Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
You’re press-worthy. How do you feel when you read that? If your initial reaction is to shrink back and question it, you’re certainly not alone.
Many companies (especially small to midsize companies) question if their story is really worth media coverage — and this is the biggest thing holding them back from that coverage.
Because they don’t truly feel worthy of press, they don’t reach out to the media, or they give up after a few pitches go unanswered. Or, they try PR for a few months off and on but never commit to it fully enough to develop an effective long-term strategy for their company’s visibility. They act as though a journalist would be doing them a favor by featuring them rather than realizing the value they can offer by contributing to that journalist’s content.
The truth is, these companies are — and you are — worthy of incredible, widespread press. And once you truly embrace that, how you show up for the media will dramatically change.
Thousands of experts are interviewed every single day, not because they have a magic secret for getting press but because they do two simple things: showcase their expertise and tell an unforgettable story.
Speak to a journalist, and you’ll realize they’re not looking for someone with thousands of social media followers or award-winning books. They just want someone to share serviceable expert tips or tell a good story because those two things are of the highest value to their readers.
Here’s the good news: Expertise and a good story are two things practically every business owner has.
How to pinpoint your expertise and story
You are an industry insider for your niche — and your knowledge is extremely valuable to journalists and their audiences.
Think about the questions customers ask you most often: How do you answer them, and what knowledge do you share? What unique perspective do you have? What industry trends have you noticed, either anecdotally or through your collected data? This becomes your high-value expertise. Through the media, readers and viewers can learn directly from an insider pro (that’s you!).
Your expertise provides an immense amount of value for them and credibility for your brand. It also makes that audience more likely to turn to you when they have a usage occasion for your product or service.
There’s also a special story about how you got to where you are now. You may not know what it is yet, but you don’t have to write it from scratch. You simply have to uncover it.
Start by telling your story frequently to your customers, friends and family. Pay attention to what makes their eyes glisten, and their ears perk up. Usually, these are elements of your journey you haven’t thought much about — but that stands out to others. This is what you should lean into when sharing your background with the media.
Because journalists are looking to educate and tell a good story, they’re grateful when they find sources who can help them do that.
Almost every company is worthy of the press, but not all companies are ready for the press.
Being ready for press involves having the budget for a long-term media strategy that can grow over time, creating a collection of branded photography to share with the media and updating your website so it’s ready for journalists (say, by having up-to-date Press Room and About pages).
Once you’ve honed in on why you’re worthy of press, make sure you have these “ready for press” elements prepared to increase your chances of landing coverage.
1. Make your story and expertise ultra-visible. Upon skimming your company’s website or social media channels briefly, it should be immediately clear what knowledge you can share and what makes your mission and story unique. Work on polishing this until it’s concise and easy to grasp — and avoid long, winding narratives. Make sure your story is present in messaging and visuals on your homepage, About page and Press Room page.
2. Start sharing your story and expertise on your owned channels. Even if journalists aren’t knocking on your door quite yet, you still have the opportunity to share what they’re looking for (and catch their attention in doing so!). Use your social media platforms as an opportunity to be a thought leader and share your story and expertise there consistently.
Plus, key players in your company should be prepared to share content on their personal accounts as well. CEOs and other executives have a powerful opportunity to leverage social media to share expertise and tell your brand story to your clients, customers and employees. In doing so, they position themselves as valuable media spokespeople.
3. Set up a profile on Qwoted and actively use it. Qwoted.com has a free offering that allows you to set up a profile as an expert and pitch to relevant news outlets. Just like setting up a press page on your website, this is an impactful way to show that you’re ready for press (and worthy of it!).
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
As a 15-year publicist, I can tell you that simplistic, feel-good adages don’t always hold true. Not all press is good press; in fact, in our current culture of basically everything going online instantaneously — whether it’s true or not, confirmed or not — bad press can be quite damaging, running the gamut from words that wound, at the least, to total ruination, at the worst.
To take just one timely example: In the late summer of 2023, popular entertainer Lizzo was sued by three of her former dancers for creating a hostile work environment and for sexual harassment. The damage was immediate (including the cancelation of the Made in America festival she was headlining, omission of her name from a song Beyoncé performed only hours after the case was announced, others coming out of the woodwork with similar allegations) and the backlash is ongoing: criticisms of her lack of accountability, haters predicting her doom, the press having a field day with the negativity surrounding a pop sensation known for her stance on body positivity.
Basically, bad press can transform into a bad reputation in a New York minute, so you have to take it seriously. If you don’t grab the reins of the narrative, someone else will — and then they’ll be in charge of the direction in which the subsequent news goes, not you.
Though most of us don’t have to deal with the immense notoriety that can come with immense fame, we all live in the same world at the same time. If you’re in business for yourself in the digital age of the early 21st century, here are three types of bad press you’re likely to encounter and starting points on how to handle them.
Everyone’s a critic these days, right? Customer comment sections of websites are free and virtually anonymous to access, not just allowing bad reviews but almost inviting them. Let’s face it: Are you more likely to post about a positive experience you had or to wield the power of a negative testimonial when you’re unhappy with an experience? The point being: if there’s a forum to publish a bad review of your company, your service, or your product, you’d be a unicorn not to get at least some bad reviews at least some of the time.
What can you do about it?
