I meet lots of people who ask for help with publicity for their businesses and coverage in the media can be a fantastic opportunity for a start up.
This week, I received a call from a lady in Cyprus asking me to put her in touch with a lady I wrote about back in 2014.
This demonstrates the power of the internet and how far a story can reach which is why I’m writing about my client Sammy Rawlinson today.
Sammy approached me to share her story about her business through a friend of hers who I’d interviewed for another newspaper.
The 30-year-old from Stockton, Teeside, explained that she was an online medium and gave readings via Facebook.
I’ve visited several psychics over the years so I was instantly fascinated and asked Sammy to give me a reading.
All this was done over the phone and we hadn’t connected on Facebook, (for all you sceptics)so she wasn’t able to draw any conclusions from my photos, status and so on.
Some of the things she said in the reading struck a chord but it wasn’t until a few months later that I realised how accurate she’d been.
Aside from that, because I found her enterprise so interesting, I pitched a story about her being ‘The Social Medium.’
It made a double page spread in the Sun newspaper in their Woman section and a photographer, Nigel Bennett, took a set of photos to illustrate it and you can read the story here.
Sammy talked about how people would generally get in touch with her to find out what they could expect in their love lives.
She’d even given readings to people where she’d known a partner was cheating, and her reputation had spread to the point where clients would ask her to tell them if their partner was a rat!
Since then, Sammy’s Facebook inbox has been inundated with requests from all over the world to the point where she has enough work certainly to get her through the next five years.
She charges £30 a reading and can now no longer give face to face appointments because of the sheer volume of clients desperate to speak to her.
Since her first story, she’s appeared in her local paper, The Evening Gazette in Stockton, with them even calling on her to predict the fortunes of Middlesborough this season.
She stunned followers on YouTube when she predicted Brexit months before the referendum and that Theresa May would become Prime Minister.
Sammy also knew Donald Trump would become the next American Prime Minister and in August predicted a terror attack in Germany.
Speaking about the impact of the first article, Sammy said: “It was amazing. I don’t know if I will ever be able to speak to all the people who have inboxed me.
“As the story is online, and because of the article being followed up in local papers and magazines, requests keep coming in. I’m fully booked for the next six months.”
Sammy’s story shows that if you have something interesting and engaging to talk about, no matter how quirky it is, it is a great way to gain exposure for your brand.
And her tips for the future? “Follow your own path and reach for the stars – the sky isn’t high enough!”
Find out more about her work on Facebook.
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