Have you heard of HARO? It stands for Help A Reporter Out. Basically, journalists, writers, book authors, and a lot of bloggers use it to find experts to interview, feature, or to quote. For a bootstrapping entrepreneur, there are some golden opportunities there.

Most people I know who have successful ‘transactions’ often report spike in traffic and depending on the media outlet, it can really catapult your business.

The problem is, as you can imagine from my brief intro, there’s a mixed bunch in HARO. Not all of them are big media journalists and if you get interviewed by a book author, you may not see results for months to come, perhaps even a year down the road.

For the smaller publications, you’re also simply taking a shot in the dark.

I really like how Ken McGaffin laid out the personas of HARO for us. It definitely helps save time and figure out what to focus on when trying to gain some online PR.