If you wish to improve or keep a good momentum of your media publicity, consider having a media relations plan. A plan can help you get your thoughts organized and help you focus on what you try to achieve.

Here are a few ideas to consider:

1.    Set goals. Know what you want to accomplish in your media relations in 2016;

2.   Identify your target audiences. Review your media list to make sure it is all up-to-date;

3.   If you are still trying to get used to doing media relations, focus on developing a 3-month plan first. Evaluate the progress and performance to help your plan for the next quarter or the rest of the year;

4.  Identify newsworthy messages. For the first 3-month plan, identify if there is any interesting and significant milestone which you can turn into a news announcement that you can share with the media. If there is, then that would keep you busy at least half of the three months. The news could be about your product, business, a customer or others. Once you have determined the news item, create a specific plan for it to be communicated to the media.

5.  Identify non-news ideas such as features and contributed articles that you can pitch to the media as an attempt to add a variety to your media coverage. For instance, develop a story idea on how your technology is solving the problems of a customer, contribute your thought-leadership voice on an industry matter to a publication or pitch the media about a whitepaper you’ve written. Maybe at least two ideas as a start – one you can work on in the first half of the year and the other in the second half;

6.  Update press kit. Make sure to update your press materials including images, videos, your company backgrounder, boilerplate and a factsheet; and,

7.   Identify opportunities from editorial calendars. Don’t forget to research the media you are targeting for your campaign to see if they would have an editorial calendar. This could help you expand your opportunities. If you found any, then identify opportunities relevant to your startup. This could let you to have a year worth of opportunities.

All the best and have a great 2016!