The Art of Self-Promotion – 5 PR Tips
 |
 |
 |
 |
Public relations—that’s when giant corporations pay someone to explain away their massive oil spill, right? Or when movie stars hire a fancy agency to get them on magazine covers? Well, sure, but when you boil it down, PR is the art of getting your message—and yourself—favorable attention in pursuit of your goals. Your goal is to advance your career, and there are ways to promote yourself without using Angelina Jolie’s “people.” Here are five ways:
1. Maintain a professional blog and offer valuable content to your target clients.
Do some research and come up with unconventional conclusions. Check out free, easy-to-use blog platforms such as typepad.com and blogger.com. And we can’t emphasize this enough—spellcheck before you post, and post with some regularity! Need help setting up a professional-looking blog? Trade services with a talented friend—or use oDesk to hire a WordPress expert or graphic designer for a quick project.
2. Website. Website. Website!
It’s easy, inexpensive and pretty much the minimum of professionalism in most fields. Take advantage of the tons of free tools and tutorials to build and maintain a web presence. Link back to your oDesk profile using one of the customized links so people can easily review your profile and hire you (do the same on your blog!). Need help? Trade services with a friend who knows web design or is a skilled writer who can edit your resume and other copy. Failing that, find that help on oDesk.
3. Be social.
Promote your online presence through social media. Create a free Facebook page that’s suitable for professional consumption (add that oDesk referral link!). Let your network know that you’re available to do work. Use a free Twitter account to send good information to friends and colleagues, keeping yourself in their minds when they need to get the job done. Tweet about professional information, news and good resources—no irritating “Mmm … cheeseburger” clutter. Follow twitters of other professionals in your field to stay on top of trends and news and involved in the conversation.
4. Make yourself the expert.
Conduct research and write an article or presentation about something unique in your professional field. Put it on your blog and Facebook page and tweet about it. PowerPoint it for free posting on SlideShare.com. Link it all to your oDesk profile. Have your friends and professional network Digg it to drive traffic.
5. Leave a comment.
Wherever potential clients might be following the professional conversation, get your voice in there. Post your reaction, with a link back to your site or blog, on blog posts and news articles in your field. Do not just say “good article!” or “I agree!” Have something salient to add, showing that you’re a smart professional who follows developments and synthesizes new conclusions. And run that spellcheck before you start throwing around “salient” and “synthesize.”
You work hard, you polish your skills, you know your stuff—now make sure as many people as possible know it!
Jonatan
February 23rd, 2009 at 11:59 pm
What about starting a new .com personal blog?
I am doing this so I am interested to get the info
Thanks
mzalewski
February 24th, 2009 at 12:19 am
Jonatan:
Not sure if I understand your question but I’ll attempt to answer it
Most blogging providers, such as blogger, will give you the option to host your blog using a subdomain (ie: yourblog.blogprovider.com) or using your own domain (ie: http://www.yourpersonalblog.com).
The service will still be hosted by your blogging provider but the A record of your domain will need to be pointed to an IP address that the provider specifies.
Most blogging providers will have instructions on how to do this.
If you don’t have a domain already, you will need to register one through a domain registrar. There are a lot of registrars available – http://www.godaddy.com seems to be quite popular.
The other option is to host it yourself using a hosted blogging system. Wordpress is an example of this and there is plenty of support available if you need it.
Thanks
Matthew
mzalewski
February 24th, 2009 at 12:21 am
I probably should have checked your website before I posted that reply – It seems you have Wordpress up and running on your own domain already
Well, I hope that my post will be useful to somebody.
Sorry for the confusion.
Raphael@Top Web Templates
February 24th, 2009 at 12:50 am
Thanks for the tips.. it’s time to build a blog.
Ruby
February 24th, 2009 at 2:37 am
writing blog needs good writing skills, But if someone has no such skill then ??
Emily
February 24th, 2009 at 4:01 am
There are a lot of other places to promote yourself. Try CafeMom for all the moms who work from home, mySpace, and type ‘free advertising’ in any search engine to post as many links back to your site as possible. This brings your site up higher in search engine rankings. Ask all of your friends to post on social networking sites as well to increase exposure.
Jackie
February 24th, 2009 at 4:38 am
If you are not a good writer, consider hiring someone to write a blog for you, or to simply to proofread what you’ve already written. The rates are very low right now for short blogs. Ads for writers are all over craigslist.com. Keep in mind that you do get what you pay for. If you budget $20/week for a short but well-written blog by a good writer who knows how to optimize the post for a search engine (SEO), it’s worth the investment. Depending on your writing ability, hiring someone to edit could be even less.
Good luck!
