you’re paying attention and appreciate their work can go a long way towards them keeping you in mind as a valued source.

Building connections with clients

In my experience, trying to get to know clients over video calls still feels strange, even more than two years into the pandemic. I’ve found that one key to starting off right is to have a quick introduction prepared and ready in advance of meetings. That way, when it comes time to introduce yourself, you can jump in with a smile and communicate the most important things that the client needs to know – including how excited you are to be working with them. Practicing ahead of time never hurts either.

Finding time for meet-and-greets outside of regular meetings can also help build connections with clients. Getting to know the individuals that you’ll be working with most closely is important to establishing and maintaining a productive working relationship. Prepare a list of questions in advance to ask the client about their work and how you can best help them achieve their public relations goals.

Building connections with colleagues

Finally, it’s important to work well with the people on your internal team. The teammates that we work with day in and day out are the ones who have each other’s backs and make sure the work gets done at the end of the day. Let your personality shine through the webcam so your colleagues can get to know the real you – and then you can’t go wrong.

Water-cooler type conversations are hard to have over video, so make a point of asking colleagues how they’re doing whenever you have the chance. And stay engaged as meetings start or when they end a few minutes early. Find five virtual minutes to connect with colleagues outside of regular meeting times, and you’ll soon feel like you’ve been working together for a long while.

I was recently able to meet some of my colleagues in person for the first time since starting with The Reis Group, and was so happy to find that we were easily able to pick up in person where we’d left off over video screens. The effort that my colleagues and I had made to get to know each other virtually was definitely worth it.

It may seem intimidating to start a new job remotely, but remember that you’re not alone. If you’re prepared and have a smile ready for everyone you meet, you are well on your way to making a good impression and succeeding as a colleague and a public relations professional.

Deploying an Unexpectedly Powerful Tool in Public Relations: Empathy

Written by Beth Casteel on . Posted in Elevating Reputations.

Public relations and communications professionals have many skills in our toolboxes that we develop and refine over our careers. One of the most important—and one of the least discussed—is the power of empathy. It could be called a skill sharpener because it can make every other tool we deploy more effective.

Seeing the world from the point of view of others, even those we passionately disagree with, is essential to every aspect of communications: writing, editing, working with media, crisis communications, and even collaborating with our colleagues and supporting our clients.

Writing and editing require us to put ourselves in the position of the reader. As we write, it is essential to think about how words will look, sound, and feel to someone else. Is the writing clear and readable, even for someone who isn’t familiar with the subject? Does it set the right tone and pace for what you want to accomplish? Good writing comes not just from picking the right words and structure, but from stepping back and reacting to the words as a reader coming to it the first time. It requires checking your own reactions as you read, write, and review from a place of empathy.

Media pitching can be much more effective if you have an in-depth understanding of the journalist’s viewpoint, including insight into how news organizations work. Thinking about your audience for pitching can be like a funhouse mirror because you must consider the reporter’s point of view as well as the viewpoint of their audience and the perspective of the editors that the journalist certainly has in mind in deciding what to cover—or not. When planning a pitch, keep in mind what it’s like for a reporter to be on the receiving end of dozens or even hundreds of pitches a day. Empathy and some research into the reporter’s beat can help you highlight what’s in your organization’s or your client’s interest that is valuable to the reporter and their readers.

Crisis communications should start with putting yourself in the shoes of the intended audience. A wise communicator once told me that in a crisis you should remember words attributed to Teddy Roosevelt, “No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.” The first step in communicating in a crisis is understanding and acknowledging the pain or difficulty that other people are experiencing due to the crisis. (Recall, for example, the BP oil company CEO who memorably complained, “I want my life back,” in the aftermath of the massive 2010 oil spill that killed 11 workers and destroyed the livelihoods of countless Louisianans’ who relied on tourism and fishing for a living.) Without that first attempt at empathy, no one cares what you have to say.

