Public Relations for Small Business

By: Johana M. Caba, M.A.

In the simplest of terms, public relations is the practice of building and maintaining mutually beneficial relationships between an organization or brand and the public or their audience. Public relations is about building these relationships in order to create a positive image for your business or brand. There are many functions of public relations that we see on a daily basis including having clients featured on magazines and newspapers. Small businesses do not always have the funds to hire a professional in the public relations field, but there are benefits to at least understanding the basics. 

Small businesses need to understand that PR and advertising are not the same thing. Getting good PR takes time, but it helps you define your brand. Good PR helps your audience or ideal customers understand who you are, why you do it and why people should care. In 2020, a big part of good PR is being transparent. This means that you share your process openly and do not hide certain aspects of your business from your audience. One of the worst things that we have seen happen with brands is that they are not transparent and then receive terrible social media backlash for being secretive or sneaky with their operations. 

The good thing about PR for small businesses is that it stretches your budget because getting journalists, influencers and bloggers to write about your business gives you more for your money. One of the best sources of earning attention for your business is word-of-mouth because people trust what others have to say more than an advertisement. Word-of-mouth is what you want for your small business because it attracts customers to your brick-and-mortar location or to your website. Below is a quick list of 5 public relations tactics that you can use and if you want to see our Beginners Guide to a PR Plan click here:​

1. Ask for Reviews and Likes: This tactic is essentially free. You just ask your friends, family members and loyal clients to write reviews and like your business pages on Facebook, Google and Yelp. This helps in creating a positive word-of-mouth for your business. To entice some clients to write you reviews you can offer a 10% discount on your products or services when they write a good review for your business.
2. Offer Discounts for Recommendations: If you have a small hair salon business, for example, a good tactic here is to offer clients 10% off of services when they recommend others. If you have a new client and they were recommended by an existing client, then you offer the existing client a discount for their help. This is a tactic that I used with a few of my clients that was relatively free and created good PR for their businesses. 
3. Use Social Media: A tried and true tactic is using social media as a PR tool. You can post your services and products on your social media platforms to begin to showcase your offerings to a broader audience. You can also ask clients to tag you on their photos of the services or products to get your name out there to a larger audience that your clients can help you reach through their own networks. Again with the hair salon example, you can ask your clients to tag you on pictures of their new looks and you can also re-share their happy posts on your own page.
4. Partnerships with other Small Businesses: Sometimes partnering with other local businesses in your area can help you reach more people. Offer the other local businesses to promote them in your business if they do the same. This can be done by distributing posters, flyers and business cards to these businesses that they can later distribute to their customers. Using my hair salon example, my client once partnered with a local kid's modeling agency. They had an event where the kids were modeling and my client was doing their hair and makeup. This way, my client was promoting her business, partnering with other local businesses and getting good PR for her work.  
5. Giving Back Events: A great way to give back to your community while earning good PR is having events geared towards aiding others within your community. For example, in December, small businesses can have coat drives which they can promote on their social platforms and within their business to help those in need of winter jackets. They can collect all the clothing items and then donate them to local community action organizations. This tactic can be combined with tactic #4 where the small business partners with others. Government organizations usually have events to reach members of the community that are in need and usually look for businesses to partner with them. ​