Make the Most of Your Media Mention

I am thrilled that The Art of Alchemy, founded by my friend Catherine Holtz, received a great media mention by Debbi Kickham on Forbes.com about their Dream Mask™ sleep mask.

As a marketing strategy, many small business owners reach out to influencers to mention their product. They hope that the right mention by the right influencer at the right time to the right community will be the domino that kicks off a rush to their website and big sales.

That happens – but not very often.

Instead, the burden of leveraging this mention generally falls on the business owner.

If you want to make a mention work for you, you will need to get the message out to everyone you know in different ways, because you never know what will work.

Holtz did a lot of things right. She reached out individually to people asking them to share it, and she posted some good promo copy and a link on her personal Facebook profile and her company page. She probably posted something on Instagram as well. (I’m not on that platform.)

That’s a great start, but if you really want to get the most out of your mention, you might want to consider doing even more. (And it might be much more than you feel comfortable doing at first.)

After the mention

After the mention is where the bulk of the work is – and usually this work generates most of the value.

You will want to try to do as many of these as possible:

• Get the hyperlink or file download or embed code.
• Decide if you want to send people to that site, or if you want to write a blog post and embed the hyperlink or widget into your post. (Pro tip: If you write a blog post and are able to embed something, people do not have to make an extra click and leave your site, which is a good thing.)
• Promote your blog post and/or link to the host’s site on social media. (Pro tip: If you are using your Facebook business page, pay to boost that post to people who have liked your page and their friends so people actually see it.)
• Promote it in your newsletter.
• Embed the link in your LinkedIn profile, if appropriate.
• Add the link to your speaker and/or press page, if appropriate.
• If something was short and quotable, consider using Click to Tweet in your blog post, or creating a meme (picture with the text on it) to generate improved social sharing.

The long tail

I understand this seems like a lot of work, but there is potentially a big payoff.

Social proof is important because what other people say about you is perceived to be more valuable than what you say about your expertise, products, or services.

Imagine a prospect coming to your website or social media platform and seeing where you have been featured / quoted / interviewed. Guest blogging counts, too. It can make a big difference in the prospect’s perception of you. Your prospect will take you more seriously, and maybe even buy from you because a trusted source said something good about your company or your product.

Media mentions give you a chance to shine and generate revenue – but only if people actually see them.

So, please remember that you’ll have to do most of the work to ensure the right people – your prospective buyers – see your media mention.