URGENT: Solar Eclipse-related PR tip!
I recently wrote about how to get a feature story about your firm by connecting it to the Comey Hearings. Monday’s solar eclipse offers an even better opportunity to create a photo op that is practically guaranteed to showcase your firm as a friendly, collegial workplace.
We’ve all seen the famous photos from the 1950s of movie audiences wearing their 3D glasses. You can create a similar photo with your eclipse specs.
How? If your firm is anywhere near the path of Monday’s solar eclipse, simply host a firm-wide, culture-enhancing Eclipse Party.
No one’s going to be working during those hours anyway, so buy plenty of sandwiches, leaving extra time for what’s assuredly going to be a busy delivery day with gridlocked roads. Most of your people will already have purchased a pair of special eclipse glasses, but use your marketing budget to buy enough extras to pass around.
Pick a convenient and wide-open location to watch the eclipse (a local park, parking lot, etc.), invite your personnel, and alert the media. Email a short, festive press release about the party and your firm to your local contacts at the local general-circulation, business, and legal publications. Follow up with a phone call. Time is of the essence here. Ideally, they’ll send a reporter and photographer, but be prepared to shoot and submit your own photos as well.
Bring to work a good camera to take your own pictures. Just set up (1) a tight shot with (2) a nice diverse variety of people (3) looking up at the sky (4) wearing paper eclipse glasses. Shoot some fun photos, and try to get some help from other serious-amateur photographers at the firm. Pay them a little bonus for the effort.
Immediately send the best high-res photos (both horizontal and vertical orientation) to your media contacts. Remember Ross’s Rule of PR Photography: “If you give the media an awesome photo, they’ll find a way to use it.”
Next, spread your photos around the Internet. Post them to whatever social media platforms your firm uses, e.g. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, a blog, etc.
The photos and press release MUST go out Monday afternoon, because most of the articles will be written about on Tuesday, and the story will be pretty stale by Wednesday.
Of course, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so don’t miss the moment yourself!
Good luck, and please send me a copy of any coverage you get!
