By Tasha Cunningham, tasha@bizbytes101.com
Small business owners are a bit more optimistic about the future, but they still worry about what it holds for them.
Optimism of small U.S. businesses rose to its highest level in more than four years this month, according to the National Federation of Independent Business’ small-business optimism index. The index rose 0.4 point to 94.3 from 93.9 in January. The federation reports that the February figure was its sixth consecutive monthly increase and its strongest level since December 2007.
Yet small businesses continue to look for ways to stretch their marketing dollars by getting more exposure for less cost. To that end, BizBytes has compiled a list of 10 tools small business owners can use to get free publicity online. More publicity + more exposure = more customers.
LinkedIn Search: This is a highly effective way of finding journalists who may be interested in writing about your products or services. Use keywords like reporter, journalist or producer and enter a word that represents what your business does. You can also save up to five searches on LinkedIn so that you can be notified when new people who match your criteria join LinkedIn. Use the contacts you glean from your search to craft engaging pitches that will result in free publicity for your business.
Regator: This site aggregates the best blog posts from around the Internet, many written by experienced journalists. Use the site to find blog posts about topics related to your business. Then, reach out to the authors of those posts to tell them about your company, offer to write a guest post on your industry or just to say hello. The important thing is making that contact and exposing your product or service to a member of the media who may find that information useful either now or in the future; www.regator.com.
MuckRack: This is a Twitter directory that tracks journalists based on the media outlet they work for. You can find out what journalists are tweeting about, look through their Twitter feeds and monitor what they’re saying about you, your competitor or your industry. MuckRack offers a free 30-day trial and then monthly plans after that. It’s worth checking out; www.muckrack.com.
MerchantCircle.com: This site allows you to register a free membership, create a page for your business and create custom coupons free. You can even create your own business blog on the site; www.merchantcircle.com.
iNewswire: This site is great for distributing press releases free. www.inewswire.com.
Read the rest of the column and get more ideas for free publicity here.