From Hello To PR

Public relations is about building relationships and every relationship starts with a conversation. Every hello has potential and in today’s hyper-connected world, you should never run out of people to say hello to.

It’s true today’s conversations are occurring in new forums and across new media, but in the end, the most effective tool available to promote your brand is a good old-fashioned conversation. You still have to write press releases and optimize your site for search engines and analyze keywords but in the end, that’s not how the word spreads.

If you’re an entrepreneur and you don’t have a backlog of people to contact who might be interested in what you’re doing, you’re not doing enough for your brand. No matter what your niche, you can use a few simple online tools that will turn your inbox into a conversation finder. Only you can actually start a conversation, but these tools will help you find people to talk to.

• Google alerts are easy to set up and will help you find bloggers, journalists and other entrepreneurs to talk to. Identify the keywords relevant to your industry and opt for the once daily email. Read these daily emails religiously and you will undoubtedly find people to talk to.
• Blog subscriptions do more than clutter your inbox. When you come across blogs that are particularly relevant to your business, subscribe and take the time to at least glance at them each day. Where possible, subscribe also to the comments because those people are also potential hellos.
• Targeted news subscriptions will vary greatly by industry but choose periodicals relevant to your startup and sign up for the daily email summaries. For my business, it’s the New York Times, The Huffington Post, and Publishers Weekly and these publications serve two purposes – I find people to talk to and I find things to talk about.
• Twitter is probably the best news aggregator online and if you follow the right people (again relevant to your industry), you will see all the important articles each day and you will meet people to talk to. Twitter doesn’t just come to your inbox, you have to go there, but conversations can actually happen 140 characters at a time.
• Facebook is probably the least useful tool on this list for starting conversations but it’s one of the most useful for continuing conversations. Once a conversation starts, remember to find that person on facebook and stay in touch. Gradually these new friends will result in new conversations.

Unfortunately it’s easy to get lost in the miasma of the internet and miss the most important thing available online – people. If you’re doing it right, you should find so many people to talk to that you literally can’t keep up. Of course, none of these tools work if you’re just lurking online without reaching out to the people.

You will also have to strike a balance and learn to scan emails and web pages for relevant content, but you get good at it very quickly. At first, the volume of messages in your inbox might seem overwhelming but you can scan and delete fairly quickly while setting aside or adding a link to your favorites when you stumble upon an interesting person. When you get behind, start a list and gradually chip away, one hello at a time.

Some hellos won’t pan out and some hellos will only result in short conversations, but every hello is an opportunity for your brand and you’ll be surprised how many people respond.

Wanda Shapiro wrote a novel called Sometimes That Happens With Chicken and decided she didn’t need a publisher to sell books. She’s taking literary fiction indie and bringing her debut novel directly to readers. For more information, visit http://www.onegirlonenovel.com where you can learn all about the girl, the novel, the plan, and how you can help. Or find her on twitter @WandaShapiro.