I still remember the first time I got press coverage for a client. I worked at a boutique marketing firm in what can only be described as "a closet with a window." Only an imaginative landlord could describe the space as an office. The creative director sat with his back to me. Talk about pressure to perform!

After days of pitching various media outlets for a new client with no luck, I abandoned my usual cold-call approach and tried something different. Here's what worked for me...

Twenty-four hours after YouTube celebrity, Casey Neistat posted his vlog “That Time in Afghanistan” about his trip imbedded with U.S. Forces, it was viewed 1,045,048 times.

Felix Kjellberg, a gamer better known as PewDiePie, has over 10 billion views and 40 million subscribers on his YouTube channel. Felix’s 10 Billion Montage video is nearing 20 million views. Compare these stats to Game of Thrones and you start to get the picture. The first season of the HBO series averaged an audience of a mere 2.5 million viewers or 9.3 million viewers per episode when repeats and on-demand viewings are factored in. This is clearly the age of the YouTube celebrity.

This is the year you've decided to take your company's marketing strategy to the next level. You've done your homework and you are determined to engage your audience.

•    Facebook: check
•    Instagram: check
•    Blog posts: holding momentum

But how do you craft an e-book? Learn from my experience.

Last week, I wrote about how to identify journalists who will be interested in your business. This week I want to take it to the next step and talk about connecting with them.

Many business owners think of PR as one-off opportunities to draw attention to what they are doing. When the business happens to do something worth promoting, they send a press release out or post on their blog and go back to running business.

That approach does little to create the momentum needed to make a real difference to your business’ bottom line. A better way to approach PR is to think of it like a political campaign.

One of the first public relations campaigns I worked on was promoting the environmental argument against this new form of oil and gas drilling called hydraulic fracturing. I was working for Councilman James F. Gennaro, a local elected official in the New York City Council. Though “fracking” has since become a national debate, in 2009 it was still a relatively new process and the environmental concerns were even more nascent.