Give Away the Goods


Another way to use the Web is to distribute your positive press like a professional. In other words, give away the goods! Press begets press. It’s like dating. Every industry has a handful of online Web magazines that eat up the news and build credibility for those covered. The wireless industry has FierceWireless (www.fiercewireless.com), the search engine industry has Search Engine Watch (www.searchenginewatch.com), and comic book inkers even have Comic Book Resources (www.comicbookresources.com). Your industry has one, too. The journalists behind these sites are usually the most knowledgeable in the field and write in-depth profiles that give the mainstream news a better sense of what the story really is.

On the flip side, just as you are researching journalists on the Web, they’re hard at work researching you and your industry. Therefore, creating a website for journalists to follow up and do research of their own is one of the best ways to garner some solid press. If you don’t already have a website, you can register one for $35 at Network Solutions (www.networksolutions.com), Domain Names (www.domainnames.com), or Register.com (www.register.com).

And if you’re not a hardcore HTML junkie, don’t despair. Despite what you may have been told, good websites simply don’t need to be flashy, overproduced affairs. On the Web, simplicity rules, and with a beginner’s guide, you can build an online press kit that gives journalists everything they need to know about you to help them fill in the blanks and connect the dots.

To start with something simple, include a backgrounder that explains the genesis of the company, what its mission is, when it was founded, and who invested in it. Here we need to add one very important note. The first page of your website should contain, in an obvious place, a quick, efficient way to contact you. The contact information should not be buried somewhere else, as it is with most corporate sites. In order to succeed in the world of exposure, you must make yourself easy to find. Nothing is more frustrating to journalists than not being able to find the person to whom they need to speak or write. Access is key to coverage, so you should make yourself easy to track down.

Your biography should be here, too, as well as those of any officers involved in the strategic direction and development of your company. Also consider a FAQ, or a page of well-written, jargon-free, frequently asked questions about your company and product. Consider the questions friends or customers ask you most often and supply the answers, giving journalists (and other nice people who might pay you something) the answers that describe you. We also recommend supplying a detailed list of services or products on this page.

You should put in a press section, too. Use this page to post all the releases that your company has published, as well as all the good press coverage you’ve received. Arrange it chronologically, in data order. And keep the bad press to yourself, by all means. Unless it’s comical, in which case why not! Make someone happy by making her crack up.

If you happen to have the budget and gumption to punch up your site a bit and make it a bit more elegant than any starter kit can provide, spend the money and outsource the task to the professionals. They know how to avoid the extremely time-intensive and expensive pitfalls amateurs fall into, and chances are they have some sort of template on their desktop that can get you up and running quickly.

By the way, don’t fret about keeping up with the updates. Today Web creators will create a simple and inexpensive template for you and show your staff how to update the website, so you don’t have to pay the website designer every time you make a change. It’s called neo-realism, as opposed to the phony, self-important manner in which ’90s Web companies forced people to go to them for every single expensive amendment.

Once your website is live, don’t stop there. Have a page where surfers can find fresh content, such as interesting columns and commentary on your industry. If there’s quality in the writing (a trait very hard to find on the Web) and if it’s updated regularly, you’ll create a following of people who make your site part of their weekly Web expedition.




Full Frontal PR[c] Getting People Talking About You, Your Business, or Your Product
Full Frontal PR[c] Getting People Talking About You, Your Business, or Your Product
ISBN: 1576600998
EAN: N/A
Year: 2005
Pages: 105

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