Empathy also makes you a better colleague, consultant, and client. It is easier to understand the views of people you work with if you’ve been on multiple sides of these relationships. Even if you haven’t experienced it all, it is important to ask sensitive questions and listen carefully to the answers. Remembering what it was like to be new to a job or just learning a field, or trying to understand the pressures your colleagues or bosses are under, can go a long way in building relationships. Recognizing others’ desires to be recognized and understanding the full scope of all the demands that your clients face make everyone happier and more effective.

Developing empathy takes self-awareness and an effort to deliberately seek and understand other viewpoints. Watching and reading news that presents opinions opposing your own can be disconcerting, uncomfortable, and even painful. Persuasion theory, and our experience in the current pandemic, tells us that bombarding people with facts doesn’t change minds. Asking questions, listening, and sharing are the more effective first steps.

Elephants

Elephants vs Mosquitos: Which Approach to Media Outreach Gets Results

Written by Beth Casteel on . Posted in Building Credibility.

A popular theory of evolution serves as a good analogy for approaches to media pitching, whether we are promoting scientific research or increasing awareness of a health issue.

In biology, organisms are classified according to the evolutionary “strategies” they use for reproduction and long-term survival of the species. Humans and elephants are known as “K-selected” organisms. Within these species, individuals have just a few offspring over their lifetime and devote substantial time and energy to raising and nurturing each baby.

On the other end of the spectrum are “r-selected” organisms such as sea turtles and mosquitos. These creatures lay vast numbers of eggs to produce numerous offspring and invest almost nothing in caring for them. This strategy counts on massive quantity to produce at least a few survivors to carry on the species generation after generation.

I often think of K- and r-strategies when pitching to the media. Either approach can be successful, but most often, we prefer a K-strategy, in which we thoughtfully nurture a customized pitch. This means taking time to think precisely about who we want to reach, to learn about specific reporters whom we can target, and to consider which particular aspect of our story will most interest them. We take time to learn about the reporters and to clearly understand their beats and their publications. We review bylined articles and plan an approach to the most relevant reporters, with a fresh angle that is most likely to intrigue them. While we may send out fewer pitches and queries with this K-strategy, we generally get more high-quality responses and build better relationships with journalists who come to know and trust us and are willing to keep opening our emails.

Just like in biology, our tactics do not always fall neatly into one category. Occasionally, variations on the r-strategy — sending out a single pitch to a long list of reporters — make sense. When we have strong, time-sensitive breaking news, it can work well to send a pitch to a broad but well-researched list. But too much reliance on the r-strategy is why journalists are often frustrated with public relations. Hundreds of mosquito-like pitches annoyingly fill up journalists’ in-boxes every day.

Media databases and distribution services make it tempting to simply cast out a pitch to larger numbers of journalists. It is quick and easy to identify dozens or even hundreds of reporters in your topic area and then blanket the state, region, or the entire world with a generic pitch. But these databases are far from perfect and inevitably identify innumerable reporters who will find the outreach irrelevant and irritating. They may even block the sender’s email, which means they may not be able to reach that reporter when they actually have a story that might be a good match.

Taking the time to thoughtfully nurture a pitch and selectively send it to reporters who will care about it is better than just letting loose a swarm of mosquitos.

Innovative Cancer Communications Tools Keep Survivors Focused on Healthy Behaviors

Written by Tamara Moore on . Posted in Promoting Science.

“Cancer survivor.” It’s a title of honor that 17 million Americans are proud to wear. While the title is hard-won, for many survivors the sense of relief and gratitude drift away quickly, leaving in its place difficult challenges such as depression, substance use, and unhealthy diet and lifestyle. These disturbances have a real impact — disrupting healing and putting survivors at risk of recurrence and secondary cancers.

Unfortunately, this post-treatment baggage often is exacerbated by changing relationships that disrupt survivors’ trusted healthcare teams and support systems, making it difficult to overcome challenges on their own.