Jackie Gately
Marketing, Technical, & Editorial Communications
jackiegately.wordpress.com
JuleS
February 24th, 2009 at 5:56 am
From a professional standpoint, I would choose LinkedIn over Facebook as a sociall site on which to maintain a page. LinkedIn is “home” to a more professional crowd, and therefore a better locale to help you find clients, and clients find you.
Whatever social networking site you choose:
1) Choose ONE and work it; don’t try to be everywhere and dilute your presence.
2) Don’t get caught up in writing on walls, posting cute videos, tweeting, etc. — it will suck a lot of time oput of your day before you know it.
The Art of Self-Promotion - 5 PR Tips « Mary Jane’s Niche
February 24th, 2009 at 8:23 am
[...] assistance I am an oDesk member so I usually get newsletters in my email from them. I found this very useful article earlier so I decided to repost it here in my blog with the proper linkbacks of [...]
Aleena Khalid Dar
February 24th, 2009 at 9:49 am
These are really useful tips, I also did it and found new ways to get work. But beside getting work its really important to do your task honestly and efficiently. Otherwise ther is no free lunch!
Please visit: My blog and comment it.
Peter Marino
February 24th, 2009 at 10:30 am
Always try to link back to your website with anchor text as this will increase your rankings on the search engines!
Example:
search marketing and web design info and advice.
Adrienne
February 24th, 2009 at 11:53 am
The advice about choosing one site and working it is the best, because these sites do take quite a bit of time to update regularly. Also, Twitter in addition allows users to just post short spurts of info, but it again must be updated regularly to be useful. I have been trying my best to get on board everyday, but I admit that it does take effort, I am on step 2, getting my friends, family and colleagues to join my network.
Best of luck,
Adrienne V
Stain Glass Artist/Songstress
Edwin Goitia
February 24th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
Excellent article, definitely a must-keep for those looking to establish a prominent online presence. Here I come freedom!
Check out my blog! (Not really professional, yet, however, you will see I have some interesting insight on their. Feel free to check it out, and leave some comments, posts, references, ideas, anything! Thanks and ditto!)
lizzie
February 24th, 2009 at 7:04 pm
Been blogging for almost 6 years already and I maintained around 4 different kind of niches..
I think what I don’t have is the – social part…does it mean being social in the online world like leaving comments, use of social networks or the one like attending blogging events , seminars?
Oh anyway, this article helps a lot. Thanks
Anittah Patrick » Blog Archive » Do as I say, not as I do
February 25th, 2009 at 8:58 am
[...] Click here to assess the current state of the oDesk PR article. [...]
Richard Leik
February 25th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
Some good tips in this article. Time for me to start a blog.
suhas katti
February 27th, 2009 at 6:47 am
great article.. an important tool in today’s “me too” world..
suhas katti
Tracey Witt
February 27th, 2009 at 9:34 am
I’m wondering how this would work for someone who does general writing – nothing in a specific field or niche -you know, all those odd projects that don’t fit into a clear category other than “writing”? How do you blog about that?
Johnny
February 28th, 2009 at 7:08 am
I’m fairly new to the blogging world, but I found out quickly that getting involved in the community in your field promotes you and your website faster than anything. By that I mean, comment on other blogs similar to your, network through social media, but (most important) give back to your community by offering advice, tutorials or whatever that can help out another in your field.
Yazi
March 9th, 2009 at 3:15 am
Thanks for a great article, I think its a great idea to write a professional blog that you can share with coworkers, management/supervisors and perhaps people from your competitors will come to you for advice and suggestions…
This will show you are truly into you work and industry and you are intending to going up at the top in an organization
Tamara Rice
March 11th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
A very helpful article! I’ve got myself blogged, twitter’d and now the only question is: How can I remember all those IDs and passwords?
suhas katti
March 14th, 2009 at 1:17 am
how does one get “traffic” to own’s blog & stay on top of search engines rankings?
Efren Cabrera
March 26th, 2009 at 4:14 am
To Tracey Witt,
I would like to advice you to blog on a certain topic you like most because writing/blogging on about anything is like going through places without a destination. You would just be blogging without a target market, remember this is business and in business you’ve got to have clients and a specific product.
“You’ve got to aim your gun to your target.”
taki bakha - work at home
April 17th, 2009 at 8:35 am
*have a professional profile picture to put in whatever porfile you create, that will be your net identity
*have a word in your client head, like “taki bakha, simply a leader”, or ” taki bakha, the home biz guy”
*learn to write a good profile that represent you, and take care of it by updating it when ever you have somthing new ,and good to say about your self, and be interesting
Sujit
July 24th, 2009 at 3:57 am
Nice Article, its really helpful for everyone who want to improve their blogs page PR….Just follow it.