IT Data Centered

One of the most common trends in PR pitching today is to hook an IT security pitch to a recent security outbreak.

With the recent revelation that the US and South Korea were hit by a cyber-attack, my inbox was flooded with PR pitches. Some of those pitches were just offers of experts to talk about the subject.  While some were claims about vendor products and how they could protect against attacks.

From a journalist point of view – it’s all good.

You see when a major outbreak occurs; we’re all scrambling for sources and experts. Getting a nice PR packaged email is often a welcome invite to help us get our jobs done.

Don’t be discouraged if you don’t necessarily get an immediate reply – remember outbreak stories are often very urgent with super tight deadlines. The other side of outbreak stories is that they often last more than a day, with journalists doing second day (or later) follow-ups.

What can be challenging sometimes is finding the right writer at a publication that is covering the outbreak. In many cases, it will be more than one writer,  as a publication aims to provide multiple angles to a story.

Tools:

On ITDatabase.com there are a number of different keyword queries you can use to try and pinpoint the right journalist for your pitch.

The most obvious is to just use the ‘OUTBREAK NAME’ (if there is one) to see who has written on the topic already. Remember, second day follow-ups are the norm for these kinds of stories.

It’s also a great opportunity to revisit the journalists that write about a particular vendor to give them a timely hook to write about that vendor again (Query: Vendor Name).

Opportunities:

Breaking stories can often be the most challenging types of stories for journalists because they require immediate sourcing – and everyone is scrambling for sources at the same time.

As a PR pro, you can really make a difference and help out a journalist (and your client) during an IT security outbreak incident.  Incidents are not always attacks, they can also involve patch days (think Microsoft’s Patch Tuesday)  and zero day vulnerabilities.

Outbreaks represent an ongoing opportunity for security vendors to ‘make a name for themselves’ without the need to have a new product release or an event.  Outbreaks are also often events with a lot of interest.

So be sure to take advantage of these opportunities and remember, you really can be a huge help to your journalist contacts in their time of need.