Think Facebook and Twitter are all you need to get the word out about your new business? Here are eight more ways to get some media attention.

While getting actively involved in your company’s Facebook page and Twitter feed is essential these days, and using those same tools to follow the media outlets that cover your industry, it might be enough to attract the attention you want. What follows, then, are additional tips from fellow business owners about how to get press for your new business using both tried-and-true methods as well as the benefits you can reap from tapping the latest in social media technology to get your business some media attention.

Capitalize on Other Low-Cost Social Media Tools

While you might equate social media with Facebook and Twitter, there are plenty of other options to attract the attention of the media, says Mike Samson, co-founder of crowdSPRING, the online marketplace for logo and web design, who suggests posting press releases on sites like: PRWeb.com, Free Press Release, and PRLog.com.

Samson also suggests answering media inquiries from reporters on sites like HARO, Reporters Connection, Pitch Rate, and NewsBasis. “When a writer needs sources for an upcoming story, they post on these sites seeking people who can help,” says Samson.

Another option is to check sites like MediaBistro.com, since many publications post their editorial calendars—which preview the kinds of stories they will be running—on the site. “The fee for joining is very minimal and you can learn a lot about how to pitch certain media publications,” says Phyllis Cheung of LuxeFinds.com, a luxury lifestyle search engine for women.

Get Personal

While every business should be doing whatever it can to take advantage of online tools to promote itself, that doesn’t mean you should neglect tried-and-true methods of interpersonal interactions, as well. “Pick up the phone,” says Ryan Carlin, a PR expert who works with start-up sites like Roaming Hunger, a site that tracks, profiles, and provides menus for food trucks around the country. “In an age where ‘silent’ business like e-mail is possible and often preferred, it undoubtedly makes an impact by picking up the phone. Not only does it establish trust, but it also creates a more solid relationship for future media outreach.”

Along those same lines, Cheung of Luxefinds.com says that she attends networking events in her local area if she knows that journalists and editors will be in attendance. “I introduce myself and we chat about anything from current news in my industry to what I’m doing that is relevant to potential stories they have in the pipeline,” she says, noting that she landed a story with Entrepreneur after meeting the editor-in-chief of the magazine at such an event. “Most of these events are two hours long and can be either free or low cost.”

Form Partnerships

For start-ups, there are many advantages to partnering with more established companies—especially if you can reap some press opportunities out of them, says Tamara Clarke, who owns Eco-Exquisite, which makes and sells a line of hair accessories. “By leveraging the media relationships of seasoned companies, start-ups can also spare themselves some time on the bench while trying to get in the game,” says Clarke, who teamed up with one of her clients, Glambar Salon in Atlanta, in publicizing their Second Anniversary Girl’s Club event. The result was that Clarke’s product, the EcoSOQ Natural Sleep Cap, was featured in several blogs and publications, like Essence and Rolling Out magazines.

Make Yourself an Expert

One surefire way to attract the attention of journalists is to promote yourself as an expert in your field, says Samson of crowdSPRING. “Create content designed to position yourself as an indispensable authority on your industry, your city, your profession, or any appropriate topic,” he says. Ways you can accomplish this include writing case studies and white papers that you then distribute to the media, your customers, and other professionals in your industry.

You can also set up an online press center on your company or personal website where you compile all of the stories, mentions, and press releases you have generated, and make them easily accessible, says Samson. “Also include a downloadable press kit with information on your company, your team, and your service or product, as well as photos, bios, and any other material that will be helpful for those who want to write about you,” he says.

Tap Influential Bloggers

Most products are built for a specific population of users or specific use cases, and whatever your product or service, there are bloggers who write about it and are influencers, says Jeff Kear, co-founder of MyWeddingWorkbook.com, which provides online wedding planning software for couples and event planners. “These people are almost always interested in new products and services, so prior to launching your product or service, develop a list of these people with their e-mail and contact info and reach out to them to try out your product or service before it is released to the public. We did this when we launched a free version of our product and we went from 20 registrations a day for our web-based wedding planning software to more than 100 registrations a day for a five-day period soon after our launch.”

