Cost For Free PR: Your Time

It’s hard to find someone who isn’t looking for ways to get more publicity and market more effectively to clients.  I’m constantly searching for articles with helpful PR and marketing tips that I can apply ASAP. These two articles will get you started in the right direction.

Doing it on your own
PR firms can help a small business grow but not everyone can afford to hire a firm. That means it’s up to you to spread the word in hopes of being featured in a national article, doing an interview on a national show or being included on a popular blog.  The tips in the post  “6 Ways To Get Press For Your Startup Without Hiring A PR Firm” are a good guide for getting the word out.

• Start a blog and write about this industry. Don’t just write about your company, but write about the broader industry you participate in. Cost used to keep folks from starting a blog but there are several affordable options out there for transforming your blog dream into a reality.

• Start an informal email blast list of industry journalists and/or thought leaders. After you write a good blog post, shoot it out to reporters so they know it exists. When a reporter or producer is covering your topic, your name should come to mind first because you’ve kept in contact with key journalists. Make sure your e-mails don’t come across as sales pitches.

• Participate in industry chatter on Twitter. Reporters are now increasingly looking at Twitter for stories and quotes. It’s an easy way to join the conversation and get your way into a story. Before you post one more update about the coffee shop you just left or a party you’re going to, consider whether you’ll attract a reporter’s interest.

LinkedIn: marketing magic
LinkedIn isn’t used as much as it should and could be used.  I’m guilty of favoring Twitter and Facebook over LinkedIn but after reading the post “6 Powerful LinkedIn Marketing Tips for Small Businesses” I’m going to give LinkedIn more attention.   A few of the marketing tips include:

• Boosting your search engine optimization. The author, Naomi Trower, shares a quick tip for adding key words to your profile. It takes only a few seconds to do.

• Promoting your blog feed so they show up as updates. Tower provides two ways to link your blog posts to your updates. It’s a good way to stay active on LinkedIn and other social media sites with little effort. You’re going to do a blog post anyway so why not share it outside of your blog audience?

• Getting recommendations so you can get more clients. That’s the next task on my to-do list. I’m going to start giving recommendations. Maybe that will give me more motivation (and courage) to ask for recommendations from others.