Despite what some people may think, media relations involves more than sending out the occasional press release.

Reporters and other members of the media receive upwards of 200-300 e-mail pitches a day, 20 percent of which may be relevant to what they write about. The worst thing you can do for your company is send out numerous, off-topic pitches and press releases. One editor of an online monthly periodical actually posted a listing of individuals that he blocked from his e-mail because of the number of irrelevant e-mails he had to go through that had nothing to do with him.

The key to creating a relevant pitch is to thoroughly research the reporters you are contacting. What are their interests? What pieces have they written that are along the same lines as what you are pitching? Do they have any hobbies? How do they like to receive pitches?

Once you’ve done your research, don’t just send out information about your company. Reporters are not in the promotion business, and no matter how fantastic your organization, product or service might be, if they don’t see a story opportunity, you won’t get coverage. The key to getting your name in the papers (or TV, magazines, radio, etc.) is to sell your story, not your company. For example, instead of pitching a fabulous new product or service, pitch the story of how that product or service helped an individual or changed their life for the better.

PR professionals take the time to get to know the reporters they work with and in doing so establish their clients as credible news sources. This does take some time – and a good bit of patience – but in the end, having your company featured in an article as an industry expert, key contributor to the community, or as having a product consumers just can’t life without is an invaluable tool.

Everyone has heard about those fanatical Star-Trek fans and their fandom conventions. But with the recent rise of “Vamp Romance” books, TV shows, movies, or books that were made into TV shows or movies came a whole new kind of fandom. When we were given the chance to host the largest U.S. convention for fans of the hit book and movie series Twilight, centered around a pair of star-crossed vampire and human lovers, I fully embraced the quirky and sometimes nerdy stigma that can come with fan conventions and leapt at the opportunity to be a part of it – as any true “frog” would.

I, myself, am a huge Twilight fan so I was more than ready to help when Jordan told me about the project, dubbed TwiCon 2009. He and three other partners had decided to host the conference in Dallas, TX, a midway point for the entire U.S., and were anticipating (gulp!) 2500-3000 people from all over the world. In addition, we weren’t only planning this event we were executing it as well. That meant that Leapfrog and the managing TwiCon partners were in charge of everything from start to finish – from the e-commerce Web site and promotional items to the marketing materials to media awareness to promotions to celebrity negotiations to programming and more.

Thankfully, Leapfrog had an incredibly professional and talented team who literally put their blood, sweat and occasional tears into every aspect of TwiCon. And while most of us had never participated in anything nearly as large as this event, we all worked together, learned as much as we could along the way and can now say that we created something incredible.

If I have learned anything from this experience (besides the fact that you CAN live on coffee alone for about 4 to 5 days) it’s that I can handle just about anything I put my mind to. All you need is a supportive team to work with you, a willingness to be flexible and very resourceful, and um… did I mention coffee?

More than that, I learned not to be afraid of uncharted territories. Because even if you’ve never done something before it just might turn out to be the best experience of your life – or your afterlife, as the case may be!