Okay, I admit it.
I’m one of those people who wants to be famous.
Not like a Kardashian, but maybe like Kathy Caprino.
You haven’t heard of Kathy, right?
Kathy is a career coach who writes for Forbes, has 800K+ followers on LinkedIn, frequently gets invited as an expert by Cosmopolitan, and is a rockstar in her industry. She speaks at events with 10K guests across the USA every month.
Yeah, that kind of famous will do.
And since this is the year I decided I’d finally make my dreams come true instead of belittling them or postponing them, I started looking into publicity.
I attended a few webinars on the subject and also learned a fair bit in Marie Forleo’s B-School.
I’m planning to work on this more in the coming months. In case that’s something you want to pursue as well, here’s what I know so far.
First, you need some online credibility.
Online businesses are a numbers game. People judge you on followers and likes. Maybe they shouldn’t, but they do.
When an editor looks at your LinkedIn profile, you better make sure there’s something to see. I’m going for 500+ connections and 1000+ followers on the platform by the end of the year. I also post & comment regularly.
Overall, it’s easier than I thought to start getting traction on LinkedIn, so look into it if you haven’t already.
Maybe for your business, Instagram, YouTube, or TikTok would work better? I can’t help with any strategy there, but the point is to make sure you’re rocking at least one social media platform.
For example, I also use Medium to show credibility since I have over 215K views on the platform and over 5.4K followers. That’s not impressive—so many Medium writers have better results—but anything above 20K followers and 500K views would look lovely on your short publicity bio.
Pitch to podcasts.
Getting invited to speak on a Podcast is pretty cool and, unlike what I thought initially, quite easy to do.
If you want to speed up the process, you can sign up for a platform like Podmatch.com (not an affiliate link). It is paid, but it’s also the highest-rated platform I could find. The standard plan is $26 per month.
A free alternative is RadioGuestList.com. Again, not an affiliate link.
Alternatively, you can also try to connect with podcast hosts you like on LinkedIn and pitch them there. Make sure you choose a topic you know they cover. Also, make sure they feature guests: some podcasts only feature the host.
Pitch to Business Insider, Fast Company, or Mind Body Green.
I’m naming these 3 specific websites because they get a shitload of traffic, AND they’re proactive about seeking contributor’s content.
To be more specific, Business Insider has 118 million unique monthly visitors.
Fast Company gets 11.8 million unique visits.
Mind Body Green gets 15 million unique visits.
Nice, right?
Write for Business Insider & Fast Company if you’re targeting entrepreneurs.
Write for Mind Body Green if you’re dealing with Health, Personal Development, Relationships, and other lifestyle topics.
Their logos would also look very cool on your website or on a cover image on your LinkedIn profile.
Here are the submission guidelines for Business Insider.
Here are the submission guidelines for Fast Company.
Here are the submission guidelines for Mind Body Green.
After you get some publicity, it’s much easier to build this up by pitching more stories to the same outlets or approaching even bigger outlets with your already full PR resume.
How to turn publicity into money.
Well, we can’t eat likes, right?
Any good marketer knows that if you want to get results instead of just exposure, you need just one powerful call to action.
In this case, use your publicity to invite people to your e-mail list.
While big media won’t allow you to feature an invitation to your e-mail list directly in your stories, you will be able to put that in your bio, which would appear directly under your published piece.
In podcasts, you can mention a link where they can subscribe. Make sure it’s easy to understand so people can remember it and write it correctly. This will work even better if you develop a freebie specifically for the listeners of the podcast.
Publicity pros like confidence coach Susie Moore used a similar strategy to grow her newsletter to 29K subscribers within 6 months. You can imagine that selling products or services to a direct audience of 29K subscribers goes a lot smoother than bombarding people with ads on Facebook.
One of the PR experts I listened to last month said everyone wants to be on Oprah, but you can get from zero to Oprah. Build it up first; then, the Oprah team will contact you.
Well, I don’t know if the Oprah team will contact me, but I do believe that we make our own luck.
So let’s make it!
Sending you some famous dust,
Maya
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