Don’t take every negative review to heart. Many are just one voice about one encounter, and reasonable people (the kind of people you want as clients) understand that one two-star review does not outweigh a multitude of four and five-stars and does not accurately reflect the whole of your enterprise.
Do not respond personally to what amounts to a personal anecdote — especially when you’re coming from a place of reactionary emotion — and train your staff to refrain in kind. No exceptions.
Instead, appoint a spokesperson from your internal communications team or hire an external crisis management specialist to be the voice of your company when something needs to be said, and then rely on that person to ensure consistency and accuracy of messaging.
Like it or not, trolling is another thing that’s not going away in modern society. Many faceless, nameless lurkers on the internet (hello, Reddit) and especially on social media are only too eager to initiate potentially inflammatory conversations or instigate conflict, usually just for a sense of self-importance. Trolls love to weigh in on comments that have gone viral or well-noticed posts — the more eyes that see their contributions, the better. Sometimes troll comments are just ridiculous and can be ignored … but sometimes, especially when there’s a lot of them on a related theme, it’s time to look at how to respond.
What can you do about it?
Have a system in place to address or resolve the comments. Don’t wait until your brand is trolled to devise a plan of action.
Assess the volume of commentary. If we’re only talking about a few derogatory comments, it’s okay to hide or delete them.
But if there’s a significant amount, you need to search for the kernel of truth in them and look into doing things better to create a new truth. If an apology is called for, have one curated by an expert. Trolls are trying to get a rise out of you, but a PR pro isn’t emotionally invested, and so won’t rise to take the bait.
Whatever you do, don’t clap back. You can respond, but don’t clap. There’s a time for silence, such as when the comments are simply unfounded and do not call for redress. But silence can also make things worse when a response is warranted. If you think you can easily kill off the bad buzz with a direct, objective, fair response, go for it.
Scenario #3: Dislike of your brand
An article critical of your brand just got published. Ouch. A food critic didn’t like your new tasting menu. A fashion blog panned your new yoga pants. Your customer service department got three thumbs-downs in a row. Professional criticism can feel like a personal attack when you’re the one ultimately responsible for quality control, and your natural first impulse is to get upset, followed by a desire to sling some mud back at the source. Don’t.
What can you do about it?
Instead of recoiling from the sting, lean into it for a few minutes, considering the level of validity of what’s been said.
If you can find some — and you probably will (I truly believe the media isn’t out to get us business owners but, rather, serves as neutral “secret shoppers”) — just acknowledge the experience and what you can learn from it.
Call a team meeting to investigate any changes worth making to improve the situation, like trying less salt in the soup or adding a question about customer satisfaction to the end of your call center’s script.
With new best practices in place, feel free to broadcast them loud and clear via a press release, a posted blog on your website, or a newly added product description line.
Yep. Negative press is a reality of doing business. The bad news? The situations discussed above are becoming more widespread by the day. The good news? Because they’re so ubiquitous, you’re not alone in learning how to navigate them with tact and finesse. When you see red flags waving on your business landscape, view them as an opportunity to forge ahead smarter and stronger, and you’ll be better equipped to act rather than react.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Love him or loathe him, there’s no doubt that Elon Musk is one of the most successful and influential entrepreneurs of his generation — if not all time.
Whether it’s news about one of his companies, gossip about his love life, or reaction to his latest controversial tweet, rarely a week goes by in which Musk’s name is not in the headlines.
This is even more impressive given how vocally opposed Musk is to PR and advertising, once tweeting that he doesn’t believe in “manipulating public opinion.” In 2020, he dissolved Tesla’s PR department, and his 2022 Twitter takeover was infamous for axing thousands of jobs, many from the communications team.
But if this tempts you to conclude that traditional PR no longer serves a purpose, think again. Musk is a media pro, but like a great magician, he doesn’t want to draw attention to it.
Reaching his current level of notoriety took time, patience, and plenty of strategic know-how. So, rather than taking his public stance on PR at face value, let’s take a detailed look at the strategies Musk has employed to build his brands into household names.
Musk’s (real) approach to media relations
Closing Tesla’s PR department was an unprecedented move in the auto industry. But his decision was not made because Musk no longer wanted media coverage for his company. Instead, he no longer had to bother. In the final months of Tesla’s press office, its PR team was hit with hundreds of journalist inquiries on a daily basis — something most companies can only dream of.
Musk has never been neglectful of Tesla’s PR. On the contrary, from its inception to the current day, he has taken an extraordinarily hands-on approach to the company’s media strategy. Because of this, the coverage of him and his companies has snowballed over time.
The best-selling biography, Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future, details just how involved Musk was as the Tesla name first started to gain attention, personally leading efforts to achieve media attention and “fix” any negative press. He set a goal for the company to make a weekly announcement and personally drafted press releases and conducted media outreach to ensure he secured his desired results. Musk was also known to search for news coverage about his companies at least once a day.
Here’s the first essential lesson for founders and CEOs: Musk understood that leaders must pay close attention to the stories they’re sharing with the media, set a consistent communications cadence, and build relationships with reporters.
Musk also knew (and knows) the importance of growing relationships with specific journalists.
There’s a reason why he doesn’t read publications but rather follows individual journalists. Instead of sending out a lot of general information to outlets, Musk gave certain reporters exclusive first access to information. This was the case with Kara Swisher, one of the industry’s most influential journalists to whom Musk often gave numerous interviews. (Their relationship has since turned frosty, to say the least.)