Working with the National Association of Chronic Disease Directors and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, The Reis Group helped launch Talk to Someone, a conversation simulation tool, through a mix of media relations, stakeholder outreach, and digital media marketing to bring the resource to those who would benefit most. The tool creates opportunities for cancer survivors to start conversations about living healthier lives. In each conversation simulation, survivors can ask “Linda,” the platform’s virtual cancer survivor, a variety of questions. Linda is programmed to give brief, informative, and emotionally supportive answers to help shape behavior change, while also citing her own experiences as a survivor.

As I was test-driving the tool, “chatting” with Linda felt a little like a guessing game. I wondered, for example, “How would she respond if I said I was considering changes to my diet?” But as the conversation progressed, I found myself becoming genuinely engaged. The conversation felt natural, a little like a chat with a friend. Programmed prompts helped keep the conversation moving forward in a constructive way without getting stuck in a frustrating customer-service-chatbot death spiral.

But before The Reis Group started promoting the tool, I tested it with several friends who actually were cancer survivors to get some direct target-audience feedback. I wanted to know whether they found it helpful and reflective of their own experiences. Were these the type of conversations they wanted or needed to have, with a virtual human no less?

I was pleasantly surprised by how open and receptive they were to it. They all said they learned something new, which seemed like a win. But most surprising was one friend’s unexpected admission of opening up to Linda about a post-treatment experience with depression.

She told me, “I wish this had been around after my treatment. It took me months to recognize my own depression. It could have saved me a lot of time and pain having someone to “talk” to whom I didn’t feel like I was burdening with another problem.”

Personally, I thought the tool had a nifty factor that would work for promotion, but to hear first-hand the benefits it could have with survivors brought home to me the fundamental reason we do the work that we do: the power of proactive, creative health care public relations for getting the right messages to the right audiences.

As the world changes, innovative tools that offer new and different ways to provide evidence-based health information are critical for public health. Public relations is a critical component to ensuring cancer survivors achieve awareness of these tools to help improve their health.

If you have a cancer survivor in your life, please consider sharing the tool with them, or checking it out for yourself to understand how you can better support post-treatment healthy lifestyles for your loved ones.

Covid 19

Ethical and Accurate Science Promotion: Lessons from COVID-19 and Hydroxychloroquine

Written by Beth Casteel on . Posted in Promoting Science.

This article previously appeared in PRSA-NCC  :

The Guardian recently published an article on how the lupus drug hydroxychloroquine came to be touted as a “miracle cure” for COVID-19. This story is a must-read for any of us in public relations involved in promoting medical research. The article traces the beginnings of the hype of the drug as a potential cure and the deadly results. It provides a primer for distinguishing between valid and misleading research to protect the credibility of our clients—and ourselves.

Reporter Julie Carrie Wong explains several red flags in the initial hydroxychloroquine study that spurred speculation about its use for coronavirus. She cites common flaws in research that most health journalists and public relations practitioners should know to watch for: it was a small study that was not randomized, well-controlled, or blinded. Randomized controlled trials are the gold standard for research because they compare similar patients that are treated the same except that some randomly get the treatment being tested and some do not. Ideally, trials have enough participants to ensure the results are meaningful, and they are blinded so neither the patient nor the evaluating physician knows who received the treatment to eliminate conscious or unconscious bias.

Wong also notes less commonly identified red flags that require a more careful reading of the study, like the number of patients “lost to follow-up.” This refers to patients who dropped out of the study, potentially skewing the results. Dropping or losing track of patients who don’t do well on the treatment makes it easier to claim a 100% success rate, as was done in the hydroxychloroquine trial at the center of this story.

Our agency has declined to promote small studies with large numbers of dropouts. In one case, researchers, for various reasons, didn’t count the results for several patients in the treatment group, while no one in the control group was uncounted or “lost to follow up.” This practice made the results questionable at best or an outright lie at worst.

Claims of 100% success should always raise an eyebrow and make you look closer and the research methods. In nearly 15 years of writing about medical research, I’ve never seen a well-controlled randomized trial tout 100% success.

