My Year On Social Media

I’m a social media newbie. I’m not an expert, I’m not a guru, I’m not a leading authority. I wouldn’t even say I’m a blogger.

Having been a publicist (and often getting sidetracked with my own entrepreneurial ventures) for more than 18 years, last year I launched PR in Your Pajamas with the goal of helping entrepreneurs get the kind of publicity in newspapers and magazines usually reserved for corporate clients who can afford hefty retainers.

In other words, helping small biz clients get publicity in what you would call “traditional” or “offline” media. Very quickly, I got immersed in social media, which I consider to be an extension of “online PR”. Read more

How Social Media = Online PR

In a recent post I talked about the difference between offline and online PR for small businesses. Just to take it a step further, I think of Social Media as Online PR because at the end of the day, social media is a means of establishing your brand and getting buzz for your business.

In creating a PR campaign, you need to determine your key messages and your key audiences, you need to prepare a way to communicate your message (writing a press release, media pitch or media kit), you need to pitch the media and then track what the media is saying about your company.

It’s the same with Social Media except you use ‘Online’ vehicles like blogs, social networks, podcasts, video, and so on to get your message out to your target audiences. Instead of journalists, you pitch bloggers. Instead of cutting out press clippings, you can use Google alerts as a free way for you to track what is being said about your company online so you can determine if your key messages are being picked up, respond promptly to any critical articles and manage your brand’s overall reputation.

In terms of getting publicity, Social Media is making it easier for us to communicate directly not just with potential customers but also media. For example, check out the database of Media on Twitter. Follow and engage with a few journalists who may be interested in your story. Isn’t that less intimidating than picking up the phone to pitch them a story?

Of course, to have an effective campaign using social media you’ll need to have a strategy in place, be able to communicate well and establish relationships with the right influencers – whether media, blogger or another key connector – who can help you build the buzz around your business.

Just like in PR.

What Is The Difference Between Offline and Online PR?

If you’re new to PR, public relations for small businesses is all about building your reputation. It’s the result of what you do and say, and what others say about you. PR establishes credibility and generates awareness outside your limited inner circle so that people can’t wait to come in droves to your site or store to evaluate the information for themselves, join your company, invite you as a potential partner, invest as a stakeholder or buy your product or service.

It’s crucial to include PR in a small business marketing plan as a way to differentiate yourself from the competition.

PR pros can use many different tactics for a product launch, or to sustain longer-term public relations goals such as brand building or local community relations.

Offline PR uses tactics like media relations, speaking at conferences, offering contests and contributed articles to generate publicity with print, radio, TV, events, conferences and other “real life” venues.
Read more

Does Your Website Need a Makeover?

I was talking to Alexis Martin-Neely recently, an entrepreneur, mom and family lawyer that I absolutely adore, getting to know each other, talking about the online business I started with my husband and how we sold it for six-figures in less than a year because of PR -  when she asked me a question that stumped me:

“Where is that story on your website?”

Umm, it’s there buried in my bio, typically called “About” on a navigation bar but I had decided to be creative and use SEO terms that had nothing to do with what most readers would expect landing on a new site.

“You should really make it easier to find, as it builds your credibility,” says Alexis.

Well, duh.  Did I feel dumb.

Read more

Getting PR on Blogs

Most of the time when people think of getting PR, they think of coverage in traditional media like magazines, newspapers, TV and radio.

However, with the explosion of blogs, it’s definitely a form of media you can no longer ignore. Don’t get intimidated by consultants or agencies who pitch you on a “blogger relations campaign” in order to get pr for your small business.

Bloggers are people too, and I find them much more approachable than a reporter simply because they are not *usually* as overloaded on emails and voicemails. Newspaper reporters can field hundreds of requests a day, and your pitch can often be lost or buried if it’s not hard news.

Bloggers on the other hand, can be just as influential as a reporter and we often hear of news ‘breaking’ on the blogosphere.

