Every business owner believes that their product, service or solution is the best thing since sliced bread. In fact entrepreneurs need to fervently believe in what they are selling. Otherwise, why offer it?

However, editors, columnists and bloggers are inundated with hundreds of press releases every day, touting the earth-shaking, competition-crushing, life-altering features of companies’  latest offering.

Hint: The key to crafting the story people want to hear, is not necessarily the story you first thought you wanted to tell. Your widget may solve world hunger, but unless you connect with prospects in a unique and relevant way, no one will believe you and your “news” will get buried.

When I launched my now-famous iFart Mobile novelty iPhone application in 2008, no one gave a toot about it (pun intended). However, as an iOS developer I was aware of the questions other developers were asking.  The primary question was how rankings in the AppStore correlated to sales volume.  What did it mean if you were #97 in the Entertainment category? How about #63 overall?  Just how many sales were you making?

I decided to go public with my sales numbers and blogged about it for a couple weeks, seeking to create a story that would appeal to the technology bloggers.  If I could get them to talk about my app, surely sales and mainstream coverage would follow. 

This strategy worked wildly well as the blogosphere (both domestic and international) lit up with conversations about the newly released sales-to-rank data. While that story had little to do with our app or its features, this story captured our market’s attention and got people talking. Naturally, this resulted in more sales that then elevated app to the #1 app in the world just twelve days after release. Over the years, this approach set the stage for ongoing coverage on MSNBC, Fox, CNN, The New York Times, Comedy Central, Rolling Stone and dozens of other media outlets around the world.

From this we can learn four tips for capturing media attention:

1. Tell the story people want to hear, not the one you want to tell.

It takes looking at things from a different perspective, especially if you've got a dynamite product or service. Just recognize that what you think is most important may take the backseat to what the media likes to cover. Be flexible and creative.

2. Understand that editors and writers have very tight deadlines.

Today's news cycle is never-ending, making the pressure to continually create new content nearly unbearable. The more complete your story, the less research a reporter must conduct. Put your story within reach and it's more like to get picked off the tree.

 3. Use a legitimate press release service that hits the major outlets.

I recommend prweb.com to hit the relevant outlets and search engines, and prleads.com for more personal attention with similar results.

4. Leverage the social outlets to share your story.

I posted links to the sales-to-rank data on iPhone developer groups in order to drive traffic to my blog. Locate related Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn groups to share your story and bring value to those communities.  As with all valuable stories, the community will do the legwork and virally share it.

 Joel Comm is an Internet pioneer, New-York Times Best-Selling author of The AdSense Code and Twitter Power 2.0 and serial entrepreneur. An expert on harnessing the power of social media and mobile applications to expand reach and engage in active relationship marketing, Joel is a sought-after public speaker who leaves his readers and audiences inspired, entertained, and armed with strategic tools to create a new media campaign that will explode their business. Joel shares regularly on his podcast, The Joel Comm Show and on his blog at www.JoelComm.com. 

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