Have you ever wondered how small businesses end up being featured on a major news outlet’s website? It isn’t just a stroke of good luck (most of the time, anyway). There are some proactive ways you can go about getting your business featured, and we are going to outline them for you in this article. 

Aside from the exposure that this can bring, it’s also a great way to build up that oh-so-important social proof. In a past article, I outlined why social proof is so important when it comes to gaining new customers. To recap, it establishes trust and makes people more likely to close a deal with you. Many small businesses simply trust that their loyal customers will do it for you – like when they post on social media about you and how much they love your business. 

These acts of generosity are certainly part of it, but there are other ways to do it a little more intentionally, like partnering with influencers or by getting your small business featured on major news sources! I’m going to share a little secret that most business owners don’t know: some of the businesses that get featured on NBC, FOX, and other affiliates of these major news sources are not “discovered” by anyone; they pay for the exposure. 

How to Get Your Small Business Featured on Major New Sources

Just like you pay for an ad on Facebook or a commercial on TV, you can also pay for a piece of content, like an article or video, to be featured on major news channels or their affiliates. But, instead of it looking like an ad, it will look like any other article or video that gets published on their site. This instantly makes your content look both organic and trustworthy.

 

Why Get Your Small Business Featured on Major New Sources?

When your brand is featured on the website of a major news outlet, you’re going to get some massive social proof on behalf of your brand. This builds trust among your audience, both new and established. For instance, if someone doesn’t know you well enough to hire you or buy something from you, seeing that you’ve been featured on USA Today, CBS, or FOX might just be enough to convince them to make a purchase.

Social proof deeply influences your customer’s behavior as pointed out in “Influence” by Robert B. Cialdini:

“The principle of social proof says so: The greater the number of people who find any idea correct, the more the idea will be correct […] We will use the actions of others to decide on proper behavior for ourselves, especially when we view those others as similar to ourselves […] When we are uncertain, we are willing to place an enormous amount of trust in the collective knowledge of the crowd […] Social proof is most powerful for those who feel unfamiliar or unsure in a specific situation and who, consequently, must look outside themselves for evidence of how best to behave there.”

What does that mean? Well, this means that whenever people are weighing a decision, they tend to look around and see what others think first. After all, we are social creatures and we seek the approval of our peers! So, if someone sees that your business has been featured on major news sources, they will be more likely to hire you or buy from you because other people are essentially vouching for your brand.

Users of the service provided by Brand Featured actually back up Cialdini’s theory. Tools Official, one of their clients, states they’re now getting a 24% conversion rate after being featured on major new sources using Brand Featured. Entrepreneur.com also states that they “have seen a quick 7% conversion rate increase just from adding a few logos on an opt-in page.”

 

Getting Your Small Business Featured on Major New Sources: Step By Step

Ok, now that you understand why you should get featured by major news sources, here’s how you can go about doing it:

1. Choose a Plan

When you go to the Brand Featured website, you will see three different plans to choose from. The basic plan is where you write the article and they publish it for you. The Pro plan is where they write a 200-word article and publish it for you. And the Unlimited plan is where they write a 400-word article and offer unlimited revisions before publishing it for you.

Want to get a $50 discount? Click here, then choose your package to get your discount.

2. Write the Article

If you choose the basic plan, you will need to write the article and send it to Brand Featured to publish for you. However, if you choose the Pro or Unlimited plans, the article will be written by them. As you’re writing the article, keep in mind that the main focus should be your business and what it offers to your customers.

3. Your Article Gets Published

After the article is written, it will be published on 100+ news websites and TV stations, including affiliates of NBC, FOX, and CBS. Once your article is published, Brand Featured will send you a PDF document with all the live links to your article!

But your work doesn’t end here. The most important part is communicating to your followers and customers that you’ve been featured.

How To Use Your Exposure

Once you’ve been published, you will want to announce wherever you can that you got featured on those major new sources. Of course, people will come to your site via the articles themselves, however, you still have lots of people who do not. Your goal is to let them know so you can build up that social proof.

After you receive the list of websites that you’ve been featured on, here’s what you should do:

Publish on Your Website

This is the first thing you will want to do. Create a section on your homepage and also on your blog header that shows you’ve been featured on X, Y, Z. It can be something simple, just an inline banner with their logos like the one below.

Add It to Your Email Signature

You can also add something similar to the inline banner to your email signature. Of course, this shouldn’t be large. Just create something small that goes on the bottom of your email signature, like a graphic that says “As seen on” with the logos of the news sources your business has been featured on.

Share It On Social Media

You don’t need to post links to all the articles you’ve had published on your social media feed. In fact, you probably shouldn’t. But, once a month, you might want to share a link to a different news source to show your followers where you’ve been featured.

Another thing you can do is to add the words “As seen on” and then the names of some of the news sources you’ve been featured on to your social media bio. This way, it won’t go away as soon as the posts disappear from your feed, and it will be displayed for the new people who find your profile.

Read more: 18 Social Media Post Ideas for Small Businesses

Don’t forget that you get a $50 discount on a Brand Featured plan by clicking here and choosing your package!

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We can’t wait to see what you do. Please tag us using the hashtag #GrowingTheBiz so we can see and share your work!