It’s easy to fall into the habit of looking for the more traditional PR placements – press release pick-ups, bylines, guest blog posts… But public relations opportunities aren’t limited to editorial.
What better way to build visibility and relationships with a specific target audience than landing speaking opportunities? It builds credibility and influence, plus it’s fantastic for generating leads. In fact, some use it as their primary lead generation tool or a valued revenue stream, and the PR agency or employee that can generate active leads is an extremely valuable part of the team. (This impacts client retention or job security nicely – whoot!).
There’s a gold mine of opportunities waiting for you. If you haven’t added them to your overall strategy, now’s the perfect time to take a closer look, and be proactive bringing up this tactic before it’s requested.
[Tweet “Webinars, chats and podcasts are amazing sources of #PR visibility – seek them out!”]
For agencies, the research can also be a nice way to upsell an extra project fee that is worth every single penny to their client, or a value-add to wrap into an existing retainer as time allows. And for in-house PR pros, it can be a project that has a major pay-off in bringing you to the attention of company leadership.
Most people who handle traditional public relations think of speaking opportunities – but they overlook the ONLINE SPEAKING opportunities: webinars, podcasts, Twitter chats and Google hangouts. They are all viable speaking opportunities and essential ways to build visibility online. They also give significant credibility to the speaker and build their reputation as a sought-after expert in their industry, in exactly the same way speaking does but with a potentially larger audience.