Far from dismissing the importance of traditional PR efforts, Musk was a master of disseminating the story he wanted to tell through a steady flow of outreach. Just take a look at Tesla’s blogs and announcements to see this first-hand.
Executed like a PR pro, he knew that these communications and his relationships with the media would help create a persistent buzz fueling buyer interest.
Musk sells the dream
Beyond the basics, Musk understood that when it comes to PR, it’s much less about selling products than it is about selling impact and emotions. With SpaceX, for example, Musk has perfectly exemplified how to sell a dream via storytelling.
Announcements have always been filled with visionary language and daring ideas. In a 2011 interview, Musk made waves with his hope to send humans to Mars within 10–20 years. In 2019, riding the sustainability trend, he announced he wanted to build the first sustainable city on Mars.
As inspiring and memorable as those images are, the money-making day-to-day operations at SpaceX are a bit more mundane. The company generates most of its revenue by sending satellites into space on behalf of the US government to provide high-speed broadband internet to remote and rural areas worldwide. But when SpaceX raised $750 million in its latest funding round, satellites and broadband weren’t the main attraction of the presentation. That’s because Musk knows it’s the big dreams and challenging ideas that catch peoples’ attention.
Business leaders should take note. When communicating your business ideas/projections, you must stand out from the pack by highlighting the big vision behind your model for success. Home in on your customers’ underlying passions and desires — what it is that gets them dreaming — and make sure the stories you’re telling resonate emotionally.
He controls the narrative, subtly
It’s clear that Musk is adept at PR, but he doesn’t need or want everyone to know it.
This is further proven by the fact that he doesn’t go entirely radio silent. Instead, he makes sure (as best he can) that the message he wants to convey is the story that gets covered, diverting attention from his British caver lawsuits or the Tesla buyout.
For instance, in December 2022 he launched a controversial Twitter poll asking the public to decide whether he should step down as the CEO of the platform.
Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll.
Musk has also been keen to court attention for his ongoing public spat with NPR after he assigned the news outlet, along with many others, the labels “government-funded” and “state-affiliated” on Twitter. While these labels have now been removed the story continues to receive rolling coverage thanks to new tidbits of information that Musk releases to the public.
These labels also sparked a surprise, impromptu interview with BBC reporter James Clayton on Twitter Spaces during which it became clear that Musk had no plans to be a passive participant, with Clayton commenting that at “several times it felt like he was trying to interview me.“
While no one can control media coverage completely, it’s important to engage with reporters to increase the likelihood of your company securing positive coverage. And, if there ever is a PR crisis, having relationships with the media means you are more likely to deliver some form of damage control.
Musk knows that media coverage matters, and his brands are where they are today thanks to his knowledge of PR. Building a pipeline of announcements, diverting the narrative towards positive stories, and creating a memorable vision are all valuable ways to generate media coverage that doesn’t waver.
Kyrsten Sinema knows what everybody says about her. She pretends not to read the press coverage—“I don’t really care”—but she knows. She knows what her colleagues call her behind her back (“egomaniac,” “traitor”). She knows how many articles The New York Times has published about her wardrobe (five). She feels misunderstood, and she would like to explain herself.
We’re sitting across from each other in her “hideaway,” a small, windowless room in the basement of the U.S. Capitol Building. Every senator gets one of these subterranean, chamber-adjacent bunkers, and most are outfitted with dark, utilitarian furniture. But Sinema’s walls are pale pink, the couches burnt orange, and desert-themed tchotchkes evoking her native Arizona are interspersed among bottles of wine and liquor.
Sinema tells me that there are several popular narratives about her in the media, all of them “inaccurate.” One is that she’s “mysterious,” “mercurial,” “an enigma”—that she makes her decisions on unknowable whims. She regards this portrayal as “fairly absurd”: “I think I’m a highly predictable person.”
“Then,” she goes on, “there’s the She’s just doing what’s best for her and not for her state or for her country” narrative. “And I think that’s a strange narrative, particularly when you contrast it with”—here she pauses, and then smirks—“ya know, the facts.”
You can see, in moments like these, why she bothers people. She speaks in a matter-of-fact staccato, her tone set frequently to smug. She says things like “I am a long-term thinker in a short-term town” and “I prefer to be successful.” The overall effect, if you’re not charmed by it (and a lot of her Republican colleagues are), is condescension bordering on arrogance. Sinema, who graduated from high school at 16 and college at 18, carries herself like she is unquestionably the smartest person in the room.
No one would mistake her for being dumb, though. In the past two years, Sinema has been at the center of virtually every major piece of bipartisan legislation passed by the Senate, negotiating deals on infrastructure, guns, and a bill that codifies the right to same-sex marriage. She has also become a villain to the left, proudly standing in the way of Democrats’ more ambitious agenda by refusing to eliminate the filibuster. The tension culminated with her announcement in December that she was leaving the Democratic Party and registering as an independent.
