Even in the month of October, getting ghosted in media relations is no treat! 

So, how common is ghosting and what can you do when it happens?

Getting ghosted – when someone, for no apparent reason, stops communicating with you altogether – is never enjoyable. It can lead to anxiety and spark questions about where things went wrong.

Unfortunately, the hard truth is that getting ghosted is sometimes par for the course in this line of work.

Let me be clear: I’m not telling you this to scare you away from trying to earn media coverage. Actually, the opposite! Rest assured that these things happen (fairly often) and you should not let that keep you from working toward your earned media goals.

As a public relations professional, I reach out to a lot of journalists every single week. A lot. I also happen to have lived with a seasoned journalist for 15 years and have some firsthand knowledge about the pressure and deadlines put on journalists. (We’re still happily married – he just works in public relations now!)

So, if there’s one perhaps cliché takeaway here, let it be this: It is most likely NOT personal when a journalist ghosts you.

“It’s not you, it’s me.”- Journalist

While you won’t get an email saying this, journalists, like so many other professionals right now, are understaffed and overworked. They’re human and they don’t have enough time in the day to get to every response they would otherwise want to.

Being ghosted by a journalist doesn’t mean they didn’t read your email or aren’t keeping your story in mind. It’s just that the timing isn’t right at this moment.

At Henrich Communications we’ve had plenty of times when we’ve had back-and-forth with a journalist and then radio silence from them – to the point where even we feel like the story’s not going to happen. And then weeks or even months later the journalists reach out to us wanting to do the story.

This is why it’s so important to stay positive, helpful, and patient with your media contacts.

There are no takebacks when interacting with media.

As hard as it is, don’t burn the bridge out of frustration that your story didn’t get covered precisely when you wanted the coverage. A snarky email hurts one party: you. Think of media relations as a marathon, not a sprint. Play the long game and good things will come to those who have a well-crafted story to tell and the right strategy to tell it. In the end, all that work you put in will pay dividends when your story is told and you receive that third party validation you deserve!

Been ghosted one too many times and need help with your media relations? Contact us today at: https://henrichcommunications.com/contact