Pitch Perfect: Communicating with Traditional and Social Media for Scholars, Researchers, and Academic Leaders

Front Cover
Stylus Publishing, Mar 12, 2012 - Education - 256 pages
This book is intended for scholars, researchers, and academic leaders who have a passion to share their knowledge outside their classroom, laboratory, or institution; who want to make a difference; and who believe that the information they possess and ideas they offer are important for a wider public. Pitch Perfect is a practical guide to communicating your knowledge and research to broader audiences.

How do you get yourself heard amid the volume of news and information in today’s 24-hour news cycle, and get your message across in an environment where blogs and Twitter vie with traditional media? To break through, you need to amplify your ideas and make them relevant for a wider public audience.

Bill Tyson – who has been successfully advising scholars and academic leaders on media relations for over 30 years – shows you how to undertake early and thoughtful communications planning, understand the needs and workings of the media, both traditional and digital, and tell your story in a way that will capture your audience.

Bill Tyson is strategic in his advice, no less so when discussing how to engage with such social media as blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, podcasts or wikis.

Whether you are working on research or a new initiative that has public implications, or have a story that deserves wide telling; whether you want to address funders’ requests for communications plans to promote the programs they are supporting, or whether you want to know how to publicize your new book; this practical guide offers insider advice – complete with case studies – on how to communicate your message.

An appendix lists key media in North America, Australia, and the UK.

About the author (2012)

William Tyson is owner of Morrison & Tyson Communications (MTC), a national media relations firm that serves colleges, universities, policy institutes, and foundations. Much of the company’s work focuses on advancing new research and issues of higher education cost, quality, access, and student success. National media also call upon MTC for its expert sources as they develop their stories and report the news. As a leading consultant in communications strategy development and media relations for nearly 30 years, Tyson has worked with the National Survey of Student Engagement; Community College Survey of Student Engagement; National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education in the release of their 50-state report card on higher education, Measuring Up; Ford Foundation International Fellowships Program; Pew Charitable Trusts Early Education project; Institute for Research on Higher Education at the University of Pennsylvania; and The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. In addition, he has provided national media consulting to well over a hundred colleges and universities. Tyson is a founding board member of the National Survey of Student Engagement and also served on the board of the American Association for Higher Education and as an advisory member to the Institute of Higher Education Policy’s Building Engagement and Attainment of Minority Students. Morrison & Tyson Web site: www.morrisonandtyson.com

Robert Zemsky

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