Crowd Sourcing Makes Getting Press Insanely Easy, If You Know Where to Look
When I think of small businesses, I think of businesses that rely on their community as much as their community relies on them.
In this economy, I think that bond is even stronger - but we all know that new customers are the key to growth.
In his book, The Long Tail, Chris Anderson explains the value in harnessing the web for free distribution of content.
The long tail philosophy refers to a normal distribution of goods, where most merchants are selling those that are in highest demand; the aggregate value of goods not being sold is actually larger than that of the limited number of high-demand goods.
Here's a [very] quick example: In a music store, each album takes up a certain amount of shelf space.
In order to pay for that space, they must sell say - a minimum of ten copies of that album per year.
In order to make sure 10 albums get sold, they have to only sell albums that will sell that many -AKA: the short head.
By selling a virtually unlimited number of albums online, including the ones that only get sold say, once every five years, online retailers are utilizing the long tail.
The five million albums that sell once per year generate more revenue than the five thousand albums that sell 100 albums per year.
Do the math.
Now, as a small business, you're not going to start harnessing the long tail for your business - leave this task for the Amazons and Gemvaras of the world (always happy to plug a Babson business).
But you can, of course, use businesses that do, in order to reap the same rewards.
In this post, I thought I'd introduce you to HARO.
HARO, or Help-A-Reporter-Out, uses crowd sourcing to connect reporters looking to fill a story with businesses looking to widen their reach.
Their business relies on reporters and businesses in a virtual 'long tail' of different categories of press.
If you've been reading the Roominate Blog, you know how important it is to distribute 'remarkable' content.
Well why not use the best distribution mechanism of them all: the media.
It's simple to use: You sign up as a business, check off which types of reporters you want to hear from, and boom - you'll receive three emails everyday with reporters asking for stories.
Keep an eye out for a query on something that fits your business (don't forget to check out which publication they're writing for) and reply to the reporter directly.
It's up to them whether they want to respond to your pitch, so keep your pitches legitimate and you'll likely see results.
A nice piece of press can do wonders for your business - increase awareness, drive traffic to your site, increase your Google PageRank, and give you something to proudly display in your waiting room - if you have one.
There are plenty of tools out there to help SMBs, the trick is finding them, and learning how they can add value to your business.
In this economy, I think that bond is even stronger - but we all know that new customers are the key to growth.
In his book, The Long Tail, Chris Anderson explains the value in harnessing the web for free distribution of content.
The long tail philosophy refers to a normal distribution of goods, where most merchants are selling those that are in highest demand; the aggregate value of goods not being sold is actually larger than that of the limited number of high-demand goods.
Here's a [very] quick example: In a music store, each album takes up a certain amount of shelf space.
In order to pay for that space, they must sell say - a minimum of ten copies of that album per year.
In order to make sure 10 albums get sold, they have to only sell albums that will sell that many -AKA: the short head.
By selling a virtually unlimited number of albums online, including the ones that only get sold say, once every five years, online retailers are utilizing the long tail.
The five million albums that sell once per year generate more revenue than the five thousand albums that sell 100 albums per year.
Do the math.
Now, as a small business, you're not going to start harnessing the long tail for your business - leave this task for the Amazons and Gemvaras of the world (always happy to plug a Babson business).
But you can, of course, use businesses that do, in order to reap the same rewards.
In this post, I thought I'd introduce you to HARO.
HARO, or Help-A-Reporter-Out, uses crowd sourcing to connect reporters looking to fill a story with businesses looking to widen their reach.
Their business relies on reporters and businesses in a virtual 'long tail' of different categories of press.
If you've been reading the Roominate Blog, you know how important it is to distribute 'remarkable' content.
Well why not use the best distribution mechanism of them all: the media.
It's simple to use: You sign up as a business, check off which types of reporters you want to hear from, and boom - you'll receive three emails everyday with reporters asking for stories.
Keep an eye out for a query on something that fits your business (don't forget to check out which publication they're writing for) and reply to the reporter directly.
It's up to them whether they want to respond to your pitch, so keep your pitches legitimate and you'll likely see results.
A nice piece of press can do wonders for your business - increase awareness, drive traffic to your site, increase your Google PageRank, and give you something to proudly display in your waiting room - if you have one.
There are plenty of tools out there to help SMBs, the trick is finding them, and learning how they can add value to your business.