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Guest post by: Paula Gardner Become an Author

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Whilst there are many many advantages to doing your own PR, one of the downsides is that it is so easy for PR to slip to the bottom of your to do list. Journalists rarely pick up the phone and ask for your latest press release, so on the whole it's up to you to be self disciplined and very self motivated.

This isn't a problem for some lucky people. For most of us however, our self discipline and motivation can get a bit wobbly now and again. And I include myself in this.

I've decided that my theme this year is to tackle some of the issues that hold us back from doing our own PR. I'm currently researching some of the emotional things that hold us back, but another common spanner in the DIY PR campaign is time management.

Good time management is vital to a successful PR campaign. Without it you can have all the great ideas in the world, but you'll find them hard to implement.

There are plenty of interesting and motivational books out there on the subject. I'm a sucker for them. I read them voraciously, vow to apply everything and anything to my business, and then promptly forget about it. To be frank, what I have found works for me are some little tricks and investments that mean I can do my work even when I am on the road, using otherwise dead time.

So, here's my list of must-haves...

A Netbook or Notebook

As I already have a PC it's taken me a while to invest in a Netbook but since doing so I have transformed the amount of work I get done in a day. Time I would otherwise spend waiting for trains or clients is now much more productive. I have a 3mobile dongle to connect me to the internet for around £10 a month and coverage is usually pretty good. Sometimes I deliberately leave this in the office as being unable to go online means I am more likely to get articles written without the temptatation to check emails (or facebook!).

A SmartPhone

This doesn't have to mean an all singing all dancing Iphone on an expensive contract. I have a great little HTC Touch that does the job just as well, with Android Apps if you simply must have that sort of thing. The reason behind upgrading to a Smartphone, if you haven't already, is that apart from being very easy to check your emails, you can also easily access Twitter...and because you are on a phone it's much easier to go in, do your Tweet and then get the hell back out of there...if you are anything like me you might find that going onto twitter on your PC is too distracting. What was meant as a thirty second visit for a Tweet turns into half an hour as you follow an interesting link or start joining in a conversation.

Media Requests

Signing up for alert services from journalists is a great way to get your PR buzzing away, effortlessly. In a nutshell you receive requests from journalists who are looking for case studies, products or services to review, competition prizes or expert comments....and they need them now! There are a number of professional PR media alert services you can sign up for, but these are pretty expensive if you are just PRing yourself as opposed to a number of clients. You can spend time trawling professional forums where you can sometimes find these requests, and also follow journalists on Twitter, who sometimes reTweet them. Another alternative is The PR Gym, where I send the media requests that I get to your inbox, so that you can take action on them straight away.

Intern

Using an intern for certain jobs can free up a lot of time, and let's face it, get some donkey work done. As long as they are learning and growing, it's usually a fair exchange. Things you could get an intern doing are creating and updating a media list, putting press releases and press tips together, research into possible publication opportunities or themes you can use for PR campaigns.

Joint ventures.

If you are running an event or a campaign consider hooking up with someone else. Apart from reducing the amount of time on a project, I find joint ventures a great way to share ideas, contacts, and energy!

And finally....regularly take time out to evaluate your PR campaign and the results you are getting. If you can track them back to specific activities then you'll be able to target your time even better.

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