Bye-bye Google Reader: Now What?

The Publicity Hound’s
Tips of the Week
Issue #698 March 16, 2013
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. Bye-bye Google Reader: Now What?

2. Pull Fans to Your LinkedIn Page

3. Facebook & Pinterest News

4. Hound Videos of the Week

This Week in the Hound House: If you like flea markets and gardening, like I do, you’ll love Flea Market Gardening. But we’re expecting two more inches of snow this weekend in Wisconsin. So all I can do is dream…

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1. Bye-bye Google Reader: Now What?
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Google Reader, a valuable tool cherished by many Publicity Hounds, will disappear July 1.

We loved it because it pulled together, in one place, articles and other web content to which we subscribed. It tipped us off to articles written by journalists whose names we could add to our Rolodex. It kept us abreast of trends in our industries.

And it gave us ideas galore for blog posts and content to share on Twitter.

But Reader was losing popularity, and it wasn’t producing revenue.

So now what?

Alternatives to Google Reader include Feedly at and Pulse. Both offer web-based RSS feeds that also have mobile apps for Apple’s iOS and Android. Another option is to import your Google Reader content directly into Flipboard which offers step-by-step instructions.

On the site Change.org, you can join the more than 105,000 people
who have signed the petition “Google: Keep Google Reader Running.”

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2. Pull Fans to Your LinkedIn Page
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After you’ve created a LinkedIn Company Page, think about all the ways you can convince people to follow you there.

Here’s a good one.

If you have videos on YouTube, even if they’re several years old, log into your YouTube account.

Choose several of your videos that have gotten the most views. Call up each one. Include in the description a call to action along with a link to your LinkedIn Company page.

Tell people to follow you there so they can learn about free giveways you offer periodically, read your free articles and tips, and learn more about how you can help them.

That will probably be very easy for you to do because YouTube gives you about 5,000 characters for the description. Use them all, and include those valuable keywords!

The more videos on YouTube, the more chances you have to promote your LinkedIn page. One of the things I’ll be doing soon is offering a discount coupon in this newsletter, good for a limited time, to anyone who follows my LinkedIn page.

Those are only two of the dozens of tips Wayne Breitbarth and I taught audience members who were on the live call on Wednesday on “How to use LinkedIn Company Pages & Ads to Attract an Audience, Promote Your Heart Out and Help Them Buy.” Last night, I emailed the links for the video replays and all the bonuses to everyone who registered.

Don’t miss out! Grab yours now.

Follow me now, and I’ll give you your coupon later. Promise.

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3. Facebook & Pinterest News
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Two social media news items from this past week:

–The hashtag, the “#” symbol that has become so popular on Twitter, might pop up soon on Facebook. It’s a way to collate Twitter messages about a single news event or a topic, and it makes it easy for others to search for the information at a site like Twitter. The hashtag has become so popular on Twitter that Facebook is testing it allow users to click on a hashtag and pull up posts about a certain top or event, and then see more conversations. Seeing more conversations means seeing more ads. And seeing more ads means more clicks which, of course, means more money for Facebook.

–Pinterest has introduced a new web analytics tool that lets businesses and website owners learn how many people are pinning from your website, seeing your pins, and clicking your content. You can even pick a timeframe to see how your numbers trend over time. This is a very helpful tool for PR people and others who manage Pinterest boards for their clients, and for pinners who manage their own boards. You can learn more about it and watch a short video.

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4. Hound Videos of the Week
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If you’ve had a tough week, you’ll love this series of funny dog videos.

I love the third one, featuring the dog and the firecracker.