Hi Joan,
As an aside, I signed up for your press release tutorial and got up to about day 19, but then I’ve heard nothing since. Not sure why…. I was enjoying it!
Today on the radio programme I like to listen to on Sydney’s (Australia) local ABC radio, they were starting a new competition. It was all very laid back (as the show always is!) and they openly admitted that they hadn’t really thought it through, and didn’t even have a name for it yet.
ABC radio is government owned and therefore does not allow advertising.
They wanted people to ring up, with a chosen area of expertise, and then the DJ and producer would Google the subject and ask the person a whole heap of questions to see if they could answer them.
My area of expertise is merezhka embroidery, because I am writing a book on it. Now I happen to know that if you Google “merezhka embroidery” you will get my website and pretty much only my website because there is virtually no information on the web about it.
So at the specified time, I called up. I told the producer my topic and spelled it out, and they said they’d call me back if they wanted me. I knew they’d check me out and find out that I am the person whose website has all the information. I didn’t expect the call, but it came.
Before me was a fellow talking about New Orleans jazz, and another about pink diamonds. As the competition went on, they realised they didn’t really have a scoring system, and it all got a bit silly.
Then they came to me, and James (the DJ) said “Yvette’s area of expertise is merezhka embroidery. When we Googled merezhka embroidery we came up with about six listings, all of which were for a website belonging to Yvette Stanton. [In good humour] Would that happen to be you?!”
I said “…Ah, yes. I’ve done pretty well with my search engine optimisation, haven’t I?!”
He didn’t have any questions to ask me, other than “what is it”, because well, of course I would know all the answers, because I put the information there! So I explained what merezhka was and he didn’t understand in the slightest. He showed that he had read my website by asking how it differed from say “Hardanger” (which is another area of my expertise), which I explained.
We had a few laughs about it all, and he proclaimed me the winner of the competition, because I had basically outsmarted them.
Then he said “So if people want to find out more about it, they can…?”
ME: “Contact me via my website!”
James: “Which is?”
Me: “www.vettycreations.com.au“
And it all goes to show that if you play your cards right, you certainly can get advertising onto public radio!
BTW: They didn’t get my address, so I’m obviously not going to get sent a prize, but I think I can take it that the publicity is my prize!
Yvette
Yvette Stanton
Vetty Creations, Sydney Australia
Graphic design | Embroidery design | Book design
Embroidery tuition | Embroidery books, kits and products Publishing | Freelance writing
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