• Set Google Alerts and subscribe to niche newsletters to streamline trend spotting for reactive opportunities.
• Pre-introduce expert sources to journalists before news breaks to boost chances of future outreach.
• Repurpose existing blog content or data in your reactive pitches to reduce turnaround time.
• Pitch trending roundups or suggest inclusion in existing ones to improve LLM visibility and link potential.
• Build media lists dynamically—add new contacts daily based on news monitoring, not just campaign cycles.
• Prioritize bold, opinionated commentary over safe takes to stand out in crowded journalist inboxes.

I put out an open call on LinkedIn to find people to talk to me about reactive PR in the US, and one name kept coming up: Madeleine Dykes at Rise at Seven. So, I knew I had to convince her somehow to join the podcast in the very little free time she has.

You see, reactive PR is always on.

PR pros who use this tactic as part of their overall brand awareness strategy know you need to be locked into the news pretty much 24/7, always on the hunt for creative ways to insert your brand into trending topics and events.

However, Madeleine helped me realize that this can actually be fun…like LOTS of fun.

Below is an AI-assisted transcript:

What’s a day in the life of a reactive PR person like?

Madeleine: Totally. When you’re focusing on reactive activity for a client or your own business, the first thing you want to do is just be aware of what’s going on in the news around you.

If your business is more local, look at what’s happening in your hometown. If it’s something applicable nationwide or worldwide, just pay attention to the news — you never know what can tie into your area of expertise.

In my life, I like to listen to podcasts in the morning that quickly summarize the news.

I’ll browse Google News to see the top headlines of the day. If I’m focused on a specific industry or niche, I’ll dig a little deeper into business trends or entertainment trends.

I also love following Instagram accounts that cover specific celebrities or trends, because that news happens really fast and being aware of it early in the day is really helpful.

Do you also set up alerts?

Madeleine: Yeah, definitely. Especially for clients, I’ll set up alerts based around their industry, their business, or keywords that are really relevant to them.

But a lot of times it’s natural browsing that’s really helpful too.

I’ll also sign up for newsletters applicable to their industries.

For example, we had a health client, so I signed up for a bunch of fitness and science newsletters to keep up to date on that industry — and it all comes straight to me, which makes life a little easier.

What kinds of hooks are you looking for when you’re consuming all of this?

Madeleine: Typically I’m just looking to get a general sense of what people are talking about — whether there’s controversy, a new trend people are exploring, or something where people don’t have the full story and my client could offer insight.

Or maybe there’s a trend people want to explore beyond a specific bubble, like a travel trend where we could say, “here are certain towns you could visit to leverage this.”

Most days, I don’t walk away from consuming the news with a genius idea.

It’s more about generally absorbing what’s happening so that when something does break a week later, I already know it’s relevant, I know my client can comment on it, and we can move quickly to catch the wave.

Vince: You mentioned inserting clients into news narratives through commentary.

In my experience, US journalists tend to say they go out and find sources themselves — especially academics and researchers — whereas in the UK it seems more common for PR people to pitch commentary proactively.

Is reactive PR (especially expert commentary) different in the US vs UK?

Madeleine: I think it’s two-fold. Any commentary you offer needs to be useful, opinionated, succinct, and something they’re not going to hear from anyone else.

It has to be newsworthy in itself, which can be hard — especially if a client is a little scared to say something that might cause controversy.

That said, you can beat journalists to it by reaching out before anything is even happening.

One strategy we’ve used is reaching out to journalists at target publications and saying, “Here are the experts we have and the topics they can speak to — just let us know.”

We typically won’t hear back right away, maybe just a “thank you.”

But months later, out of the blue, we’ll get an email saying, “I’m writing an article about this — can your source get me a comment in the next 24 hours?” And we’re like, absolutely.

Vince: I love that tip. It can feel a little scary sending things out and not hearing back, but when they do come through, it’s cause for celebration.

Madeleine: Seriously!

Do you pitch full stories that leverage trending topics?

Vince: What about pitching a full-fledged story that leverages a trending topic — more of the newsjacking approach? Do you do a lot of that?

Madeleine: Yeah, we do that a lot, especially for travel clients.

If we see a trend taking off on TikTok or in the news, we’ll brainstorm how to leverage it for a client.

For example — we didn’t run with this, but we thought about it — when Taylor Swift announced her new album The Showgirl, we were instantly asking: are there showgirl destinations?

Are there destinations that are orange?

