Is It Social Networking, Or Is It Publicity?

Look up the word publicity and you’ll find:

Information that concerns a person, group, event, or product and that is disseminated through various media to attract public notice.

As a small business owner, you may not think of your business as newsworthy – could you really get an article front page of the New York Times? Yet there is so much more you can do to attract attention.

Publicity is about expanding your marketability beyond what you can do for yourself. It’s about getting others to talk about you, or to showcase what you are doing to a new audience. It doesn’t have to be millions of people, as would be the case with the New York Times. It could be a few thousand people with an influential blog in your community.

When people think “publicity”, they tend to think of traditional media sources: newspapers, television and radio. But with today’s wide array of tools, it can be so much more: [Read more…]