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Beyond the inbox: Maximising digital platforms for media relations success
Journal of Education Advancement & Marketing,
5
(4),
392-402
(2021)
Abstract
In a landscape where media relations professionals outweigh journalists 6:11, it is becoming increasingly more difficult to garner earned media. As media relations teams at colleges and universities across the country are struggling to gain media attention, the University of Richmond media relations team will share best practices on how their digital pitching strategy has cut through the clutter, leading to national media opportunities. The UR team connects faculty experts with reporters leading to national media placements. In doing so, the team achieves its strategic goal of advancing awareness and perception of the university and further propelling its academic reputation. Specifically, the authors will detail how digital platforms, including social media and an online newsroom, can be used to showcase campus expertise, catch the attention of reporters and land national media opportunities. Using these strategies, the UR media relations team has increased media impressions by 900 per cent (from 2 to 20 billion) in the past five years.
Keywords: media relations; higher education; media pitching; digital platforms; leveraging experts
The full article is available to subscribers to the journal.
Author's Biography
Sunni Brown University of Richmond’s (UR) director of media and public relations, is an awardwinning media relations professional who works closely with the science, technology, engineering and math majors out of the University of Richmond School of Arts & Sciences and the Richmond School of Law. Sunni prides herself on communicating complex information in a way that is easy for anyone to understand. Her media relations efforts have resulted in placements in The New York Times, Time Magazine, Scientific American, National Geographic, Newsweek and more. Sunni has worked at UR for six years. Before coming to UR, she served as the media spokesperson for the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles. She also worked as an anchor and reporter at two Virginia television stations. Sunni is a first-generation college student who holds a bachelor of arts degree from Emory & Henry College, where she double majored in mass communications and English literature. She has a master of liberal arts from UR.