Sinema hasn’t given many in-depth interviews since then, but she says she agreed to meet with me because she wants to show that what she’s doing “works.” She thinks that, unfashionable though it may be, her approach to legislating—compromise, centrism, bipartisan consensus-building—is the only way to get anything done in Washington. I was interested in a separate, but related, question: What exactly is she trying to get done? Much of the discussion around Sinema has focused on the puzzle of what she really believes. What does Kyrsten Sinema want?What Does Kyrsten Sinema stand for? The subtext in these headlines is that if you dig deep enough, a secret belief system will be revealed. Is she a progressive opportunistically cosplaying as a centrist? A conservative finally showing her true colors? The truth, according to Sinema herself, is that there is no ideological core to discover.
I learn this when I describe for Sinema the story I hear most often about her: that she started out as an idealistic progressive activist—organizing protests against the Iraq War, marching for undocumented immigrants in 100-degree heat, leading the effort to defeat a gay-marriage ban in Arizona—but that gradually she sold out her youthful idealism and morphed into a Washington moderate who pals around with Republicans and protects tax breaks for hedge-fund managers.
To my surprise, Sinema doesn’t really push back on this one. For one thing, she tells me, she’s proud that she outgrew the activism of her youth. It was, in her own assessment, “a spectacular failure.”
I ask her to elaborate.
“Well,” she says, with a derisive shrug. “You can make a poster and stand out on the street, but at the end of the day, all you have is a sunburn. You didn’t move the needle. You didn’t make a difference … I set about real quick saying, ‘This doesn’t work.’”
Listening to her talk this way about activism, it’s hard not to think about the protesters who have hounded her in recent years. They chase her through airports, yell at her at weddings. In one controversial episode, a group of student protesters at Arizona State University followed her into the bathroom, continuing to film as they hectored her. (The ASU police recommended misdemeanor charges against four students involved.)
I ask Sinema if, as a former activist herself, she could understand where those students were coming from. Would she have done the same thing when she was young?
“Break the law?” she scoffs. “No.”
She doesn’t like civil disobedience, thinks it drives more people away than it attracts. More to the point, Sinema contends, the activists who spend their time noisily berating her in person and online aren’t doing much for the causes they purport to care about. “I am much happier showing a two-year record of incredible achievements that are literally making a difference in people’s lives than sharing my thoughts on Twitter.” She punctuates these last words with the sort of contempt that only someone who’s tweeted more than 17,000 times can feel.
It’s not just the activism she’s discarded; it’s also the left-wing politics. Sinema, who described herself in 2006 as “the most liberal legislator in the state of Arizona,” freely admits that she’s much less progressive than she used to be. While her critics contend that she adjusted her politics to win statewide office in Arizona, she chalks up the evolution to “age and maturity.” She bristles at the idea that politicians shouldn’t be allowed to change their mind. “Imagine a world in which everybody who represented you refused to grow or change or learn if presented with new information,” she tells me. “That’s very dangerous for our democracy. So perhaps what I’m most proud of is that I’m a lifelong learner.”
Still, Sinema insists that people overstate how much she’s changed. Leaving the Democratic Party was, in her telling, a kind of homecoming. “I’m not a joiner,” she says. “It’s not my thing.” She points out that she wasn’t a Democrat when she started in politics. I point out that at the time she was aligned with the Green Party. She demurs.
Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona attended hearings on Capitol Hill on Wednesday afternoon. (Photograph by Natalie Keyssar for The Atlantic)
“I never think about where [my position] is on the political spectrum, because I don’t care,” she tells me. “People will say, ‘Oh, we don’t know what her position is.’ Well, I may not have one yet. And I know that’s weird in this town, but I actually want to do all of the research, get as much knowledge as possible, spend all of the time doing the work, before I make a decision.”
I ask her if there’s any ideological through line at all that explains the various votes she’s taken in the Senate. She thinks about it before answering, “No.”
She says she’s guided by an unchanging set of “values”—she mentions freedom, opportunity, and security—that virtually all Americans share. When it comes to legislating, Sinema sees herself as “practical”—a dealmaker, a problem solver. And if taking every policy question on a case-by-case basis bewilders some in Washington, Sinema says it’s just her nature. Even in her private life, she tells me, she’s prone to slow, painstaking deliberation. I ask for an example.
“It took me eight years to decide what to get for my first tattoo,” she offers.
So what did you decide on? I ask.
“I don’t actually want to share that.”
To illustrate the effectiveness of her legislative approach, she likes to point to the gun-control bill she helped pass last year. It began the day after a man opened fire at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, killing 19 kids. Sinema made a rare comment to the press, telling reporters that she was going to approach her colleagues about potential legislative solutions. From there, she recalls, she went straight to the Senate floor and asked Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, “Who should I work with?” He pointed her to Republican Senators John Cornyn and Thom Tillis, both of whom she immediately texted. A few minutes after that, Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat, texted her asking if she meant what she’d said to the press. “I was like, ‘I’m Kyrsten. I always mean what I say.’”
“The next morning, four of us senators sat right here and had our first meeting,” she tells me. “Twenty-eight days later, we had a bill.”
It was the first gun-control bill to pass Congress in nearly 30 years, and getting the deal done wasn’t easy. But Sinema says she followed a few lessons she’d learned from past negotiations. The first was to ignore the reporters who were camped out in the hallways. “We would come out of the meeting, and they would be like little vultures outside the door asking what just happened,” she recalls. “Why on earth would I tell anyone what just happened in the meeting when I’m trying to nail down some of the most difficult elements of an agreement?”
