First things first..... what on earth is a Media List? Well its basically a list of with heaps of contact detail for people like journalists, people with heaps of Facebook followers, bloggers with heaps of followers, editors of magazines authors and pretty much any other person who has a lot of influence on other people. This influence is gained through print media, TV, radio and nowadays the internet as well.

So can a list of these types of people and pesonality help your company? In a word a huge YES. Consider that if you have a new product to launch and you want publicity to get the word out to all your potential customers right? Then these people will easily be able to reach a huge amount of people in a short period of time. Consider also if you wish to get an ugent message out, a promotion or worse still perhaps somethnig wrong has happened and you need to send a message out quickly. Then this is where a media list can help.

Now here is the tricky bit. These types of lists dont just happen to be floating around. You need to either build one yourself over time or hire someone to do so. These types of people are called PR or sometimes known as Public Relations or in some instances "spin doctors," Some companies will help you distribute your material but will not disclose their contacts (a fair enough scenario). In other instances you can actually purchase a list. The catch here is that this list will be dynamic as people fall in and out of careers.

My advice on using such a list would be to focus on variety. The wider the variety of industries combined with a wider variety of medium specialists such as Talk Show hosts, public speakers, bloggers, authours, editors the better off you will be and you will have more options in getting your message out regardless of your circumstances. So be diligent and keep a book handy to write down all the different people as well as your interactions with them.

Also it is critical to note that these type of people are human. They arent there just to serve you and your purpose. It is critical to build a personal relationship with each individual.... individually. If they have a bad impression of you they can and will hurt you and your company. Trust me, I have read influential authors really speak their mind harshly about companies and individuals to their legions of followers.

Think about how you can add to your media list over time. For example, perhaps your product or service crosses into another industry. If you’re a real estate professional offering investment advice, perhaps you can connect with both personal finance and real estate reporters. You can grow our media list over time by considering alternative ways to promoting your business.

There is a huge amount of material to cover in the world of PR which I will touch on at a later blog post.