How To Use PR To Get Speaking Engagements

What exactly is public relations? Public Relations, or PR for short is about all the ways your brand communicates with people in your audiences. I’m going to talk about how to use PR to get speaking gigs.

PR is about the stories that you tell, the relationships you build, and the press you earn to help people connect with your brand in a positive way. Wouldn’t that be considered marketing? It’s different from marketing. Marketing is specifically tasked with generating revenue and it’s different from advertising or advertising. relies on paid promotion to share your messages.

By sending out press releases, distribution, doing social media outreach, and pitching to editors and journalists, developing content creation, you can generate positive media coverage and gain exposure to new audience for your speaking opportunities you might never have had access to.

Now, you might be wondering, should you hire a PR firm to promote you? Will it be worth it? Well, my answer is YES! It’s definitely worth it. A PR firm is definitely worth the money. If you can prove past success in building revenue for their other clients.

They should be able to show you an average return- on-investment that they can achieve for you. A PR firm will handle the reputation of your company through owned, earned and paid communication. Typically, PR firms, handle messaging to the press. The main goal of a PR firm is brand awareness and reputation management. Now make sure if you decide to go with a PR firm, that it’s a good fit for you. Ask for references and make sure that you get on the phone and call all of the references that they gave to you. 

What are some of the things that a PR firm can do for you?

They Can Write A Media Release For You

That’s one of the things that they can do for you to get you more speaking engagements.  Journalists need to receive information about your upcoming speaking events in a certain way, and a media release is the best way to do that. In the media release, you want to add images, where and when your event is being held, and any other important details.

Once upon a time, they used to be called press releases, but not anymore. Today, their media releases and your PR firm can write them for you and make sure that they are circulated not only on major and local news outlets, but also in the Trade and Industry places and any niche groups that might have an interest in your speaking niche.

What else can a PR firm do for you?

They Can Search Social Media

Ahh social media. You either love it or you either hate social media. Social media is perfect to promote any upcoming speaking engagements you might have. On Facebook, you can share your speaking engagements information multiple times on your page, and in any niche pages and groups.

Also, you can create an event on Facebook just like I created this event right here, invite your friends and ask them to share it to their community. PR firms are very skilled at using social media sites and other resources to find the best events for you to speak at. They may also handle the details for you such as signing up/filling out requests for events for you. PR firms can also find potential partnerships for you. By searching resources such as LinkedIn, and by matching your expertise with other organizations, you both will come out a winner.

What else can a PR firm do for you?

They Can Also Write Your Content

I’m sure that you’ve heard this before, and you will continue to hear it. When it comes to blogging quality content is key. In order for your blog to be successful, you must consistently generate new, compelling and informative posts. Now I hope you have a website and on your website you are blogging consistently. Consistently creating valuable blog content can be a challenging experience so it’s important that speakers take advantage of all avenues that can assist them. One source for blog content creation that you might not have thought of is public relations.

A major reason why public relations professionals are well suited to help you with your blog content creation is that by nature, PR pros are storytellers. Because they are more focused on working with the press their writing style is less salesy than marketing writing tends to be. They are accustomed to writing and delivering company messaging in a compelling and creative fashion. PR firms know how to reach customers effectively. They know what to say and they know how to say it. They know how to create blog posts and announcements that gets you attention and how to avoid flat, boring posts that get you ignored.

Many PR firms can create multimedia assets for your speaking business, such as product videos, or featuring videos that feature you. Customers often react better to videos than to plain text. And we all know videos are the thing today, so you should be should be producing videos. Make sure that you are posting these videos to sites like YouTube and engage your target audience responses by monitoring the comments and actions. As a speaker, you definitely have to have a presence on YouTube.

PR Firms Can Help Market Your Speaking Business

A PR firm can help you come up with a solid strategy for marketing your speaking business. So if you don’t have the time to create the strategy, there’s someone there who can help you with that. A PR firm will help to raise awareness. PR marketing makes people aware that you exist. When marketing your new speaking business a consistent public relation program helps build general awareness of your brand.

A PR strategy also supplements any direct marketing and advertising efforts and they help create your website’s rank in Google so people can readily find your business. It also helps to draw in new clients and speaking engagements. When your product and services receive press coverage, your brand gains credibility among clients. A positive news story about your business will influence clients to choose your brand, or product or service over competitors that get no media exposure