We were brainstorming a lot of angles.

But a lot of times what’s worked for us is just looking at seasonal events that happen every year and leveraging those trends — maybe putting together a listicle a journalist will find useful, or for a car client, something about upcoming weather and the best tips for driving in sleet.

There are different ways to go about it beyond just commenting on a breaking news moment.

What about using existing content or data your client already has?

Madeleine: Yeah, that’s honestly the easiest way — rather than creating something totally from scratch.

If you have a blog post that’s super relevant, sharing it with a journalist as a resource is really helpful because they don’t have time to scour the entire internet.

You can say, “You’re probably working on a story about this trending topic — here’s all the information you need.”

That’s valuable to them.

Are there shortcuts or ways to prepare for being reactive if you’re trying to do this yourself?

Madeleine: If you want the opportunities to come to you, there are great platforms like HARO and Quoted that send you emails you can quickly scan for relevant requests.

But if you’re a small business wanting to get ahead of it, I think reaching out to applicable journalists and introducing yourself as an expert is a great way to get ahead.

The trade-off is that when someone reaches out quickly, you have to be ready and know your industry well enough to comment effectively.

Vince: And I’ve heard that one of the fastest ways to burn a bridge with a reporter is to position yourself as an expert and then fail to deliver when they come calling.

Madeleine: Exactly.

A big part of working with journalists is building trust.

Say what you mean and mean what you say.

If you promise to get them something by a certain time, you have to do that.

Things happen, and if you’re transparent and communicate, they’ll understand — but you really want to follow through on your promises.

Is building relationships with journalists a real thing? 

Madeleine: I definitely don’t roll my eyes at it.

I come from a traditional PR background where building journalist relationships was drilled into me as the most important thing.

In digital PR, that can sometimes get lost because people are focused on earning links and coverage. But as a people person, I genuinely like having relationships with journalists — it makes me better at my job and makes the job more enjoyable.

As far as earning coverage and links goes, I don’t think it’s the be-all and end-all. If you have a good story and send it to the right person, you’re likely to earn that coverage.

But saying thank you, sharing their work on social media, being able to bounce campaign ideas off them down the road — that stuff takes time to build and it’s really valuable.

It makes you a better PR person and makes the job a lot more fun.

Does it matter if you’re getting repeat links from the same journalist or publication?

Madeleine: I totally understand the value of earning links from new domains. But especially as we move into the LLM and AI overview era, I don’t think getting links from the same publication is necessarily a bad thing. It reinforces your client as a trusted, authoritative source on a topic.

That’s completely a theory, but if it’s a quality, top-tier link, I wouldn’t dismiss it just because it comes from the same publication more than once.

Variety is always good, but one shouldn’t be dismissed in favor of the other.

Vince: Let’s bring it back to reactive PR and the bigger picture.

How high up is reactive PR in your strategy toolkit?

Madeleine: I think it’s all part of consistency.

When you’re building brand awareness or earning links, reactive is a key component of your regular roadmap.

Have it always on — even without something specific planned each week — and make sure you have the bandwidth to jump on something when it makes sense.

We’re also starting to think about reactive as a way to insert clients into roundups that already exist and are being sourced by LLMs.

So there’s a new angle to it: using reactive to help clients get referenced by AI for relevant topics.

Digital PR formulas that used to work don’t work the same way anymore, so we have to be nimble and strategic.

Are you getting fewer responses from journalists these days?

Madeleine: I wouldn’t say fewer — I would say it takes longer. Even for pitches where we’re like, “this is a shoo-in, this is perfect for them,” it might just take more time.

I have a few theories on why, but I think it means we have to be more creative with our stories and make sure journalists have everything they need right upfront in the pitch.

Can reactive PR help with LLM visibility?

Madeleine: If there’s a trend or something relevant to an existing roundup, it’s a great way to introduce yourself and ask: would you consider adding my client, and here’s why?

Or you can nurture it a little more — get to know the journalist, find out what they’re interested in, and see if your client can become a trusted expert they turn to.

And you’re right that creating your own roundups and pitching them to high-DA publications that don’t have one yet is really effective too.

Honestly, it’s very much traditional PR — I was doing that exact thing back in 2013 pitching magazines to feature the best protein bars or most organic juices.

It’s come full circle.

Do you end up having to pay for some of these placements?

Madeleine: We haven’t come across it directly yet, but I suspect there’s an affiliate model happening on some of these sites that we just haven’t been told about explicitly.