Her allergy to the Capitol Hill press corps—which she tells me is generally obsessed with covering “the petty and the hysterical”—was not shared by all of her colleagues. “There are some folks who really enjoy talking to the press so they can tell them what they think or whatever. I’m not that interested in telling people what I think.”
Another principle she followed was to prioritize dealing directly with her colleagues in person. She’d found that many bipartisan negotiations get bogged down early on with a process termed “trading paper,” wherein senators’ staffs exchange proposals and counterproposals until they agree on legislative language—or, more often, reach an impasse. “When I first got here, I was like, What are you doing?” She says disagreements can be resolved much more quickly by getting her colleagues in a room and refusing to leave until they’ve figured it out.
This is why when progressives criticize her as flaky, dilettantish, or out of her depth, it strikes her as fundamentally gendered. More than any other line of attack, this seems to really bother her. She points to Democratic Representative Ro Khanna, who said in 2021 that Sinema lacked “the basic competence” to be in Congress.
“I mean, when there are … elected officials who say ‘She’s in over her head,’ or ‘She’s not substantive,’ or ‘She doesn’t know what she’s talking about’—that is, um, absurd,” she tells me, her tone sharpening. “Because I know every detail of every piece of legislation. And it’s okay if others don’t. They weren’t in the room when we were writing it.” She added that Khanna “doesn’t know me, and I don’t know him. The term colleague is to be loosely applied there.” (Asked for comment, Khanna told me that he’d criticized Sinema during the debate over the Build Back Better bill “because she was unwilling to explain her position and engage with the press, her colleagues, and the public.”)
The result of all the laborious gun-control negotiations was the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which was signed into law last June. The law expanded background checks for gun buyers under 21, enhanced mental-health services in schools, and provided funding for states to implement “red-flag laws,” which allow authorities to temporarily confiscate guns from individuals deemed dangerous. Critics on the left dismissed the law as a half measure. But to Sinema, the fact that she and her colleagues made any progress on such an intractable issue was validation for her method of operating.
Patient, painful bipartisan dealmaking, she tells me, is “the only approach that works. Because the other approaches make a lot of noise but don’t get anything done.”
I ask her what other approaches she’s thinking of.
“I don’t know,” Sinema says with a shrug. “Yelling?”
Members of her former party would argue that there was another option for enacting their policy vision—eliminating the filibuster, which requires 60 votes for most legislation in the Senate, to start passing bills with simple majorities—but Sinema ensured that was impossible. She makes no apologies for voting to preserve the filibuster last year. In fact, she tells me, she would reinstate it for judicial nominees. She believes that the Democrats who want to be able to pass sweeping legislation with narrow majorities have forgotten that one day Republicans will be in control again. “When people are in power, they think they’ll never lose power.”
Before departing her hideaway, I return to Sinema’s central argument—that her approach “works.” It’s hard to evaluate objectively. What to make of a senator who leaves her party, professes to have no ideological agenda, and yet manages to wield outsize influence in writing the laws of the nation? Some might look at her record and see a hollow careerism that prizes bipartisanship for its own sake. Others might argue that in highly polarized times, politicians like her are necessary to grease the gears of a dysfunctional government.
One thing is clear, though: If Sinema wants to persuade other political leaders to take the same path she has taken, she’ll need to demonstrate that it’s electorally viable. So far, the polls in Arizona suggest she would struggle to get reelected as an independent in 2024; she already has challengers on the right and the left. A survey earlier this year found that she was among the most unpopular senators in the country.
Sinema tells me she hasn’t decided yet whether she’ll seek reelection, but she talks like someone who’s not planning on it. She’s only 46 years old; she has other interests. “I’m not only a senator,” she tells me. “I’m also lots of other things.” I ask if she worries about what lessons will be drawn in Washington if her independent turn leads to the end of her political career.
She pauses and answers with a smirk: “I don’t worry about hypotheticals.”
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Every executive’s worst nightmare is that your brand or someone in the company makes a reputation-destroying blunder. Whether intentional or not, the damage is done and executives must take immediate action. The best way to handle this situation is to hire an innovative, tactical public relations firm with a strategy-based method to counteract negative press.
Too many times, companies look to their internal marketing team for solutions. Yet, these teams are too close to the problem to implement solutions that an outside firm could implement more efficiently. But what should an executive look for when choosing a PR firm?
When choosing a PR firm, it is crucial to find one that will provide more than just press releases, as the firm will need to develop an overarching strategy for reputation management. Your chosen PR firm should be able to anticipate potential risks and plan for potential opportunities. They should also be able to monitor and respond quickly to new developments and changing circumstances. A good PR firm will understand how to effectively manage the media while developing relationships with journalists and influencers who can help spread positive messages about your company.
Industry experience
Finding a PR firm with experience working in your particular industry or sector is also essential. This way, they will understand the industry’s nuances and any prevailing trends that could benefit your situation. Working with an experienced PR team can ensure that your messaging is on point and appropriate when addressing specific issues within an industry niche or target market segment.
No companies are alike, and different situations require different tactics. The chosen PR firm must be able to craft a unique strategy tailored specifically to your company’s needs rather than using an off-the-shelf approach that does not consider individual nuances. A good PR firm will begin by understanding your brand and learning about its history, values, mission statement and goals before crafting a plan based on all these factors, industry trends and insights from its research teams.
