On Page D4 of today’s wall Street Journal, tech guru Walter Mossberg chooses Microsoft’s new MSN Spaces service as the most user-friendly of three blog-creation services. He also compared Google-owned Blogger.com and well as Yahoo’s Yahoo 360 service. The decision was made based on how each service handled four basic tasks: publishing text entries or… Read More
Content Creation
Marketing Sherpa announces 10 best blogs of 2005
If you aren’t blogging yet, or even if you are and want pointers on how to make your blog even better, you’ll learn lots by studying “The Top 10 Blogs of 2005” as chosen by readers of Marketing Sherpa, the nifty ezine about marketing. When you’re done, check out Don Crowther’s excellent ebook Blogging for… Read More
How a freelance business writer can get more clients
This week, Cheryl Beck asks: “I am a freelance writer and I am trying to get more business writing clients. I also offer some publicity services because writing is so heavily involved. What I need are ideas to promote myself to get the ball rolling. I can think of campaigns for other companies, but not… Read More
Pennsylvania starts tourism blog
Thanks to Publicity Hound Paul Furiga of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for tipping us off to this story in the Pittsburgh Business Times. It’s about how the state of Pennsylvania is posting at its website blog items written by travelers making road trips across the state. “It seems the state is pretty tightly controlling where the bloggers… Read More
Child Safety Stories
The happy ending to the story of the 9-year-old girl who escaped from her kidnapper in San Jose, California begs for follow-up story pitches on anything dealing with child safety. Schools, law enforcement agencies, non-profits, and companies that make safety equipment should pitch anything related to: –Technology that keeps children safe –Statistics on missing children… Read More
Use Celebrities for Publicity
Celebrity chefs Emeril Lagasse, Curtis Aikens, Wolfgang Puck and Martha Stewart caught my attention when I saw their smiling faces looking back at me in the June 2003 issue of Cooking Light magazine. Those four–and six other celebrity chefs–accompanied a brief on how your personality reveals the type of cook you are. A recent study… Read More
Keep track of who’s using your articles
If you write articles for print or online publications, here are three reasons why you should keep track of who’s using them. –You want to thank the editors and start establishing a relationship with them. –You want to add their names to your media database and continue submitting articles as often as you can. –You… Read More
Submit online articles to pull website traffic
Once a month, small-business marketing expert Sharron Senter writes a how-to article that helps small businesses tackle a problem. She submits it to up to 30 different portals. A portal is a launching pad of sorts that helps consumers find destination and commerce sites. Search engine websites you are familiar with such as Google, Yahoo!,… Read More
Write special reports
If you aren’t writing special reports to help your customers help themselves, or to create a quick and easy product, you’re missing a wonderful chance to become better known and create an easy revenue stream. The secret is to choose topics that are only an inch wide, and then present content that goes a mile… Read More
Write a thumbnail bio for the end of your articles
While en route to a speaking engagement, I found a page in Airtran Airways’ in-flight magazine that’s a great lesson on how to write thumbnail bios. These are one- or two-sentence bios that you can tack onto the end of articles you write for other publications, along with your contact information such as an email… Read More