“An excellent service; the whole process was straightforward, easy to follow and to manage. At Fund Britain’s Waterways we gained attention from seven newspapers including the Telegraph, which was brilliant. We will most certainly use the service again.”
“AttentionSeekr’s approach was direct and well targeted, being immediately of interest to me. My follow up questions were dealt with promptly and thoroughly. I’d recommend AttentionSeekr to any charity that doesn’t have the budget for its own PR department.”
Incredibly, it’s one month since the nerve wracking experience of standing on stage announcing that matchmaking service Attention Seekr is open for business – and what a whirlwind month it’s been since then.
Working with the first clients to use the service has been very rewarding but also a steep learning curve as you might expect. There’s a challenging daily juggle between researching new business opportunities/chasing for funding and servicing clients/marketing that’ll probably sound familiar to all founders.
Then there’s some news media sector specific challenges that come along given the different technologies that publishers use. One aspect I didn’t fully anticipate has been how to best deal with promoting the service while also respecting client confidentiality.
As a journalist, it’s a straightforward transaction to get stories out to the widest possible audience using social media: “Here’s my story, please click the link if you’re interested.”
But when it’s someone else’s story you’re handling? It has been exciting seeing matches being made that both sides (client and publisher) are delighted with, but when you’re the conduit and not the author this feels like a very different situation.
I’m guessing PR professionals have some tricks and tips to cover this issue – if that describes you, I’d love to hear any advice you might have.
One thing I have done is ask for feedback with publication permission. Of course, not everyone wants to participate in that (which I totally understand) but thankfully a few of the early users did oblige hence the couple of lovely quotes at the top of the page.
Amplifying arts activity
So far so good! Month two starts with a dedicated focus on arts organisations so, if you work for one of those, you may well hear from me in the coming weeks or do feel free to contact me directly via info AT attentionseekr.com or sign up at the website here and I’ll get back to you. That goes for arts journalists too – if you’d like some story leads, please do get in touch.
Why arts? We passionately believe that access to arts and culture is something that everyone should have access to in order to enhance their lives. I know budgets are so tight these days, which is why there’s only ever a fee with AttentionSeekr if a successful media match is made. No match, no fee. Sound interesting? You know where we are….
Dim Sum Digital 