How to get coverage on a blog? Pick a few favorite blogs to follow, make sure the blog targets the same audience you do, build a relationship by commenting and when the time is right, see if there is a way to be featured on that blog. Most likely the opportunity is a product review, interview, giveaway or contest or even a guest blog post or video post from you.

If you’re a mompreneur, a few Mom blogs I have been featured at lately are here. Contact these great mommy bloggers to see if there is an opportunity to help promote you.

By subscribing to Jessica Smith’s free Buzz Cooperative, companies or PR people can ask for bloggers to review their products (and vice versa where bloggers ask companies for particular products they want to review for their readers.

Also check out Stephanie Elie’s (@bizziemommy on Twitter) post on 10 Influential Mom Bloggers.

My First 7 Days on Twitter

Since getting back to work after taking time off for baby #2, I’ve decided to start exploring social networking sites. With 2 young boys, 3 businesses, and now living in 2 countries, I really had my hands full and was wondering if it’s all a waste of time.

However, it’s hard to ignore the numbers. Twitter apparently grew by 974% last year, which is just astounding.

So, if you’re a latecomer to these sites like I am or wondering how to integrate social media marketing and entrepreneurship, join me as I explore Twitter and share with you what I learned in my first 7 days on Twitter and more importantly, the amazing results I’m getting.

What is Twitter?
Twitter is a free service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?

You’re limited by 160 characters and it’s like sending a short text or email or it’s also been called micro-blogging as your message is broadcast for everyone to read. If people find your ‘tweets’ interesting, then they start to follow you and what you have to say on Twitter.

Who’s on Twitter?
Your friends, customers, partners, competitors, all types of online PR and marketing experts and even Barack Obama, Lance Armstrong and Britney Spears. Okay, it’s not really President Obama, but he obviously has a savvy communications team who knew where the trends are and managed to get 250,000 followers on Twitter.

Can you imagine having a mailing list of 250,000 people just waiting to hear from you?

How Does it Work?
Just sign up for free, and here are a few suggestions to get you started:

1. Find a Twitter Mentor – someone who knows their way around and tweets about a subject you’re interested in. Follow them and model their behavior on Twitter.

2. Use TweetDeck – you’ll start to get overwhelmed by people you have clicked to follow and it’s a great add on to see at a glance posts that you want to follow, replies to you, direct messages to you and so forth.

3. Get your profile up – besides your tweets, people click on your profile to see if they want to follow you.

4. Learn the lingo and etiquette – DM means direct email me, RT means re-tweet when you want to send out something someone already wrote about and give them credit for it, hash tags like #blissdom or #winetasting are a way to find groupings on a subject.

5. Have something valuable to say – I follow quite a few mompreneurs and frankly, I do not want to read 12 consecutive posts on what they are having for dinner. It makes me wonder if they are having dinner, or just tweeting about it! I use Twitter to learn about new ideas, share my ideas on getting PR or what it’s like to be an entrepreneur mom and yes, market my businesses while sharing a personal side to me as well.

If LinkedIn shows your business side, and Facebook shows a more personal side, Twitter allows you to combine both and see multiple facets of a person. It’s also a great way to follow and learn from people that are otherwise ‘unreachable’ by email or phone.

My 7 Day Results:
In 7 days and about 30 Twitter posts, I had a mere 60 followers or so. Doesn’t seem like a lot compared to Obama, but here’s what else came about:

-A Joint Venture possibility with one of the largest and most established mom groups out there
-An Affiliate Marketing partnership with a product mompreneurs are looking for
-A PR client that inquired and then signed up with us for a project
-Sales of my how to do PR ebook
-An inquiry for an interview with Forbes Magazine (so far it hasn’t come to fruition, but I’m just jazzed that it even came my way)
-Most importantly, IDEAS, IDEAS, IDEAS. Those are just priceless, aren’t they?

If you’re a bit stuck in marketing your business, take a look around Twitter and see what (and who) you find.

Oh, and do say hello and you can follow me at www.twitter.com/ElenaVerlee