Posted on June 2, 2011 - by Kwame

Online PR: The only mini-guide you will ever need on how to win new customers

It is amazing how some people use smart (cost-effective, efficient, etc.) ways to sell their brands online. Social media has made it more easy to share your brand’s story and also get other people to spread the word about your products and services for free. Unfortunately “the word” people spread about you can be good or bad. It can help you make sales and it can help you lose sales. That is why it is best to master online Public Relations techniques.

Today, I will be sharing with you a short guide about how to do online PR. I’ve listed things you need to be using and doing and I also shared some links to tools you should be using.

Read on and take notes.

Case-Studies:

Case studies are an awesome sales tool since they serve as testimonials and also highlight benefits of your service at the same time. What you need to do first is have some case-study type articles on your business’ blog. When your product or service helps someone solve a problem or do something differently, write a blog post about it.

Share the step-by-step process you used to resolve it and how other people (especially prospective customers) can avoid or solve such problems. You can also share case studies as guest posts on other blogs. This is a powerful way of leveraging some other site’s audience to drive more traffic to your website and sales for your business.

Daily Alerts:

There is no better way to monitor your brand(s) online. Subscribe to daily alerts and respond to questions and rumors about your company. If someone asks a question about your business on Facebook, Twitter, on their blog or any other place on the internet, write blog posts that answers their questions and point them to the article. They might share your answer with their audience.

Some tools for tracking your company online are:

• Google Alerts
• Social Mention
• Trackur (commercial)

Networking with Journalists and Bloggers:

Contact bloggers and journalists via email, Facebook, Twitter or their LinkedIn profiles and start developing relationships with them. You can start by telling them how you loved or hated one of their recent or old articles and continue from there.

Unless you are going to pay them to do it, develop relationships first with bloggers and journalists before you ask them to write about your product or service.

If you are inexperienced with influencing people, I suggest you read Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People”. Also, you can read the blog articles below:

Some tools for finding and networking with journalists:

• Muckruck
• Help A Reporter Out
• FlackList
• Newsbasis
• MediaKitty

I only knew about Muckruck and Help A Reporter Out; I saw the rest on Ben Lang’s post on Mashable here: 10 Ways For Entrepreneurs To Build Brands Online

If you have money and want to save time, write a press release and go to PRWeb to get it distributed to the news media for you.

Online shows:

Find online shows you want to be on and contact the host to have you on it to share your expertise or advice.

• Get on webinars as a guest host; You can offer yourself for free and teach someone else’s community for free. You get free publicity in return and you increase the value of you and your company just by hosting a webinar because you are perceived as a consultant/ trainer and that lets people perceive you and your business as value deliverers.
• Contact bloggers to interview you on their blogs. Many bloggers do this nowadays. My favorite blogger in this area is Andrew of Mixergy. He does a great job. Ask bloggers in your niche if they will want to interview you and see where it goes.
• Get on podcasts relevant to your business area  as a guest and offer free advice.

Conclusion:

What you just learned is basically, the essentials of online PR. Use the lessons in this article to grow a powerful online brand. If you also have something to share about online PR, be my teacher and share it in the comments box. I suggest you share and bookmark this article using the social buttons below. Don’t forget to also subscribe to the RSS feed for more.

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