Feed Your Twitter Tribe

The Publicity Hound’s
Tips of the Week
Issue #457 June 30, 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. Feed Your Twitter Tribe

2. Avoid Excessive Links

3. Think Christmas in July

4. Another Facebook Annoyance

5. Reach Interior Design Students

6. Help This Hound

7. Hound Video of the Week

8. And at My Blog…

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1. Feed Your Twitter Tribe
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If you use Twitter to provide lots of helpful tips and advice to
your tribe, what happens to all that great content you’re dishing
up every day?

The more you tweet, the more your tips get pushed to the bottom
of your feed, right? Does that mean they’re as stale as last
week’s leftovers?

Not if you follow the lead of Chris Knight, CEO of
EzineArticles.com, who came up with a clever idea this week on
how to recycle his tweets and encourage others to share them.

He collected more than 50 of his own tweets and organized them
into four categories: tips and training snippets, fun facts,
inside information and motivation moments.

At the end of each tweet, you can click on the link and it
will take you directly to your Twitter sign-in page. Once
you’ve signed in, the retweet will automatically appear in the
window. All you have to do is click on “update.”

One caution, however. I noticed that in some cases, the addition
of “RT @EzineArticles” will make the tweet longer than 140
characters, so you may have to shorten it.

What a fabulous way to feed your Twitter tribe with information
they don’t have to dig up themselves. You’ve suddenly given new
life to a lot of your old but valuable content.

Still confused by Twitter, or not getting the return on
investment that you expected? Let Warren Whitlock guide you. See
“How to Use Twitter to Amass an Army of Followers, Customers &
Valuable Contacts–and Promote.”

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2. Avoid Excessive Links
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Submitting articles to EzineArticles.com can pull traffic to your
website or blog and make it easy for others to republish your
content.

But don’t make the mistake of stuffing lots of links into your
articles, or the EzineArticles police might reject them.

You should have no more than four links in each article:

–Two links within the body copy that lead to websites you don’t
own. These should be inserted after the third paragraph.

–Two self-serving links that can lead to your own websites or
blog. These should be in the author resource box at the end.

Here’s a tip I learned during yesterday’s “faculty office hours”
call hosted by  Stompernet, the membership site for Internet
marketers.

The second self-serving link should be hyperlink text. That means
my author resource box would include the phrase “publicity tips.”
That phrase would be a live ink that would lead the reader to my
homepage at http://publicityhound.com

Why does Stompernet recommend this?

Because many publishers, when reprinting your articles offline,
will reprint them exactly as they appear on the screen. If an
article doesn’t include a raw link, the reader doesn’t have the
option of clicking on hyperlink text and going to your website.
Without a raw link, readers won’t know where to find your site.
And you lose.

Check out the cool video “Guide to Avoiding Excessive Links.”

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3. Think Christmas in July
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Smart Publicity Hounds are poring over their media contact lists
right now, on the lookout for newspapers, magazines, wire
services, TV and radio shows and other media outlets that are
hungry for press releases and photos of consumer products that
would make great holiday gifts.

Many of these media outlets, particularly national magazines,
work six months ahead of time. Know their deadlines so you can
start pitching while lots of other clueless people are lying on
the beach.

This year, inexpensive gifts that offer high value, as well as
environmentally friendly gifts, will take precedence.

The very best guide on the market for holiday gift coverage is
The Gift List, which includes contact information, deadlines and
pitching tips for hundreds of media outlets.

If you’re donating a portion of the product price to a nonprofit
or charitable group, mention that in your pitch.

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4. Another Facebook Annoyance
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Many Facebook users who weren’t able to grab a vanity URL for
their Fan Pages several weeks ago, because they didn’t have at
least 1,000 Fans, waited patiently until this past Sunday when
Facebook opened up the URLs again to everybody who got closed out
the first time.

But–surprise!–Facebook raised the number of Fans you must have
from 25 to 100.

That sent lots of angry users to the message boards, blogs and
their own Facebook profiles where they ranted about how Facebook
unfairly raised the bar at the last minute.

Instead of complaining, how about trying to unravel some of the
other complexities of the world’s largest social networking site
and figuring out what you CAN do to make the experience better
for you and your Facebook Friends?

Then, when you’re done, take a look at all the topics Christine
Buffaloe covered on June 4 when she was my expert on a
teleseminar on “11 Ways to Avoid Missed Opportunities on
Facebook.” We included 28 pages of illustrated handouts that walk
you step-by-step through some of the most confusing parts of the
site.

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5. Reach Interior Design Students
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This week, four Publicity Hounds have ideas on how Jeanette
Simpson, of Lakewood Ranch, Fla., can market her ebook, “From
Interior Design Intern to Employee: How to be a Keeper (Including
Tips from those Who Hire)”, to interior design interns:

From Judy Soccio:

“ASID (American Society of Interior Designers) has student
members, and they do a lot to involve students in the society’s
activities. Contact your local ASID chapter to be included in
their newsletter, and offer to do a presentation to student
chapters. ASID also has a LinkedIn group where you could promote
your book.”

From Bruce Jones:

“Being that most of the interns are college students and are
heavily into Facebook and YouTube, how about producing several
videos? Make some simple two- to three-minute videos about
getting a job, with links to Amazon or wherever you’re selling
the book.”

From Susan Murphy:

“Join some of the many LinkedIn groups for interior designers and
promote your book (or blog if you have one) through those
groups…I am an interior designer and brand marketing
professional and find new resources through my groups all the
time.”

The Publicity Hound says:

If you’re using LinkedIn to promote, which can be powerful, make
sure you aren’t too heavy-handed with the promotion. LinkedIn
expert Scott Allen says you must be very savvy about how you use
this site in a marketing campaign. Do it right, and you can
encourage hundreds of your connections to also promote for you.

During the teleseminar I conducted with him last summer on “How
to Use LinkedIn to Promote Anything–Ethically & Powerfully,” he
offered an entire timeline of what a promotional campaign would
look like on LinkedIn.

Read all the responses to last week’s Help This Hound question.

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6. Help This Hound
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Cynthia Harvey, of Pasadena, Calif., writes:

“I am a fashion designer, sewing instructor and fashion career
advisor.

“I own The Sewing Studio in Old Town Pasadena, Calif., where I
have fun teaching kids, teens and adults about the fashion
industry and how to sew.

“For almost two years, I have taught hundreds of students. My
goal is to teach 100 each month.

“How do I reach my goal without an ad budget?”

The Publicity Hound says:

I can also think of several ways to collaborate with other
organizations in your community. Let’s see how many other ideas
my Hounds can generate. Hounds with great suggestions for Cynthia
can post them to my blog.

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7. Hound Video of the Week
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Thanks to Publicity Hound Karla Little, of Toverton, R.I., for
this video of a four-legged hound defending itself from stealing
its own bone. If this doesn’t make you laugh out loud, I’ll be
doggone.

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8. And at My Blog…
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