Maybe you just made the newspaper or a local magazine – or better – you just got interviewed for a major trade publication, the Wall Street Journal or a mainstream lifestyle slick. Maybe a prominent blogger is going to blog about you – or feature you in an upcoming e-newsletter. Maybe you think you’ve thought of something so smart that an influential person tweets about your article, stuff or activities…

These days, publicity comes in all shapes and sizes – but one thing is the same. It will give you a boom. The boom will be short-lived if you’re not prepared to leverage it into long-term sales for your small business. Here are a couple of tips that will help you leverage publicity into long-term growth for your local business.

Get ready for the traffic on your web site.

This seems obvious, but you really should actively prepare to capture customers as a result of the publicity, especially on your small business web site.

1. Make sure an e-mail list signup form (that is short and simple) is strategically located at the top right hand side of all of your web site pages or posts. This will help you grow your e-mail list.

2. Make sure your social media profiles are apparent at the top and bottom of each page or post on your web site, so that folks can connect with you there.

3. Make sure there is fresh and relevant content and that all contact information, forms, store hours, and directions are up to date.

4. Make sure that your web site has the ability to be SHARED so that when people get to your site, they can – with a single click – share your business with 1300 of their closest *cough* *ahem* Facebook friends…. or Twitter followers or other social media connections. We recommend the ShareThis button at the top and bottom of each page or post on your web site.

5. Similarly, install the Facebook LIKE button at the top of each page or post on your web site, so that with a single click and half a thought, your web content or article can be posted to their Facebook Wall and their friends’ newsfeeds. This exposes you to their friends.

6. Finally, install the TweetMeme’s Retweet button at the top of each page or post on your web site. This button not only allows the sharing feature on Twitter, but it allows YOU the measurement to see who shared your content – so you can thank them and otherwise engage them via Twitter.

Prepare to leverage the publicity on social media.

Social media is where you will turn the publicity into a boom for yourself. Often media in and of themselves are not a direct connector. But the power of your network mixing with theirs can really work magic. Here are a few things you can do to stir that pot:

1. Tweet with the news writers and folks in the media on a regular basis (that means, ideally, BEFORE the story hits). When they post a story about your business or referencing you or your business in any way, use all available methods to THANK them for their kind words. Tag them on Facebook, and tweet out a thanks to them.

2. Do the equivalent of the “reprint.” Re-publish the news at least twice – maybe three times after it happens. Facebook and Twitter news cycles are short these days, so posting an article Wednesday morning and Thursday afternoon are likely to expose your story to a different group of folks. If you have over 1500 fans or followers, you should also post the story again later at night (between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m.) as well.

3. When you post, drive the traffic to the story via your web site.

How does this all turn readers or viewers or listeners into sales? Again, as in the first edition of Leveraging the Boom: Turn Events into Sales the goal is to make new connections – to capture contacts that you can turn into relationships and then keep as customers for a long and profitable lifetime value of the customer. It’s about short-term tactics that lead to marathon relationships and long-term growth and profitability.

What say you? How have you turned publicity into sales?

Photo Credit: Eivind Z. Molvær

Andy and I work with several media outlets – both traditional and new media outlets – to help them “do it better.”

There’s a lot that media can do “better” these days. Here are few ideas that come to mind immediately:

1. Connect & engage with consumers/readers/viewers/listeners better.

2. Provide better value to advertisers.

3. Distribute information better.

4. Build better communities.

5. Give better PR.

That’s right. There’s a lot that media outlets can do to make the event of giving PR – or media coverage, press mentions, etc. – better. Better for whom? Everyone. For the media outlet itself, for the business or person getting the coverage (assuming it’s positive) and for the consumer.

Now, keep in mind, I’m framing this in terms of what you, my readers, care about – and that’s getting or receiving coverage for your small, locally owned business. There are a million caveats to this situation, but for now, let’s focus on the “what if” of a media outlet giving a small business or local business owner some positive coverage of some sort.

One easy way that media can give better PR is to simply include the URL of the small business’ web site into the coverage.

For example, I was just reading a local magazine that had lots of fashion shots where models were dressed in clothing from many boutique shops around town. The brand of the clothing was mentioned and the name of the boutique was mentioned – the place where the model was posing was even mentioned. That leaves THREE opportunities to include three different business URLs in the caption as well. Why would including the URLs into this coverage have made better PR?

1. It would keep me, as a reader/listener/viewer from getting frustrated that I saw something I liked and then didn’t know where to go find it.

2. It would make the media outlet look thorough in its reporting (it is 2010 afterall).

3. It would make the small business owner very happy and even more likely to share the coverage with their network of customers and prospects (which leads to better circulation for your publication).

I think all of those boil down to the consumer having a better feeling towards the media. And when consumers love the media – advertisers love the media. It’s what’s good for the media outlet: to give better PR.

