Scott Dobroski, VP of Corporate Communications at Indeed, demoed a real-time example of using AI for pitching the media during the PRNEWS Pro workshop "Artificial Intelligence for PR."
Dobroski prompted ChatGPT to create a pitch based on a recent data study from Indeed Hiring Lab. He then refines the pitch, and asks AI to write the pitch as an exclusive for a specific reporter. Watch the entire segment here, or watch his full session, "Using AI for Pitching Media - Best Practices," by following the link.
Full transcript:
All right, so hopefully you're thinking, hey, that's great, Scott, but can you actually show me and not just tell me? Yes, so with that, let me stop sharing. I will hover on over to my friend, ChatGPT. Let me re-share the screen. Do do, here we go. All right, and I'm gonna show you what we actually do. Everyone can see this, correct?
All right, sounds good. So to first start, let's use a real life example. So actually, our U.S. Indeed team today released some new research that was fascinating. It really looked at how federal workers are applying to jobs and job searching by location, region, etc. And is this up or down considering all the changes with the new administration to the federal workforce?
So the first thing in terms of kind of research, let's put in one of those general props. I work on the Indeed PR team. Today we are releasing new research on federal workers. I want to get the attention of consumer and economic focused reporters
Someone like Madison Hoff at Business Insider. So what do I need in my pitch to catch their attention. You can see it's kind of how you might say it out loud. Doesn't have to be formal. So using ChatGPT, again, it kind of goes over some highlights. To grab the attention of consumer and econ reporters, your pitch should be data-driven, relevant, tied to a larger economic narrative, and they highlight strong, newsworthy hook, why it matters, exclusive or unique angle, spokesperson access, keep it short and personalized.
Okay, so. okay. Would you like help drafting the actual email? I do, and I'll get there in a moment. So again, I'm sharing this to acknowledge nothing of this is really ground breaking or, you know, amazing to me, but it's some great reminders of what I need in a pitch. Perhaps if you're younger or just starting out in your career, again, it shows you what might catch their attention, but you can imagine I could put in different types of reporters.
I could put in a specific reporter if I really want to capture the attention of say a Wall Street Journal journalist or perhaps a specific reporter at Bloomberg, I could make my prompt that specific. So let's go with this. All right. So what I'm going to do is, okay, please write me a short data driven pitch that is...
...effective for this group of reporters and keep in mind I work for Indeed's PR team. So why am I writing in I work for Indeed's PR team? I am deliberately writing that because I want to signal to the AI tool the brand, tone, and voice that we put in pitches and that we put in external content.
So what the AI tool will be doing is they might be looking at press releases in our press center, other news coverage, editorial, or other bylines that just make it a little bit more specific to Indeed versus another brand. So I just wanted to call that out. All right, look, I'm not even gonna write it. I'm gonna get the whole report. I'm gonna pull it all in. This is a four page report, and I'm gonna hit return.
All right, so instantly new data, federal job application surge amid government cuts, new data from Indeed Hiring Lab reveals a 50% surge in job applications from federal workers in February. Wow. So what it's doing is it pulled on this four page Word document. I didn't paste and copy anything. I just pulled in the whole report and it's pulling out some of the most compelling data points.
Now, because I'm still the human, at the helm of using AI, I have actually read the report, so make sure to do that. And all of this is actually pretty on par. This is by far the leading data point, 50% surge in job applications from federal workers. However, you know what? It's not giving me enough data points that I would like, and let's make it an exclusive. All right, so let me give it another prompt. Make this shorter, shorter and tighter.
Make it an exclusive for a reporter as well. Okay, go. All right, let's see how it revises. exclusive, first word in the subject line. I like that. Exclusive new data from Indeed Hiring Lab shows a 50% surge. Okay, I like that. It hit on some top data points. You know what it's not doing though as a best practice is it's not really acknowledging that we know the reporter's coverage. I like that.
I've seen some great examples or I've seen some great success there. let's make that a new prompt. So please make sure that the reporter knows we read their coverage and because of what they write about, this is a good pitch for them. Also, I'm just going to play with this. Also give me some more data points in the bullets. All right. So again, I'm kind of iterating. I'm playing right. The human is still at, you know, managing this. That is me. Okay. I love this start a lot more. I've been following your coverage on Inservit and I thought you'd be interested in exclusive new data from Indeed Hiring Lab.
Job applications surged 50% in February under the DOG review. All right. I'm using a certain version where I've used it already a lot that I've hit my limit. That is a-okay. And then it gives me some bullets. And this is pretty darn good. So there you go. That gives you a pitch. But if you look at the time, that was about five minutes or less.
I have a really good start and what I might do then is I might go off, it, wordsmith it, and change anything I want. Maybe add in, we can also offer you an interview. The tool didn't do that. So again, looking at what worked and what didn't. But I have to say, compared to what we used to do, it is much more efficient and saved a lot of time.