DIY PR: 12 Public Relations Solutions for Small Businesses

What PR Is (and What It Isn’t)

Public relations, or “PR,” is a means to communicate with the audience that matters most to you. It can come in the form of unpaid or paid media. In other words, PR involves gaining organic media coverage or finding paid placement opportunities to get your brand message out there.

In simple terms, public relations is telling a story. Sometimes, those stories are told by reporters and analysts and other times, by you, yourself. There are many avenues you can pursue, from interviews with the media to releasing a public statement via wire or social media to press conferences. 

Typically, larger companies use PR to shift a narrative in their favor. Small and midsize companies use PR to influence customer decision-making. Either way, public relations campaigns can be a pathway to a healthier bottom line.

12 DIY PR Solutions for Small Businesses

These tools will help you get started on your own in-house PR campaigns:

1. Help A Reporter Out (HARO)

Share your expertise and get free publicity. Help A Reporter Out, commonly referred to as HARO by media folks, gives you direct access to reporters, bloggers and journalists from all types of publications and media properties who are looking for sources with your expertise.

Sign up as a source, and HARO will send queries from journalists to your inbox in batches throughout the day. If any of the queries is a good fit for your expertise and business, pitch your response and qualifications directly to the journalist by email for a possible interview or direct quote.

Cost: The Basic plan is free, while the Pro plan starts at $99 per month. The Teams plan requires you to contact a sales representative.

2. Muck Rack

Find the right journalist and blogger to tell your story or become a source. Muck Rack allows businesses to search its database of journalists and media contacts. Features include media monitoring, inbox alerts, direct email pitches to journalists, and media list creation and organization.

You can sign up as a PR pro by requesting a demo. Start searching for journalists by name, keywords and phrases, beats, outlets, Twitter accounts, hashtags, media properties, and other categories.

Cost: Request a demo for pricing information.

3. PRWeb

Maximize your reach and attract new business online. PRWeb publishes press releases across the web on search engines, blogs, and major news sites and websites — no tech or PR skills necessary. Write an effective and engaging press release for your business, announcement or event (PRWeb offers a library of resources to help you do this, including free tutorials and press release examples). Add video, keywords, extra distribution channels and other optional features. Plug your press release into PRWeb’s template, hit “Submit” and it will appear on PRWeb’s network. [Related: Writing Press Releases That Actually Get Read]

Cost: PRWeb starts at $110 per press release.

4. Hootsuite

Find leads and discover your biggest social media influencers. Hootsuite is a social media management tool that lets you manage multiple social media accounts in a single dashboard to help automate social media marketing while increasing engagement. Hootsuite can also help you monitor top content, likes and shares, traffic sources, and other metrics with reporting modules like Facebook Audience Insights and Google Analytics. Simply sign in with your social media credentials (such as Twitter, Facebook, Google or Apple) or your email address, then set up streams for each social media account.

Cost: Hootsuite plans range from $49 to $739 per month, with custom enterprise pricing also available.

5. Google Alerts

You don’t need fancy software to track your business’s media placements and mentions — Google Alerts lets you monitor your presence online and find out where you appear on the web, what people are saying about you and how your PR campaigns compare to those of your competitors.

You can create an alert by entering a search query — such as the name of your business, competitors, industry and other related keywords — and setting up the frequency and types of alerts you wish to receive. These Google Alerts are then sent directly to your inbox.

Cost: Google Alerts is free to use.

6. LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a great place to connect with colleagues and even find a job. It’s also an excellent resource for finding journalists, budget-friendly PR reps and other professionals who can help you get your PR campaigns off the ground. Use LinkedIn’s search function and filters to find journalists, publications and PR professionals. For better search results and to contact individuals with whom you have no existing LinkedIn connection, purchase a premium account. Learn more about how to use LinkedIn for business.

LinkedIn also serves as a free publishing platform for your top executives. Develop key messaging and lay out a publishing plan for your leadership team, or build your own online presence. Doing so can create a greater following for your leadership team, which will lead to additional PR opportunities.

Cost: LinkedIn is free, with premium plans starting at $29.99 a month.

7. PRLog

This is one of the few sites that offers social media features outside of a paid plan. PRLog’s free features include social sharing, automatic Twitter and Facebook posting, and embedding widgets and code. They also provide analytics for free. To get started, create an account and post your first press release. The system is intuitively navigable once you get used to the design, and there are a variety of ways to customize it. PRLog’s partnership with PR Newswire distributes your release on their online network for a fee.

