Hey, how's it going?
Between running my digital PR course, 1-2-1 consultancy calls and the 2,000+ people that signed up to this newsletter, I’ve had the privilege of helping many people navigate digital PR and its challenges.
Something I’ve learnt is that while having the right knowledge is important, it can only take you so far. The true test is putting it into practice, which can be especially challenging when you don't have a team to bounce ideas off or guide you along the way.
That's why I'm pleased to officially launch the Digital PR Club.
Introducing the Digital PR Club
It’s a support network where industry professionals can share challenges, offer fresh perspectives, and help each other succeed.
Over the past 4 weeks, 10 members have been helping to test it out, and they’ve benefited from.
Weekly Calls – Live discussions where you can ask questions, share ideas, and receive real-time feedback.
Masterclasses – Learning from top industry professionals in deep-dive sessions
A Supportive Community – An interactive space to connect with peers, get advice, and collaborate on digital PR challenges.
I’m now opening the community to 20 more members at the current rate of £69 per month.
Once those spots are filled, I’ll be closing the doors until June, and the price will increase when it reopens.
So if you’re interested in joining, you can apply here.
Now let’s get to this month’s tip...
You Can Now Use ChatGPT for Your Media Lists — But Is It Any Good?
I’m sure you’ve tried using ChatGPT to help with ideation, writing press releases, and maybe even building media lists. Like me, you were probably underwhelmed with the results.
However, ChatGPT recently released a new feature called Deep Research, and it’s surprisingly good, to the point where it might actually help you build media lists.
I first shared this in one of our weekly calls in the Digital PR Club, but now I’m sharing it with you here.
The Flip Flop Experiment
Around this time every year in the UK, stories emerge warning drivers that wearing flip-flops could lead to a hefty fine. It's a simple, effective campaign idea for an automotive client looking for coverage.
There are articles about it from 2024, 2023, 2022, and 2021.
For this experiment, I’m going head to head with ChatGPT, aiming to find 20 relevant journalists for our media list who might be interested in covering this campaign.
(Note: I’m not actually sending this campaign out, it’s just an experiment to build the media list.)
My approach is a little manual, I play around with search terms and dates in Google news and add any journalists that have written recent stories about driving fines, and add them to my media list.
I gave myself 20 minutes, and by then had a solid list of names and publications to target. (I didn’t go after email addresses since we’re not sending anything out, just the journalist’s name and publication.)
Next, I ask ChatGPT to do the same. Here’s the prompt I used:
I have a story about how driving with flip-flops on in the summer could lead to a fine in the UK. Could you help me find the top 20 relevant journalists who would be interested in this.
I’m specifically looking for UK-based lifestyle or motoring journalists who have covered fines or driving regulations before. Please prioritise journalists who have written about car safety or traffic-related fines, and ideally, those who write for major national outlets, but also open to regional/local journalists if applicable.
It would be helpful to have contact details (ideally an email address) for those journalists who seem most relevant. Please also link to a relevant article they have written.
Then, I hit the newly released ‘Deep Research’ button (available on paid plans for $20 per month).
Before ChatGPT starts its work, it asks me a couple of follow-up questions.
Which I answer
And off it goes!
The deep research function is a game changer, you can actually see what ChatGPT is ‘thinking’ as it processes the request (which I forgot to screenshot).
After 22 minutes, it was done.
So who did it best?
MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Here are the results
ChatGPT found 10 pitchable journalists, vs my 20, 5 of which were the same that I had in my media list, plus it found an additional 5 that I didn’t have. Here’s a snippet of the results
However, it made some silly mistakes, like including an advertorial that wasn’t about driving fines, an opinion piece, and there were some incorrect names and broken/wrong links.
I’ve put the results in a Google Sheet here where you can compare my media list vs the one ChatGPT made.
ChatGPT gave it a good crack, but came up short. I guess you could argue that at best, and on this occasion it was about 50% as good as me.
It reminds me of my first robot vacuum. Yes, it took longer than I did to do the job, and it didn’t do it anywhere near as well as I did, but I didn’t have to do much, or really anything.
My new robot vacuum (The Eufy L60 SES which I got last week) cleans 90% as well as I do, leaving me to do the last 10%, which, to be honest, I haven’t bothered with yet.
That’s how I see things going with this.
Pretty soon I think ChatGPT or another AI tool could be doing the bulk of my media lists for me. I think we will then see those results paired with a media database to automatically query the names of those journalists to automatically find their email addresses too.
Which I guess is pretty cool.
Some caveats with this little experiment.
- The Flip Flop media list was pretty simple. More complicated stories/lists might yield worse results.
- 20 journalists is a small list, it might have been worse if I asked ChatGPT to find more, or it might not have been able to.
- I asked ChatGPT to try and find email addresses, which I didn’t do when I went and did it myself manually. That was unfair, and you could even call me a cheater! This might have impacted the number of journalists ChatGPT found, as it spent extra time looking for emails.
- My prompt could have been better. If I were to do it again, I’d ask ChatGPT to prioritise results by recency and maybe exclude certain publications I know would never cover this story (e.g. The Telegraph), or target specific ones that I know would.
I’d love to know what you think, or if you’ve used ChatGPT for something similar.
That's all for this time, thanks for reading! For all previous newsletters, see below.
— Mark
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