Most bloggers dream about having features in newspapers, magazines, radio or TV about you and your blog. Being featured in the mainstream media is seen as the haunt of the exclusive few, but it need not be. Getting the press to cover your blog isn’t too tricky, however you need to work for it.
The Ideal Way – What Happened To Me & Why It Isn’t The Best
I have been featured a number of times in a number of places. The Guardian, BBC Radio Wales & The North Wales Weekly News have all done a feature on me, or done stories that involve me as a blogger giving my opinion. This is great, as it has put me over as an authoritative member of the blogosphere. But how did I get this?
By doing nothing.
Well that’s not strictly true. My title tag for my blog at the time was “Rhys Wynne | Technology Blogger from Colwyn Bay, North Wales”. This isn’t optimized greatly for general blogging, but it did say:
- Who I was
- What I blog about
- Where I was living
The researcher for the story (this was for BBC Wales) did Google “blogger North Wales” or “North Wales Blog”, found my name, read a few posts & then telephoned every person with the surname Wynne, living in Colwyn Bay, located within the phone book. Although I wasn’t listed, my mum was & she rang me about it.
It was a bit lucky yes, but you can make your own luck. If you want media attention, start small, target keywords both geographically & niche, and include the word “Blog”. You only need one break, but once you get it & you conduct yourself professionally & knowledgably, you will probably get asked back again & again (I’ve appeared on the radio a few times now).
That’s a great way to start, but it isn’t always the best. The amount of traffic obtained from the BBC isn’t the best, and very few people who did visit became regular readers, but it’s nice just for you to use on your press page.
The Less Than Ideal Way, But Still Cool & Ultimately More Profitable
The second way is a little more work to do, but ultimately more profitable. Again target local media, but go hyper local (newspapers for your area for example). Most local newspapers have a circulation of around 40,000 in the UK at least – who wouldn’t want 40,000 eyeballs looking at your site (well, technically 80,000)?
To do this, you need to get media attention, and offer something that benefits local people. Release a product that’s aimed at local people, give your old computer to a local charity, or offer a free seminar to businesses on how to do something. My personal favourite is a tweetup – organise a night in a local bar or conference centre for your twitter followers.
If this all sounds expensive, well it’s only as expensive for as much as you make it. Venue hire varies for facilities & size, but you can probably get something quite cheap for under $100. Bars are usually cheaper if you can get numbers there who will have drinks. Getting local businesses to sponsor the event as well is a great way to lower costs.
Make sure the event has a focus – that way you’ll get more people to attend, and write a press release. Simply state where, what for & when in the release, as well as information on yourself (list your blog here, put yourself as a “blogging guru” or something similar), and contact local papers. Most struggle for news, so you are likely to get coverage, as long as you make it clear that it benefits local people (also good to say how).
If you are targetting local businesses, not only will the media attention be greater, but it’ll also be more profitable. You’ll immediately be seen as the go to guy for that subject, which could land you some great contracts. You can make it a one off, but it could be great to build from there, with a monthly or annual event.
If It Gets Serious
If you do get a lot of interest in your blog, the best way to go forward then is with a press page on your blog. This will be hidden away within your blog, often leading off your about me page. List your experience, what you do & what you are comfortable talking about. Furthermore, this would be a great place to optimize for the title tags talked about earlier on the page. Finally, list your contact details (an email address will suffice).
Tips
In conclusion, if you are after media attention for your blog, here’s some tips for getting it:
- Present yourself as authoritative – the go-to guy for your niche.
- Have something that the media will cover. Events & Seminars work better than products.
- Write a press release, and ring your local papers to talk about it asking to send it over.
- Use your full name.
- Create a press page explaining what you do, how you can be contacted & previous experience.
- Optimize your blog or press page to hit local searches.
This does take time, it took me about 5 years before I started getting interest, but it can be a nice diversion, maybe even profitable in the long run. Best of luck!
