Your Own “Seal of Approval”

The Publicity Hound’s
Tips of the Week
Issue #531 Nov. 16, 2010

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. Your Own “Seal of Approval”

2. Yahoo Launches Weekend Edition

3. USA Today’s Health Website

4. Publish an Ebook for the Kindle

5. Promoting a Writing Website

6. Hound Joke of the Week

7. And at My Blogs & Mobile Site…

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1. Your Own “Seal of Approval”
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The Good Housekeeping “Seal of Approval” has been reassuring
consumers about product quality for more than a century.

It’s one of the most recognized consumer emblems in the market
today. Two years ago, the magazine added the Green Good
Housekeeping Seal to help consumers identify products that are
effective and environmentally friendly.

What if you could have your own “Seal of Approval” that would
underscore your expertise in your field? Just think of the
publicity that you could generate!

You could award the seal to a certain number of products,
services or companies each year and then, pitch bloggers and
journalists. Winners would imprint your seal on their products,
use it in paid ads and launch their own publicity campaigns. The
seal could become a valuable component to your branding.

A seal of approval is only one of the several dozen promotion
tactics I’ll discuss when I host the webinar “60+ Places Offline
to Promote Your Product, Service, Cause, Issue or Event to Build
the Buzz and Encourage Others to Promote for You.” It’s at 3 p.m.
Eastern Time on Tuesday, Nov. 23.

Can’t attend live? I’ll record it, so you can catch the replay at
your convenience. Register at
http://publicityhound.com/promoteoffline.htm

Also, let me know about offline tactics you use to promote, and
send a photo if you can. I can work the idea into my presentation
and create even more publicity for you!

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2. Yahoo Launches Weekend Edition
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Yahoo launched a weekend news and entertainment guide last week
that’s devoted to lifestyle topics such as travel, health and
entertainment.

It’s called Weekend Edition at
http://weekendedition.news.yahoo.com/, and it can lead tons of
traffic to the registration page for your online and virtual
events. That’s because the site geo-locates the incoming user to
feed them schedules of local events and localized news.

Many of those events come directly from Upcoming.org, which is
part of Yahoo. So if you aren’t posting calendar events to that
site, you’re missing a lot of traffic, registrations and
publicity.

Upcoming.org is just one of the many websites I discussed during
the recent webinar “50+ Places Online to Promote Your Live &
Virtual Events to Reach Your Target Market & Pull Sell-out
Crowds.” I recorded it, and you can purchase the entire package
that includes the video replay and handouts at
http://publicityhound.com/events.htm

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3. USA Today’s Health Website
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If you’re an expert in any facet of health, or you sell products
or services related to health topics, add USA Today’s new “Your
Life” website to the list of media you want to target for
publicity.

That’s where you can find names of journalists and bloggers who
are contributing to the site, in addition to information on how
to follow them on Twitter and Facebook.

Want to get their attention?

Then stop doing what 99 out of 100 other people are doing. During
the webinar I hosted on “How to REALLY Use Publicity as an Online
Marketing Channel and ZIG When Everyone Else is ZAGGING,” I
shared valuable tips on what the rest of the smart Publicity
Hounds are doing to catch their attention. Read more about how to
access the video replay at
http://publicityhound.com/onlinepublicitytips.htm

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4. Publish an Ebook for the Kindle
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Three fast facts that show you why publishing ebooks for
Amazon.com’s Kindle is such a big deal, especially if you’re an
expert in your field:

–The New York Times is now adding ebooks to its best-seller
list.

–For every 100 hardcover books Amazon is selling, it sells 143
Kindle ebooks.

–Every ebook in the Kindle store is available worldwide within
60 seconds. (Authors, how long does it take you to ship your
hardcover book to a customer?)

If you’re not publishing ebooks for the Kindle, you should be.
But where do you start, especially if you don’t even know how to
write an ebook?

Let Daniel Hall give you step-by-step directions. He will be my
guest during a free webinar at 4 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday,
Dec. 1.

Please set aside at least two hours for this session. Daniel
stays on the line until everyone’s questions are answered.

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5. Promoting a Writing Website
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This week, five Publicity Hounds have tips for McKenna Donovan of
Asheville, N.C., who needs ideas on how to promote her writing
classes at http://www.ToWriteWell.com

From Daphne Gray-Grant:

“You need more sales copy on your sales page. What will people
gain from taking your courses? Tell them! Be specific. Also,
spell out how the classes work.”

From Phyllis Zimbler Miller:

“I checked out the meta tags of your site, and it appears you
have none besides the non-keyword-optimized title tag ‘To Write
Well.’ A subtitle using keywords along with that title would be
very helpful–and definitely a description meta tag using
keywords that people might search with to find your site would be
very helpful.”

From Kathi Petersen:

“I’m from Asheville, too. And while we folks from Western N.C.
embrace our eclectic population of tie-dye meets necktie, gray-
hairs and pink-hairs, mohawks and ponytails (with a big splash of
spirituality and quantum physics thrown in), I’d be concerned
that anyone outside of Asheville might balk at the ‘woo-woo’
background of some of your faculty, several of whom focus on the
paranormal. It just seems inconsistent and less professional than
what I was expecting. If paranormal is a special niche, the
branding needs to reflect that.”

The Publicity Hound says:

Read all the responses to this week’s “Help This Hound” question
at http://publicityhound.net/?p=7362

Send your own Help this Hound question to:
mailto:JStewart@PublicityHound.com?subject=HelpThisHound
and include your city and state.

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6. Hound Joke of the Week
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Thanks to Twitter follower @NathanBryce for this one:

A dog gave birth on the side of the road and was cited
for…littering.

DOG JOKES & QUOTES EBOOK: 170+ G-rated dog jokes and quotes,
perfect for a dog-lover, your favorite vet, or just for a few
good laughs.

BONUS: Buy the ebook and you also get a compilation of the 50
best websites for dog humor.

http://publicityhound.com/dogjokebook/

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7. And at My Blogs & Mobile Site…
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You can now sign up to receive email notifications every time I
publish a new blog post. Submit your email address to “Subscribe
to Email Updates” on the right side of my blog at
http://www.PublicityHound.net

Here are posts from the last seven days:

Churches, claim your free social media platform
http://publicityhound.net/?p=7391

Letters to the editor offer clues to articles you can write
http://publicityhound.net/?p=7393

2 best cruise lines for beginning speakers
http://publicityhound.net/?p=7383

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Joan Stewart
The Publicity Hound

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