April Neill Public Relations is happy to share some awesome FREE PR resources that we use and recommend to our clients on a regular basis. Use these to help build your brand awareness.
H.A.R.O. (Help A Reporter Out) – www.HelpAReporter.com
Everyone’s an expert at something. Sharing your expertise may land you that big media interview you’ve been looking for! Journalists post specific queries – up to 90 each day. You respond directly to them if you are a good source for their needs. From The New York Times, to ABC News, to HuffingtonPost.com and everyone in between, nearly 50,000 members of the media have quoted HARO sources in their stories.
Business2Blogger.com – www.Business2Blogger.com
Fill out a form with a specific PR request, such as, “Looking for bloggers to test and write about best chip less nail polishes.” Business2Blogger blasts it out to thousands of Bloggers who sign up to receive your offers. Those interested in your offer get directly in touch with you to get started. This can result in some great articles for your business.
Google Alerts – www.Google.com/alerts
Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic. Some handy uses of Google Alerts include:
- monitoring a developing news story
- keeping current on an industry or competitor
- monitoring mentions about your business
- keeping tabs on mentions regarding your name and monitoring your reputation
SocialMention.com – www.SocialMention.com
Social Media Alerts like Google Alerts but for social media. Receive free daily email alerts of your brand, company, CEO, marketing campaign, or on a developing news story or competitor.
Free-Press-Release.com – www.Free-Press-Release.com
A great site to submit press releases for free online, or pay up to $30 for additional optimization and features including hyperlinks, no ads, additional keywords etc. Note that this service puts your release online only; it doesn’t actually submit it to any media sources.
PubArticles.com – www.PubArticles.com
Sign up and posting of articles is 100% free. If your article meets 4 requirements: It’s totally original, it hasn’t been published anywhere else, it’s useful or helpful information and it meets the site’s writing guidelines, it will get ‘exclusive’ service which brings a variety of benefits including being posted to Google News, distribution to Twitter and other social media and your article being published on PubArticle’s homepage.
HootSuite.com – www.HootSuite.com
This service allows you to post and update ALL of your social media in one place. Populate the content of your Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In, Flicker, blog and other social sites all at once, or schedule them to go out at predetermined times in the future. HootSuite provides basic measuring – such as showing you how many people click on your links or re-tweet your posts – for free. For one account it’s free, to manage multiple accounts it’s less than $10 per month.
Animoto.com – www.Animoto.com
Animoto automatically produces beautifully orchestrated, completely unique video pieces from your photos, video clips and music. Fast, free and super easy! Animoto syncs with Facebook, Flickr, Picasa, Photobucket, and SmugMug to get your images in a snap. Add text and emphasize specific images with the touch of a button. Upload your own mp3 or choose from Animoto’s collection of tunes in several different genres.
Screenr – www.screenr.com
Screenr’s web-based screen recorder makes it easy to create and share screencasts around the web. Just click the record button, capture your screen & voice and share the link.
Do you have any free PR resources to share that aren’t listed above? We’d love to hear what’s working for you!
April Neill is a brand strategist, lifelong entrepreneur and founder/CEO at April Neill Public Relations, a boutique public relations firm serving small businesses and non-profits in Chicagoland. You can find April on Twitter and also connect with April Neill PR on Facebook.
April Neill Public Relations is passionate about helping small businesses position themselves as experts in their industry. We offer a complimentary 30-minute in-person or phone consultation. Email AprilNeill@gmail.com to make your appointment today or call 312.772.3832 for more information.
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