By Gini Dietrich

Yesterday I was strolling through Twitter when I saw a tweet from my new friend Rebekah Iliff that said, “Dear @Inc: You do a GRAVE disservice here” and it linked to a story called, “How to Do Your Own PR.”

I’m a big proponent of helping small business owners figure out how to do some of this themselves. After all, they typically can’t afford a firm or a soloproneur and journalists would much rather talk to the business owner versus a PR professional.

But, after reading the story, I agree with Rebekah. It not only does a grave disservice to the PR industry, but also to small business owners.

In the article, sales guru Geoffrey James says:

I know people who are paying as much $10,000 a month to a PR firm and getting very little out of it.  And that’s sad, because PR–getting positive media coverage–isn’t all that difficult.  Here’s how it’s done.

Then he goes on to list the following:

1. Devise a story worth writing about.
2. Create nuggets to insert into the story.
3. Offer yourself as a story source.
4. Control the interview. (more…)