How Social Media Turns You Into A Valuable Media Commodity  Marsha Friedman+ by

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All I can say is I just love Marsha Friedman from The PR Insider! I have learned SO much from her through the years about PR, Social Media, Branding, and Book Marketing. She is well respected and very inspiring to many .  .  .  .

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If you’re savvy enough to be using social media as part of your branding efforts – and I know that you are – then you’re also savvy enough to want to get the most out of those efforts.

After all, when you’re using social media for personal or business branding, you’re not out to learn how many of your high school classmates have grandchildren, or “like” the photos of your niece’s wedding.

Instead, your goal – or at least one of your goals – is to build a loyal following and then leverage that following to enhance your marketing and branding efforts as an authority in your field.

Because here’s the thing: the greater your following, the more intriguing you’ll appear to the media gatekeepers you’re trying to attract to spread your message.

Let’s face it, most people in the media are inundated with requests from people who have a story to tell, a product to sell or a service to promote. If you manage to cut through all that clutter and get on the media’s radar, one of the first things they will do is Google your name or your company’s name and check out your presence on social media.

It gives your credibility a strong boost if the media find that you are widely followed on social media sites. Here are just a few ways your social media following can pay marketing dividends for you:

• A large, built-in following makes you an asset to the media. The bigger your following the more impressive you’ll look when the media take a peek into your online world. As a result, a journalist will be more inclined to interview you, and a TV show or radio show host more likely to want to talk with you on the air. Simply put, the more popular you are, the more valuable you are as a guest or interview subject.

• Once you’ve achieved some media coverage, your social media following is your doorway to sharing that coverage with an even wider audience. There is so much information on the internet competing for attention that it’s a challenge for any one article or interview to achieve much notice. That’s why you have to give any coverage you receive a little nudge – or maybe even a big shove!

  Let’s say, for example, that you’re interviewed for an article that appears in a national publication. If you share a link to the article on your social media sites, you have immediately broadened the potential audience for that article. But it doesn’t stop there. Many of your followers may share it with their followers, widening the reach even more. If you’re lucky, it could even lead to the article or interview with you going viral! You’ll like that and so will the media outlet you helped shine the spotlight on.

• If you’re looking for a book deal, that social media following will be influential. Traditional publishers who are mulling the risk of taking you on will be more inclined to do so if you have a large number of people following you.

• A large social media audience can attract sponsors interested in tapping into your audience because they’re after the same demographics. That could be a deep well of revenue for you.

Building an extensive social media following and making the best use of it is not only smart, it’s essential if you want to take advantage of the marketing and branding opportunities that social media present.

When the media start checking you out, you want them to be impressed with what they find. And at that point, the whole situation could become almost self-perpetuating. A growing audience can help lead to media attention. Media attention can help grow your audience.

What an extraordinary development that would be!

Perpetually yours,

Marsha 

(P.S. If you need professional help with your branding and social media efforts, give us a call at 727-443-7115 ext. 215.)

ABOUT MARSHA FRIEDMAN:

Marsha Friedman launched EMS Incorporated in 1990. Her firm represents corporations and experts in a wide array of fields such as business, health, food, lifestyle, politics, finance, law, sports, and entertainment. She consults individuals and businesses on a daily basis and is frequently asked to speak at conferences about how to harness the power of publicity.

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