The Power of Connections and Public Relations in Business

If you follow my blog or follow me on social media you may have noticed a special blog post written and shared a few days ago on behalf of one of our members Susan Bertrand of Maureen’s Hope Foundation, a 501C3 organization based in Syracuse that helps adults and children with cancer. I became an advocate and board member of Susan’s organization a number of years ago. Our small “PR Team” wanted to garner the attention of the Dave Matthews Band – one of my favorite things since 1999 – to tell them about a special project named after one of their songs “You and Me” which benefits children with cancer at Upstate Golisano Children’s Hospital.

The other belief I shared with the PR committee is the theory of the “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” a concept that two people on Earth are six or fewer acquaintance links apart. Our committee believed any of our posts or tweets seen by our followers would lead us to a connection to Dave Matthews or someone in his band so the “You and Me” Bear story would be shared with him. I had been following their bassist Stefan Lessard on Instagram for a couple years and thought he might be the guy to reach.

Yesterday the belief in outreach, PR and marketing worked when Susan received a personal message from Stefan confirming he had heard about the project. We had so many people including the Foundation’s youth group trying to reach them. Someone made the connection happen. I truly hope my blog post which was shared on social media about 150 times in one day and my Twitter appeal to Stefan was the link that worked for such a worthy cause. In the end, it doesn’t matter who reached him, the goal was accomplished which will help this most wonderful program of Sue’s foundation.

Today’s blog post is to remind you that public relations, viral marketing and social media marketing should not be forgotten by you or your company when it comes to sharing good news. Hard working entrepreneurs forget sometimes to pat themselves on the back for their hard work. You have to believe that what you work on, what your company represents and how it helps others is newsworthy. Remember you are connected by six degrees to someone who can make your biggest dream come true. Realize Women TIES exists to help women entrepreneurs with those economic and public relations connections.