Cost: PRLog is free to use.

8. CoverageBook

With CoverageBook, you can see the results of all your pitching and use them to inform your future DIY PR work. Paste the URLs of all online mentions you’ve earned and upload screenshots of print mentions to get started. CoverageBook will distill the results of your coverage into a dashboard that correlates your PR work to shares, views and inbound links. You can also analyze the impact of any individual piece of media coverage.

Cost: CoverageBook starts at $99 per month.

9. Brandwatch

Brandwatch’s social listening tools can help you understand what the online world is saying — whether you want to understand trends, get better ROI or monitor negative press coverage of your business. The service can provide historical and real-time data insights, consumer analysis, and other social listening functions.

Cost: Contact Brandwatch for a quote.

10. Business Wire

Business Wire can distribute your press releases to hundreds of thousands of publications across 162 countries. You can also rotate quotes in your press releases and create release summaries for display on search engines. Twitter sharing is available, as are numerous interactive media inclusions in your press releases. Plus, the moment your press releases go out, you’ll see what’s working — and you can use those insights the next go-round.

Cost: Business Wire starts at $475 for a 400-word press release in most U.S. state, city or metro circuits. Costs may vary depending on length of release.

11. PR Newswire

Like Business Wire, PR Newswire is an agency that provides support to press release distribution. Your team provides the distribution parameters, including region, country, intended vertical and the desired social media push as well.

Cost: Releases start at $555, and costs may vary based on length and deployment.

12. WeVideo

If you’re looking to take a different approach to marketing and communications, a video editing platform just may be your best bet. WeVideo allows novice video editors to record and polish videos to be used for various purposes, including website welcome messages, instructions on how to purchase products, or even key messages to internal and external audiences. Many companies are turning to video for their PR and brand platforms. WeVideo provides basic editing capability or more advanced features for a fee.

Cost: You can sign up for a free trial or expand your editing capabilities starting at $7 a month.

Before making a selection on any PR tool, consider the audience you’re trying to influence and what you’re trying to influence them to do. Ask yourself these questions: 

• Who is my audience?
• What action do I want them to take?
• What three key messages am I trying to convey?
• How are they accessing my goods or services?
• What do I want my return on investment to be?

Once you answer those queries, you should have a good idea on which aforementioned tool might work best for your needs.

Benefits of PR

PR can benefit your small business in the following ways:

• Brand awareness on a tighter budget: When the media covers your company because it’s newsworthy or because you can offer an expert opinion, it generates free publicity for your product or services. Some publications will offer you the opportunity to pay for a byline. In circumstances like this, you must consider the return on investment to determine if it’s worth the rate. If your desired outcome is to become a thought leader, these opportunities are generally worthwhile. If your goal is simply to sell more goods or services, it may be better to save your money.
• Better marketing and advertising outcomes: Think about it: Everything works together. If you saw a bunch of ads for a company you’d never heard of, wouldn’t you research that company? In doing so, if you found abundant positive coverage about the business, you’d be more likely to buy from them.
• Damage control: Certain PR tactics can help you regain control of damaging narratives around your company. That said, PR isn’t the same as online reputation management (ORM), which involves responding to negative customer reviews and eliminating negative content.
• Permanence: The media you earn through PR has a lasting impact for your brand. Any internet search relevant to your brand, products or services could potentially find this media. That means lots of possible opportunities to engage consumers with your story.

There’s only one major drawback of PR: It can be time-consuming. At first, you’ll likely receive more silence or passes on your pitches than responses or interest. Even if you do embark on a successful campaign, individually pitching people time and again can be a monotonous, lengthy process. That becomes easier with the PR tools listed above.

One Last Thing (About PR)

Former Apple CEO Steve Jobs would famously conclude his speeches with “one last thing.” He would also meticulously research every reporter inquiry and make a concerted effort to learn about each reporter to develop meaningful relationships. Why? Because PR is more than just a one-off tool. It’s a perpetual strategic plan that, when done well, can take your business to a whole new level.

Sure, there will be times when it seems tedious. But the return on investment can vastly outweigh the time consumed to execute. And think of it this way: If it was that valuable to Steve Jobs, CEO of one of the most successful companies in world history, then maybe it’s worth your time too.

Andy Cuneo contributed to this article.