Love them or hate them, infomercials shaped at least one generation’s perception on advertising.

“As seen on TV” describes products sold on televised infomercials. But there is another aspect of this phrase I want to discuss today: the credibility it implies.

The label tells people they can get the real deal, not a cheap knock-off.

This is exactly what external media assets do for any business, from power juicers manufactured by megacorps to solopreneurs: they build credibility.

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Are you too focused on growing your own assets?

Email lists, social media follower counts, podcast downloads, YouTube subscribers and views — they all matter A LOT.

I’ve written countless newsletter issues about ​growing your audience​ because it’s what fuels easier recurring revenue and an easier way to do business in general.

Followers and subscribers build your ​credibility​ — as I like to say, people root for underdogs but they buy from superstars.

Whether we like it or not, people are more likely to buy from someone who has 100K subscribers than from someone with 1K. Unfair? Maybe, but it’s hard to fight human nature.

However, there is something that counts even more toward your credibility than follower counts: external validation from media outlets.

If you went through Audience Accelerator, my framework on building owned and rented audience, you already know that owned and rented media feed off each other — and you know how to make that happen too! Don’t know what I’m talking about? ​Grab the course that teaches you how to build an audience without spending ages on social media​.

So yes, keep building your social media profiles, email lists, and more. But tap into other types of audiences too.

Why? Because:

People will Google you before doing business with you

Of course, they will stumble upon your social media profiles first — those almost always rank at the top. But they will dig deeper.

Ideally, they will find something other than your website and your social media profiles — anyone can build those for themselves. But not everyone gets featured on media outlets they don’t control.

Psst, my subscribers read this before you did. Want to be the first to see analyses and roadmaps like this one? Subscribe to Ideas to Power Your Future and get them in your inbox every Thursday.

BTW, when was the last time you Googled yourself? Do it in incognito mode to find out if you need to work on your PR.

Got a very common name? Add your industry to it. Example: John Smith marketing strategist.

Didn’t find too many things? Let’s fix that!

PR is no longer expensive and reserved for high-paying corporations

Back in my college days (I’m formally trained in comms and PR), being featured in the media was only for the rich and famous. For small businesses, the way to maybe get a media mention in a smaller outlet was to send a press release to a few journalists you knew and a few online PR portals.

Then you’d cross your fingers and hope to get picked. Without solid relationships in the media, you had to do a lot of finger-crossing.

Mind you, this all happened if you had a PR department and someone who knew how to write a press release.

Without those, the only solution was paying to be featured in the media.

These days, however, it’s easier. You can get media features without paying a fortune or hiring a costly PR firm.

Start here.

Forget The New York Times, Forbes, or Reuters. Go more niche

Getting features in huge media outlets is still hard. Luckily, media is no longer as centralized as it used to be.

You have plenty of opportunities with smaller outlets. Also, just because they’re smaller, it doesn’t mean they don’t bring you enough clout.

Quite the opposite.

They are the ideal places to find your ideal clients. Speaking to the right audience is more important than speaking to a broad audience.

Here’s how to think about it:

  • Instead of The New York Times → think of a few media outlets in your industry that accept external contributions. I built my agency business on the back of guest posting for small-ish outlets like G2.com or SiteProNews.
  • Instead of Reuters → think of a few podcasts that your ideal audience listens to. (​A primer on how to find out what they listen to here​).

Three ways to get featured in the media

1. Build a solid audience on social media and your owned platforms

The more visible you are, the more people will want to quote you, interview you, or have you write for their media outlet.

If you have a 10K+ following on any social media platform, the opportunities will come your way.

However, that doesn’t mean you should just wait for that to happen. Irrespective of your follower count, there are things you should be doing.

2. Pitch media outlets and podcast hosts

Know a website or podcast that covers the same topics you do? Pitch them your contribution or pitch yourself as a guest.

How do you find these opportunities, you ask?

3. Build partnerships with your peers

Can you guest-write someone else’s newsletter?

Create a social media post together?

Do a live event on social media together?

Even build a product together?

Every time you join forces with someone else, they lend you some of their credibility and clout. While this is not exactly earned media, it’s a step in the right direction.

​You can read more about building strategic partnerships here​.

Case in point: last month, I wrote a guest email for ​Louis Grenier​. One of his readers saw it, loved it, and invited me on his podcast. The episode will be dropping soon.

We have a saying in Romanian that roughly translates to “you never know where the rabbit might jump from”. While I don’t condone rabbit hunting, the message stands: if you don’t put yourself out there, how will you get discovered?

A quick note about pitching media outlets and podcast hosts

The bigger the audience of a media outlet, the harder it will be to get in. Obviously.

To maximize your chances, make your pitch more about them than about you — just as you should do with any pitch:

  • Explain how their audience will benefit from your insights.
  • Include links to previously published articles/podcasts you’ve been on.
  • Include a promotional plan! I can’t stress this enough! Just like you, every media operator wants more exposure. So tell them where you will share your article/episode and how many people are likely to see it.

Owned media and earned media feed off each other. When one of them grows, so does the other.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that neither of them happens overnight.

It takes 1+ years to get consistent podcast invitations or speaking gigs — and that’s if you work on building both types of audiences (owned and rented).

Inside Audience Accelerator, you will learn how to accelerate (d’uh!) this process. I can’t promise you’ll be famous overnight but I can promise you will need to invest significantly less time and effort. And you will get better results.

​See you in there? ​

Adriana’s Picks

  1. Amazon invited select Audible narrators to train ​AI-generated clones of their voices​. Narrators will receive royalties on the titles they permit their clones to narrate.
  2. Telegram has rolled out the ability to ​report abusive content​ on the platform as its CEO, Pavel Durov, sits in French custody.
  3. A North Carolina man faces fraud charges for allegedly using ​AI to create hundreds of thousands of songs​, then programming bots to stream said songs billions of times. He netted $10m+ before the law caught up with him.