Making the most of publicity.

You've got a race against time on your hands if you want to make the most of the publicity in only 3 weeks. I can't possible write a post covering all the ways you can generate business from this (or at least obtain an advantage), but I hope the following points help you to think in the right direction.

My first point would be to remind you of a phrase we often use in content marketing. This phrase is that 'you never build on rented land'. You are using Facebook in the wrong way. Social media should be used to complement an internet presence that you actually own. It's not to be used in isolation. Posting your content on Facebook is fine, but you are building someone else's site, not your own. All the content you have added is now owned by Facebook. The same is true when people mistakenly use site builders like WIX.

Along similar lines of the first point, if you had your own website you could gain valuable exposure to it (both from this competition, and also from any added exposure it may help to create). You could also gain valuable backlinks to your own site, rather than simply directing people to Facebook.

As the previous poster suggested, you could definitely use this to gain exposure in the local press. Again, I can't possibly tell you how to maximise this exposure and benefit from it in a forum post, but you can find a lot of info on Google around the subject. The best advice I can give is that simply getting the story in the paper is not enough. You need a sound plan in place to actually leverage the exposure to gain something from it. Working out how this coverage is going to benefit you is far more important than working out how to get the exposure in the first place.

On the bright side, I have had a look at what you do, and from a marketing perspective it's a gift. When we have to promote naturally 'boring' businesses we sometimes have quite a task on our hands. What you do is completely the opposite. A wonderfully creative service is much easier to grab attention for, and also makes it much easier to gain traction as far as social sharing is concerned.

If you have any specific questions, I'd be happy to answer them. Otherwise, I'm going to have to leave it at the above (rather generic) points.

Replies

Neil Petrie BSc Landscape Mgt September 29, 2014 at 9:03am

Let your local/regional paper know - they're always interested in promoting home-grown talent. Have someone you know well and that knows your work write a promo piece and ask a couple of customers to make comments for it. What was the criteria for getting to this position in the competition? Use this all as promo ammo.
Stuart September 29, 2014 at 12:00pm

You've got a race against time on your hands if you want to make the most of the publicity in only 3 weeks. I can't possible write a post covering all the ways you can generate business from this (or at least obtain an advantage), but I hope the following points help you to think in the right direction.

My first point would be to remind you of a phrase we often use in content marketing. This phrase is that 'you never build on rented land'. You are using Facebook in the wrong way. Social media should be used to complement an internet presence that you actually own. It's not to be used in isolation. Posting your content on Facebook is fine, but you are building someone else's site, not your own. All the content you have added is now owned by Facebook. The same is true when people mistakenly use site builders like WIX.

Along similar lines of the first point, if you had your own website you could gain valuable exposure to it (both from this competition, and also from any added exposure it may help to create). You could also gain valuable backlinks to your own site, rather than simply directing people to Facebook.

As the previous poster suggested, you could definitely use this to gain exposure in the local press. Again, I can't possibly tell you how to maximise this exposure and benefit from it in a forum post, but you can find a lot of info on Google around the subject. The best advice I can give is that simply getting the story in the paper is not enough. You need a sound plan in place to actually leverage the exposure to gain something from it. Working out how this coverage is going to benefit you is far more important than working out how to get the exposure in the first place.

On the bright side, I have had a look at what you do, and from a marketing perspective it's a gift. When we have to promote naturally 'boring' businesses we sometimes have quite a task on our hands. What you do is completely the opposite. A wonderfully creative service is much easier to grab attention for, and also makes it much easier to gain traction as far as social sharing is concerned.

If you have any specific questions, I'd be happy to answer them. Otherwise, I'm going to have to leave it at the above (rather generic) points.