Top 10 Tips to Getting Web 2.0 Buzz

Check this post Top 10 Tips to Getting Web 2.0 Buzz from Fast Company - Leadership:

Social media and the Internet have forever changed the nature of PR and marketing. The upshot is that businesses have so many more opportunities to get the word out. In fact, no company today has any excuse not to be promoting itself--and getting noticed.

Here are 10 tips on How to Get Noticed in a Web 2.0 World. I also spoke on this topic last week at Women Who Launch Southwestern Connecticut.

Tip 1. Have a great story to tell. The biggest scarcity of the 21st century will be human attention, according to Less Hinton, publisher and CEO of the Wall Street Journal via Sree Sreenivasan, Dean of Students, Columbia's J-School. You need to create content and information that engages if you truly want to get attention. A lot of this has to do with positioning. For example, you can say that you're a marketer, and, seriously, who cares. Alternatively, you can issue a call to arms to marketers and PR professionals to eliminate gobbledygook from their copy, as David Meerman Scott did awhile back to much fanfare.

Tip #2. Be the expert. You don't have to have a Ph.D in nuclear physics. You just have to know a little more than the average Joe or Jane Q Public. And you know what? I bet in your subject area you do. A caveat. Don't Be Mr. or Ms. No it All but a knowledgeable person who listens as well as shares information.

Tip #3. Be a social media maven. Learn what Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn--the heavyweights--can do for your business. Think relationship building, not sales

Tip#4 Journalists are allies, not friends. Member of the media have their own agenda and rest assured that it is not your agenda. Prepare your key messages ahead of time. A word of wisdom: Don't say anything in an interview you don't want to read about tomorrow--or in the case of online media--forever.

Tip#5. Rumors of the press releases' death are greatly exaggerated. A well-written press release still has impact; it's just that its purpose has evolved. It's no longer only written for the media but also for search-engine optimization visibility. As a general rule, if you're targeting bloggers, Tight is Right. For general consumption, Keep it simple.

Tip#6. Make the press release pay off. Use a targeted media list. Be sure to have keywords people are likely to search on. Google Adwords is a good tool to help you do just that:

Tip#7. Take advantage of low-cost PR services. Use free or low-cost PR distribution services like Pitchengine, PR Leap and PR Web. Help a Reporter Out (HARO) is a free service that connects experts with journalists looking for people to interview. .

Tip #8, Treat the media as your client. Give a media person everything he or she needs to write his/her story. The only thing left will be for the writer will be to add his/her byline. And don't forget to be available and accessible. There's nothing worse to do everything right and at the end of the day fail to show up.

Tip # 9. There is no substitute for face time. Speak at conferences. Do a media greet and meet. Be sure, however, not to abuse the media person's time but provide useful information.

Tip #10. Other techniques to raise yoru profile. Create a Google profile. Write a blog. Comment on articles. Seek out industry awards. Get listed in business directories.

Bonus Tip: Do all of these--or even some of them--well and I guarantee I will be seeing your name out there. Follow @FastCoLeaders for all of our leadership news, expert bloggers, and book excerpts.

Wendy Marx, B2B PR and Marketing specialist, Marx Communications

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