How can ChatGPT help with media relations?

March 29, 2023

One of the key parts of successful PR is outstanding media relations. Many clients want greater brand recognition – and media relations can be key to increasing coverage and, as a result, visibility.

Thanks to new tools like ChatGPT, media relations efforts can be taken to the next level while saving time to focus on generating even more results for clients. It is early days, but the potential of new tools is being recognized. To sum up, they could be used to enhance many traditional PR activities.

Brainstorm story starters

Let’s start with one of the easiest ways to use an AI tool like ChatGPT in public relations. It can be a great brainstorming companion. I was on a recent LinkedIn Live event with fellow PR leaders and this topic was very popular. In fact, it was great to see PR professionals using tools like ChatGPT to help create story starters and bounce ideas for gaining media attention for clients and their technologies.

Create media lists

A tool like ChatGPT can also help with another key PR activity – creating media lists. These tools can crank out extensive lists in a very short amount of time – easily reducing the time it takes to create these lists. Once you verify the information and contact details, you are good to go with your outreach.

Develop content

We are fortunate at Bospar to have a dedicated content team with experienced journalists and writers. If you don’t have such a team – or even if you do – there are never enough content creators to craft everything you and the clients want and need.

That’s where a tool like ChatGPT can come in handy. At a more basic level, it can help with crafting news releases – which remain a staple of our industry. Such a tool can help create a simple formatted news release that answers the basic questions a journalist will need to create a story. Then, a PR professional can go in, edit and add the human element – all while saving the time it would have taken to create the basic release outline.

Let’s talk about another pillar of PR content – bylines and contributed pieces. We all know how time-consuming these content pieces can be to create. A tool like ChatGPT can not only help with brainstorming and research, it can provide suggestions on where to include source information. One of the big challenges in doing thought leadership is that our clients often have great insights, but they need our expertise to find research and statistics to back them up.

Pitch new business

If you’re not continuously pitching new business, you’re probably not going to make it very far in the PR world. ChatGPT and other AI tools can help significantly reduce the workload with new business pitches. You can use the tools to create story ideas and potential byline options to provide prospective clients.

New tools like ChatGPT can help organizations get their messages out to even more people. But there are two important aspects to keep in mind – verification and the human element. It is up to us as PR professionals to verify any information we put out – whether it comes from our own research or from an AI tool. And the human element is also a factor we need to add in when using these tools. That human element is what will make journalists excited about our pitches and clients excited to work with us.

Yes, we are just now starting to explore the uses of AI in PR. It will be interesting to see where this exploration takes us!

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