Page 204 - Duct Tape Marketing

Earned Media Attention and Expert Status

But—and I can hear the PR folks groaning—the game has
changed dramatically. Like most forms of communication, the Internet
has changed how we get information, who we have access to, and who
controls what’s said. Since anyone and everyone is a potential publisher,
it’s kind of democratized the process of media relations.

Major media outlets are still important, but their importance has
been diluted by a million bloggers and the flow of information that
marches directly to the end user. Both of these trends spell opportu-
nity for small businesses aiming to tap the awesome lead generation
and customer loyalty-building power of PR.

Here are five steps that any small business can take to create a
systematic approach to PR generation.

1. Listen. Journalists and thought leaders are so easy to hear now
that it borders on insanity to think you’re going to get their at-
tention without demonstrating that you know a lot about what
they cover and care about. Make a list of 10 journalists and/or
bloggers who cover your industry or town and get their names
into Google Alerts and their blogs into Google Reader. Read
what they write, and get to know what seems to get their atten-
tion. This used to be a fair amount of work back in the day, but
now it comes to you.

2. Network. Because journalists can’t really do their job these
days without Internet use, blogging, and social media, you
have unprecedented access to them. In the old days, they
could simply ignore your e-mails and faxes, but now you make
relevant comments on their blog posts, send them links pub-
licly through Twitter (where other journalists are watching),
and engage them in online industry chats and forums or on
Facebook events. Networking with your list of key journalists,
in a way that demonstrates that you know what you’re talking
about, is how you become a resource for their next story. Don’t

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