Ins and outs of public relations

PUBLIC RELATIONS
Do’s
· Hire www.JayRodChicago.com for all of your public relations needs. (You know I had to plug myself here.)
· OR, if you live in the Chicagoland area, take a continuing education course I’ll be teaching this fall at an area community college. Check back at www.JayRodChicago.com to find out when and where! It’ll be a course on “Writing for Media.” Check the syllabus on the web site.
· Learn about your local media: newspapers, online news services, the AP, TV, radio, bloggers and more. Sending simple press releases (written only the way a 10-year professional at JRC can do : ) will help you immensely.
· Keep TOMA in mind. No, it’s not an ancient secret code, it stands for Top of Mind Awareness. There are some arguments of how to define TOMA, but the confusion came from (in my opinion) advertising people who changed it to “Top of Mind Advertising.” TOMA, the way I understand it, is keeping your name in front of people at least seven times in a given period. If you’re going mild (like on a listerv of friends), seven times a year is sufficient. If you have a BIG sale in a month, seven times in front of customers during that month is a great idea. I think the advertising people changed TOMA to 12-15 times a year, but remember, that was because they had to sell advertising from businesses more than seven times a year!
· Learn about affordable advertising ideas like mobile marketing, facebook and myspace ads, and last minute print ads. Ads on phones are becoming more popular and are the “in” thing.
Don’ts
· Don’t be a pest. Reporters hate that.
· Ever say “no comment” to a reporter seeking comment. There’s always something to say, even if it’s “My attorney is handing the matter now. I hope this issue is addressed quickly.” Then talk to them, not too loosely, off the record. It establishes a relationship and you’ll need them when the news CAN come out, whether good or bad.
· DON’T handle emergency crisis news yourself. Have an employee who got caught doing something illegal? Don’t handle media calls yourself. You can use www.JayRodChicago.com for stuff like that, or your attorney, but DON’T handle it yourself and don’t settle for not commenting. Trust me, it looks horrible.
· CC a reporter’s editor, publisher and a group of people if you have a concern about something they wrote. If you have a problem with them, address it with them first. If it is not resolved, then let them know you will go to a higher authority. Usurping a person with the power of the pen is never recommended.
GETTING YOUR NAME OUT THERE
· Get business cards, brochures, a radio or web commercial (both of the latter provided by www.JayRodChicago.com : ) They need to have your web address, e-mail address, phone number, name and whatever brand you have created for yourself.
· SEO, or search engine optimization, is a MUST. What that does is when a person searches online for “freelance writers in Chicago” on a given search engine, I want them to find www.JayRodChicago.com. So, I get into the construction page of my web site and I change my site title and metatags to reflect keywords that people search for. Do a Wikipedia search for SEO, and it explains SEO pretty well. Do your best not to hire someone to do SEO. What I’m told, it’s a scam to get great money to do a simple task. You can do it yourself.
· Once you’ve set your keywords and your web site is 100 percent complete, go to www.google.com and www.yahoo.com and request that they do a site map on your site. What that does is send a “robot” through your site, pulls keywords and text from your page and files them on their search engines. They will only do this when your site is COMPLETELY ready, so get it ready and request that it be done before you have your HARD LAUNCH. (more about that below)
· Acquire e-mail addresses and use them responsibly (especially if they are your friends’ e-mail addresses). Know the law about sending business e-mails, too. They require you to send an “unsubscribe” message on the bottom of your message. If you don’t, you can be in trouble.
· Learn about www.MailChimp.com. It’s a mass e-mailing site that costs little, but will pay off. You may think: I can send out a few hundred e-mails myself from my OWN e-mail address. Here’s my advice: DON’T! If you send a bunch of e-mails from your site (we’re talking hundreds to your MySpace or facebook friends) your administrator (google, yahoo, msn, whoever) will red flag you as someone who may be sending junk mail out there and automatically throw it in people’s spam box. YOU DON’T WANT THAT! MailChimp will send up to 100 for you for free. You want more? Pay about 3 cents per parcel. Pretty affordable!
· Have a soft and hard launch of your web site. A soft launch allows your friends and family to point out quirks and problems with your site. A hard launch is for the public. Typically, they should be about two or three weeks apart.NEXT WEEK: SEARCH ENGINE SUBMISSION & WEB SITE PROMOTION TIPS!