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Q & A with Brigitte Lyons

We have lots of time for q and a and so if you're having a trouble thinking of who should I be focusing on or what might I ask look like I want to clarify absolutely this is your opportunity to prick pick bridgette's brain which I know my clients love doing this's your opportunity to find out what she might suggest for re reaching a particular journalists getting a particular story in the news it this is huge so let's start in the studio audience uh what questions do we have for bridget if your dream is something like oprah super soul sunday before you go after that and you start to get more into the media august guest blogging or being a journalist having that background writing for magazines what evidence do you need to prove to those sorts of folks that you've got what it takes to be on their show who asked the fifty thousand there's a couple of things that I would suggest specifically for getting on the caliber of something like oprah so one of the most important things you can dem...

onstrate to somebody who's going to bring you up on stage is comfort being up on stage so if you're going after oprah and on tv you definitely want to start building up a library of clips of yourself either being interviewed giving presentations so anybody who's interested in doing big media are speaking that's a really great way to do it now another thing that I recommend for people when you're going after somebody who has a huge name, big name recognition there, getting a million asks is who influences the influencer? So if you go and look, you can see who are oprah's producers and who do they follow on twitter? Who are they pinning from on pinterest what instagram accounts so they follow right? Because it could be so much easier sometimes to back your way in by influencing the influence or rather than going directly. So those are the two really concrete steps that you can start now it's like buildup that riel build up your clip clip library and also start thinking about as you're doing that what accounts are they falling? What media are they following so that you get on their radar that way? And so you would can act with the influencers of the influencer? Absolutely, absolutely even oprah follow someone no does pitching even happen anymore in the way it used to? I mean, just because everything has changed so much like the idea of sending a press release and following up with a phone call. So I on ly believe you should use the press release in very limited instances and it's like if you have a new product release if you have an event coming up, so I think it has to be something really time specific you know and you want to give some people some background like I'm actually doing some work with the yoga studio and they're doing an event so we used a press release and it was great but in general I know what I really recommend is actually going back to this template that we did my email's pitch template is almost exactly like that so I've used you as an example you know you go straight to what is the hook what is the meat of the story and then sell that and then let them follow up with you whether it's an interview or something else and it's really successful you know we've got a terrace and pieces and fast company and other places and it could be really successful and you could do it over email now lot we still use phone the phone to do it but I don't necessarily recommend that if you haven't done it before they just pick up the phone and call a reporter yeah we actually question coming from online they say I feel like I'm great with emails but I'd love to hear more about how to do this over the phone or in person I jam up a bit when I don't have time to think it through write a script write a script especially thinking of pitching the media I mean maybe it says something you're pitching but when I whenever I have a big pitch for them media I will write myself out some a script and talking points because I actually in the same way way I freeze up I get panicked when somebody else answers the phone there's something about that you don't I don't think we don't expect them to pick up on when they do we freak out so definitely think about and follow exactly this pitch script so when somebody is on the phone it's imperative that immediately you kind of tell them why you're calling and what you want to talk about and then ask them if they have the time to talk tio so give them that chance to say like, is this a good time for you it's just instead of bulldozing your way, which nobody likes and if they say no to say okay, should we schedule or should I send you an email and and let it go and that's the difference? I think between being really considerate and being pushy ok, great one more from creative cindy can can well, I'm gonna ask for the can someone ask about the subject line the subject line of the email? Yes, absolutely thank you I actually started reading the email that was going to go back to it so the subject line in an e mail if you're pitching like the media or a piece of content I always use the subject line is being the headline and in general, the idea of having your subject line for anything being a headline works right because you want that subject line of the email to be attention grabbing us immediately convey what people are going to get when they open it so that they're opening in a time when they have time to actually interact with the e mail so literally, if we're actually posting, like doing a guest contribution or a story idea for a journalist, we literally will figure out like, what will be the headline? You know, I'm pitching entrepreneur what would an entrepreneur headline look and just copy and paste that into the subject? Uh, any more questions in the studio here, this is time to pick bridget's brain. Karen, go alright, how much can you pimp out one idea or one piece of contents in your recommendation? And what you see is done most often and under what timeframe, if you could be supposed so specific? Yeah, the sky was the limit. I mean, maybe not this guy's a limit, but one of the things that we learn and our pr training is that repeating your message is good, right? That people have really short attention spans, they're not seeing what you're saying, and also, if you're using other collaborators to get your message out, then ideally, you're hitting new people every time so I actually have this program that actually has a pitch template if you if you want to download it on the website it's called the content remix and download. Okay, so, you know, I tell this story about burn a brown, actually and how every time she does an interview, she repeats the same messages she talks about her book in the same way, and she usually shares really similar stories, and this is actually a really good idea because every time she's going out there she's trying tio reach more people and bring that message of being vulnerable, being courageous to more people. And so if she went off message should be doing a huge disservice to her work and the people that she's trying to move, so definitely do it again and again and find different platforms that you can use to do that get that message out, I think, a question that I would like to pose for you proposed to you for some of the people in the audience, and I'm sure online as well is the question of niche media or niche media because, you know, we've talked about oprah and we've talked about, you know, some big name media, but, like, what about someone