We’ve discussed before that some people distinguish between advertising and publicity by saying that advertising you pay for, and publicity is free.  While I’m not certain that’s always true, there does seem to me that advertising is looking inward, while publicity is looking out.  I can plan and coordinate my advertising campaigns tightly, but it seems to me that publicity is just blind luck.  You throw your marketing into the wind, and hope that something good comes of it.  But that can’t be true, can it?  The issue is that I view publicity as problematic because it relies on someone else to get my message across.  That bugs me, but it’s probably a fault in the depth of my understanding of what publicity really is. 

     While there are a variety of forms of publicists, today we’re only looking to focus attention on those working with creative businesses, and that sort of publicity usually means tapping into print and broadcast as well as social media platforms.  So we’re not talking about the publicist who is called in to handle a PR scandal, or to smooth things over when a hooker overdoses in your hotel room.  That may well be part of a Hollywood or Washington publicist’s routine, but hopefully not something we will need at this stage of our creative careers.  Come to think of it, probably not good at any stage of our careers.  We’re talking about a deliberate, strategic, and purposeful media relations campaign that engages with journalists to draw attention to our marketing goals, to ourselves, and our creative businesses.  So for our discussion, publicity means taking advantage of the press opportunities all around us.

     So there you are.  Add that to the many jobs you already are doing as a creative entrepreneur.  You’re now a publicist too.  So, what exactly does a publicist do?  Anybody watch AbFab?  Remember when Saffi asks her mother what she actually does for a living?  Eddie replies indignantly: “PR!  I PR things!”  In case that didn’t help clarify the question, your role as publicist means that you will need to draw media attention to yourself, and to your business.  Yes, I said it, to yourself as well.  See the trick is that all of publicity is storytelling, and you will need to be able to tell your story in such a way to interest the audience that a reporter or influencer is trying to reach.  That means developing a relationship with journalists, editors, and bloggers and offering them content that makes their job easier.  You have to give them the story they need.