Public Relations: Between deals? The media still wants to hear from you

New York is a real estate town, which is apparent in voluminous media coverage of deals, opinions, profiles, new developments and projects by the dozen or more publications that cover our industry. Millions depend on this news for buy and sell decisions, for borrowing and lending, for searching out partners, investors, employees and brokers, and for judging reputations and acumen of people to do business with. Which is why positive media coverage is essential. But with big deals few and far between and developments still years from opening, the news hook or reason for a story about you is just not there. Here are secrets for keeping your name and your organization in the media. Take advantage of "slow" news periods. Sure everyone wants peak fall or spring seasons, but there is nothing wrong with "dog" days of summer or major holiday weeks, when you have little to talk about. Journalists desperately need material then. They will give you space and compliments. Bond with journalists. When they request insights - foreign investment, the downtown market, zoning - help them out, even if they do not quote you. It will come back to help you, trust me. Consider providing information "off the record" which is the journalist's commitment to not attribute that specific info to you. Caution: this is not a written contract, but, I have never seen it violated. Journalists will reciprocate with either a mention or quote elsewhere in the story or in the future. Of course there is no substitute for a good story. A tenant rep firm promised to give a reporter hard evidence that some non-tenant reps were steering clients to buildings the non-tenant reps represented. It took three years to prove his case, but when he did, the tenant rep was the focus of the story. Harry Zlokower is president of Zlokower Company and immediate past president of the New York Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America, New York, N.Y.