TAG - top tips

Writing for media can be a challenging task. It can be hard to translate thoughts onto paper. Knowing exactly what the media or your audience are interested in might not be obvious. How do you put an authentic spin on a topic?

A more personalised and targeted method of disseminating interesting information about your institution or organisation to journalists is through pitching. Pitching involves suggesting a potential story idea to a journalist for a piece that you can provide content or comment for.

Barely a month goes by without a media league table of the world’s top universities and business schools. One month, it’s the rankings for business schools in Europe and the next it’s the rankings for MBAs, followed by rankings for Master’s programmes. The rankings for business schools and universities can feel constant and the wide variety of ranking tables published by a number of sources such as Forbes, The Economist, the Financial Times, and QS means that many schools can frequently see significant rises and falls.

A press release is a vital tool when working in PR or comms for a university or business school. It is a great way to disseminate information quickly to a large number of people, whether that’s new or interesting research from your institution or information on new programmes that you want to share with journalists.

Every PR professional welcomes the opportunity for networking, getting face-to-face with relevant journalists, building relationships and understanding what they are looking for with regards to ideas and material.

As a higher education institution, it’s ideal for your name to feature in the media, whether that’s academics commenting on current issues, successful alumni stories, or interesting research results. However, at some point, you may be faced with media coverage which paints your institution in a bad light and unfortunately, this is mostly beyond your control. A professor from your institution has their own mind, their own life, and makes their own decisions. If they make a bad decision and this reaches the media, then they will inexplicably be linked to the school they work for. This can also happen if your institution becomes associated with an unsavoury brand or public figure. You might recall last year, when an unfortunate sausage brand was trending on Twitter along with #boycott after becoming associated with a certain politician.