Working on PR strategy is about more than PR campaigns. Developing a sound PR strategy also involves identifying leaders who could be likely to make mistakes that could have implications for the company’s reputation and PR strategy. Continuous PR blunders can be detrimental to companies, disrupting the message pushed through current PR strategies and leading to further confusion in PR efforts. Thoughtful reputation management means ensuring all voices, from C-suite executives to employees, stay aligned with the PR goals of the company. Companies must implement preventative measures that uphold their public image and minimize any mistakes, particularly when it comes to leaders within the organization. These preventive measures must be part of the strategy offered by the chosen PR firm.
Understanding of digital platforms
Any chosen PR firm must understand social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc., as well as SEO optimization techniques that help increase visibility on search engines like Google. It is also vital that they understand various analytics tools that can evaluate performance across different platforms and measure success against predetermined goals in the initial strategy plan they craft. These metrics are invaluable in helping gauge progress throughout any reputation management campaign, so make sure your chosen agency understands how to track success through data-driven methods.
Methodology
It is also important to inquire about their specific methodology when it comes to handling your particular situation. Understanding a PR firm’s methods in the reputation management campaign is paramount. It is critical to seek out PR firms that can tailor their approach to fit your objectives, whether bolstering an existing positive reputation with an online article campaign or constructing a series of interviews to get new messaging out to the public. As such, ask each PR firm what methodologies they will employ to ensure that you hire the best-suited PR team to meet your needs and secure lasting success.
Communication style
At times like these, communication is critical, so be sure to ask potential PR firms about their communication style before hiring them. Do they provide regular updates on progress? Are they available 24/7 if needed? Can they quickly adjust the message strategy if required? These are all questions you should ask yourself when considering different PR firms for reputation management services; open communication between both parties is essential during times like these to ensure success.
Finally, select a PR firm with a proven track record of success. Ask them about their big or small victories and how they achieved those outcomes for their clients. A good PR team will be able to share stories about how they were able to successfully turn around bad press or create positive sentiment around difficult situations. This proactive approach can mean salvaging your reputation or watching it burn.
Conclusion
Overall, when searching for a PR agency for reputation management and defense, there are several key factors that you should consider, including tactical strategy, industry experience, and past successes. The right agency will be able to develop an effective plan based on these criteria – ensuring quick action while mitigating further damage from negative press coverage or public scrutiny. By choosing wisely now, you can save yourself from much pain later.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Going from unknown to must-have in your client acquisition process can be a challenging task. But it is not impossible. By following a few simple steps, you can increase your sales and become an authority in your industry. Below are three easy steps that anyone can follow to achieve this goal:
1. Targeting
When it comes to selling your product or service, choosing the right audience is crucial. It will help ensure that you’re offering a solution to a problem that your potential customers actually have. And it will also increase the chances of making a sale.
First and foremost, it’s important to have a clear understanding of who your ideal customer is. This will require some research and analysis of your current customer base, as well as a deep dive into the needs and pain points of your target audience.
Once you have a better understanding of who your ideal customer is, it’s time to start narrowing down your target audience even further. This can be done through a variety of methods, such as demographics, interests and behavior.
When crafting your messaging, it’s important to keep your target audience in mind. Catering your messaging to the stage of the buyer’s journey that your average customer is at is crucial. For example, your average customer doesn’t yet understand the problem that your product or service solves. Then it’s not effective to talk about how awesome your offering is. Instead, focus on educating and informing your audience about the problem and how your solution can help.
Once you’ve honed in on the right messaging for your audience, it’s important to differentiate yourself from your competitors. Most businesses use similar phrasing, deliverables and outcomes when describing how they can help customers. By changing just one of these aspects, you can create an uneven playing field and tilt the odds in your favor. For example, offering a performance-based model or pay-on-completion pricing can set you apart from competitors and make you more attractive to potential customers.
3. Leveraging press
When it comes to marketing and growing a business, leveraging public relations can be one of the most effective strategies. Not only does it increase brand credibility, but if done right it has the potential for short- and long-term lead generation results. Boosting personal and company reputation attracts and converts qualified sales leads at an increased rate compared to competitors. Utilizing press with a well-oiled sales and marketing funnel is like adding the cherry on top to a gourmet cake.
Boosting your personal and company reputation through press can attract and convert qualified sales leads at an increased rate compared to competitors. Utilizing press with a well-oiled sales and marketing funnel is like adding the cherry on top to a gourmet cake.
So, how can you effectively leverage press within your business? Here are some tips:
Identify your target audience and develop a plan to reach them. This includes determining which publications and outlets your audience reads or watches, as well as identifying relevant journalists and influencers to target.
Create a press kit that includes all the necessary information about your business, such as your mission and vision, key differentiators and any recent accomplishments or newsworthy events. Make sure to include high-resolution photos and branding materials.
Develop a list of compelling story angles that showcase your business in a positive light and highlight the value you provide to your customers. These can include customer success stories, industry trends and expert insights from your team.
Reach out to journalists and influencers with a personalized pitch that outlines your story angle and the value it offers to their audience. Be sure to follow up with them to ensure they receive your press kit and to answer any questions they may have.
Monitor your press coverage and track its impact on your business. This will help you identify which outlets and stories are generating the most engagement and leads, and can inform future PR efforts.
