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How to get and leverage attention from the mass media

Written by: Michael Reining

Article Overview: To get mass media attention, you have to broadcast for a reason. That means your message is broadcast to a lot more people than those in your niche. This is where most people get it completely wrong, and here Joel Roberts gave some very good advice. No matter what your niche is, you have to figure out a way to frame it so that the masses will listen. If you can grab their attention for an instant, you can then go into the details. But, if you start with the details and the solution, you won’t get anywhere with the mass media.

How to get and leverage attention from the mass media

How do you leverage public relations more? Joel Roberts says you should always begin by asking yourself, “What is the problem that I am trying to solve?”

Don’t talk about the solution until you have talked about the problem. Here’s one more secret on how to get attention from the media.

There’s a huge struggle in this area because as a business owner, you have to grow rich in your niche. But, to get mass media attention, you have to broadcast for a reason. That means your message is broadcast to a lot more people than those in your niche. This is where most people get it completely wrong, and here Joel Roberts gave a very interesting example.

“If you have a problem that tackles illiteracy and helps people learn how to read, how do you get on a radio show?” he asked. Nobody in the audience had a clue as to how to answer that question.
Frame It in A Bigger Perspective

The mass market has to pay attention. Joel Roberts’ suggestion was to find research that shows that illiteracy is related to crime.

* The more illiterate people, the higher the crime rate.
* Show that illiteracy is related to income – namely, the class divide.
* Show that it’s also related to taxes because people that are illiterate generally don’t produce a lot of income, therefore they don’t produce much in taxes for your community.

I found this information useful because I had certainly never looked at it that way.

This Gets People’s Attention

You can go on radio and talk about crime. You can then talk about fighting crime by fighting illiteracy. People will listen because everybody cares about crime. If you don’t make those connections, you’re never going to get on the radio; you’re not going to get publicity from any mass media.

No matter what your niche is, you have to figure out a way to frame it so that the masses will listen. If you can grab their attention for an instant, you can then go into the details. But, if you start with the details and the solution, you won’t get anywhere with the mass media.

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Article Tags: audience, business owner, clue, crime rate, illiteracy, illiterate people, joel roberts, mass market, mass media, media attention, niche, perspective, public relations, publicity, radio show, struggle, suggestion



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Re: Social Media Marketing - Corporate Vs. Small Business - Hi Jeff, I spent a lot time for social media maketing (or social bookmarking, social networking) and it is best marketing method for me now. In order to get great results from scoail media, we must get attention of media certainly. For this, you must have a lot of friends there, so you could vote for each others posts. Addyour link to social media sites and if you have friends voting fo it, then it will be go higher on those sites and more people will visit your site and posts. Without friends network it is impossible to get attention for entrepreneurs. Also posting quality posts on those sites (I have joined 85-90 social media sites) and doing it without spamming helps to get more traffic and attention. For example, I have some friends in PlugIm. I post my own site there once a week (certainly I add others site too). When my marketer friends like it they vote and it gets higher there and bings customers for my site
Re: Social Media Marketing - Corporate Vs. Small Business - [quote="orxan":2tqqknby]Hi Jeff, I spent a lot time for social media maketing (or social bookmarking, social networking) and it is best marketing method for me now. In order to get great results from scoail media, we must get attention of media certainly. For this, you must have a lot of friends there, so you could vote for each others posts. Addyour link to social media sites and if you have friends voting fo it, then it will be go higher on those sites and more people will visit your site and posts. Without friends network it is impossible to get attention for entrepreneurs. Also posting quality posts on those sites (I have joined 85-90 social media sites) and doing it without spamming helps to get more traffic and attention. For example, I have some friends in PlugIm. I post my own site there once a week (certainly I add others site too). When my marketer friends like it they vote and it gets higher there and bings customers for my site[/quote:2tqqknby] To add to orxan's point, I've seen people on Facebook who have over a thousand "friends" who use the social media to send out regular event notices about things they're trying to promote. Those are the kind of people who should be removed from everyone's friend list.
Re: Marketing 2.0 - What Are Your Thoughts - [quote="TannyL":qu03cck6]Hi Shri, Thanks for posting this. I also read it and I believe Social Media is here to stay, until the next best thing comes up. Social media proved to be useful for me many times and I think everyone should use it for their business.[/quote:qu03cck6] Hi Tanny, Could you give us a couple of examples of how you leverage the benefits of social media?
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Re: 3 Ways to Grow Your Business in 2011 - Hi David, I've had a lot of success by building my own media list and then emailing out the reporters when I have a story. I've also used PR Leads (paid program) which got me into the New York Times and Forbes. I haven't done much with online press releases - from what I hear they can help you with your SEO but they don't get much mainstream media attention. Let me know if you have any specific questions and I'd be happy to help!


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