Media stocking

Being a public relations practitioner requires knowledge and background within many areas of the industry. You have to know how to write a press release. You have to develop an accurate media list to pitch too. You have to develop a pr plan and present it to the client. Most importantly, you have to be an excellent writer and know the workings of AP style.

Although we are taught many of these things in the classroom, one important thing might not be included in public relations curriculum is media stocking.

As strange as it does sound, media stocking does not literally mean hunting down the media and stocking them until they publish your press release. Instead, media stocking is the back end of public relations: tracking media coverage to provide measurements and campaign progress to clients.

As part of the final stage in public relations campaigns, keeping track of media coverage is one of the most important and forgotten parts of PR. Luckily for us, we have an essential tool that call help us in our media stocking ventures: media directories.

Cision Media Directory : Formally known as Bacon’s, Cision offers a wide variety of tools for PR pros. Cision services offer media monitoring, developed media lists and online evaluations of client coverage. Cision is a great directory because they locate all articles your client is mentioned in and send them to you within a month.

Gebbie Press: Gebbie press, in the PR world known as the modern edition of Mondo Times, offers PR pros media information from over 24,000 listings. Gebbie is perfect for the PR practitioner who needs an itemized list of media specific to their client all while receiving articles publicizing the client.

BurrelesLuce: Also known as Burrelle’s Media Directory, BurrelesLuce is similar to Cision but now offers more online interaction for PR pros. With press release blogs increasingly becoming popular, BurrelesLuce offers a virtual, online multi-media kit.

While media stocking can become easier with the media directory tools mentioned in this blog, it is important to remember that locating client coverage can take weeks if not months.

Happy stocking :-)