Ten tips for small business PR [BT broadband office]

Ten tips for small business PR

Posted 12 May 2008 at 8:54AM by Ian Betteridge in Doing business online

Public relations is sometimes misunderstood by small businesses. Many small companies have the impression that PR is something that's applicable only to larger business, or that it requires an expensive agency to do properly.

In fact, if you have a few "people skills", you can do some simple PR for yourself without any significant expenditure. If you're interested, we'd recommend you read David Meerman Scott's post at WebInkNow, which provides a nice list of ten PR tips for small businesses to get you started. Some of them will be more immediately useful than others - for example, not every company needs to shoot a short video and put it on YouTube straight away - but they're all worth reading and considering.

Tags: bt, bt broadbandoffice, pr

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Comments

1. At May 13, 2008 11:54 AM, Thomas Grewar wrote:

Thank you for such a great tip, I am thinking of starting up my new buisness, and was needing to find away to promote it, thanks!!!

p.s. Why is the trackback thing not working? It has not been past 14 day's.

2. At May 15, 2008 9:39 PM, James wrote:

"4. Don't rely on spamming the media with your press releases and PR pitches. 5. Use press releases to reach buyers directly."

The 10 PR tips are good but:

No 4 - When you have something GOOD or NEW to shout about then it is important to circulate GOOD INFORMATIVE press releases. The best form of FREE EXPOSURE can be gained from a press release. Dont flood the press with repeated rubbish or you run the risk of being ignored when you have something good to shout about.

No 5. I have my doubts about this one especially if you dont known where your customers are in the first place ???

A good article about your Company in a Trade or Hobby Magazine can often bring in more business than a costly advertisment in the same magazine.

3. At May 17, 2008 4:48 PM, Michael Kenward wrote:

It is not just small companies that miss out on number 5 in his list:

"Use press releases to reach buyers directly."

As a journalist, I always want to see the latest press releases from a business. (I also like to see old ones.) But I often visit a company's web site and find nothing.

Maybe this is because they rely on PR companies to put out their releases. But the first place a hack looks is on the company's own web site.

On PR companies, pick a small specialist. The big ones are useless. The whiz kids come in and make the pitch, but some school leaver on work experience often ends up handling the account. Small PR outfits can't afford that luxury.

BT broadband office