In late 2012, I was offered a unique opportunity to do a 1 on 1 coaching session with David Siteman Garland, the *Mediapreneur* behind The Rise To The Top, one of the longest running web-based business shows in the world. As 2013 comes to an end, I’ve been reflecting on some of the tactics I’ve implemented most successfully over the past 12 months, and interestingly a few of the more effective have stemmed from his advice last year. Because of this, I thought this might be the perfect time to share just a few insights that David shared with me in our interview in 2012 (hey, better late than never).

1. PR isn’t about targeting a media outlet and pitching your product

Don’t push the book, the course, or the product… Push the concept. Push the insight, the learning or the finding. Positions yourself as an expert and make your product a ‘by-product’ of you. If you focus on sharing your content and expertise with that journalist, when they write that piece they’ll generally be more than happy to wrap it up with: “by the way, the book is available on Amazon.”

Sneaky quick tip: A ‘study’ sounds far more authoritative than a ‘survey’. A quick trial tactic might be to survey your current audience, write up a media release highlighting your unique findings, and share it with a few major media outlets. Test and learn.

2. Be willing to change your brand based on changes in your target audience

Your brand should be an evolution that you build and modify on over time. This is about designing your entire identity around a combination of your current and targeted customer to maximize your reach. Mediapreneurs will often panic and are quick to change their whole brand based on a new insight, but the reality is that frequent small changes are okay.

Be willing to change your tagline and direction multiple times until you find your market fit (especially if your overarching brand stays the same). Your current customers won’t care if your brand changes over time, likelihood is, they won’t even notice.

3. In new media, niche is often better

Mediapreneurs often struggle by trying to go too broad with their content in an effort to appeal to a wide audience. In turn, they’ll generally miss everyone.

A key example is in the complexity around the word ‘entrepreneur’ – by definition, the word means every type of business owner (for example, you could be running a web startup, big business, or the corner store). Think about what your brand means to your current customer, and be willing to go more niche to ensure that it truly resonates with your specific target audience. A smaller, hyper engaged audience is often more valuable to a brand than a bigger, however more passive audience.

The Rise To The Top has been viewed over 7 million times, by viewers in over 100 countries. You can watch the full episode of the Rise To The Top that I appeared in here (I appear at 56 minutes).