No Junk for Granny

The Publicity Hound’s
Tips of the Week
Issue #462 Aug. 4, 2009

Publisher: Joan Stewart

==========================================

“Tips, Tricks and Tools for Free Publicity”

=========================================

In This Issue
=========================================

1. No Junk for Granny

2. How to Make Page 1 on Google

3. Pitch Back-to-School Stories

4. Promote Your Food, Wine Events & Blogs

5. I’m Moving, Come with Me

6. Help This Hound

7. Hound Joke of the Week

=====================================
1. No Junk for Granny
=====================================

The world is filled with grandmothers and great grandmothers who
seldom venture outside their homes.

Yet their families buy them perfume, jewelry and other useless
junk that ends up in the trash.

Jacqueline Whitmore, the gift-giving expert for Sam’s Club,
can suggest dozens of better ideas for gifts that granny would
cherish.

Buying a gift for the boss?

Best not to give booze. As the gift-buying expert for Office
Depot, Jacqueline has better ideas for tasteful gifts that aren’t
too personal and won’t get you into trouble at work.

Buying cell phones for your kids? Why not teach them cell phone
etiquette?

You can get tips galore from, who else, but Jacqueline Whitmore,
the national spokesperson for Sprint. She shares them on Twitter
and on her Facebook page.

Her photo and tips are usually plastered all over newspapers and
magazines during National Cell Phone Courtesy Month in July.

You’ll also find her promoting Clarisonic, a company that sells
skin care products, as well as Hologic, which sells imaging
equipment for the health care industry.

Jacqueline has been covered by The Wall Street Journal, The New
York Times, USA Today, Glamour, Time, Fortune, Us Weekly, and O
magazine. She has been interviewed by CNN, FOX News, and ABC’s
20/20. That’s the short list, by the way.

“When you’re aligned with a corporation, especially a Fortune 500
company or one that has a reputable name, you’re perceived as
more credible because that corporation has chosen you as its
spokesperson,” she told me this morning.

She said that Brendon Burchard, an expert on how to partner with
large companies, presented a program on that topic last month at
the National Speakers Association convention in Phoenix. The
crowd loved him.

“He was one of the highest-rated speakers at the convention,” she
said.

Brendon will share his secrets during a free teleseminar this
Thursday, Aug. 6, with Steve Harrison. Discover how you can use
his methods to promote your own book, product or business, just
like Jacqueline does, and get PR firms to pay all your expenses.

The call will be presented twice–at 2 and 7 p.m. Eastern. If you
can’t make it, please recruit someone to listen and take notes
for you.

=====================================
2. How to Make Page 1 on Google
=====================================

The next time President Barack Obama does something inspiring,
infuriating, heroic or stupid–and millions of people type his
name into Google to learn more about it–will your blog or
website appear near the top of the list?

It very well could, says Colin Martin, even if you work in an
industry that’s a little dull.

“Your industry isn’t as boring as you think,” says Colin, a
social media expert who knows how you can spin a presidential
news item, or any news item for that matter, into a top spot on
Google.

One way to do it is by creating fun, quirky or controversial
content tied to Obama and submitting it to a major bookmarking
site like Digg.com.

Within minutes, you can have thousands of eyeballs reading your
blog post or an article at your website, or watching a video
you’ve created.

The content can even turn into what Colin calls a “server
burner.” That’s a website that gets thousands of hits in one day,
or just a few hours. That big burst of traffic can also give you
top search engine positioning.

I asked Colin to produce four videos for the teleseminar I’m
hosting next week on social bookmarking. In one video, he
demonstrates how interesting content on one of the major
bookmarking sites got 2,820 hits in just several hours.

“How to do Social Bookmarking to Promote Your Expertise, Attract
Followers & Pull Massive Amounts of Traffic” will be presented at
8 p.m. Eastern on Thursday, Aug. 13. If the time is inconvenient,
sign up anyway and receive the MP3 download.

Tomorrow, everyone who registers for the call will receive a link
to the four videos Colin has created. They show in step-by-step
detail how to create your accounts at these sites, how to
bookmark content, how to make friends and join groups, and
everyday uses and results of this powerful marking tool. I
suggest you watch the videos before the call, if you have time.

