Here to help with publicity

[MediaManager]

Hi there! I'm joining you from the hot, humid northern part of the U.S. I'm a former journalist and know a thing or two about publicity, so if you have questions about how to raise the visibility of your business, I hope I can help. I look forward to participating here!

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

Welcome, great to have you!

Are there any PR services you recommended? (Aside from your own?) Don't recommend?

 

[MediaManager]

Welcome, great to have you!

Are there any PR services you recommended? (Aside from your own?) Don't recommend?

Well, PR is such a broad subject -- with so many players these days -- it's hard to recommend just a few services.

What I do recommend is learning as much as you can about the following:

1) News "hooks," i.e., something your company is doing that's newsworthy. A classic example might be employees giving away Thanksgiving turkeys with all the trimmings, as a way of giving back to the community that supports their business. One of my clients did just that and we were able to get news coverage of that event in four TV markets.

2) In addition to learning to think like a reporter (developing "news sense"), I recommend researching media databases to learn about the types of reporters who might be interested in covering the news angle your company/product, etc. can offer. With the turkeys, it was obviously a lifestyle story, so the challenge was to find out who might be willing to cover a Thanksgiving "lifestyle" story. (Muck Rack allows people to dig into which journalists work where--with the added benefit that the basic service is free.)

There are few things more valuable than a company being the focus of a positive news story. It gets the name out there and if consumers/other businesses are in the market to hire/buy the company's service or product, they'll call/email because they'll have a sense that the company and its people can be trusted.

Doing things for the common good is good business. It has to be a genuine motivation and if it is, and the news hook/timing is right, it will pay off in win wins.

This approach is like "do it yourself" P.R. , but I happen to think the most important thing to look for if hiring a PR agency is whether they have a good media database and know how to use it to pitch real news stories to the right journalists.

My two cents and as the expression goes, "worth what ya paid for it!" Hope this helps!

 

[Marty Foley]

MediaManager,

I'd appreciate your professional input.

I've used online article syndication to generate free publicity (and generate website traffic) quite a bit in past years but have gotten away from it. The article "landscape" has changed some with the introduction of social media, etc. but publishers still need content.

You've likely seen such syndicated articles, where the author of an article offers original content to a website, email list owner, blogger, or other publisher, with the understanding that they may publish it as long as they include a byline or "resource box" at the end, typically containing a URL to the author's website.

Any thoughts on article syndication, interviews by podcast, youtube, online radio, etc.?

In particular, what forms of publicity do you see working especially well (and on a large scale, for savvy promoters) nowadays?

Thanks in advance.

 

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[MediaManager]

I see guest blogging and authoring contributor articles on highly trafficked websites as one of the "next best things" to a positive story in the mainstream media.

For example, if you could contribute an article to Entrepreneur Magazine (online, in particular), that would be something.

This isn't to say that syndication is dead, but as you mention, there are "new kids on the block." Regarding impact, a lot of reporters look to Twitter for stories and Instagram looks like it's positioning itself for growth. Podcasting also looks like it may grow.

One other item -- labor intensive but potentially rewarding -- is a service called "Help a reporter out." It's a feed you can subscribe to with interview requests from reporters. Wading through them takes some time, but if you can score an interview -- wow!

Hope this helps.