No matter what type of product or service you provide, you can find a way to help, and not just by donating money. That’s the easy way out, and lets you off the hook. Many organizations need man power.

Getting involved can mean a range of different things to different businesses. Maybe you can help plan a community fund raising event. By doing so, your business, in turn, will get great exposure. You can encourage employees to attend to show their support or your company can provide its services pro-bono. Donate breakfast. Print their brochures. The options are endless and can lead to limitless opportunities.

New business may arise from it, the community will be more aware of what you do and can provide, and the all-important business relationships can be forged. Participating also can gain your company positive word-of-mouth exposure – nothing sells your business, product or service better than that. Many business owners believe in the adage “do well by doing good” for a reason.

So get your company involved with the resources and time you have available! Do what you can to support your local community. It will come back to you many times over in many ways. Some call it “enlightened self-interest,” and there’s nothing wrong with that.

How does your company give back?

 When it comes to making a big purchase or before buying a service, we often depend on referrals from friends or family. Beyond that, today many of us turn to the Internet before we ever visit a store or decide on a service. That’s why it has become essential for businesses, in particular small businesses, to be listed on ratings and reviews sites.

What’s said can be a valuable marketing tool especially if your business relies on local customers, such as a retail store, a food establishment, a hair salon or any tourism-related business.

With a quick Google search, find out if your business is already listed on these review sites. Many of them allow you to add information, and to correct misinformation, such as the wrong address, business hours or phone number.

Since you are using the site for marketing purposes, make a good impression. Add images of your store or restaurant, a picture of your staff, a detailed description of your business, directions to your location and any other information that will appeal to customers.

Consumers are looking for good deals and something special, so make sure you include descriptive menus, coupons or specials you are running.

Monitor your listings regularly, paying special attention to negative reviews. Responding to these can be tricky. You don’t want to seem too defensive, and you don’t want to start an online war with a customer. Keep the responses short and simple: Thank the customer for their opinion and ask how you can remedy the situation.

Review sites are also a market research tool to learn what your customers like and don’t like. Most sites also have free tracking and analytics tools. Use these to learn where users come from and where they go online after reading a review of your business. Check out these review sites:

Internships provide numerous advantages to college students, and are a great way for students to prepare themselves for the line of work that interests them. Being an intern gives you valuable insight into the career path you are aiming for, and can even help you decide if that career path is the right one for you. No matter where an internship may be, in an office or corporate setting, it can instill people skills, time management and professional demeanor, which are skills a book really can’t teach you.

The hands-on experience an internship offers you is vitally important to employers. Don’t get me wrong: a degree is a huge step in the right direction, but experience is key to showing an employer you are someone to look out for. Whether the employer from your internship or a new employer is looking to hire you, having an internship for a few months in addition to your resume is a plus. But be careful: a resume with one to three internships shows you have experience, a resume with five or more may look as if you couldn’t hold down an internship.

Students should treat an internship as if it is a real job because it can always end up being a future job opportunity. According to College Plus, even in 2009’s tough job market, 23 percent of graduates that interned had full-time jobs, but only 14 percent of graduates that did not have internships had jobs upon graduation.

Another opportunity an internship provides is it helps you build relationships with others in your chosen field. You can build relationships with co-workers and others at professional networking opportunities because you never know who will re-appear in your future. Building relationships in the workplace shows people another side of you, and it’s hard for people to not want to be around you if they enjoy your company.

If you feel an internship is the right path for you, start by talking to family and friends, search your schools database, and look on the internet and on major job sites (which are mostly all free.) Go on plenty of interviews and be sure to interview the company while they interview you to make sure it is the right fit. Once you have an internship, strive to do your best at every opportunity, seek out extra work and new projects, feel free to be creative, be a team player and maintain a positive attitude. Even if you don’t receive an offer right away, keep in contact with the company by offering to help on special projects.  An employer will notice the little things, and sometimes they can make all the difference!

What makes a GOOD publicist is an understanding of the industry.  Knowing what you’re pitching, who you’re pitching and more importantly WHY you’re pitching your clients to them.

But what makes a GREAT publicist?  That’s easy…make it personal.  Calling the media and having that relationship where you speak your first name and they know your voice.  Also, know when to call.  For example, the tabloids go to print on Tuesdays so we know never to call on a Monday…period.

I spoke with a few of my media friends and they definitely had some thoughts to share.

John Biggs, Editor-in-Chief of Crunchgear.com and contributing technology writer for The New York Times, Laptop, Men’s Health, Linux Journal, Popular Science and others said, “I hate it when they email and then immediately call.”

It makes sense if you think about it. Keep in mind that John is probably inundated with hundreds of emails a day…and with his travel schedule who has time to respond to every single email as it comes to his inbox?

Besides, if it is time sensitive, he will get back to you.

One of my favorite people in the world, who shall remain anonymous, writes for a national men’s publication and said, “I don’t like when they call to follow up on email invitations. If I wanted to go to your event, I’d have written you back.”

He also went on to say, “I don’t like the publicists who are so excited to get you on the phone that they turn into telemarketers, trying to get as much information out as they can, without pausing, making me have to interrupt them to tell them I’m not interested.”

Bottom line: Our profession is personal. Our name is on everything we send out, whether it’s a simple email response or a press release that’s distributed on the wire.  We’re proud of what we do and how we do it, and I guess you can say I’ve also had the great fortune of meeting some fantastic people and making some new friends along the way.

I arrived on set at 3:45 a.m. with a prop stylist we hired (yes, the call times are not glamorous, but the coverage certainly is) with just over two hours to deck out the in-studio set with full Halloween décor.  Pumpkins, witches, lighted trees….ghoulish strings of lights, skeletons and candy galore.  As we decorated and assembled the spooky-themed items, we got to enjoy rolling up our sleeves and really create something from nothing.  We got to see our favorite anchors once again as they made their way to “the couch”, viewed the commercial “bump outs” of our product and heard the anchors thank our client on-air.  All in all, this was another successful PR placement on a national morning show.

The most rewarding part of the experience was the email I received from the producer after the show, thanking us for the “amazing job” we did and how much their entire team enjoyed the décor.  This boils down to one of the fundamentals of PR….relationships, relationships, relationships!  If you build them, they will certainly pay off.

Britt Monroe
Senior Account Executive