The days of the reactive press office are over for all but the most arcane of organisations.
An efficient modern day media centre sits at the heart of any ongoing communications campaign, driving the volume of coverage by offering media value-add insight and analysis.
There are precious few publications that still have the luxury of a features editor, and even advertising-led features calendars are scarce.
A proactive mindset of ‘find and secure opportunities’ has replaced the forward planning of yore. The media centre is now the preserve of seasoned PR practitioners who track and predict the media agenda, interweaving their clients’ expertise to create opportunities for positive coverage; providing journalists with a fresh angle and clients with coverage that ties back to their market proposition.
The genuine skill or dismissively refer to with a wave of the hand as ‘media relations’ has never been more important is such an increasingly fast-paced and thinly resourced media crucible.
An effective media centre should also be enabling the plethora of online commentators to cover an organisation’s latest activities. From ensuring company profiles are up to date on frequently checked sources such as Wikipedia, to making content available in a variety of formats – RSS feeds, online video, podcasts and even the likes of Linked In, Facebook or Flickr – the media centre is now a vital delivery arm in any PR campaign.
Media centre and media relations