You can buy attention (advertising).

You can beg for attention from the media (public relations).

You can bug people one at a time to get attention (sales).

Or you can earn attention by creating something interesting and valuable and then publishing it online for free: a YouTube video, a blog, a research report, photos, a Twitter stream, an ebook, a Facebook page.

Most organizations have a corporate culture based on one of these approaches to generating attention (examples: Procter & Gamble primarily generates attention through advertising, Apple via PR, EMC via sales, and Zappos via earning attention on the Web). Often, the defining organizational culture isdetermined because the founder or the CEO has a strong point of view. When the CEO comes up through the sales track, all attention problems are likely to become sales problems.

Chances are that you’ll have to work on your boss to get him or her on board with option four. Since most organizations overspend on advertising and sales and underinvest in creating great information online, this effort is well worth your time.

David Meerman Scott is author of The New Rules of Marketing and PR a BusinessWeek bestseller now published in 24 languages.

Do you know the difference between Marketing, PR, Advertising and Branding?