Issue #803 March 25, 2014
Publisher: Joan Stewart
“Tips, Tricks and Tools for Free Publicity”
In This Issue
- LinkedIn Ruins a Good Thing
- Book Marketing Made Easy
- Facebook Page Cost Calculator
- Hound Video of the Week
This Weekend in the Hound House:
I’m not allergic to my dog. I’m allergic to my house. The doc gave me one of those skin-prick tests yesterday, and it shows I’m allergic to dust and feathers. That’s why I’ve been coughing since November. I told my sister, whose house is so clean you can eat off the garage floor. She said her husband is allergic to dust, too, so I didn’t feel so bad. The goose down pillows have to go. But the dog can stay!
1. LinkedIn Ruins a Good Thing
LinkedIn is removing its Products and Services tab on your Company Page starting April 14.
I remember spending hours adding a client’s products and services to that page two years ago. Soon, everything will disappear. That means we have to copy and paste what’s there, including those valuable Recommendations, or lose them all.
What a hassle.
Sales trainer Ken Shaver has spent so much time on his LinkedIn Page, it resembles a mini website. He accumulated an astounding 149 Recommendations!
All gone. In less than three weeks.
In its place, LinkedIn is introducing Showcase Pages which look a lot like Google+.
“Showcase Pages allow you to extend your Company page presence by creating a dedicated page for prominent products and services,” the LinkedIn blog says. “A showcase page should be used for building long-term relationships with members who want to follow specific aspects of your business, and not for short-term marketing campaigns.”
What’s wrong with short-term marketing campaigns? OK, LinkedIn. If you want a Showcase page, add one. But don’t jerk around your users and yank the content we worked so hard to produce.
2. Facebook Page Cost Calculator
If you market with a Facebook Page, you probably know that if you want to play, you have to pay–a lot.
“With daily gentle nudges to promote posts each day, it’s easy to lose sight of both how much you actually NEED to pay and how much you’ll spend cumulatively,” says SHIFT Communications, a PR firm.
It’s free Facebook Page Cost Calculator will help you understand how much you’ll probably need to just to have your page posts seen by your existing audience of Likes.
Using my Page as an example, with 1,765 Likes, I’d have to spend $8.83 a day to have two posts seen by all of my current Likes. Or $2,481.23 a year.
Makes you want to concentrate instead on Google+, Twitter or Pinterest, doesn’t it?
Check out my Pinterest board “50 Tips for Free Publicity,” that’s still capturing top rankings on Google, and it’s far from finished. It’s a powerful way to pull traffic for academic, dull, yucky or difficult-to-illustrate topics.
Read about how I do it at my blog.
3. Book Marketing Made Easy
If you’re writing a book, or thinking of writing one, shave days off your marketing chores by using four sample marketing pieces from book distributor Amy Collins as a template:
–A Marketing Plan that describes how you will promote the book, including your publicity campaign.
–A sales letter written for bookstores, chains and anyone else you want to sell your book.
–A sales sheet that describes details of the book.
–A press release.
They’re all part of the big bonus package that accompanies the video replay of the webinar “How to Convince Costco, Walmart & Other Big Chains to Sell Your Books.” Even if you conclude that trying to get into the chains is too much trouble, those four samples, plus Amy’s contact list for wholesale buyers, will come in mighty handy when it’s time launch the book.
For the link to the video replay and all the samples, order here.
4. Hound Video of the Week
OK, so it’s not a cute puppy or an adorable hound, but it is one of the longest, distressed little face, with the biggest brown eyes you will ever see. Watch as this little, baby moose get’s unstuck from the pickets in a fence.
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