Surprised by HARO: help a reporter & a friend out

May 20, 2010 in General, Marketing, Raves, Social Networking, Tools with 4 Comments

When I first heard about www.helpareporter.com or HARO for short, I thought it might be a good service to check out for the brand communities I work with.  What surprised me is what resulted after using it for a week.  I found myself sending multiple story leads to friends in my network. I had signed up to find ways to promote my brands, but more than anything, it has turned out to be a valuable tool for my network.

HARO is a free service that allows reporters to post story requests that then go out to the nearly 135,000 subscribers.  Each day the subscriber receives an email listing all the reporter requests sorted by category. Who would not benefit from direct access to reporters that are asking for either expertise or leads?  I first heard of HARO from its founder and CEO Peter Shankman during his keynote at the Portland Social Fresh Conference.  It was not only after hearing him speak at The Portland Communicators Conference that I decided to sign up myself.

At that keynote, I remember an attendee asking Peter where he finds cool things to share.  This group was mostly made up of late adopters, peppered with some innovative new media users.  I am not sure why Peter didn’t just say, use Haro?  Would it have been self promotion? Probably, but so what, if it is true.  There has not been one day yet that I have not found a perfect fit lead to send on to a friend.  It is too early to tell if any of the leads will result in them being in a news story, but one thing I know for sure is that each person has been very glad I thought of them.

Last year I read Andy Andrews book The Noticer.  In it the name sake of the book goes in and out of peoples lives noticing things, and thus really seeing people.  People react when you notice something about them.  It shows them that you really see them.  Chris Brogan begins his talks with the Zulu greeting, Sawubona which means I see you.

Drop HARO in your tools box as a way of helping not only a reporter out, but someone in your network of friends.  It is a great way of saying I see you, I’m in this with you.

About Johnflurry: Director of Communications for Soma Games & Code-Monkeys. Huffington Post blogger. I'm also an expert advisor for the George Fox Seminary Semiotics & Future Studies program.

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  • meganstrand

    Spot on, John! I use HARO the same way. In fact, I've actually never responded to a media inquiry myself or on behalf of my own personal clients, but find myself forwarding like crazy.

    One caveat, however, since I tend to send these inquiries to non-HARO users…I've learned that I need to preface the HARO inquiry with a little bit of background about what HARO is or it's very left-field feeling to the recipient.

    Additionally, some of the queries on HARO are from huge, national media outlets. Others are from bloggers or local publications, so that's another disclaimer I tend to include. :)

    Great post – share the love!

    • http://www.flurrycreations.com/theblog John Bergquist

      That is a great point. I wonder if @skydiver is keeping track of the best pitch on what HARO is, written by it's users. Could be interesting.

  • http://Www.mycorvallisinsurance.com Chris Nordyke

    Consulting is not a profit center for me, but I too found it fun to forward opportunities to a handful of insurance clients. Great tool for the guerrilla marketer.

    I responded to a reporter for Oregon Business Magazine on the topic of small businesses leveraging social media, and ended being one of the featured people in the article. Kind of fun.

    Hard to imagine a marketing consultant NOT using HARO for their clients. Seems like potential low hanging PR fruit.

  • http://www.flurrycreations.com/theblog John Bergquist

    I agree. HARO does seem like low hanging fruit for those in the know. And, it is just a good thing to do for others. I remember that story you were in, but I did not know it was the result of HARO. Thanks!