ReelPR: Jo Smyth shares how she fell into PR

Lauren’s guest is someone that we are well acquainted with at Scott Media, Jo Smyth, who runs her own PR business - Word Worker. Jo collaborates closely with Scott Media with a couple of mutual clients, and she also does Scott Media’s PR.

She loves being able to collaborate with another PR company especially when you work in a similar area and it’s not seen as competition at all.

Fiona and Jo have known each other for years, and have a great deal in common, apart from both being in PR. They both worked for the Swindon Advertiser as journalists; they share the same birthday and even the same date for their wedding anniversaries! However, when it came to their careers, although starting out in a similar way, they then followed slightly different paths, before both ending up working in PR.

Jo talks about how she was brought up with newspapers in her household and then studying history she gained some very transferable skills. She followed her passion and went into journalism, having several different jobs, which she loved. After her second baby though she started freelancing, which she also loved; writing for many women’s and parenting magazines. After that she worked in different PR jobs, where she found having been a journalist benefitted her in the different roles she held, because she knew what journalists would be looking for; what was newsworthy and what was not.

She also talks, as Fiona often does, about the importance of good photos. If you don’t have photos to go with a press release, then that won’t get used. Jo gets very frustrated when people don’t invest in professional photography. Although these days fewer local newspapers have photographers, so it tends to be use generated content i.e. pictures from readers. She says that’s fine for some stories, but if you want your business to be taken seriously and you want to look professional – use professional photos.

Jo also talks about AI, which she considers a useful tool, and does use it herself for ideas, for re-phrasing things, but only as tool rather than an end in itself. She makes the point that it’s fine getting help to write a press release etc, but you still need a good PR person to get that story in front of the right journalist and get it published.

You can contact Jo here:
Website: https://wordworker.co.uk/
LinkedIn:   / josmythpr  

If you would like to contact me, you can visit my www.Scottmedia.uk or join my free Facebook group here   / prtribe