Issue #773 Nov. 26, 2013
Publisher: Joan Stewart
“Tips, Tricks and Tools for Free Publicity”
In This Issue
- Improve Your Google+ Hovercard
- Media Databases Invite Spam
- Free Tool Ranks Your Authority
- Hound Video of the Week
This Week in the Hound House:
I can’t remember if I shared this with you last year. It’s a super-easy, healthy recipe for a Thanksgiving side dish: Roasted Brussels Sprouts and Red Grapes with Walnuts. The juice from the grapes oozes out during roasting and caramelizes. Enjoy.
1. Improve Your Google+ Hovercard
Your digital business card, just like your printed business card, is your only chance to make a great first impression.
That’s especially true for your Google+ hovercard, that mini business card that pops up when you hover over someone’s name.
If you slapped yours together quickly like I did when I joined Google+, the 10 minutes it will take you to turn that hovercard into an impressive branding tool will be well worth it.
Here’s why.
The hovercard shows up in at least two dozen places on the web, including all posts on Google+, all comments, lists of people and recommendations from Google, Google Hangouts, and lots more. That means journalists, bloggers, influentials and maybe even people who are thinking of hiring you will have about five seconds to glance at your card and decide if you’re worth following–or hiring.
I gave my hovercard a makeover recently and I’m thrilled with the results. If you want to follow my lead, see the “before and after” versions of my hovercard and follow my step-by-step directions.
Make this Hound happy. Share the tutorial with your Communities on Google+.
2. Media Databases Invite Spam
One of the most important tools for PR people who do a lot of pitching is the big, expensive media database that includes contact information for print and broadcast journalists and bloggers.
In the wrong hands, those databases spell trouble. It isn’t the databases that are the problem. It’s the lazy PR people who abuse them by sending mass emails with a lame one-size-fits-all pitch to hundreds of contacts.
The spam has gotten so bad that New York Times consumer columnist David Segal did the unthinkable.
After receiving a horrible pitch from a PR firm, he called the firm’s client and asked something along the lines of: Why would you spend money on a PR firm that blankets reporters with email they didn’t ask for and almost surely don’t want? Then he wrote about it under the headline Swatting at a Swarm of Public Relations Spam.
He even provides a handy one-paragraph “get-out-of-P.R.-spam kit” for journalists who want to be removed from the databases sold by Vocus, Cision, PRNewswire, Marketwire and Business Wire, complete with email addresses of their top execs.
Smart Publicity Hounds create their own much smaller databases and research their contacts before pitching. I show you how. See “How to Create Your Own Database of Valuable Media Contacts.”
3. Free Tool Ranks Your Authority
On a scale of 1 to 10, how authoritative is the content you’re sharing online?
Find out by using the free Virante AuthorRank tool. It’s in beta, but it will help you see how you rank against your competitors.
Creating excellent content was one of the things I discussed last week during the free webinar “7 Things Your 2014 Publicity Strategy Must Include.” If you missed it, register to watch the free replay at your choice of times or dates.
I’m now interviewing Publicity Hounds who are interested in working one-on-one with me in my Mentor Program, which includes strategic help with a PR campaign, content creation, making you a better writer, and applying all seven of the important elements mentioned above into your 2014 publicity plan.
4. Hound Video of the Week
This dog helps mom read a bedtime story about dogs to the kids. If you’re at work, turn down the speakers.
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