If you are looking to promote yourself, your brand or your company it is easier now than ever before in my opinion. The Internet and social media, in particular, make telling the world about you and your company or brand …. just a click away. It does take a little bit of effort. When you use social media to connect with brands and media you are working to connect and build relationships. There are a few things you can do to make the process easier and more effective.
1. GET and STAY Connected
And by that I mean talk to people online. Stay connected with friends and followers via your social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, Pinterest, Ello? ) It is easy to collect friends and followers and forget to engage with them. Frankly, there doesn’t seem much point to collecting all of these connections if you don’t plan to talk to them or with them. It is important to stay connected and that goes for those of you who want to be in the media spot light to promote yourself or your brand/company.
It is easy to connect to people in the media, like anchors, producers, reporters and editorial staff, but you need to do more than just follow them. Ditto for PR types too! You need to engage. TALK TO THEM! Tweet them. Say hello on Facebook. They actually love to hear about interesting stories or people.
Any time I have worked as an editor or producer I was always on the look out for good stories. I might not always have time to use it at the moment I hear about it, but I often like to go back to a particular story when I do have time. So keep in touch. This is not a sprint, it is a marathon. It is about the long term here people.
2. Don’t overwhelm or over promote
The key here is not to flood your social media feeds with constant self-promotion. You don’t want to overwhelm the people who are following you. It is about informing, entertaining and using the right amount of measured self-promotion.
Social media allows people to connect but you need to do the work to build a relationship. It is when relationships are built that you get results in my opinion. So work on building relationships through stories, interesting tidbits, conversations and measured promotion. And remember, stay in touch, stay connected.
3. Build Relationships
The people who represent brands and media are people too ( isn’t that obvious?O K, don’t answer that because I know sometimes it is not :)) So, being a person means I want to be talked to like a person. Producers and reporters want to make connections and build valuable and meaningful relationships just like everyone else.
SOOooooooooooo, if you want to create lasting connections with brands and media then first think about building a relationship. Once that has been established it is much easier to ask for what you want. You are more likely to get the results you want when you already have a relationship with the person you are asking.
4. Reach Out
So, you have connected, you have provided create content on your social media feed and blog, you have built great relationships via your social media channels….now what? Well, reach out! ASK FOR WHAT YOU WANT? If you want to be interviewed for a television show, radio show, magazine article or newspaper article then reach out, connect with the brand or media personality/editor that you have your eye on.
Tell them why they should care about you, your brand, service or product. They want to tell a good story so tell them why talking with you helps tell a good story. You will never get featured if you don’t ask.
5. Follow Up
This isn’t a one and done kind of thing. It is important to continue to reach out and follow up. A producer might not be interested in the first story/idea you presented but might be interested in idea number two or three. So keep sending those tweets, messages or DM’s and emails.
The other thing to keep in mind is, just like you, media types are busy and so a quick, friendly reminder from you is a good thing. Sometimes it is about persistence.
I would love to hear some of your brand or media success stories. What helped you make contact and actually land a gig with a brand or booked an interview with a producer or reporter? Share your stories.
photo credit: Copyright: <a href=’http://www.123rf.com/profile_photoraidz’>photoraidz / 123RF Stock Photo</a>
