Want us to write about your small business? Follow these simple steps

On Monday, I'm taking part in a free webinar about building relationships with journalists and bloggers. I join other bloggers and editors, including Ben Davis from eConsultancy, who wrote this piece with advice for PRs. But if you're a small business owner and you're getting in touch with a website like ours to feature your work, what should you do or not do?

San Sharma ( @sansharma ) is editor of the Enterprise Nation blog

Update: I've added a form, so that you can send me your guest post directly. Do read the tips below though!

1. Know the publication When reaching out to a blogger or editor, make sure you know the publication you're aiming to be featured in. At Enterprise Nation, we share tips for small business owners. It doesn't take long to check out our blog and see the kind of things we write about and it's save us time in answering questions about things like word length, etc. I sometimes get sent stuff that is completely irrelevant, which is kind of a waste of our time and your time, which we know is really valuable!

2. Get to know the editor It's so easy these days to connect with editors, like me, on social networks (my Twitter handle is above!). In fact, Twitter's a good place to make a connection - I much prefer to see a connection on Twitter rather than another email in my inbox. Plus, it's public, so I can be shamed into replying!

3. Give good email So, Twitter's a good place to make that first connection, then maybe we could slip into something more comfortable, e.g. my inbox. When you do email in, be friendly. An all-caps 'PRESS RELEASE' subject line won't go down too well. Also, I'm more likely to take your message seriously if you write from your own domain, rather than a Gmail or Hotmail address.

4. Easy on the sales message If you've got to know our publication, you'll know that we post practical tips that most small business owners can benefit from. If our readers find your advice useful, they're far more likely to want to get in touch with you. So, don't push your sales message in the content itself. Blogs like ours are usually more than happy to include a short bio about you, as well as a link to your business. We've got good 'Google Juice', so that will really help your business over time.

5. Be a customer! The old adage 'the customer is always right' is true here too. If you take part in our community, if you're an Enterprise Nation member and if I've seen you at one of our events, I'm far more likely to run with your blog post. We carry advice on our blog for small business owners from small business owners - and we love being able to share the wisdom of our own community members. So, take part!