The Publicity Hound’s
Tips of the Week
Issue #451 May 19, 2009
Publisher: Joan Stewart
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“Tips, Tricks and Tools for Free Publicity”
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In This Issue
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1. Facebook’s Missed Opportunity
2. Animoto Caveat
3. 104-Year-Old Who Twitters
4. 5 Myths About Writing a Book
5. How an Artist Can Recycle Publicity
6. Help This Hound
7. Hound Video of the Week
8. And at My Blog…
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1. Facebook’s Missed Opportunity
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You spend hours posting content to Facebook, commenting on your
friends’ videos and replying to their messages.
Day after day, you dutifully clean out your Inbox, join
conversations and post occasional photos and videos.
You watch as your number of friends increases to 500, 1,000,
4,000 and beyond.
But then you ask, what’s the point?
You can’t track even one dollar in sales back to Facebook. Some
days, the giant social networking site of more than 300 million
users seems like the loneliest place in the world.
It’s a common complaint.
That’s because most Facebook newbies either find the site
confusing, or they don’t understand all the opportunities to
connect with their tribe and start building relationships.
Here’s an example. The only place that Facebook permits you to
actively promote is on its Pages, yet many people don’t know how
to create them or use them.
Your profile has friends. Your Pages have fans. There’s a big
difference.
Promote on your profile and Facebook might send you a message
telling you that you’re violating its terms of service. Promote
on your Pages, and you could start pulling in traffic.
Think of Pages as the best way to flaunt your brand. Here are
five reasons why Facebook Pages are so powerful:
–They’re the only part of Facebook fully indexed by Google, so
they serve as a traffic magnet.
–Facebook limits the number of friends to 5,000. But you can
have an unlimited number of fans. Someone can become your fan
without necessarily being your friend.
–Pages can include your product photos, a video demonstration of
how to use something you sell, sales copy, pricing information,
special offers, coupons and more.
–When Facebook users become a fan of your branded Page, Facebook
will notify them anytime you update the status on your Page, via
the primary news feed on the homepage.
–When your fans interact with your Facebook Page, stories
linking to your Page can go to their friends via News Feed. As
these friends interact with your Page, News Feed keeps driving
word-of-mouth to a wider circle of friends.
My virtual assistant, Christine Buffaloe, who manages Facebook
for many of her clients, has identified 10 other missed
opportunities. I’ve invited her to explain them all when she’s my
guest during a teleseminar I’m hosting on Thursday, June 4, at 3
p.m. Eastern Time. If you can’t attend “11 Ways to Avoid Missed
Opportunities on Facebook,” sign up anyway and I’ll send you the
MP3 audio. Or you can buy the electronic transcript or the CD
within 10 days after the call.
This session is for beginners and those with intermediate skills
on Facebook. It’s an update of last summer’s teleseminar series
that’s already outdated. If you attended that session, you get
complimentary admission to this one. I’ll email you with details.
Everyone who registers will receive illustrated handouts the
morning of the call.
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2. Animoto Caveat
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Animoto, the nifty service that lets you create Hollywood-quality
videos from still photos, was a huge hit with Hounds last week
when they read about it here.
Several of them emailed links to videos they created rather
quickly using this program.
But Publicity Hound Barbara Sundquist, who coaches entrepreneurs,
wasn’t as enthusiastic. She wrote an interesting blog post
explaining three reasons why she thinks Animoto is too
restrictive:
–You can’t use the free version for anything commercial, such as
promoting your website or services.
–If you subscribe to the commercial version for $249 a year, you
can make videos promoting your own services but you can’t use it
to make videos for clients. Last week, I had suggested that PR
people and virtual assistants consider adding this service for
their clients. They still can, but the client will have to buy
the service.
–If your yearly subscription lapses, you’re no longer allowed to
show the videos that you made while under license. “Can you
imagine having to remove all those videos from video sharing
sites? What an administrative nightmare.”
I agree. I still like Animoto and I’ll continue using it. But if
you’re like me and seldom read the terms of service before you
buy something, you might be surprised later, like I was when I
learned about this.
You can read Barbara’s entire blog post.
Play around with Animoto’s free service that lets you create an
unlimited number of 30-second, non-commercial videos before
deciding if you want to spring for a commercial license.
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3. 104-Year-Old Who Twitters
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If you saw the story out of the U.K. last week about the 104-
year-old woman who Twitters, you might have been impressed.