Another red flag in the hydroxychloroquine study was the use of possibly misleading “endpoints.” In this case, researchers based their claim of the drug’s success on whether virus was found on a nose swab rather than whether patients recovered or died. Such “surrogate” endpoints are often used in medical research because it can take too long to get to meaningful clinical endpoints—such as progression of the illness or death. Such alternate endpoints should be scrutinized and well-justified.

Wong did a great job describing some of the basics of detecting misleading research. Her story can serve as a primer for ethical promotion of medical research.

Besides damaging our own reputation as public relations professionals, inappropriately touting research can actually hurt or even kill people. With hydroxychloroquine, a man in Arizona died and his wife became critically ill after they tried to treat themselves by ingesting a fishbowl water treatment that contained chloroquine phosphate, a compound related to hydroxychloroquine. Moreover, people suffering from lupus who desperately need the drug to manage their condition cannot get it because it has been hoarded in hopes of treating COVID-19. In addition, hydroxychloroquine has potentially serious side effects, including eye problems and potentially deadly heart rhythm issues or heart failure.

The jury is still out on whether hydroxychloroquine is effective against coronavirus. We will be watching for upcoming controlled clinical trials to provide scientifically sound evidence about whether this drug is worth the risks. And we will be watching for opportunities to ethically promote science by providing appropriate perspective on the value of this research.

Cancelled

What do PR professionals do when COVID-19 cancels major annual meetings?

Written by Tamara Moore on . Posted in Promoting Science.

This article previously appeared in PRSA-NCC and O’Dwyer’s:

Nearly 30 annual scientific meetings have already been canceled, postponed, or moved into a virtual format because of the coronavirus pandemic. Countless more major events will succumb as shelter-in-place and stay-at-home guidance is extended through April and beyond. As a healthcare-focused agency, The Reis Group is quickly adapting to a new reality.

For healthcare communications professionals who use these significant gatherings to promote medical advances and scientific expertise, we are instantly forced to scrap our artfully crafted media plans. What happens to your press program? How can you still get information out about your big meeting?

Public relations professionals must be optimists and problem-solvers. This is just another (huge) challenge to work around as we creatively look to meet our objectives of communicating scientific advances. Regardless whether the meeting is cancelled, postponed, or gone virtual, here are key points we consider in recrafting our multifaceted media approach:

Competing with COVID-19: Coronavirus is dominating the news, yet have to remember there is still some space for non-COVID stories. Look hard to research the best timing, angle, and targets, and tap into your contacts. Many medical specialties, trade publications, and niche verticals are hungry for content, especially with the loss of cutting-edge research news from major meetings.

Finding your news peg: It’s, uh, pretty hard to promote research from a meeting that didn’t happen. So, we need to creatively adjust news pegs. Are presentation abstracts published in a Society journal? Will there be a virtual meeting or preview that will present new work? Identifying the “why now” will be important in your outreach to select reporters.

Rescheduling your embargo: Many meeting presentations are embargoed until the date and time of presentation. Others are released online with the conference materials. Work with your meeting team to hold back studies from immediate release and coordinate with researchers so that you can maintain exclusivity of the work for your promotional efforts.

Making your story easy to cover: Journalists are under incredible pressure right now. Think through how you can make it as easy as possible for a reporter to cover your story—know the availability of your experts, have your images ready to transmit–with source credits. Digital and print journalists are navigating a whole new world of virtual conferences and tele-reporting, too.

Thinking beyond your normal promotional approach: Getting a societies’ work covered beyond a news release will require some outside-the-box thinking. Can you host virtual office hours with researchers? Coordinate taped skype interviews, or local broadcast outreach in researchers’ home markets? Host virtual media briefings around key topics? Diversify to other specialty trade publications? Or maybe spotlight key trade reporters in a roundtable social media conversation to comment on the field of research?

2020 will likely not turn out to be a groundbreaking year for meeting coverage, but communication about health and the science remains vital to move your field forward. This year, more than ever, communicators need to harness their creativity and fast thinking to overcome challenges to achieve their communications objectives.