Ready to adopt these powerfully simple social media-supported methods to attract more customers and media coverage while spending less? Take a look at these five solutions below and notice how each method can build on the success of the previous one.

1. Be the Most Highly-Recommended Business in your Market

On email, your website and in your social channels, invite customers to describe what they most like about your product or service and link to great testimonials on your site. Include a related image or short video. These vividly-written and illustrated testimonials cite the contributor and company name, with a link to their site. This is a credibility-boosting, free way for their business to be seen online. 

2. Reward Contributors of Great Testimonials in Ways that Spur Bragging Rights

Reinforce the loyalty of those who gave testimonials in ways that motivate them to tell others. Give each contributor an eCoupon to use at your partner’s business. For example, two nearby, upscale businesses -- a restaurant and a grocery store – used this method to reward their customers and to gain a warmed-up introduction each other's audience. 

3. Offer More Valuable Tips than your Competitors Do

As Youtility author, Jay Baer, says, “If you sell something, you make a customer today; if you help someone, you make a customer for life.”

Create short, specific digital tip sheets with SEO-attracting titles and embedded links. Relevant helpfulness, paired with credible, memorable testimonials, are the most powerful and low-cost ways to attract and keep customers.  Produce your tips in multiple ways, from easy-to-download and sharable PDFs to versions in Vine, Pinterest and Instagram.

4. Reach More Prospects by Co-Authoring Tip Sheets

If you co-create some of your digital and print tip sheets with other companies that serve the same kind of customer, you can reach more customers and prospects while spending less. Collectively you may want to hire a good writer to get well-written, quickly-produced tip sheets.

5. Become a Sought-After Expert

Reach out to your key columnists, bloggers and reporters listing the tip topics (plus links) that most match their topic. Offer yourself as a subject matter expert for the times when they are writing on those topics. Unlike most press releases, this correspondance will be kept on hand for future opportunities. If they find, when they reach out to you, that you are credible, quotable and respond in time for their deadline, they will probably reach out again.

In our increasingly complex yet digitally connected world, these five approaches will become increasingly valuable -- as will you. 

Kare Anderson, CEO of Say it Better, is an Emmy-winning former NBC and Wall Street Journal reporter who now writes for Forbes and Huffington Post and speaks about being frequently connected and widely quoted. Follow her on Twitter,Facebook and LinkedIn.

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