Peter Shankman, serial entrepreneur, skydiver, and the founder of HARO is a hero for journalists and public relations professionals, because he updated venerable and outdated database services when he invented Help A Reporter Out (HARO). HARO is an email that goes out 3 times a day to 100,000 would-be experts and public relations firms, with requests from journalists about their needs to make deadlines. It’s self-regulated, free, open to anyone, and completely revolutionary. The one caveat? You break the rules, you’re out. We asked Peter about what it takes to stand out in the wide open world of writing and content development . . .
Re-building the content development rules
Looking forward into 2010, is writing the same career today that is was 10 years ago? 100?
No. Writers have to be smarter—quicker—understanding of the fact that the majority of the writing they’ll do will be for the digital realm—where they’ll need to be much more aware of trends and breaking information—lest they be looked upon as “left behind.” They can’t be quicker by sacrificing quality, content or integrity.
Making content that’s determined to be relevant
What do established content developers need to add to their bailiwick in 2010 to stay competitive?
Rather, work on seeing 12 to 24 months ahead—accept that social media will become part of the lexicon—facebook, Google, twitter, won’t be something you “have to do,” but rather, a means to an end—your status updates automatically when you enter a location not because it’s “cool,” but because it updates @foursquare, which updates twitter. That’s when we’ll know “social media” is what “google” was twelve years ago—and we’ll have moved into the new world. As scary as it may sound—it’s gonna be a hell of a lot of fun.
Ladies and gentlemen, Peter Shankman. Find him at helpareporter.com