BYC Public Relations PR Brainstorming - How to get the word out?

[Nifty-Chicken]

Hey everyone. I was going to discuss this with the BYC staff but then figured we've got 28,000 really smart and resourceful people here in our family that may want to participate in brainstorming and implementing some ideas.

As we've seen there is a really big growth in the trend towards raising backyard chickens. Hundreds of news stories (TV, Radio, Newspaper, Online) have run stories about our great hobby and some have even mentioned BYC.

I don't think I'm out on a limb by saying there are probably thousands of more journalists that would love to run with a story about raising chickens and even put a plug in for BYC.

So, let's try to pull together our super resourceful and ingenious community member resources to figure out:

1) How do we get word out to all these journalists that want to write about us but that just don't know it yet?

2) Would you be willing to call your local paper / editor and tell them about the great story waiting to be written?

3) Would you be interested in being interviewed by your local paper?

What do y'all think? Help validate that it was a good idea to post this to the community by brainstorming some ideas!

 

[DiVon80]

Does the Poultry Press know? My first publication precomputer.

 

[miss_jayne]

Catray44 and me keep saying we're going to go door to door!

#2 & 3, yes and yes!

 

[FrenchHen]

This answers the question in the thread title:

I would love to have a master PDF of some basic information, why keep chickens, who, where, and some fun facts that I could print and turn into a tri-fold or some other sort of handout.

The Oregon zoo has a master gardener available on weekends with a ton of self sufficient, sustainable lifestyle stuff, and I would have loved to leave a hundred pamphlets pointing folks to this site.

Edited because I can't write clearly today!

Edited one more time to ask:
If you like my idea, can I be "Chicken Ambassador" instead of "Overrun with Chickens?"

 

[patandchickens]

A press release would help. Particularly, I'm thinking, sent to weenie small local papers (that tend to be much more desperate for content to print, no offense meant

)

Wondering, however, whether there is a point beyond which bigger is not necessarily better,

Pat

 

[ticks]

Nifty, if you made a printable flyer for members to use and print out BYC flyers could be everywhere in the states, actually, all over the world in public.

 

[bantiesrule]

Quote:
If you would have a PDF that we could print out, we could take them to feed stores, swaps, auctions, county fairs and the like.

 

[Nifty-Chicken]

Quote:
Press releases are a great idea!

Regarding more/bigger = better: in the case of spreading the word and getting a chicken in every yard... synergy and critical mass is vital.

We've already been able to do so much in the last few years, but there are still too many uninformed people that think chickens only belong in very rural areas. There are also still too many cities that have way too strict regulations on people's ability to keep chickens.

 

[cozycritters]

Have people write articles on their blogs-- that gets hits on web search-engines.

People here can also write editorials and articles for local newspapers talking about how having backyard poultry can be useful in this time/financial climate and site BYC as a resource for beginners etc.

Have people write Helium articles about using BYC as a backyard homesteader's resource.

Self-publish (lulu.com) a book of BYCs "greatest hits" and plug it in at Google Ads.

 

[Farmer Kitty]

Quote:
Press releases are a great idea!

Regarding more/bigger = better: in the case of spreading the word and getting a chicken in every yard... synergy and critical mass is vital.

We've already been able to do so much in the last few years, but there are still too many uninformed people that think chickens only belong in very rural areas. There are also still too many cities that have way too strict regulations on people's ability to keep chickens.

I think Pat is saying maybe if we concentrate on our local papers instead of just the big city ones we may reach more people interested in chickens. I know here there isn't much talk of what is in the Milwaukee paper, even though it is big and sold here. The talk is more of the local newspaper and what's in it.

If we had a pre thought through and put together press release we could turn it into our local papers and give them the idea for a story.