Public relations #smallbizchat follow up

Participating in last Wednesday’s #smallbizchat via Twitter, we ran out of time and couldn’t get to all of the questions. The remaining questions and my responses are below.

An overview of the questions and my responses during the chat can be found here.

How much of that 10% would you say goes into building relationships? (per@jdp23)

This question is in response to my answer that you should spend 10% of your time working ON your business. Included in that time are your public relations efforts.

“I’m a newbie when it comes to PR.” Where should someone like me start? (per @TheSoapGallery)

Just like when you started your business, develop a strategy. Think about how you want to communicate with your stakeholders and how they may want to communicate with you. You’ll have different public relations needs depending on what you want to accomplish. For example, if you’re a new business owner, your first goal may be to generate awareness. You’ll want to know where your target audience is and find the best ways to reach them. This could include media outreach, a new blog, an email blast to your current distribution list, etc. There are thousands of tactics you could use, but you’ll want to consider the most effective and realistic ones for you and your business.

Where’s the best place to post a press release? (@RisingStarIdeas)

This depends again on what you’d like to accomplish. For example, if your goal is to purely generate search engine optimization (SEO) you can share it via a wire service (includes a cost).

If your goal is to garner meaningful media attention with an opportunity to reach your target audience, it’s not about where you place it. Two things of importance. The first is that you have something newsworthy to tell. The second, do your homework on the journalists and bloggers who would be most likely to share your story. Then craft a pitch to explain to them why their readers might be interested.

Any examples of good press releases to share? (per @phototakeouter)

I talked about the current state of the press release in my original #smallbizchat interview (scroll down). When you determine that a press release is appropriate for your information, make sure it contains the following:

• Newsworthy information
• Compelling headline
• Optimized first 250-words
• Answer: who, what, when, where, why and how

The pitch is also important. You can find out how NOT to pitch at the Bad Pitch Blog.

Should bios, press releases, etc be available in a downloadable format (PDF) or only as web content? (per @phototakeouter)

Anything you would like to make easily accessible to your public, including the media, should be available on your Web site. You may want to share high resolution photos that you would like people to use. However, if you want to track where your photos are being shared, you may include a low-res version with a contact where to request higher quality images.