Long Island’s media and public relations professionals perform wonderful services but not every bit of PR needs to be generated by your paid professional. Often, the best PR is self generated or unsolicited. This month’s column- in keeping with Networking’s media/PR them- is all about ways to get free pr for your business.

Tip #1: Keep a digital camera or a really high resolution camera phone on hand at all times. Be wary of camera phones that take lousy pictures. Low resolution photos are worse than no photo. The car is a great repository for the digital camera. Take it in to each event and have someone take a photo of you with the event speaker or some dignitary.

Tip #2: Keep the photos simple- two or three people. Group pictures with a crowd aren’t welcome by publications.

Tip #3: When you’re in a photo, place yourself in the center- or right next to the central person. People on the end can easily be cropped out.

Tip #4: When you get back to the office- do something with the photos! E mail them to your local papers, trade publications, etc. Local weeklies are always hungry for space filler. Send the photo with a brief (2-3 line) description, making sure to highlight your company, its product or service. Don’t forget to provide captions identifying the name and title of each person in the photo. And, include your contact information in case the publication wants more information for an expanded article.

Tip #5: Publicize major events in your organization. Do you have a new product or service? Did you just hire a new employee? Did you move your office? Was one of your employees (or you) just appointed to a board of directors or committee? Everything is newsworthy in the right context. Send the announcement with a photo, making sure to establish a connection with the publication or justify the relevance. For example, if your office is located in Plainview-send to the Plainview local papers with the caption “Plainview business person named to committee.” This immediately establishes the  geographic relationship of the photo/story to the publication.

Tip #6: Promote your good works. People find charitable endeavors interesting and newsworthy. The added benefit is that, not only can you promote your own business this way- but you can provide valuable free promotion of the charity as well.

Tip #7: Choose the appropriate forum for your self generated pr. There must be a connection- whether geographic because you live or work in the publication’s geographic area, or activity related. 
             
Tip #8: If you receive an award, give the presenter permission to publicize it. Suggest some appropriate language for them to use and appropriate publications. When the PR comes from a third party,  it makes it even more credible.

Tip #9: Create a tag line for your business and yourself. Just as you need to perfect the 30 second elevator speech about your business- to introduce yourself at meetings, you need to have the written piece ready and use it.

The most important thing to remember when trying to generate positive pr is that you need to provide a product or service that adds value, that is needed by others, that makes you proud and keeps you smiling. A picture with a smile stands a much better chance of being published than one without a positive slant. Work with your paid PR/media professional to come up with the right slant for your business and keep incorporating it when distributing those photos!

Although this column is about ways to self generate free PR/media coverage- I would be remiss if I didn’t pay tribute to all those professional public relations people out there, who do a wonderful job promoting their clients. And lets not forget the power of paid advertising- an  ad in Networking for example will reach approximately 70,000 people on Long Island- people involved in business, community, government, banking and all walks of life- people who, individually or through their businesses, religious or charitable involvements- will buy your product or service. My company- Long Island Development Corporation- has benefited greatly from its paid advertising in Networking and other publications. The ads help brand our products and services, keep our message in front of the right people and, overall, create that positive  image. Hopefully, you have seen our ads and next time your business or non profit entity needs financing to buy or improve your facility- you’ll call LIDC for our low cost loans! (Ok- I think I just fulfilled tips 6 and 7…). Productive public relations and media coverage requires a good mix of distribution vehicles- do the research and determine what’s best for your product or service.