How to find free PR opportunities
How to find free PR opportunities for your business
It’s what every business owner dreams off – a mention in the press.
Online, print, radio or TV – it doesn’t really matter. It’s just fabulous to know that all your hard work has paid off and you’ve finally been recognised as an expert in your niche.
If you’re not part of the media world, finding opportunities for press coverage can seem a bit daunting. Where to look, who to contact, what to say? If this sounds like you, it’s time to get started – here’s three easy ways to get press coverage for free.
1 Twitter
Whether you use Twitter for your business or not, it’s the place to be when it comes to tracking down the press.
Magazines, newspapers, editors, publishers, online publications and journalists all have accounts, and regularly do shout-outs for people to help them with features, radio shows, TV etc.
They may want a written quote or an expert for a news channel, a feature writing or someone to go head to head with Piers Morgan. Don’t underestimate how much content journalists need to create every day, and if you can help them out with relevant content that showcases you as an expert, they’ll snap your hands off.
Check out #journorequest every day.
This is where you’ll find hundreds of requests for help from media types. Just reply to their Tweet and they’ll do the rest.
If you don’t get a response from your reply to any press opportunity, just keep trying. It doesn’t mean you weren’t good enough, just that you weren’t right for them for this particular offering.
Make a Twitter list of all the journalist and publications that are important to your business, then check those accounts at least once a day. Answer questions, comment on Tweets, take part in polls – by doing this the journalist will notice you are engaging with them, then when it comes to you answering a shout out for an expert to help out, they’ll remember you from your interactions.
2 Press enquiry services
If you don’t have time to hunt for press opportunities, try registering with a service that will do it for you.
For a fee, companies such as ResponseSource and SourceBottle will do the hard work and email you with everything they find in your niche, with details on how to respond.
Most offer a free trial, usually for a week. Even in just one week, you will receive lots of emails with press opportunities, and if none of them are right for you, you’ll still be able to make a note of all the journalist’s and publication’s contact details.
3 Picking off the low hanging fruit
Now, the more exposure you get away from the traditional press, the more credibility you’re building. What this means is that when it’s your time to contact journalists for press coverage, you can mention other places you’ve featured and your position will be stronger for it. So, it pays to find easy wins to help cement your place as an expert in your niche.
A great place to start is to be a guest blogger on other blogs in your field of expertise. There’s lots of opportunities to contribute and Twitter is a good place to find them. You will get an introduction on each blog and your contact details too.
Guest podcasting is also very effective as is being interviewed on YouTube.
Networking can offer collaborations with other business owners – don’t be shy to ask them if you can be involved if the content you can offer is relevant to them. Reciprocating will not only cement your relationship but will give you free content too.
Julie Brown
Transformational Writer, Business Coach and Press Coverage Expert
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