By Hazel Butters

May 25th, 2012

Would you share your story in a pub?

Would you share your story in a pub?

It’s no secret that I have a born-affinity for alcohol: my parents used to own a public house. I grew up around the dispensation of beer, wine and spirits; my sister and I slept in a bedroom from where I could hear the clinking of glasses and the muffled echo of my parents shouting: “Last orders please!” Even my pocket money was reward for neatly lining Schweppes bottles on shelves each Sunday morning.

In short, I’m familiar with pubs.

Sometimes I get asked – whether it’s by clients, employees or friends – what makes a great press story for a broader audience? If by broader they are referring to national newspapers, TV, radio and popular men’s or women’s interest titles, then I think the answer is that it’s the story you would tell in a pub.

Let me illustrate. One client we work with built his multinational refinishing business using what he had learnt about violins when he was a child at his grandfather’s instrument shop (he also came from a family of innovators, his uncle invented the first car horn for Henry Ford). Another client, in need of coders, found an unexpected source of employees when a nearby Ford factory closed down, making steel millers available to retrain as software programmers. We even worked with a start-up that created, out of an MIT classroom project, a device that enabled dogs and their walkers to get to know each other through social networking.

To get in the national press you need strong ‘human interest’ stories. These are the sort of tales we tell one another socially; it’s part of our deep, common-mitochondrial-DNA nature of being human. That’s what newspapers and news-orientated broadcast stations do – they share stories about people. Likewise pubs, coffee-shops, or whatever social collective works for you, are microcosms of our story-telling needs. This is why we all enjoy sharing stories that begin: “Did you know?”, “I heard a really interesting thing about…” or “You’ll never guess what this guy is doing…”

Hence my personal human interest test: “Would I tell this story in a pub?”

I would like to add one caveat; the audience has to be told to a group of non-work peers. For example, if you work in IT, then sharing a story about a new software application, how an API worked, or how you achieved an amazing data storage throughput, would be of obvious interest to that group. Those stories are, by and large, targeted tales for a trade press audience – perfect for people who would naturally understand what you’re saying and why it’s relevant, important and interesting.

But if you can imagine meeting someone new at a gathering in a bar, striking up a conversation with them, and then enjoyably sharing someone else’s unusual story? Well, then that’s a tick-in-the-box for a much broader pitch. Do please remember though, this is considered pitching – not just a licence to email a bazillion randomly-selected journalists (really, a cockatiel armed with a cocktail stick or really good aim could do that!)

So read the newspapers or listen to the radio, check out Twitter, and research blogs, choose one relevant contact to have a conversation with, then share that unusual human story with them – just as if you were chatting at your local bar or coffee house.