This guest post is written by Rhys Wynne, an 8 year blogger at The Gospel According To Rhys – a look at social media, SEO & blogging. Grab his free e-book – Value Added Retweets – today! Want to guest post on HowToMakeMyBlog? See more info here.
Image by Monroe’s Dragonfly.
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{ 19 comments… read them below or add one }
My site was featured as geek of the Week on the Steve Wright radio 2 show, the Telegraph, Local radio and was invited to go on Sky News with no effort either. It’s all about creating something useful and relevant.
Local media and other mainstream sources have interested me a lot. I think they are great ways to build your resume as a blogger and turn your passion into something others outside of the “blogging” world will notice.
Mainstream media can do wonders if you can get it.
The man behind the MillionDollarHomePage site actually did make a million by selling a million pixels at $1 a piece for advertising. He wouldn’t have done it though had a local journalist found out about it and made his site gain traction.
Alex Tew is a remarkable businessman. He well exceeded $1m, more like $1.3-$1.5m as he auctioned off the last few remaining squares (they went for like $30k-$50k each.
You continue to provide such great and helpful posts to fellow bloggers. Keep up the great work! When I finally get my blog design finished, I will have an abundance of information on how to proceed thanks to you!
Great information and well explained. We found that we could connect to our local newspapers through their twitter account, this has opened up pr avenues for us which has been great.
Lee: That’s amazing! What sort of niche & what was your USP of your blog? Often I do find that it kind of goes crazy once you get one thing if you go the first route – particularly if the first people you speak to are a large organisation.
Seth W: Definitely. Just this morning there was a guy on the main news who was a blogger about to publish a book – a recipe book aimed at father’s cooking with young children – I’d never heard of the guy, but imagine his audience is quite big & getting bigger!
Aaron: Glad you liked my pos!
@Cam – that’s brilliant! Wish our local newspapers did that. Have a few decision makers of the local news on my twitter account. Will speak to them.
Do you have an example?
sometime thing happen unexpectedly, my friends once talk about movie.. and one of my country popular newspaper take the review from his blog to put in the newspaper.. and it boost the traffic out of nowhere.
What an excellent overview on how to get mainstream attention. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything quite so comprehensive specifically for bloggers.
What really interests me is the whole local event thing which is an idea i’m toying with off the back of a product launch i’m ramping up to. Getting the local press involved would be awesome and something I didn’t really consider.
Writing press page and press release are hot topic in current time for every blogger also to marketer. This is the best for reader to know about you and your service.
These are some solid tips and work. In fact I’ve used a few of these myself in conjunction with one another and it works. You just gotta put yourself out there sometimes.
Great post and thanks for sharing it.
BBC traffic might not be much to your site, but did you ask the person to put an anchor text link to your blog… for example.. “blogging tips”?
-Kai Lo
Twitter @lomak1985
Kai – BBC Traffic is nofollowed & with good reason. With archives going back over 15 years, many of the sites are no longer going. In fact, I think it’s a masked link even (through their traffic tracking). No point to get SEO friendly text, it’d confuse people.
James – Couldn’t agree more, nobody ever gets any attention sat in their home!
Chris – A press page shouldn’t be aimed at readers, it should be aimed at the press, they’re the ones who will use them.
Josh – Glad you liked it! The local business does work well, as you can get leads & contacts from them as well. Very good at getting hits!
Izzat – That’s great news!
Don’t forget about BlogBurst
I agree with Seth W that local media is a great way to build your reputation as a blogger. After you have used local media to establish yourself, you are much more likely to be taken seriously and viewed as an expert in national and international media.
Yes that was one of the points that I tried to come accross in the article. there are respected authorities in any niche, being mentioned in one of them extensively can lead to great results.
Good post! Getting noticed in media would definitely boost traffic and sales.IF you cannot get into local media, why not try YouTube instead.Many people have become famous there.
Youtube is like blogs in that there a content creation method. Media would be more inclined to link to the youtube videos, rather than your blog, and then you can’t control what you put out there.