Tools you can use to PR your business

Tools you can use to PR your business

Public Relations helps to drive awareness of your business and create brand loyalty.  Put simply the more people who are talking positively about your brand, the more people who are helping to spread the word about your company.  But how do you get your message out?  In this guest blog post Eleanor Lester of ShrewdPR shares her top tips.

Press or Media Release – a well written and targeted release is a great way of informing the media about your business.  It is important to make sure it has been written with the audience of the magazine, newspaper, TV or radio station in mind.  If you wish to create local interest for your brand think about how you can make your story relevant to the local community.  Topicality and charity angles can also help secure those all-important column inches.

Photos – These are so important, great photography whether it’s a cut out shot or a lifestyle image can be one of the biggest aids when it comes to securing media coverage.   Include photos in your press release and also have them to hand so that you can send them out when journalists ask for them.  It’s worth investing in some professional photos of key people with in your business and the products / services you sell.

Video – These are a brilliant way of telling your story, whether you go Live on Facebook use Instagram TV or choose to get a professional video made.  Video testimonials also work well as do clips of you talking about topical things going on with in your industry. All of this helps to build you credibility and also helps to get potential customers thinking and talking about you.

Social Media –  Facebook, Instagram Twitter and Linked In all have their part to play in your PR strategy and can be great tools to help get your business noticed.  Make sure that your posts are engaging, relevant to your audience and that you don’t bombard your followers.  Choose the platforms that are the most appropriate, if your customers are only active on Facebook or Linked In it’s not worthwhile spending your time and energy on Instagram for example.  Once you’re getting a good level of interaction on one platform consider adding another, this is particularly important if you’re going to be handling the Social Media side of the business yourself.  Remember that to be successful you need to engage not only with your followers but also other businesses.  Tagging people, companies and using the appropriate hashtags can really help increase the visibility of your business. Lastly don’t forget that you will need to monitor your social media accounts regularly and have a strategy in place to deal with any negative posts that might crop up.  If you need help with keeping track of your Social Media then tools such as Hootsuite, Postifity, Buffer, Sprout social might be useful.

Blogs – A well written blog serves two purposes, firstly it helps with your Google Analytics by providing fresh, author owned content for your website. Secondly, it allows you to express your business’s personality.  Comment on trending business stories so long as you can make it relevant to you,  changes within your industry, findings of surveys, customer testimonials, hot industry topics and sneak peaks on new products and services that are coming soon. You might also like to use it as a platform to talk about issues that are close to your heart whether.  Don’t forget to share your blog on your Social Media pages to help spread the word.

Newsletters –  If you’ve gone to the trouble of asking your customers for their permission to collect their data with a view to marketing to them in the future it is important that you utilise this resource.  Many businesses fail to do this for a number of reasons, but often it’s because they think it’s going to be too time consuming.  With a little bit of care and attention it is possible to create something that will really help you to grow your business and increase sales.  If you’re not sure where to start, Mailchimp is very easy to use and you can create professional looking newsletters very quickly.

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Profile

Eleanor Lester – ShrewdPR.  A PR and Marketing Professional with over 20 years’ experience, including b2b, lifestyle, food and drink, fashion and online retail.  A passionate believer in the value that good PR and strategic marketing can bring to small and medium sized businesses.  She can be contacted on 01234 823700 or click here to send an email