The answer to that question is a simple one: You follow up with media. Following up with reporters by phone or e-mail -- where appropriate, can be more important than sending release itself. Why? Because maybe reporter didn't receive fax sent, hasn't read his e-mail yet, or headline for release sent via wire services just didn't engage him enough to want to read release in first place. Or maybe release wasn't sent to any one reporter in particular, which is always a no-no.

Fear is number one reason why most people avoid making contact with media. In fact, most small-business owners worry that they won't know what to say to reporter once they call, or that they will catch reporter at an inopportune time and anger him or her. However if you've taken time to target right reporter, study their news beat and types of stories they prefer, and adhere to their deadlines, you should have nothing to fear in picking up phone and calling a reporter.

There are basically two approaches one can take to follow up. First if you are confident in telling your company's story, you can just call up appropriate reporter and tell him or her about your news and ask permission to send over release. If there is interest from reporter then send release over immediately. The second way is to send release to correct reporter and then follow up with a phone call or e-mail -- base your follow up method on what reporter prefers.

One word of caution: Always remember that reporters are very busy people so try to give them two days before following up. It takes them a while to get through all of messages that they receive. However, if you have a breaking story to report and you want to alert reporter in advance, or you have an event taking place -- any particularly time-sensitive news, then give reporter a call next day after release has been sent.

So you have reporter on phone -what exactly should you say to him or her? It's easiest to start with one sentence you should never utter: "I'm following up to make sure you received my news release." Consider this second commandment just right under "Thou shall not forget to ask a reporter if he or she is on deadline before pitching a story." It's also always a good idea to do a little preparation prior to making your phone call.

Here are some tips:

Do make sure that press release sent is available in two forms - fax and e-mail. The reporter may not have received your release, and if he or she has an interest, they will want you to resend it. The faster you can resend it better chance of coverage, so have fax version ready in fax machine and e-mail version ready to go once you hit "send" button.

Do prepare two alternative story ideas in case reporter rejects one offered in your release.

I recommend several methods of recycling articles to clients who utilize my article submission services that I'm going to share with you today:

1. Publish each of your articles on a separate page on your web site. Then take keywords from that article that you used in title and text and create a set of meta tags for that page. Use a free meta tag generator like http://www.anybrowser.com/MetaTagGenerator.html to make sure your meta tags are properly formatted and all inclusive. Next, submit article page to all of free search engines. Once that page is indexed those keywords will attract searchers to visit your site where you can convert them to loyal customers.