I recently received an email from Shel Horowitz, author and entrepreneur, asking how he could best use PitchRate.com to his advantage. His question was simple:

“I’ve been on Pitchrate every now and then, but have never figured out how best to use it. If you were me, what would be the first two or three things you’d do on Pitchrate?”

Shell is already familiar with PitchRate.com, but in case you’re not, it’s a free service that connects journalists with the highest rated experts. What this means is that when preparing for a story, journalists and producers use pitchRate to make a request for experts to interview. The requests are then sent out in daily emails to our experts who can  pitch the journalists on their area of interest.

To answer Shells question, the first three things I would do on PitchRate.com are:

  • Step 1: Your PitchRate profile is attached to every pitch you make. Therefore, in order to make the best use of the resource, you need to make sure yours will grab tye medias attention. The cornerstone of your profile is your bio, so make sure it’s interesting and creative. Writing your own bio can be a daunting task and Joan Stewart offers some great advice about how to do it right on her blog, The Publicity Hound. In your profile, you should also include links to your website and any other relevant documents for journalists, such as photos or press releases.
  • Step 2. Search PitchRate.com for journalist requests that match your area of expertise and make make a great pitch. You can do this by either scanning the daily emails sent to your in-box or log into your account and search the website. Both are update daily with the most recent journalist requests.
  • Step 3. Prepare you face for the media. PitchRate.com offers an array of resources including PR Happy Hours, teleseminars and videos to help you prepare to put your best foot forward when the media comes knocking.

PitchRate.com is great great resource, but using it to generate PR isn’t a passive process. You get out of it what you put in. By taking these three steps when starting out, you’re setting yourself up for success.

If you still have questions about how best to use PitchRate.com to geverate PR for your company, ask them in the comments section of the blog so everyone can benifit from the answers.

Shel Horowitz can be found on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/l/;frugalmarketing.com and http://www.facebook.com/l/;shelhorowitz.com