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- THOMAS PR IN LONG ISLAND EXCHANGE
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- SIX STEPS TO DO-IT-YOURSELF PR
Thomas PR of Melville offers PR tips for small business owners
(Long Island, N.Y.) Many small-to-medium size business owners do
their own PR and marketing when they launch their business. I
mentioned a few weeks ago that you may want to hire a professional
writer to blog for your company. Should you also hire a professional
public relations firm to do your PR and marketing?
Probably... it's all a matter of saving time by not reinventing the
wheel. The right PR professionals already have contacts in your
field. They know how to forge relationships with local and national
media -- or have already built those relationships. They know where
to go to meet the press, and they have years of experience that
tells them what magazine editors and writers look for in an engaging
story.
Many people think you have to go into the city to find the best PR,
marketing and advertising agencies. But a wealth of top companies
exist right here on Long Island. Recently, Karen Thomas of the
award-winning Thomas PR, named a Top Tech Communicator in 2009 and
winner of the PR Rep of Year (2009), was kind enough to sit down and
offer Long Island Exchange readers some PR tips.
Locally, Thomas handles PR for businesses such as the Little Shelter
in Huntington, but her clients span across the United States. Miami,
Fla.-based PeeWee PC recently achieved a placement in the NY Times
thanks to Thomas' dilligent PR efforts.
If you're a business owner who wants to get a start on public
relations before you can afford to hire a firm, these tips will help
you make connections with both local and national media. Follow
these PR tips and maybe your product will be featured next in the NY
Times.
Write a press release. Select the top keywords that people
use to find your product or service and make sure to include those
words in your release. Include your email address and fax number.
Keep it short and simple, using the reverse pyramid structure, with
the most important information in the first few paragraphs of your
press release. Make sure your email and any other contact
information you want to include is clearly listed.
Cultivate a press list. Once you have your SEO-optimized
press release, where do you send it? Here's where a PR agency's
expertise can really help. If you opt to do it alone, take small
steps. You won't built a list of 100 names overnight. Karen Thomas
advises, “Pick the top 10 magazines you want to be in, go online and
find the editors and make a list.”
Use social media to reach out. Once you've found your top ten
markets, you'll want to build relationships with the editors. Karen
Thomas, who added me to her Friend list on Facebook moments before
we spoke, recommends leveraging social media to build relationships
quickly and effectively. “Go to Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, and
look for the editors and bloggers that are on your media list.”
Meeting the press through popular social media sites sets the stage
for a face-to-face meeting at trade shows. Because as much as people
now do business over the Web, trade shows and in-person networking
remain the most important part of building relationships with the
media.
Research the trade shows. Thomas emphasizes the importance of
trade shows. Large shows like CES (Consumer Electronics Show) have
big parties that are well-kept secrets; Thomas PR uses its insider
sources to compile a list. If you can get an invite -- not an easy
task, according to Thomas -- you'll find yourself hobnobbing with
top technology media.
Approach the press. You'll recognize the press at trade shows
by their badges. “If you have a really cool product, they will want
to hear about it,” Thomas says. Otherwise, you'll need to spend more
time forging a relationship. Familiarize yourself with their
publication or blog and consider what will interest each specific
editor or writer about your product or company. “If they just
covered a product similar to yours, you might mention that,” Thomas
says. “Writers like to hear you've been reading their column.” In a
first meeting, don't come on too strong. Expect to exchange business
cards and ask for permission to add them to your mailing list. Be
sure every press release or email you send has an “opt-out” link at
the bottom.
Don't Forget the bloggers. In today's Web-driven world, you
cannot ignore the bloggers as crucial members of the media.
When compiling a mailing list of bloggers for clients, Thomas looks
for blogs with an Alexa rank of 100,000 or lower. “The closer it is
to 50,000 or below, the better,” she says.
For PeeWee PC, Thomas has been reaching out to everything from TV
shows to radio to the NY Times, and is reaching out to a list of 100
“mom-bloggers,” an important demographic for many technology
products from toys to smart phones. There are some [blogs] that are
really powerful -- they drive the news now,” Thomas says.
Dawn Allcot
March 08, 2010 3:50 PM Eastern
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