like whitney who's? Specifically going after u ex designers or aspiring u ex designers, are there any differences for pitching niche media or are you? Is it the same process? What do you think about differently when you're thinking about maybe smaller mohr targeted audiences? You know, we actually have a u x designer clients, so it was so much about this that I never knew before actually the process is really similar one thing to know across the media that their budgets are really cut and so the more you can provide to them in terms of a package story, the better and so by package, I don't necessarily mean a press release, I mean, if you want to pitch somebody like a u x story or, you know a design story, will you really want to talk about is like, okay, what's the angle, why should be covering this now? Maybe there's a graphic that you can provide with them and that doesn't change honestly, whether you're watching oprah or where they're pitching good magazine or something like that it's pretty similar across the board awesome. Any other questions? Sasha? Well, I worked npr and I've been a journalist, I'm just kind of getting back in my head and it seems like with these types of things usually has to be something temporal like something has to happen or being newsworthy so I haven't been actively pitching anything because it's like, well, one there's a book release that's a thing, right? So does there have to be an event in that sense or something that is the marked in time if you need me yeah, I mean, I'm not gonna lie an event helps having something that's coming out on a launch, something like that helps, but I don't think it's necessary, and so if you don't have that there's a couple of techniques that you so one is seasonal, you know, right now are like, every september you're heading into back to school, so do you have a back to school angle? They're looking for that? Do you? The mother's day? And are you going for holiday gift guys, that sort of thing? So really knowing what the seasonality is of what it is that you're offering and where those natural angles are, and if you go, you know, if you go to the grocery store and look at the racks, all the magazines have the same headlines, right? So it's really finding that, like, slightly different twist on the topics that they're covering all the time rather than thinking of something that's, so brand new and unique and out of left field because usually they can't even fit that in yeah, so thinking about what seasonal angles are or news jacking right so news jacking us his technique where you look at what's really hot in the headlines and then using a spin so it could be like you know maybe there's this huge trend story and it's like a back to school sir and you have the local mom angle or vice versa you can also look at headlines from one media and if it's a short term kind of thing like a newspaper tv you can tweak it and pitch it to another media and that's actually something journalists do a lot call it stealing like a journalist awesome well as we're starting to wrap up this segment I know we talked quickly about perhaps you sharing the case study of how we met and I was wondering if you could share that with everyone because so many different things have come out of that and I think this topic of taking your ideas taking your next big nothing to the masses to the big time is the story to me is just so indicative of what connections can do for you sure I alluded to briefly but I really didn't go into it so a few years ago I was doing to sign on lifestyle blogging and terror had the properties scotty girl the website property so it was the same kind of thing design craft blogging and I was still doing my pr business I didn't have my own business at the time but we were writing about similar things, and I kept reading terrorist stuff and be like, I was thinking that why did she write? Like I was getting this, like, everything I write, she writes and really resonating with her work. So I pitched terra a guest post idea, and I did a couple of guests post on scotty girl and then happening to me first. I did, yeah. Don't wait to be first. That was the initial interaction. I believe that because I was I was, like, seriously, like internet stalking terra I was like, why is she saying all the things in my head? We have to be friends. So very good at that. Yeah. And then a few years later, we met it at a conference. So we were at the inaugural world domination summit together, and I went up to terra and I introduced myself and said, you know, I don't I have no idea what I said. But there is one, I think important, I hope it's okay, if I say this feels like bragging but there's one important distinction to about meeting people in person is that you go up to somebody isn't equal. So I've been following terra and I've been loving her work for a long time, and she had a bigger platform then, as she soon knows, now that I do in terms of numbers, right? And so but I didn't go up to her like a fan. I went up to her as somebody who had a lot of similar ideas, a lot of similar thoughts, a lot of similar passions. So I went up to her of thinking like, we both have a lot of common I'm not just like a fan girl, and we totally hit it off the press is beautiful history. I mean, after that point we've been collaborating, we've done lots of interviews with the we each other, I've interviewed her from my sight and vice a versa, and then down the road, over the course of many years, terra brought me in with ten thousand feet to talk about networking and media outreach and so that's an opportunity. But then also an opportunity like this where I think looking at, you know, looking at the content that I have to provide here and thinking, okay, networking connections, media this is this is the kind of thing that people need to really take their ideas to the big time. I could just talk about it myself because bridget and I have been friends so long and I'm pretty attuned to what her strategies are, but why wouldn't I do my friend a solid and bring her onstage with mate, right? So yeah, so I just wanted to kind of illustrate that how easy it was for us to connect how easy it was for us to get along and test the waters and then how many opportunities have come out of that for both of us? Yeah, absolutely. And one of the great things about our relationship is obviously we're friends and we get along and like a lot of the same things, but also our customers have a lot of synergies like it's really useful for me to work with people after they've worked with terra right there in a really great position and here doesn't necessarily want to be doing media outreach for her clients, so it doesn't make sense so there's this like beautiful symmetry where we both get a lot out of it, our clients get a lot of out of it and it's not like it's in a really overly competitive kind of space, absolutely yeah, so can we give a huge round of applause for bridget lion on again, you confined bridget it be think forward dot com and you mentioned that content remix? Why don't you tell everyone specifically where they confined the content remix, right, so that's. Also my website, it's b think forward, dot com slash remix and that's. Ah, just a program, there's, an audio and a quick start guide for repurpose ing your most popular content for bloggers, the media says, actually, how you take one piece of content or one idea, and use it over and over and over again to get more publicity. Yeah, it's, the letter b, think forward dot com cool, thanks, bert. Thank you.