Many firms employ public relations firms to help them access media (business newspapers and magazines, business radio, press release) and thus spread the word about their products and services. Yet using the media effectively requires upending its conventional emphasis. Sending out press releases about mundane news and personnel changes typically yields few concrete results. And trying to get reporters to interview you or someone in your firm can be fraught with dangers.

Publicity in the form of being briefly quoted, for example, or being mentioned inside a larger article or by a featured columnist, or even having an article devoted entirely to a profile of your firm and its services, often produces—nothing! You may even find yourself hard-pressed to locate or encounter anyone in your world who has even seen it.

As well, the total opposite can occur, with potentially highly negative repercussions. You might be misquoted, for example, or have a comment taken out of context in such a way that you (1) sound as though you don't know what you're talking about, (2) alienate someone—colleagues, customers, the general public, or even friends and family—or (3) appear to say something very different from your original intention.

Back during the presidential campaign of 1968, for example, Michigan Governor George Romney (Mitt Romney's dad) was asked about his impressions of the Vietnam War just after returning from a fact-finding mission there.

Romney used the words “I was brainwashed” to describe the deception practiced by the U.S. military and the Johnson administration in their public pronouncements on how the war was going. Out of context, however, this phrase was quickly taken to mean that Romney had a weak character and was easily deceived, despite the fact that everyone who knew him saw him as a talented, sharp, decisive thinker. Those three words proved the undoing of his presidential hopes.

When the Media Call, Respond at Once!

Despite such dangers, using the media can be a valuable adjunct to your other business visibility efforts if you heed a little tried-and-true advice. For example, should a reporter respond to your press release, don't treat him or her as just another random, unexpected call that you'll return after you've gotten through your other calls, even if those others came in well before the reporter's. To the extent you can, drop everything that's currently on your plate and return the media call right away. To really make friends with the media and to get them to keep calling you again and again, respect their need to make their often tight deadlines and do what you can to spend as much time with them as they need, and as soon as they need it.

My brother Ed, a financial planner with Ameriprise Financial in Braintree, Massachusetts, paid attention to my advice on this when a Boston Globe reporter called him out of the blue to get his comment on a financial topic that had just broken in the news. Ed was so knowledgeable and helpful to the reporter that only two weeks later this same reporter, now working on a different article, called Ed again. Within one month, Ed got quoted in two major news articles in one of the country's leading daily newspapers.

Dan Cassidy, the retirement benefits planning thoughtleader and author of A Manager's Guide to Strategic Retirement Plan Management, also took this same advice when a reporter from Wall Street Journal Radio responded to one of his press releases. Because Dan spent a few minutes with this reporter at a moment's notice, and because he also made himself available when the same reporter called a few weeks later, Dan ended up getting his ideas aired on Wall Street Journal Radio multiple times over the next few years.

On the flip side, reports Henry Stimpson, founder and principal, Stimpson Communications, an experienced PR specialist, there was a time early in his career when, as a reporter for a financial services publication, he received a callback one day from a potential interviewee that he had tried to reach four months before!

“I actually thought that was pretty funny,” he recalls now. “My deadline that day had been four hours from the time of my call. Getting back to me four months later was a bit ineffective.”

Employing media attention to your advantage is an art. By paying careful attention to the needs of media professionals who contact you, you can master this art and make it pay off. Don't get over-excited, however: playing the media game will always come laden with its precarious baggage, so don't lose sight of the need to keep this visibility tactic in perspective and not expect more than it can deliver.

(Originally published at GoArticles and reprinted with permission from the author, Ken Lizotte).