Jul 17, 2024

Promote Yourself! Sailing the PR Sea with VoyageATL

Media outlets are looking for interesting small business and entrepreneurs to promote in their communities

If you're a small business owner, entrepreneur, or freelancer like me, you're looking for inexpensive (read: free) or innovative ways to promote yourself. Why not with a digital publication?

No, I'm not talking about a self-publishing scheme, but real media exposure. Beyond the local newspapers and magazines are legitimate media companies that actively look for interesting people and business stories to feature in their markets.

How do I know this? I've been featured by several of these publications about my work as an actor and voice talent. And this month, VoyageATL gave me the opportunity to talk about my other role as a coach and consultant, helping non-actors gain On Camera Confidence for themselves.

Free PR? Yes! And it's all above board.

Everyone's looking for good content these days.

Help out a media publication ... and yourself in the process.

VoyageATL has an article about Laura Doman and her company, Laura Doman Productions

The Voyage Magazine media family

VoyageATL is part of the Voyage Magazine media family. Its name reflects the region it covers, like VoyageLA for Los Angeles, VoyageChicago for Chicago, and VoyageATL for Atlanta. It covers a number of U.S. cities and looks to bring interesting stories to its readers about local startups, risk takers, and enterprising artists.

VoyageATL has run a feature on me before (lucky me!), but they wanted to learn more about my On Camera Confidence coaching/consulting business, as well as touch on my work as an actor. Of course, I was more than happy to oblige. (Surprise, surprise, an actor liking publicity. Go figure!) You can click on the link above to see the article.

How you can be found? What should you expect?

So how does this work? How did they find me and how is the interview constructed?

To tell you the truth, I'm not exactly sure how they found me! They do ask their interviewees to refer them to other small businesses that we think their readers would be interested in, and I have done so. Perhaps it was someone who liked my work who told the right person who was associated with their magazine. It doesn't matter much; it's just nice to be found.

How can you be found? You can contact them directly or you can reach out to me and I can send an email on your behalf. No guarantees, though!

If you're nervous about being interviewed ... don't be. They use a very informal approach. The Voyage family seeks to be informative, very casual, and approachable. They like to feature people using their own words, which also makes it easier on their own staff. Rather than having an interviewer posing pre-formulated questions, Voyage offers a list of questions online and gives you the choice of which ones to answer. You answer in your own words, upload photos for added interest, and then wait for them to review and (if necessary) edit the piece. A few weeks later, they'll send you an email with a link to review your interview before it's published. They'll take your corrections and changes, nicely lay it out, and then voila! You'll be sent a link a few weeks later to your story in their "Hidden Gem" magazine section. Free publicity! Nice.

Want to be featured yourself? Check these out:

Voyage Magazine
Canvas Rebel
Shoutout

There are a few others, too, but these are the ones I've been featured in - and they have all done a nice job of it. FYI, these publications are all part of one large organization, Voyage Group of Magazines. They also have a side hustle to commemorate your name in print. I have no need for it, but some people like to preserve their articles in more permanent form.

Will this type of PR bring you tons of new business and sudden fame? Probably not. But I find it fun to be in them. They've been great for SEO, social media content ... and impressing your mother. So, if in additoin to everything else, making your mother proud is your thing, now you have one more way to do it. (Yes, she'll be very proud of you.)

Enjoy! Oh, and if you didn't click on the photo above, here's where you can find my article.

Online media publications provide a modern example of "high tech, high touch" - using technology to promote the unique human element of who you are and the value you bring.

Looking to improve? Work with me here:

On-Camera Confidence

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You didn't think I'd let a chance go by without saying something about my On Camera Confidence services, did you?! You can find out all about them by clicking on that pretty little box above with the "Book Now" label. But if you're interesting in learning something about what it's like being a professional film, TV, and voice actor and maybe even how to get started yourself... well, then check out the rest of my blog. You'll want to click these next bright blue words with the two arrows. Yup, right here....