Archive for November, 2009

One of the key components for getting PR is a Media List. After all, once you have your press release or story that you want to send to a reporter, how are you going to contact them?

A media list is simply a list of reporters, their contact information and the name of the magazine, newspaper or website that they write for. PR agencies and consultants can often charge upwards of a $1000 to create a media list for you.

Here’s how to build your own list in just 30 minutes a week or less.

• What do YOU read? List your favorite papers, magazines, websites and even TV and radio shows that may be interested in featuring your company.

• What do your customers read? If you can find just one website they are reading, chances are that website will have sponsors, partners or a resources page where you can find other media that your customers may be browsing. And so on, and so on.

• Who accepts submissions for new products? Most likely it will be a new products editor, news editor or in smaller publications, the editor-in-chief.

• Read the magazine and note if there is a columnist or reporter that is most likely to cover you for a feature story or interview.

If you do this every week, by the end of the year you will have built up 52 solid contacts that may be writing about your company.

Elena Verlee
PR in Your Pajamas: Practical Publicity for Mom Entrepreneurs

You may have heard of RSS feeds, but you might still be wondering exactly what they are. RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication.” RSS itself is just the format for delivering regularly updated web content. Blog feeds allow readers to keep up with the newest information posted on different sites, and people “subscribe” to the feeds of their choice.

For example, there are 20+ blogs out there that I really enjoy reading on a regular basis. I want to keep up with them because they help keep me up date with all of the latest information in my niche. However, I don’t want to have to go out to the web and pull up each blog individually every day in order to see if they have been updated. The solution to this is to use a “feedreader” to see all of my favorite blogs’ latest content all in one place. Feedreaders allow you to access new content in two main ways: in the actual reader itself or by email updates. One of the most popular feedreaders and the one that I use is Google Reader.

Why is this important for marketing? Two reasons: 1-It is a great way to stay current and educated on the things going on in your market or niche through blogs, and 2-It provides a simple way for people who are interested in you and what you have to offer to stay informed. You want to remain on people’s radars consistently so that even if they are not ready to buy from you now, you are able to stay top of mind for them when they are ready to. Just as an email newsletter helps to build and continue a relationship with its subscribers, a blog does the same with those who subscribe to its RSS feed.

By its very nature, social media allows content to be shared and spread far and wide across the web, resulting in more exposure for you and your business. Therefore, being able to share your blog’s content through multiple channels is crucial. For example, many social media services and platforms such as Facebook require you to provide an RSS feed address in order to syndicate your content.

Blog platforms such as WordPress come with feeds already built in and it’s pretty simple to find the RSS feed of your own blog. Just type the address of your site into a browser and add/feed right after it. I use a service called Feedburner through Google to manage my feed and give me detailed statistics on my site’s traffic and subscribers. I suggest you “burn” your feed as well to keep track of your subscribers at feedburner.google.com.

Now you know a bit more about RSS feeds and why they are such an integral part of having your own blog-or keeping up with the ones you like to read the most.