The Daily Telegraph and the Daily Sun were. They ran an article
and photo of Ivy Bean, also known as @ivybean104, who apparently
is the oldest person on Twitter.
Mike Butcher, who writes for The TechCrunch blog, explained the
publicity-stunt-gone-bad:
“What none of these stories told you, however, was that poor old
Ivy had not joined Twitter just because it was suddenly the talk
of the old peoples home. No. She joined because home PC
maintenance company Geek Squad signed her up, propped her up for
a photo opportunity and press-released the hell out of it. And,
frankly, I hope they paid her, or at least donated to her
favorite charity because this is one of the most self-serving,
cynical PR stunts I can remember.”
The Geek Squad never covered its tracks. One of Ivy’s tweets
read: “I’m on Twitter! Come and follow my feed at IvyBean104.”
“Since when did a 104 year old suddenly start using words like
‘feed’?” Mike asks.
Thanks to Publicity Hound Bonnie Boots, publisher of The Internet
Wizards Magazine, for tipping us off to this one.
Twitter isn’t going away. It’s turning into one of the best tools
for attracting your own community, pushing out information to
them regularly, and encouraging them to know, like and trust you.
In some respects, Twitter puts email marketing to shame.
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4. 5 Myths About Writing a Book
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Here are five common myths that keep people from writing a book:
–It takes at least a year, usually more, to write the first
draft of your book, and another several months for rewriting,
editing and proofreading.
–You can’t write a book unless you’re already an expert on a
topic.
–Self-published books look cheap, cheesy and unprofessional.
–Major publishers are too restrictive. Signing a contract with
one is like being in handcuffs.
–Most of the revenue you’ll earn from your book will come
directly from the book, which means you must sell mega-thousands
of books just to break even.
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5. How an Artist Can Recycle Publicity
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This week, five Publicity Hounds have tips for Karren Jeske, APR
of Milwaukee, Wis. Her friend, an artist, is looking for ideas on
how to leverage recent magazine publicity for future shows.
From Alice Hohl:
“Send a link or information about the magazine (or a jpeg of the
cover) to his email list. He could post a cover from the magazine
on his website, as well as use his social networking sites to get
the word out.” (The Publicity Hound says: Make sure you get
permission from the magazine to use an image of their cover on
your website. They own the copyright.)
From Alyson B. Stanfield:
“Without having seen the article, and this is key, I’d suggest
your friend get copies (or have copies made) and send them to his
best collectors or potential collectors–along with a personal
note.
“He can also send copies to curators and potential galleries in
the area, along with a personal invitation for a tour of one of
his upcoming exhibits. He’d need to follow up with them and send
another invite closer to the date.”
From Ariane Goodwin:
“This is a perfect story to break up into a sequence on his blog
(he does have a blog, doesn’t he?). The Before/During/After story
of the magazine article: behind the scenes is always compelling.
“Then he should send an email blast out to his list of collectors
(he does have a list of collectors that he can email at the drop
of a hat, doesn’t he?) for each of the three posts in the
series.”
The Publicity Hound says:
Read all the responses to this week’s Help This Hound question
Send your own Help this Hound question and include your city and state.
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6. Help This Hound
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Dave Kadavy of Chicago, Ill. writes:
“I run a roommate-meeting event called Flatmate Meetup. It’s kind
of like speed-dating, but for roommates. I started it in San
Francisco and expanded it to Chicago. We now have almost 1,400
members between the two cities.
“We currently promote the event by posting on Craigslist where
people look for roommates, but we need more brand recognition to
be successful, and that audience has proven difficult to reach.
What tips do your readers have for getting the word out–to the
right people–about these events?
“The target audience is mostly people in their mid-20s to early
30s, college grads. I currently have the events at bars.”
The Publicity Hound says:
What a fun event! The Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times should be
scrambling to beat each other on this story. Perhaps my Chicago-
area Hounds can suggest some other niche publications you can
target. As for social media, well, the possibilities are endless.
Let’s see how many ideas my Hounds can post to my blog.
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7. Hound Video of the Week
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Thanks to Elaine Grassbaugh of Columbus, Ohio for this hysterical
video of the “Jack Russell Balloon Dog” on, I assume, a Stupid
Pet Trick segment on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
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8. And at My Blog…
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