That must be a nice quagmire.
One Shaun Saunders, however, has of late eclipsed my original thinking about PR conferences. Mr. Saunders, who I describe as a fabulously dressed, fast-talking, PR renegade of sorts, is the founder of the PR Summit. I’m not sure exactly how he’s created the hip and cool slash utilitarian version of the PR conference, but he’s managed to do it, fashionably.
As we gear up for this year’s conference (July 30 & 31 in San Francisco), Shaun and I have interviewed a couple of folks who have some thoughts and advice about PR, media, relations, social media, and so much more.
This week we’ll start with an interview Shaun conducted with Murray Newlands (TheMail) and next week I’ll be posting an interview I did with Greg Galant (MuckRack) in New York a few weeks ago. And yes, they…in all their “hipness and coolness”… will be speaking at the PR Summit.
7 hot tips for maximizing the value of media coverage
[Shaun Saunders interviews Murray Newlands]
With an ever-increasing number of businesses engaging in content marketing, PR, and media outreach, getting media coverage is progressively more difficult as journalists are pressed for time and chased for attention. I asked Murray Newlands, founder and editor of www.themail.com, how to best maximize the value of media coverage when given the opportunity.
Once you get great press coverage, what’s next? Here are some tips that will help you get the most out of that media coverage and ensure that you are invited back, or if you’re lucky, be referred to other publications.
1. Make a positive comment and encourage fans to do the same: Remember, it’s normally much better to promote content that someone else has written about you than content you’ve created. If someone else comments on it, then engage with those comments.
2. Share it on your Facebook page and in relevant groups that you belong to: Why not make that a paid/promoted post as well? You could do the same on Twitter and make it a promoted tweet. Don’t forget to promote it on LinkedIn and Google+, too, if it’s relevant. If you have fans that have their own followings, ask them to do the same. You could even pay for them to do some promotion on their profiles or fan pages. If you’re clever enough to regularly cross promote with other businesses, why not pay them to do a promoted post on their fan page and agree to do the same for them when the time comes?
3. Share it on your site: Write a short introduction to the piece and link to it. After all, why would you want to create content that your audience can’t find? Regardless of where it’s posted, always make sure that your network and your audience knows about your content.
4. Include it in your email newsletter: If you’re receiving opportunities to blog and create guest posts for other sites, chances are you have a substantial following of your own. Furthermore, you’ve likely cultivated a sizeable email subscriber list as you’ve grown your site. Much like when you share a post on your own site, make sure that your subscribers know about your content and include it in your next newsletter. BONUS TIP: add a link to your content in the footer of your email signature—this way it’s the last link people will see and hopefully encourages them to follow it.
5. If you’re interviewed on camera, promote it with YouTube ads: YouTube is fast becoming a massive marketing tool, so if the content is already there, why not find a better way to monetize it? Also, linking to the YouTube channel or specific video is a good way to drive traffic and increase views, which often times leads to users sharing your video content. Remember to message your YouTube subscribers about your video and ask them to comment, like and share as well.
6. Push the envelope: If you write a great post about an advertiser, you could ask the advertiser to retarget visitors by placing a retargeting pixel on their site and bringing that traffic specifically back to that website. If they don’t want to share their data, ask them to do it and offer to pay for it (if hey will share the data then place your pixel and run it). If you want to push the envelope even further, include that third party content in your retargeting cycle through the retargeting program that you’re running.
7. Last word: Don’t Forget StumbleUpon, Digg, Reddit, and Technorati. These sites are great for discovery and SEO purposes.
DIRTY LITTLE SECRET: If you are able to implement some or all of these tactics and drive huge volumes of traffic to a publication, you shouldn’t be surprised if you get more coverage from them. Plus, if you’re looking for further press coverage, being able to share previous success stories will only help your credibility and help you land pieces on more publications across the web. Showing that you know how to work with publishers is one of the best ways to get more opportunities with them.
About Murray Newlands
Murray Newlands is the founder of TheMail, an angel funded start up publication covering performance marketing and mobile marketing. In 2011, Wiley published his book Online Marketing: A User’s Manual. That same year, Mr. Murray moved to the U.S. from England and was soon recognized by the U.S. government as an alien of extraordinary ability.
He will be speaking at the PR Summit in San Francisco on a panel about The Future of Technology & How to Speak Blogger Language 4.0 (Moderator: Christina Farr, Venture Beat).
Panelists include: Layla Revis (Sr. Vice President Digital & Social, Fleishman-Hillard), Jon Oleaga (Founder, pressclip.it), Rob Pegoraro (Q & A Columnist, USA Today), Patrick Hoge (Reporter, San Francisco Business Times).
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Follow Murray Newlands, TheMail on Twitter: https://twitter.com/themail2/
Follow Shaun Saunders, Graffiti PR on Twitter: https://twitter.com/graffitipr
Purchase tickets for the PR Summit: http://www.prsummit.org/