By following these tips, you can effectively leverage press to increase brand credibility and generate leads for your business. In today’s competitive landscape, standing out from the competition is crucial and leveraging press can be a powerful tool in achieving that goal.
In conclusion, going from unknown to must-have in your client acquisition process requires a combination of targeted messaging, effective positioning, leveraging press and building a community. By following these steps, you can increase your sales and become an authority in your industry.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
In my years as a publicist, I’ve seen firsthand how earned media coverage can increase brand awareness, web traffic and, ultimately, conversion rates. But this doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Landing sought-after placements is just the first step in a comprehensive campaign to curry excitement.
Much like the tree that falls in a forest with no one around, you need witnesses to those impressions, which requires a mix of unapologetic self-promotion and clever manipulation of modern communications tools. Failing to maximize those placements’ reach only does a disservice to your business and the effort you put into garnering wider recognition.
Press coverage grants sales representatives and the brand as a whole credibility they can use at multiple points in the life cycle of a product, reaping maximum profits. Here’s how.
Many veteran sales professionals will tell you that press coverage is most helpful during the exploratory conversation phase of the sales cycle. And it’s true you should encourage reps to share relevant media coverage with prospects during the earliest stages of communications, encouraging them to do more research on the brand and how it’s represented to, and perceived by, the public.
However, others will assert that it’s a helpful sales-enablement tool at all phases. For instance, using existing press coverage in fresh email-marketing campaigns can help reignite interest in leads that have stagnated. In the same spirit, an article or interview highlighting your business can be re-upped through Facebook ads when customer engagement flags.
This is a case where there is more than one way to skin a cat. It takes some persistence and endurance, but it’s effectively tantamount to planting a seed, watching as it grows and continuing to add water and sustenance as needed. If approached with that level of diligence, a single slice of positive press can flourish into an asset with perennial returns.
Discoverability and driving traffic
Getting coverage in top-tier media outlets is a proven mechanism for increasing web traffic and improving discoverability, whether that be directly from the article where the brand was mentioned or from an enhanced presence in relevant search-engine results. If you have room in your budget to hire a reputable publicity firm with credibility in your niche, it will likely pay dividends that justify the expense.
When journalists at top-tier publications buzz about a brand, people are more inclined to listen. Web traffic driven by media coverage also demonstrably outperforms overall web traffic. For customers who visit your site directly, make sure to maintain an online newsroom showcasing your press coverage. This is even more important for journalists logging on to your site.
In general, this kind of virtuous cycle of exposure only happens when a business properly touts positive coverage across its platforms — including social media channels — and drives traffic back to its website as both a source of information and point of sale.
In the coming month or two, share each piece of coverage your brand has earned a few times to prolong the win’s shelf life. Tagging the journalist who wrote the article is a good practice that can occasionally result in them re-sharing your post with their audience. This will also allow current customers and potential prospects to see the news in a new place, further legitimizing your business.
Social media also offers brands the opportunity to take advantage of features like Twitter and Instagram hashtags for engagement and discovery. You can also be creative with short- and long-form storytelling via Instagram and TikTok in particular, including repackaging press hits into catchy affirmations of the waves your brand is making. All this manifests yet another way of putting you in front of potential new customers who may be unaware of your company and its offerings through more direct-to-consumer outreach.
It’s understandable if you’re reading all this and thinking, “Wait, you’re telling me that not only do I have to launch my brand, monitor its operations, scale it and sleuth out ways to get people talking about it, but then I need to commit fresh energy into publicizing its publicity?” But the truth is that, no matter what market you’re tapping into, that kind of end-to-end consideration is the only way to stand out in an atmosphere flooded with startups and ecommerce hopefuls.
Moreover, this process evolved directly from the days of pasting together press clippings for a portfolio. If anything, it’s become more self-regenerative and reaps more bang for your buck. So rather than wasting the shelf life of your hard-earned press coverage, strategically share and promote those wins to achieve maximum results, and in doing so, increase its return on your investment — and your bottom line.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
It happens all the time in the entrepreneurial world: A team builds an impressive product or service, rigorously test it to make sure it functions well and then they launch it. When a few weeks go by and new business leads aren’t what they expected, there’s a collective lightbulb moment: We need some PR.
If you’ve found yourself in a similar spot, have no fear. You’re certainly not alone. Over the years, I’ve taken what seems like countless calls from business leaders trying to drum up inbounds by getting into public relations post-launch. Sometimes the business in question is only a few months old, while other times the open sign has been hanging on the door for years.
I always preach that a PR strategy should be built out well before a business’s launch date. If you’re trying to retroactively ignite media interest, starting a public relations program is less about how long it’s been since the business was founded and more about how your business is currently functioning.
If you’re thinking about taking the PR plunge, here are three ways to know you — and your business — are ready.
1. You have financial resources to invest in the PR long game
One of the surest ways to end up being frustrated with a PR program is to look at it solely as a revenue generator. Yes, public relations can help drive business leads, but it inherently is not part of the click-click-buy world. Try tracking the specific dollar value of landing a news article. Actually, don’t. Why? Because you can’t. The same goes for speaking engagements, awards and almost every other PR deliverable.
If your business is cash-starved and you’re in a place where you have to tie every dollar spent to a measurable ROI, hold off on PR. Chances are slim that PR will deliver a sustained and attributable line of revenue. However, if you’re in a place where you’ve got relatively dependable recurring revenue coming in, and you appreciate how investing in things like a halo effect and thought leadership can bolster your organization over the long haul, then you are in a much better position to financially invest in a public relations strategy.
