Being a small business founder I know that sometimes you are so busy with doing the actual work that needs to put cash in your bank that you don’t even get to think at some business processes that are not really so hard.
Let me ask you this way. When was the last time that your small business did a press release? For example in Romania are around 1800 functional e-commerce sites, and while I’m in this business, I hardly see press releases from these companies (usually very small companies).
You probably think that a press release is very expensive to do, you need a PR company to write it, then distribute it to their network of journalists and spend around 6 months to pitch them to push your releases in the future. Well, that’s true. But then again, you could start by distributing press releases online for free. It’s not going to have the same result, but you will at least send the word out about what you’re doing, and maybe for a small fee you get it syndicated further.
Got your attention? Well, good news is that there are some portals that do just that: allow you to submit a press release for free, then they syndicate it further, or even gets distributed directly to journalists. And even better, some of the portals are packed with tutorials, samples and guidelines about how to write a press release.
Jennifer Mattern from Naked PR, a “PR blog dedicated to cutting through the crap in online public relations and social media issues with blunt honesty, hard questions, and a healthy dose of skepticism” put up a list of free press release sites where you can distribute your news.
You can also watch Mike Arrington, techcrunch godfather, presentation on how to get and how to respond to press for your startup.
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