I’m curious to see how it plays out — whether most sites will move in that direction once they realize their articles are being sourced by LLMs.

It’s definitely something we’ve thought about and are watching.

What differences have you noticed in US vs UK?

Madeleine: The UK feels much faster.

When you pitch commentary there, it often gets published that day or the next. The press culture is just more — and I don’t mean this as a total negative — tabloid-y.

They go for the splashy headline.

Case studies and personal experience stories seem to be much more their bread and butter.

In the US, we can pitch those things, but it just takes longer, and there’s more skepticism.

Journalists want to know who you are, what your sources are, and they want more authoritative expertise behind a claim.

And especially in healthcare, providing commentary can take three to six months because the editorial standards are so high — which is a good thing, but it means really long turnaround times.

Should people expect fewer results from reactive PR than from a full hero campaign?

Madeleine: I don’t think they should expect less — they should just expect it to take longer and require more time investment in terms of pitching, following up, and waiting to hear. That’s also why I always recommend having campaigns running alongside reactive, so there’s a continuous cycle.

You might get two or three links from a reactive here and two or three there, and that adds up over time.

Ultimately, it’s about patience.

A lot of people panic when they don’t get a link right away.

I get that anxiety.

But I’ve seen time and time again that if you’re patient, keep outreaching, and try new angles when needed, you earn those results.

Can you give us a sense of the numbers — how many emails, what response rates, vs how much coverage?

Madeleine: For any reactive pitch, I’ll typically have at least 100 contacts, sometimes up to 1,000 depending on the depth of the story — all with tailored angles relevant to that specific journalist or publication.

I might send all those emails within an hour or over a couple of days depending on the trend I’m jumping on.

Response-wise, out of 100 emails I might get two or three responses — which is pretty low.

But most of those will be either a hard pass or a “yes, I need X, Y, and Z in four hours.”

What’s great though is that even with a low response rate, those links and stories often get syndicated, and other publications pick them up.

There can be a real ripple effect. If it’s in a publication you really want, the juice is absolutely worth the squeeze.

How do you build those contact lists?

Madeleine: It’s mostly manual.

After being in this industry long enough, I know off the top of my head which publications I want to go after. We also do a link intersect for all clients — comparing their backlink profile to competitors to find the gap — and that’s a good starting point for finding applicable contacts.

And shoutout to BuzzStream — your List IQ feature is super helpful for reactive.

Being able to search a trend on Google News and instantly pull all the applicable articles into a list is a huge time-saver.

But it’s never a “build the list and you’re done” situation.

The list is always living and breathing. As I’m checking the news in the morning and I come across someone who’d be perfect for a reactive angle, I add them and pitch. It’s ongoing.

What’s something you really want people to take away from this that I didn’t ask?

Madeleine: It doesn’t have to feel like work. It can actually be really fun. For example, we did a Lilo and Stitch reactive when the movie came out, talking about the destinations featured in it — and I thought, “I never imagined I’d be drafting commentary about a kids’ movie, but here I am and it’s great.” It doesn’t have to be so deep in your niche. It can be fun and uplifting.

If you go in with the attitude of “I’m learning something new, I get to do something unique,” it doesn’t feel like a grind. Some people dread reactive because it moves fast and feels like a lot of work. But if you lean into the fun side of it, it’s much more enjoyable for everyone.

Vince: I love that. Madeleine, where can people find you?

Madeleine: The best place is LinkedIn — my profile name is Madeleine Hennessy Dykes. You can also find me at the Rise at Seven website.

Vince: Awesome. Like, subscribe, and leave questions in the comments — I’m sure Madeleine would be happy to answer them. Thank you so much for your time, this has been awesome!

Madeleine: Thanks, Vince!

—

Interested in learning more?

Check out our related podcasts about reactive PR:

• Our second podcast ever, talking about reactive PR with Mark Rofe
• Leah Daly of FatJoe talks reactive PR in the UK 
• Katie Storey discusses newsjacking and reactive PR

Vince Nero

Vince is the Director of Content Marketing at Buzzstream. He thinks content marketers should solve for users, not just Google. He also loves finding creative content online. His previous work includes content marketing agency Siege Media for six years, Homebuyer.com, and The Grit Group. Outside of work, you can catch Vince running, playing with his 2 kids, enjoying some video games, or watching Phillies baseball.

More Posts by Vince Nero
Website: https://www.buzzstream.com