My Gift to You

The Publicity Hound’s
Tips of the Week
Issue #483 Dec. 22, 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. My Gift to You

2. Quick, What’s Your Brand?

3. Another Media Leads Service

4. Promoting The Screaming Pillow

5. Help This Hound

6. Hound Video of the Week
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1. My Gift to You
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It’s time for my annual Christmas, Hanukkah and New Year’s gift to you.

“The Best of The Publicity Hound’s Tips of the Week of 2009” includes the best 26 tips from this year’s newsletters, or tips that generated the most response from readers.

Feel free to re-gift it to your own blog readers, newsletter subscribers, clients, customers, Twitter followers, and Facebook friends.

If you work at a company, share it with your PR department. If you work for a nonprofit, show it to your staff and even your board members.

More than half of the tips in this year’s book are about social media. What does that tell you about how much self-promotion has changed?

Tips include:

–How to create your own holiday, or your own day, week or month of the year.

–10 dead or dying PR tactics.  (Which ones are you still using?)

–How to find out if a journalist blogs and how to navigate the blog to find all the juicy tidbits you need to customize your pitch.

–What to do if you’re a blogger and you’re sued tomorrow.

–The lazy way to create fun video–even if you don’t have a technical bone in your body.

–25 reasons to hate Facebook (but how to suck it up, jump in and actually have fun).

–A big, bright flashy–and free–publicity tool, right in your own community.

–9 attention-grabbing phrases to use at your blog and at Twitter to generate comments and retweets.

–How to share your best foodie tips on Twitter without boring your readers with “what I had for lunch” drivel.

–How to boost the Google page rank of your blog or website with an investment of only 15 minutes a week.

–Where to find more than 30 sample social media policies, for free.

–How to promote your local events on Twitter and draw crowds.

–5 great social media marketing ideas when the idea well is dry.

–The Number 1 press release writing mistake that will doom you
every time.

–9 ways to get retweeted on Twitter. You can get the ebook here, save it to your hard drive and then, share it on the social networking sites.

If you’d like to excerpt content from the ebook and then link to it from your own blog or Facebook Fan page, let me know and I’ll send you the ebook as a Word document so you can easily cut and paste.

Thanks to all of you for being loyal readers and to many of you for being active participants in this newsletter. Each week, I receive dozens of emails from Hounds who share publicity success stories, contrary viewpoints, helpful publicity tips, time-saving tools and shortcuts and, of course, Hound jokes, quotes and hysterical videos.

Thanks, too, for correcting me when I goof. I’m grateful that you’re part of my community, and it’s because of you that I have the best job in the world. Next week, I’ll introduce you to my new business partner and tell you what we have cooking for 2010.

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2. Quick, What’s Your Brand?
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You’re interviewing for a job, and the hiring manager asks, “What’s your brand?”

Quick, how would you answer that question?

Personal branding consultant William Arruda says you’d better know because “What’s your brand?” will become as standard an interview question as “Tell me about yourself.” If he’s right, you can probably expect the question during media interviews and even business networking events.

That’s one of 10 branding trends that Arruda predicts in the Marketing Profs article “Personal Branding Predictions: Top 10 for 2010.” He says hiring managers and executive recruiters expect serious professionals to have a powerful online identity through Google searches and at social media sites.

“In 2010, if you don’t show up in Google, you don’t exist,” says Arruda.

That’s already true, to some extent, when journalists and bloggers are searching for experts to interview. If they’re looking for someone with your expertise and your name isn’t on the first or second page of Google, you’ve missed an opportunity for a media interview–and maybe even a new job.

Once you’ve decided on your brand, be sure to carry it throughout your entire media plan for 2010. If you’re busy closing out the year and you haven’t even started thinking about how to generate publicity for next year, it isn’t too late. I can walk you step- by-step through the entire process. See “How to Create a Media Plan,” and take advantage of the one hour of telephone consulting that comes with this package.

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3. Another Media Leads Service
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Take advantage of every opportunity to subscribe to the media leads services that pass along leads from real, live journalists who are looking for specific types of sources for stories they’re covering.

The newest service is Bill and Steve Harrison’s “Reporter Connection” which will tell you about topics for which journalists and producers are actively seeking experts to interview. Subscribe and you’ll receive their email newsletter
containing listings of sources needed by top reporters, producers, writers, editors, bloggers and other media, every business day. Journalists can also submit queries.

They say their service is unlike other media leads services in two important ways:

–First, all replies go through their system which means journalists don’t need to publish their email addresses to would-be sources.

–Their unique Media Reply Forms practically force experts to answer up to six specific questions for the media. This is good for both sides because it cuts way down on off-target replies and means you won’t end up pestering media people. It also means journalists will only hear from on-target experts. Even though you don’t pay for this service, the Harrisons pay me a commission if you turn into a customer.

The easiest time to get publicity is when journalists have already decided to cover a particular subject and they’re hungry for sources.

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4. Promoting The Screaming Pillow
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This week, six Publicity Hounds have tips for Gabrielle Yetter of Marblehead, MA, on how to market The Screaming Pillow, a decorative pillow that people can scream into when they’re stressed and want to let off steam.

From Rekaya Gibson:

“Have a ‘Scream in Your Pillow Contest’ similar to the ‘StellaShouting Contest’ that’s held during the Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival in recognition of ‘Streetcar Named Desire.’ There’s a great video on YouTube–-another great way to promote your pillows after the contest.”

From Nancy Binzel Pierce:

“Your target market is anyone who has ever felt like screaming into a pillow, or roughly 100 percent of the population. Pitch this to Ellen, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.”

From Linda S. Williams:

“How about writing an ebook that would include a Screaming Pillow for anyone who buys the book. The book could tell your story and the therapeutic information behind the pillow. It might also include other stories. Since you already have a website and use Facebook, you’re ready to go.”

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 or province.

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5. Help This Hound
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Alissa Rothstein of Alissa Rothstein Design Studio in Woodbridge, NJ, writes:

“I am a graphic/web designer, and I’m stuck when it comes to marketing.

“I’ve tried email blasts to different industries, postcard mailings, and am a member of the Chamber of Commerce which, incidentally, had promised but never provided any leads.

“I am not really targeting small businesses because I find that they can’t or don’t want to pay for designer services and I have to fight the ‘I can do it myself’ mentality.  Or, they think that they can save money by hiring  a cheap intern or a kid out of college.  While they can do graphics, web and e-marketing activities themselves, they just can’t do it very well and it’s a poor reflection on their company.

“Help! I need marketing and publicity ideas from your Hounds. I have Facebook, MySpace and Twitter pages, although I’m not very active.”

The Publicity Hound says:

You must position yourself as one of the foremost experts in your field and hammer home that point again and again by sharing useful, helpful advice for anyone who needs a website. Let’s see if my Hounds can suggest other ideas. Hounds? Post your suggestions to my blog.

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6. Hound Video of the Week
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Thanks to Publicity Hound Christine Buffaloe of San Diego, CA, my virtual assistant, for this heart-warming video of what dogs do on Christmas Eve.