Our s2s Public Relations team is quoted in this fine WIRED article.
So, let’s take a look behind the scenes shall we… What’s involved in making a story in WIRED happen?
Here’s a play-by-play.
First, the stats:
⚡Nov 15th, 2022: First contract with the reporter
➡️28+ total emails (many honestly around [mis]understanding time zones and coordinating interviews, and quick follow-up questions/etc)
➡️45-minute Zoom interview
➡️15-minute Horizon Workrooms interview
📍January 6th, 2023: Publish date
Now, some background:
Trevor Ainge from our team flagged a reporter request, for companies with a perspective on Meta Horizon Workrooms in one of the platforms we source daily for client opportunities called #HARO (Help a Reporter Out).
We’ve been using the Workrooms platform in our Friday meetings for more than a year now. Workrooms is a collaborative meeting platform created by Meta for connecting with others in virtual reality.
Meeting every Friday in Workrooms is an effort to hone our perspectives on leading-edge, immersive, engaging collaboration technologies. It all made sense — not to mention, it’s a fun kind of team building.
As a former TV journalist turned PR practitioner, I knew the boxes to tick. Speed matters. As journalist and author Chuck Klosterman notes, who gets quoted in a story is most often dictated by who the reporter emails and who emails back first. I replied to the reporter’s request immediately.
The reporter, the affable Jeff Link, asked 6 questions in his HARO request. I replied with (pretty good) one sentence answers to each, and copied and pasted (tip: *never attach*) images of the team in VR, and hyperlinked to an s2s tweet showcasing our Meta Horizon Workrooms shenanigans at the bottom of my email.
Jeff emailed back about an hour later, to which I replied instantly. And it was on. I’ve linked the full story in the comments.
This workflow is exactly the playbook we execute for clients every day. The perspective here is finding opportunities that align strongly with your organization’s vision. For us, we’re deeply rooted in emerging technologies, particularly life sciences, edtech, and climate technology, so showcasing our fluency in VR seemed like a win.
Just as we do for clients, the real win isn’t publication, it’s amplification. WIRED reaches about 50M people a month, through its sites, social channels, podcasts, and newsletter.
Importantly, did we love the story? Well, mostly. But that’s part of the process. Our views were represented fairly and the article was fun and factual.
More importantly, we put the *relations* in public relations.
Our team formed a good connection with the reporter, who is fully aware, we will now be pitching him some of our clients’ best stories.
#PR #mediarelations #VR
#publicrelations #technology