2. You’re willing to continuously nurture a PR strategy
While my previous point revolves around monetary resources, this one is geared more toward the resources of time and attention. Many people look at PR as one-off splashes — usually in the form of press releases — and fail to appreciate the many ways sustained public relations efforts can deliver wins for their business. If you’re in the market for someone to simply write and distribute sporadic press releases for you, by all means, that’s better than nothing. But it’s just the tip of the PR iceberg.
Without fail, the most successful clients I work with — yes, measured by revenue growth — are the ones that continuously cultivate a proactive public relations program. Am I saying PR is the most important factor leading to their business success? No. But it is a consequential element contributing to the good standing of the organization. As you think about public relations, I challenge you to refute the big splash worldview. Instead, draw the lens back and think of how public relations can be aligned with all your efforts over the long haul, enabling you to reach your business objectives.
Not every time, but many times the folks who only want a big splash out of PR are the same people who aren’t quite sure who their target audience should be. This is problematic for loads of reasons. In the best of the worst-case scenarios, you’ll be fishing where you’ll get no bites. Again, that’s the most preferable bad outcome. It can get much worse. I’ve seen organizations invest in a communications strategy resulting in a deluge of bad leads. They not only invested money, time and energy into a flawed strategy, but also had to allocate resources to sorting through a mountain of bad leads.
One of the foundational rules of PR is to know who your audience is. Once you know that, you can figure out where their attention is placed — I like to say, where their eyeballs are. If you’ve got a solid handle on those two things, then you can build and execute a plan to get in front of them (and influence them) with the most appropriate form of messaging.
It’s never too late to invest in PR, but it still needs to be the right time
I’d bet the majority of businesses investing in public relations today didn’t have a PR strategy in place at launch. If you didn’t either, that is perfectly okay. Consider whether you’re ready to think through the above items. If you’ve got each of them adequately addressed, you can feel confident that your business is in a spot to move forward with PR.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Do you want to increase online mentions, create more backlinks and boost brand awareness? Who doesn’t? Digital PR can do just that, and one of the most overlooked digital PR strategies is creating and distributing press releases. Let’s see how to use the process within your SEO strategy.
A press release is a written text about specific news or events within your business. Press releases are a proactive way to provide journalists and media outlets with important information about an organization so they can write their piece and publish it.
Look at it like digital storytelling. You want your press release to be interesting and exciting enough to capture the attention of media outlets, blogs and other distributors.
So can press release distribution help your SEO? The short answer is yes. The goal of press release distribution shouldn’t necessarily be to gain a particular number of backlinks to your website, but it should be used as a distribution channel to share your brand’s content. The links you want are created by the journalists who have transcribed your story. They’ll likely be high-quality, natural, relevant and authoritative backlinks, and quality backlinks are a significant ranking factor.
Every website wants these included within its backlink profile, so with press release distribution, you should aim to provide content that would get journalists and news publications to talk about your business and the information you’ve provided. They’ll write about the press release and put their natural spin on the story; when they do, they’ll link back to your website as a reference for their readers.
They’re most likely to be linked to your homepage, making press releases an excellent brand-building exercise. Landing media coverage, both online and offline, is great for brand exposure and can generate a good range of natural backlinks to your website, as well as plenty of referral traffic from users who are reading and sharing the news publication.
Now let’s take a look at how press release distribution works. Firstly, don’t attempt to write a press release if you don’t have anything to write about. A journalist’s time is limited. So is the real estate on their websites. You want to make your press release about a potentially groundbreaking employee initiative or an innovative product you’ve just launched.
It would be best if you instantly grabbed the media outlet’s attention. You don’t want to be mass selected and deleted before they’ve even had a chance to find out what your press release is about. This applies to the length of the press release too. Get to the point as quickly as possible, and if the journalist wants to know more, they’ll contact you directly. Because of this, stick to one topic. Now that you have your press release, it’s time to look at how you’re distributed.
To start, it depends on whether you’re planning to distribute your press release or use a service to write and distribute it. If you choose to distribute your press release, you may find that the conversion rate is low. However, you could use a service where everything is done for you.
Press release writers will craft an engaging press release to get your news across professionally. The benefit of using a service to write your press release is that you don’t need to spend time and resources researching the best way to craft one. You’ll have unlimited revisions, and it won’t be distributed until it’s just right.
Implementing press release distribution into your marketing strategy
Firstly, you need to consider what your press release should be about. More and more brands are adopting a more personalized, human approach to press releases. People are craving reality now more than ever, so true meaningful stories could work best.
There is differing research on when to issue press releases; many suggest issuing them on a Tuesday or Friday at 7:00 and 8:00 a.m. Remember that an average of over 1000 press releases are fired into journalists’ inboxes each day, so varying the time of your release could enable yours to stand out and encourage more visibility.
It may be smart to share releases a few minutes before or after the usual bombardment. Alternatively, if you choose to share your press release on social media, you want to time this when your users are most active. Share on social media in the afternoon and over the weekend because this is when people are most active on these platforms and therefore are more likely to discover, engage with and share your content. Press release distribution can be a very beneficial tool for your SEO strategy and a proper strategy can change the user experience with your business.
