Video Monday 14: Press Releases and Blog Strategies

This post came out of my discussions with Kathryn about her artist clients’ needs for social media promotion. I talk about a few key things artists and small businesses should have at the ready: Press releases and blogging guidelines and content plans. Well written releases are a crucial part of getting word of mouth attention, and your blog guides will help you maintain consistency with your overall blog story.

I expand on all of this in my guest post over at KathrynJennex.com. Please check it out!

Transcript:
Sings: Video Monday, video Monday, it’s a Monday so here’s a video!

So today on Video Monday I thought I’d talk a little bit more about how artists and small businesses can do their marketing online. I group those two together, I guess I should explain why I’m often talking about artists and small businesses in the same sentence. I know there are huge differences between those two in most cases, or at least in many. But I do think there are a lot of very similar things about each of those groups that makes their marketing a little bit similar.

They’re small production, or at least limited production, usually targeted at niche markets, and word of mouth is their bread and butter. That’s what’s going to make their business successful at least when they’re starting out. so that’s why I think a lot of the same marketing techniques apply between both artists and just small businesses.

So what I want to talk about today is the few things that I’ve been working on. My friend Kathryn has a few artist clients and small businesses that she’s helping out, and we’ve had a lot of discussions together about you know what, what these people need right off the bat to get that word of mouth going. So I wanted to talk about two of those key things.

And the first one you know, it sounds simple, but it’s press releases. And I just want to talk about what you should be doing if you have a new product, or if you have a new piece that’s been commissioned or is being announced, make sure you have a press release for that. So write a press release, write the formal press release or have someone do it for you, and make sure you include high res images (links) and put that release, send it out to any media outlets that you have the contact information for, that you think it would be relevant for. Blogs as well, not just the traditional ones, and post that press release as a blog post. Make sure again, hi-res images (as links, not attachments).

Not only that, include also a second document or a second post that just breaks out the basic facts, figures, quotes, and just the images. That way if the blog or the other media outlet wants to write the article themselves, not just copy and paste your press release, just give them what they need so that they do that without having to dig through the press release.

Of course if the press release is written well than that very important information should be surfaced you know, close to the top, so they can just get it, the meat of it. But it’s always good to include both those options for them. And again, high res images. That’s very important.

The second thing is you know, make sure that you have a really good blogging outline. Like guidelines for content coming up and guidelines for just how each post should be written. Because lets face it, if you’re an artist or you’re running a small business you don’t have time, or at least if your business is going well at all you probably don’t have time to be sitting down, every week figuring out, okay, I’m going to take a couple hours on my Monday morning to figure out what the blog post should be today. You probably don’t have that kind of time.

Again, either take the time, or have someone do it for you, which might be the better solution in a lot of cases, and figure out what your content plan is going to be. So ten weeks in advance I know what each post is going to be about. Of course things can come up, of course new product releases etc, other news that might work themselves in there, but figure out if you’re, if you need a post every Monday, every Tuesday, if that’s what you’ve decided, you should be able to look at your content plan and say okay. ‘I’ve got five to ten bullet points of what this post needs to cover, how it’s going to relate to my overall story of my blog, what the content should be, and what offer, you know, what value I’m providing to my readers.’

That way you’re never stuck. You’re never spending so much time trying to figure it out. And what the guidelines do is tell you okay, every post needs to tick off these points.
-This is how it relates to the overall story and explain what the overall story of the blog is.
-This is what the content should be, how is this going to relate to the story, and the offer is every post should, you know, relate back to this general offer. So my blog is about helping people do XYZ, my blog is about teaching people this, or it’s sending people this type of information so make sure that everything has that.

And again just other guidelines for consistency so that you can have multiple authors. That’s something you’re allowed to do. If you’re running a small business, you’re allowed, other employees can be writing the blog, it doesn’t have to be all on you. And if you’ve got a content plan and you’ve got guidelines, you allow for other people’s unique perspectives, but you’re always maintaining the important bits of consistency, so that your readers are always wanting to come back, even if it’s a different author next week.

So that’s Video Monday everyone, thanks bye.