Online Public Relations for Small Businesses - 5 Strategies

© 2009, Brandon Cornett. All rights reserved.

The Internet has forever altered the concept of public relations, and mostly in a positive way. After all, the whole point of a PR strategy is to spread a certain message or idea. And when you do this online, you can reach a larger audience with less time and effort.

In this article, I’ll offer some online public relations strategies you can use to grow your small business. We will discuss online press releases, educational articles, social media marketing, business blogs, and even a few “passive PR” techniques.

So without further ado, let’s jump into the first online public relations strategy for small business owners. Let’s talk about press releases and how to get the most out of them:

1. Distributing Press Releases Online

Press releases have long been the backbone of a well-rounded public relations strategy. The Internet just makes them a lot easier to distribute.

As always, the key with this strategy is to have something newsworthy to put out. I see a lot of small business owners overuse this technique, by publishing a release every time somebody gets hired, promoted, etc. Unless you’re a Fortune 100 company, few people will care about the various comings and goings within your organization.

But if you start with something notable and newsworthy — such as a groundbreaking new product or service — the online press release can be a small business public relations tool worth pursuing. My advice is to create an informational “landing page” on your website, before you distribute the release. That way, you can link the press release to a specific page where people can learn more.

If you need help with this online public relations strategy, check out our consulting services. We can advise you on every aspect of the process.

2. Publishing Articles via the Web

This is one of my favorite techniques for small business Internet marketing / PR, because it’s both cost-effective and powerful. This idea here is to create an ongoing series of educational articles, and publish them onto as many relevant websites as possible.

This can help you grow your small business in many ways. For one thing, it’s a search engine optimization strategy, because any articles that link to your website will increase your “link popularity,” and thus your search engine ranking. It’s also an effective public relations technique, because it gives people more ways to find you online (rather than relying on your website alone).

You should publish your articles onto any website that’s relevant to your business and your audience. For example, if I owned a software company, I would want my work to appear on as many software-related websites as possible. I could find these publishing opportunities by doing a Google search for “software +submit an article” … or “technology +submit an article.”

Over time, this can be a highly effective strategy for online public relations and exposure. Think about it for a moment. When your potential customers go online to research topics related to your business, they eventually find your business. It’s a powerful concept, and it can help you take your small business to the next level. Best of all, this public relations technique can be used with other techniques on this list — social  media, networking, blogging and more.

3. Social Media Marketing

I’ve written an article on the benefits of social media marketing for small business owners, so I won’t belabor the point here. It can also be used to support your online PR strategy. Here again, success will depend on how remarkable your product is to your intended audience. Your product might be a tangible item, a service of some kind, or maybe just your knowledge or insight. But it has to be noteworthy. When this is the case, social media marketing can help you spread the word.

4. Business Blogging

One of the primary goals of public relations (online or off) is to get people talking about you, your company, or your products. A business blog is a great way to support this goal.

Technically speaking, a blog is nothing more than a content management tools that helps you publish information online — quickly, easily, and in a well-organized manner. But in the right hands, and with a consistent effort from the author, a blog can also become a buzz machine. For these reasons and more, blogging can make a great addition to your online public relations program.

We can help you get started, if you need a little push in the right direction. Check out our blog consulting page to learn more about it.

5. Passive Public Relations Online

Thus far, we have mostly talked about proactive PR techniques you can use to promote your small business online. But there’s a passive side to this as well. If you work hard to create an informative and authoritative website, with plenty of content and resources, others in your industry will soon notice. Don’t be surprised if people eventually start contacting you for interviews, linking to your website as a resource, or both.

Here’s how to facilitate this type of “passive” public relations online …

• Make sure your website is well organized, for potential customers and media folks alike.
• Create an informative “company” or “about us” page with links to news, blogs, etc.
• Build a learning center with articles and other resources related to your industry.
• Make it very easy for bloggers, Internet publishers and media folks to contact you — and encourage them to do so.

It’s always nice to catch a PR break once in a while, and get some free publicity in the form of media coverage. If you stick with your online public relations campaign, this is the kind of thing that can happen. It tends to have a snowball effect too. More coverage brings more website traffic, which brings more coverage, which brings more visitors … you get the idea.

What’s the end result of all this small business PR effort? More website visitors, more inquiries, more sales and growth. And who doesn’t want that?