You don't have to rely on the media to get people talking about your brand. Another approach that often complements Media Relations quite nicely is to become a publisher yourself. This could include setting up a blog on your website, a publication on medium, publishing your own podcast or running a YouTube channel. The benefits of this, of course, are that you control the content so you can really publish whatever you want. The drawbacks, however, that it's a lot of hard work. And you have to do quite a lot to build up an audience that competes with better one of the larger media organizations.

Whether you decide to set up and manage your own publicity channels, or you prefer to focus on traditional media relations, you're going to need to learn how to write. Writing is an incredibly important skill for PR and one of those things that you really do need to learn to master. In the next lesson, we're going to take you through everything you need to become an excellent writer. Here's a great case study of using video and PR and environmental charity called plastic oceans UK served a battered plastic in efficient chip shop and filmed people's reactions. Here's an extreme example of using earned channels for distribution. Clear Channel in Sweden gave its billboards across Stockholm to a campaign to help the homeless find shelters.

The campaign was picked up by loads of media and did really well on social media as well. LinkedIn, the social network, created a puppet pub in central London where job seekers could go and connect with their community and get support while looking for jobs. People could get their headshots taken for their LinkedIn profile, and apply for some exclusive vacancies at the pub. The campaign was highly successful.