Hint: If you want major publicity in top-tier media, remember
that journalists and big bloggers frequently refer to social
bookmarking sites to find out what people are talking about.

=====================================
3. Pitch Back-to-School Stories
=====================================

It’s almost time for students to return to school, and that means
publicity opportunities galore in the traditional and social
media. Pitch stories and offer advice on:

–Decorating college dorm rooms.

–How to make and pack healthy lunches.

–Resources for parents and students.

–Schoolyard bullying.

–Cell phones in the classroom.

–Technology in the classroom.

–How to beat the high cost of college.

–Fashion trends.

–Studying for the SAT tests.

–The trendiest school supplies.

–Parents returning to school.

–How to know if your kid needs a tutor.

–Cheating.

–Good study habits.

–The benefits of sleep.

If none of these ideas work for you, I have lots more that will.
I teamed up with TV producer Shawne Duperon to brainstorm “103
Sizzling Story Ideas from July through December.” You can
download all the ideas immediately when you buy the recording or
transcript of this teleseminar I hosted with Shawne.

=========================================
4. Promote Your Food, Wine Events & Blogs
=========================================

Thanks to Publicity Hound Lee Romano Sequeira for sharing this
helpful website for anyone who needs to promote a wine event like
a wine tasting, festival, class or party.

It’s LocalWineEvents.com and it even invites Publicity Hounds to submit
and link to their blogs devoted to wine, food, beer, spirits or etiquette.
It has a Google Page Rank of 6, which means more Google juice for you.

Lee, by the way, is my Facebook Friend, and that’s where I
learned about this website.

Facebook has become a valuable resource for me. Because I share a
lot of helpful information at that site, and have my own Fan
page, I get a lot of feedback from Friends and Fans. Hence, more
content for this newsletter.

For me, that’s a huge return on investment.

========================================
5. I’m Moving, Come with Me
========================================

Starting next week, this newsletter will be coming to you from a
new server.

To stay with me, you must do two things:

First, resubscribe by going to The Publicity Hound and entering your
name and email address into the form.

Second, check your email inbox for a message with the subject
line: “Response Required: Confirm Your Publicity Hound
Subscription.”

If you somehow get lost, email me and I’ll put you back onto the
list. But if you follow these two steps, you should be fine.

=========================================
6. Help This Hound
=========================================

Suzanne Fox Sevel of Melbourne, Fla., writes:

“I have a client in Atlanta, Ga. who just launched a new product
called Scurtz: stylish, decorative skirts for chairs. They’re
very upscale, and some people see them as an alternative to
tablecloths or place settings as a unique way of decorating for
guests.

“They’re $49-$69 a pair and come in luxurious or traditional
fabrics such as velvet and tulle. Since they are so new, there
are not very many customers. The sales numbers are not
impressive enough for the local business press to even write a
story about it.

“Also, local newspapers and magazines are showing little interest
in writing a feature story about these fabulous home accessories
or the two entrepreneurial moms who invented them.

“They will be available to a major retailer very soon, but my job
is to create some initial buzz and excitement about them first so
that when they hit the stores, there will be a line of people
waiting for them. Do your Hounds have any ideas for low-cost,
high-impact PR? The owner is not on Facebook or Twitter and has
no interest in social networking as a means of promotion.”

The Publicity Hound says:

No interest in social networking as a means of promotion? You’re
breaking my heart!

There are so many opportunities to share their information on the
social networking sites, including the hundreds of mom
entrepreneur sites, that I don’t even know where to begin.

Let’s see how many clever publicity and marketing ideas other
Hounds can suggest. Think holidays, home decorating, mom
entrepreneurs, chairs inside businesses, types of chairs, etc.

You can watch a video demonstration of how to tie a Scurtz, and
post your best ideas for Suzanne, at my blog.

Send your own Help This Hound question and include your city and state.

=====================================
7. Hound Joke of the Week
=====================================

Thanks to Twitter follower @NathanBryce for this one:

A dog gave birth on the side of the road and was cited for…
littering. (OK, Hounds, I’ll make to you next week with a
really funny video. Promise.)