Nicole Myden has been connecting people and brands with the media for the past 23 years after beginning her career in the entertainment industry in Los Angeles. Read more about Nicole and how she got started in this community profile.
Nicole will be a featured speaker at the upcoming Business & Professionals event, “Building your personal brand” on March 2 in Scottsdale. In anticipation of this event, we asked Nicole to answer a few questions about branding and public relations.
Find out more below and join us next month to hear from Nicole in person. Registration and event details can be found at: phoenixcjp.org/brand
What are some of the misconceptions people have about branding and PR?
A lot of people think getting press coverage can happen overnight, which is not true. There’s a process for a reason, like anything else in business. If you want publicity for yourself or your business, you must invest energy, time, and finances into it just like any other area of growth in your business. Another misconception I hear is that one press placement is going to garner loads of sales. This is not true! Depending on the type of coverage, one placement isn’t necessarily always going to move the needle. But it’s going to give you the momentum and energy to attract more people, which will eventually bring customers organically to you.
What are some things you wish business owners or people understood better about public relations?
Publicity is all about genuine relationships. Journalists do not owe us anything, and it is our job to become trusted, reliable resources for them. We want to help make their jobs easier and nurture relationships with them in order to help them with their stories. Also, people will not know about you if you’re hiding behind your computer at home. You must be visible, you must become a known expert in your craft or industry, and you must find a way to emotionally connect with your audiences and get out in front of them.
Why is publicity so important for a business?
People want to purchase from and work with people they feel deeply connected to. They need to have trust in you, your services, and your results in order to do business with you. In this current day and age, it’s very difficult to put an ROI to publicity – it’s not like purchasing a Facebook Ad and seeing an immediate tracked result. The momentum and energy of continuously being visible and people seeing you over and over again in the press, in a positive way, is what attracts people to learn more.
When you begin working with a person or company on building their brand, what are some of the first things you have them do?
First, I ask them if they are comfortable being outwardly facing (most people are terrified, some are ready to rock n’ roll). Next, I look at the brand ethos, the values, the outward communication and messages they share, learn how they are already connecting with their audiences and communities, and see what they are doing, what they have coming up that is ‘newsworthy’ and will grab people’s attention. I also look to see if they are ready for publicity. This means ensuring they have tools and things in place to be able to engage with press and consumers in the way we’d need to in order to accomplish our goals. Lastly, I make sure they have fresh professional photos and videos that we can share with the media.
What are easy ways people or businesses can enhance their brand on their own?
In order to become top of mind for people, you need to be visible! People should solidify themselves as the expert they are, both in their industry and in their local town and community. Many people are focused on national press exposure, whereas I teach people the importance of becoming the ‘go-to’ for what they do in their local markets first.
Other ways you can enhance your brand include:
- Showcase testimonials from clients that share the results you can get for them on your website, social media channels or in a company newsletter.
- Become featured in your local community in the press and leverage it (we’ll discuss more about how to do this at the event)
- Start your own podcast or create hyper-local community branded events where you teach people something of value and give them tools and tangible takeaways
- Create free and for-purchase online offerings and programs
- Speak to people on your social media channels. Do not be afraid to be your authentic self, share tips, give insight from the heart and share your story.
When should people consider calling in the PR experts like yourself?
People should call in the experts for media strategy and be ok not knowing or having the answers to everything. It’s OK to ask for help. Hire people to help you and have them take some of the work off your plate. Hire someone to help teach you the systems and steps to take back and apply to your business or delegate to a team member to manage.
When people leave the event on March 2, what do you hope they walk away with?
The goal is for everyone to understand how public relations can help them in such a powerful way. It’s my job to take the overwhelm out of public relations for people, to give them a blueprint that is tangible, and practical, and leave them with tools to immediately start applying to their business to get coverage for themselves and their business and teams.
You’ll learn:
- who to reach out to in your local community to garner press coverage
- how to build your own local media Rolodex of press contacts by researching the right journalists for your niche and business
- what to do to leverage the publicity as you get it
- how to keep the momentum going and create more opportunities with each one you get
- how to time block and dedicate a certain time each week to putting energy into publicity + much more
This post has been contributed by a third party. The opinions, facts and any media content are presented solely by the author, and JewishPhoenix assumes no responsibility for them. MORE