How can you give better PR while maintaining journalistic integrity? There are lots more that come to mind for me – what about you?

Photo Credit: xvaughanx

Jackson, MS – On March 2, 2010, Jill Conner Browne, multiple #1 New York Times® best selling author and small business superstar, will be the featured guest on ResultsRevTV. The show will be webcast live before a live audience at noon on March 2 from the LemuriaBooks.com building in Jackson, Miss. The event is free and open to the public thanks to a sponsorship from Mangia Bene Restaurant Group. Local small business owners are encouraged to attend.

Jill Conner Browne conceived of and founded the Sweet Potato Queens® in the early 1980s. After passing through a patch of the doldrums, she found herself in need of some excitement, and a new direction. Jill discovered that she lived near Vardaman, Mississippi, self-proclaimed Sweet Potato Capital of the World, and inspiration struck—she volunteered to be the queen for the farmers’ annual festival. Although the crowning never materialized, the prospect of being the queen of anything was too good to pass up; so, in 1982 Jill entered herself and a few similarly inspired friends in Jackson, Mississippi’s, St. Patrick’s Day Parade (now the 4th largest in the country). The four original Queens all wore green, handme-down, ball gowns and tiaras, and waved to the crowd from the bed of an old pickup truck. It was modest, but it was a start.

Jill Conner Browne is “America’s #1 Humor Writer,” according to Nielsen BookScan, a retail book sales monitoring service. There are more than 3 million copies of THE Sweet Potato Queen’s books currently in print, not including her critically acclaimed eighth work, American Thighs: The Sweet Potato Queen’s Guide to Preserving your Assets, which was released in January 2009 by Simon & Schuster. The Sweet Potato Queens’ Book of Love (Three Rivers Press, 1999), the book that started it all, which has been translated into German and Japanese.

Jill has won awards for her readings of the audio editions of her books. She also recently narrated, Building Blocks, a documentary about the cultural recovery on the Mississippi Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina.

A Broadway musical based on the Sweet Potato Queens® series of books is being developed in partnership with musician and producer, Kevin DeRemer, and Grammy® award-winning singer/songwriter Melissa Manchester, who is writing the music. Jill has been featured in USA Today, Newsweek, People, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Dallas Morning News, The Denver Post, The St. Petersburg Times, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Forbes, SOUTH, The London Observer Magazine (UK), and Bella Magazine (UK), and Today in English (France) just to name a few; she has appeared on numerous TV shows, including three times on The CBS Early Show and twice on Good Morning America; she been on the Today Show, CBS News Sunday Morning, The Other Half, The Wayne Brady Show, The Caroline Rhea Show, Southern Living Presents (nominated for a 2005 Regional EMMY®), The Rick & Bubba® Show twice, CMT’s 100 Greatest Love Songs, Tucker Carlson, Mississippi Public Broadcasting’s TV productions of Writers, (The “Southern Humorists” episode featuring Jill won a 2005 Regional EMMY®) and Mississippi Roads; Jill represents Mississippi in the History Channel’s mini-series, The States (2007), and a photograph of her attending a luncheon in the President’s private dinning room is prominently shown in the History Channel’s production, The White House: Behind Closed Doors (2008); Jill has been featured on NPR’s All Things Considered. Jill has written several columns for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and currently is a monthly contributor to AY Magazine. Through Jill’s website, sweetpotatoqueens.com, she has inspired more than 5,900 registered Sweet Potato Queen™ Wannabe™ Chapter Groups, in 22 countries around the world.

Jill is a founding member of the Women’s Fund of The Community Foundation of Greater Jackson, Mississippi. She actively assists Hurricane Katrina on-going relief efforts: so far she has raised over $100,000 in cash through her website; she cooked with Chefs for Humanity™ for law enforcement and victims on the Gulf Coast; does clean-up detail
with Camp Coast Care; and she participated in the nationally televised Mississippi Rising Gala Concert, raising in excess of $15 Million.

On Tuesday, we will be discussing Jill’s start as an entrepreneur and tackling the publicity tips and tricks she has used throughout the years to maintain her status as a media darling. Do you want to get publicity for your small business? Whether you are a queen or not (and we’re certain that you aren’t a Sweet Potato Queen…because well, there is only room for one!), you can earn visibility, attention and publicity for your small business. Join us to learn from Jill’s vast experience.

If you are in the Jackson, MS area, please join us live at noon for this special event (LemuriaBooks.com Building adjacent to Banner Hall on I-55 North between Northside & Meadowbrook). Several Jackson businesses have generously donated door prizes and there will be a special treat for all attendees (in addition to the fabulous networking opportunities!). Wherever you are, you may join us live on the web at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/resultsrev.