If you’re not a super star or a celebrity, or even a leader in your field….yet….then you may have to be a bit inventive and persistent to get your business noticed and mentioned by the mainstream media.

If you’re at, or near, the beginning of that long and winding road of getting yourself noticed in order to boost your business, here are a few tips that can really help you, I think.

First, the media and the reporters in it may not know who you are but they won’t care if you can help them.  Get it?  It’s part of that “What’s in it for me?” syndrome. What’s in it for them, is that they can get the information and background resources and quotes they need for an article.  What’s in it for you, is that you get your name and the name of your business mentioned, and that you are positioning yourself as an expert on your subject.  That can go a long way.  In fact, it is a ride you can take all the way to the top.

Pamela Slim in her blog, Escape From Cubicle Nation writes on this in Eight ways to get media exposure to boost your business although I’ve only picked two to talk about.  (You can go to her blog to see the rest, if you like.) Pamela  cautions: “Always respond to queries exactly as asked.  If you see a general query which asks you to include a specific email header, do that.  If not, it will probably mean that your response will not be seen, since the journalist may have email filters to sort queries. ”

So this is Pam’s take, and I agree that both of these are terrific ideas:

• “Be a resource to your circle of clients and partners.  One of the best moves I have made is to join Help a Reporter Out (HARO), a three-times-a-day listing of press queries run by the indefatigable Peter Shankman.  I scour it religiously each time it hits my email box, respond to queries that relate to my expertise right away, and forward on those that fit friends and colleagues as well.  Some of my friends and clients have gotten press as a result which is a totally fantastic thing.  A rising tide floats all boats, and this definitely applies to your network.  Joan Stewart of The Publicity Hound also has good tips.”

There is a similar new service,  @micropr on Twitter, designed to leverage Twitter for PR professionals and journalists,  enabling journalists to communicate directly with communicators to get help with stories, share

pitching preferences, announce coverage changes, or solicit entries for awards and similar events. The difference between this and already popular HARO, which comes out 3 times daily is that the new @micropr is almost in real time and uses the explosively popular Twitter platform. No harm in using both.

• “Set up a system to make it easy to respond to press queries.  I have an email template that includes a brief bio, a link to my press page, and contact information.  That way when I see a specific query, I don’t have to type in all that new information each time. In the lucky case that you are asked to provide a photo, have a good one handy on your desktop to send to reporters (I recommend both a high resolution image for print and a low resolution image for online).”

In fact the more you can get, not just your publicity, but your whole business on a system, the better off you will be.  Then you can save much of your time for the big things: the big problem, the big new presentation, the big new customer, and, with a lot of work and perseverance, the big new bank account

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Here’s a great new service called Help a Reporter Out (HARO) – this service, founded by PR Geek Peter Shankman, matches journalists on a story with expert sources. Anyone can sign up to get the three daily emails full of stories just waiting for you to contribute to.

HARO started out as a Facebook group as a way to keep track of journalist’s looking for a particular expert for a story. The free service, that essentially hooks journalists up with credible sources to interview, grew rapidly and needed a home off Facebook to manage the size. As of this writing HARO is approaching 20,000 members. Hey, it’s free and its works, no surprise it grew.

Journalists go online fill out a form and their request gets added to the three time daily email distribution to members. As a member, If you see a story that you could contribute to, your simply reply directly to the query. A word to the wise, replying off topic may get you kicked off the list. Quality over quantity is what works here.

So, If your looking to promote your business sign up here. Get in the habit of scanning the daily emails quickly and see if any stories jump out at you. Keep your replies brief and to the point. Journalists love trends and ideas backed up with data, so add that as well as a pre-written paragraph of what makes you an exert.

If you’re a journalist and want to start putting your story ideas out for comment, experts or even research, sign up here. Keep in mind this includes podcasters looking for guests, bloggers doing research for a post, authors needing experts and case studies for a book, as well as journalists writing a story for a major daily.