Sometimes you need to persuade your bosses that PR is a worthwhile promotional activity, so one way is to try and do it yourself, get some traction and then ask, "can we now please ask the PR professionals, who will be able to do the same or probably better much more efficiently?"
If you want to try out PR and don't have the budget, here are 15 ways to get some free PR.
1. HARO
Help A Reporter Out, colloquially known as HARO, lets you pitch your query to more than 25,000 journalists in a single blast. You should also list yourself as an expert source and/or sign up for daily notifications and jump on any current stories that are related to your company. Reporters send out requests for ideas, quotes and new products all the time. HARO can be an endless stream of free PR for your company if monitored correctly.
2. Quora
By answering questions on this website, you can spread the word about your business or just use it to be seen by your potential customers, or journalists who might be hearing about you for the first time.
3. Reddit
This is a platform for social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion. You can use it to learn about the newest thing on the market, so you can adjust your PR efforts accordingly.
A well-known social media site that helps spread the word about your business. Although it does take time to research the relevant groups here, it also gives a more personal touch to your whole PR campaign.
5. PR Hunters
PR Hunters is an influencer marketing tool that helps businesses and marketers reach journalists who are looking for sources for their upcoming stories. The system crawls Twitter seeking out journalists who are tweeting out requests for sources to contact them.
6. Anewstip
Helps you create a list of media contacts by searching through journalists and bloggers based on what they have written, published or tweeted. Just put in your keywords to start the search.
Probably the most known tool. Extremely easy to use and sends you email notifications of any mention of your keywords in real-time, once a day, once a week - however often you choose. You can alert your company name, your competitors and any other relevant phrases like industry type too.
8. media.info
It is a little outdated but also a great start for your PR campaign, as its a comprehensive list of and source for finding UK media contacts.
9. News Meter
An online global news tracker service that you can use to search one time for keyword terms, without the need to sign up. You can also set up a single person account for free before having to move to a paid package.
10. WooPitch
It uses LinkedIn and Twitter to collect and collate contact details of journalists and influencers and put them in a database. It is free up to 10 email & social profile lookups per month.
11. PitchRate
A media alert service that sends daily emails that include media opportunities, enabling you to connect with the right contacts and position your client with them as an expert. And if you have a pitch you can send it via this service.
12. Journorequests
Recently, one of the most popular ways of connecting with journalists using Twitter by simply adding the #PRRequest hashtag to your query or #JournoRequest one when answering a media request. Free, easy to use and gets you in direct contact with interested and active journalists.
