This is the week when we all promise to lose weight, spend less, save more and get organized.
So as long as we’re making resolutions, how about resolving to make 2010 your best PR year ever?
Here are 5 ways you can take your publicity efforts to the next level without spending a dime:
1) Do Your Homework
Who is most likely to tell your story? Google around and find a reporter who gets you.
If you’re a Realtor and want to be quoted as an expert in the paper about home sales, find out who wrote the last article.
Reporters have beats. Chances are, the last journalist to write a story about home sales is the real estate reporter. Search the newspaper’s archives online. How often do they write about the housing market? What was their angle? What did they miss? What’s new since the last time they wrote about real estate? Have interest rates changed? Are homes in a certain price range moving?
2) Don’t be Afraid to Use the Phone
I run into PR professionals all the time who have a fear of the phone. They do all their story pitching to journalists by email.
The problem is, when a journalist ignores your emails, you never get an answer. Was it a bad story idea? Did you pitch the wrong angle? Did the journalist even see your email?
When you’re on the phone with a reporter, you get an answer. It may not always be the answer you want, but at least you know whether the journalist is going to do the story or not.
3) Don’t Wait for Tomorrow
If you’re driving in your car listening to the news and they begin talking about something that you’re an expert in, don’t wait.
Lawyers know a lot more about the law than the talk show host who’s blabbering on and on and urging people to call in with their opinion. Stop talking to yourself and call in. Tell the phone screener that you’re a lawyer and that the host is missing the point. I promise you, you’ll be moved to the front of the line and the next thing you know, you’re on the air getting free publicity for your practice.
4) Start a Facebook and Twitter Page
Even if you’re one of those people who still believes that social media is a waste of time, start a page.
Your next generation of customer is Tweeting and posting pictures on Facebook. If you don’t join the revolution, you’ll look like a dinosaur when those 20-somethings come to your website.
The radio was once center stage, it was replaced by TV. Now the Internet is pushing TV out of the spotlight. Social media isn’t a faze people are going through. It’s the way people communicate. Get a page. Period.
5) Take Some Chances
Stop spending all your time in the safe zone. Take a chance. Do something to get noticed by the media. You don’t have to become a carnival barker. Just pick up the phone and call a reporter.
Ralph Waldo Emerson said “Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door.” Well, I’m sorry, Ralphie, that may have been true in the 1800s. But today there are millions of amazing mousetraps that no one will ever know about because the inventor never had the courage to tell anyone. Stop waiting to get discovered.
In fact, in 2010, simply tooting your own horn may not be enough to get noticed anymore, you may just have to start an orchestra!
After 25 years in TV news, Emmy winning reporter Jeff Crilley left the news business to start the country’s first PR firm staffed exclusively with former journalists. To learn more about hiring Jeff’s team: www.RealNewsPR.com