Bloggers and journalists are also interested in new trends and data—something that you can provide for them, says Kear. “One of our products is online software for wedding consultants, and these people are very interested in what brides are thinking,” he says. “So we reached out to brides with a survey that asked questions that wedding consultants would be interested in. This provided us with info for 10-15 very focused articles that had proprietary industry data, which we then published on our blog and promoted to bloggers and writers who cover our industry. This kind of activity generated dozens of links to our site from influential industry sites like Wedlock.com, which has played a large role in increasing our site traffic by 168 percent this year.”

Take on Speaking Engagements

Jasbina Ahluwalia, an attorney turned entrepreneur who founded Intersections Match, a personalized matchmaking service for South Asian singles, says that speaking at events like conferences often leads to interesting PR opportunities. For example: “I recently spoke at a national conference for South Asian physicians and was approached by a person who was filmng a documentary,” says Ahluwalia, whose company has also been profiled in other outlets like Entrepreneur and the Chicago Tribune.

Apply to Awards Programs

While applying to annual industry awards or even more broad-based ones like the Inc. 5000 can be time consuming, they can also attract the attention of the media and new customers, says Judy Sultan, who is the PR manager for Xtreme Lashes, a company specializing in semi-permanent eyelash extensions “Recognition for your innovative idea or good business practices will give you an easy way to publicize your company,” she says. “And winning one award gives you leverage to win another.”

Be Charitable

Ryan Carlin of Roaming Hunger says that good press also results from good deeds. “Attaching yourself to a benefit or charity is one of the easiest and most beneficial practices in PR,” he says. “Consumers love hearing about charitable organizations and their events, and journalists know this.”

Source: inc.com

Tech Trends columnist John Brandon tests Sprout Social, a Web-based tool that lets you manage and analyze multiple social media accounts. Here are the results.

I’ve been using Twitter to research and promote my work for years. But I never knew much about my followers or if they were retweeting my posts. (That would be a good sign that they’re interested in my writing.) In other words, I didn’t know if the time I was spending on Twitter was helping me build my brand.

To find out, I decided to test one of the dozen or so Web-based dashboards that let you manage and analyze accounts on multiple social media networks, including Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. After researching a variety of options, I settled on Sprout Social, a midrange tool in terms of features and pricing. The service costs $9 a month for a pro plan and $49 a month for a business plan with added features, including Google Analytics integration. My goal: to double my number of Twitter followers, to 800, in one week.

After signing up for an account, I logged on to my dashboard, which features colorful charts with analytic data, including follower demographics, and a toolbar for performing a variety of tasks. I wasn’t surprised by the demographic data: My followers split 50-50 between men and women, most of them older than 30. After perusing their profiles, I learned that most of them work in public relations.

I wanted to build a bigger following among tech enthusiasts, writers, and editors. So I went to the Discovery section of the Sprout dashboard and searched for new contacts using various keywords, including technology and writer. Within seconds, the screen filled with dozens of profiles of Twitter users who matched my terms. I followed 100 or so people who seemed the most interesting or had large followings. Then, I spent about an hour on Sprout each day, retweeting posts, scheduling tweets to be posted at different times, and checking my stats.

By the end of the week, I had added only 70 new followers—far below my original goal. But I realized that the quality of my new connections was more important than sheer numbers. Many of the writers and editors I had begun following were now following me and retweeting my posts. Each time an influential person retweeted something I wrote, my follower count shot up by about a dozen people. When Sprout retweeted a post about my social media experiment, it reached 14,000 people. I thought: If only Ashton Kutcher would retweet me, I’d be a celebrity!

I plan to continue using Sprout every day. I would recommend the service—or, depending on your needs, one of the other dashboards out there—to companies looking to build stronger social media communities and measure the success of their efforts.

Source: September 2011 issue of Inc. magazing