Your Social Media Business Card

The Publicity Hound’s
Tips of the Week
Issue #532 Nov. 23, 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 Social Media Business Card

2. Don’t Solicit Reviews on Yelp

3. How to Respond to Bad Reviews

4. Publish an Ebook for the Kindle

5. Why I’m Thankful

6. Hound Photos of the Week

7. And at My Blogs & Mobile Site…

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1. Your Social Media Business Card
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How many paper business cards with out-of-date information are
gathering dust in your office?

Wouldn’t it be great if you could create electronic business
cards that include information about where people can find you
online? And update them every month or two as you participate at
more social media sites?

How cool would it be if you could create glossy social media
business cards for a specific event you’re attending, so you can
pull people who you meet at an industry trade show or conference
to your online conversations?

Can’t you just see everybody flocking to you, asking, “Where did
you get these cards?”

I’ve found a terrific collection of tools that will help you do
just that. Many of them are free.

They’re part of today’s webinar on “60+ Places Offline to Promote
Your Product, Service, Cause, Issue or Event to Build the Buzz &
Encourage Others to Promote for You.”

You’ll be familiar with some of the ideas on my list, but many of
them will be new to you.

And by the time we’re done, you’ll have a checklist of creative
ideas that will inspire you to promote in ways you never thought
were possible.

If you can’t attend live at 3 p.m. Eastern Time, register anyway
because you’ll get the link to the video replay and the handouts.

No more hemming and hawing when someone asks, “May I have your
social media business card?”

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2. Don’t Solicit Reviews on Yelp
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Three times in the last week, Publicity Hounds have asked me how
to encourage their customers to write good reviews about them on
Yelp, the site that helps people find great local businesses like
dentists, hair stylists and mechanics.

Why all the interest?

Because from July to August this year, more than 38 million
people visited Yelp. Yelpers have written more than 12 million
local reviews, 83 percent of them rating a business with three
stars or higher.

A few favorable reviews can have customers lining up at your
doorstep. Here are the three most important things business
owners need to know about Yelp:

–Use it. It’s powerful.

–You shouldn’t solicit favorable reviews from customers or
you’re violating the Terms of Service. And no swinging a deal
with another business to “write a good review about me and I’ll
write a good one about you.”

–You should respond to bad reviews publicly and privately. Don’t
waste time trying to convince Yelp to remove them.

I just wrote a blog post this morning on “11 ways for small
businesses to use Yelp, respond to bad reviews.” It’s at
http://publicityhound.net/?p=7464

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3. How to Respond to Bad Reviews
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Millions of people are posting reviews about consultants,
restaurants, investment counselors, doctors, lawyers, the corner
bakery, cable TV companies–and maybe even you–at blogs,
discussion forums and social media sites like Yelp.

But what should you do if you learn someone has posted a scathing
review about you or your company? You respond quickly.

Here’s a helpful list of 10 tips on how to respond to negative
comments:

http://www.nten.org/blog/2010/11/12/thats-not-nice-top-10-tips-responding-negative-comments

Another way is to plant so much favorable content about your
company at influential, high-page-rank sites that it pushes bad
reviews off of Page 1 of Google results. Tom Antion lists all the
websites where you should have a presence. Your assistant can do
a lot of this for you. Learn more about how to protect your
online reputation at http://tinyurl.com/2eyyljb

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4. Publish an Ebook for the Kindle
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If you don’t have an information product to sell yet, it’s going
to be more difficult to promote yourself as an expert.

You can create an ebook before Dec. 2 of this year. Guaranteed.

And it can be for sale quickly at Amazon.com’s Kindle store,
where millions of readers are looking for books that will make
them smarter or entertain them. For every 100 hardcover books
Amazon is selling, it sells 143 Kindle ebooks.

Here’s the best part. The content for your ebook is most likely
already on your hard drive.

You need to be riding this trend, and Daniel Hall will show you
how. He’ll be my guest during a complimentary webinar at 4 p.m.
Eastern Time on Wednesday, Dec. 1. You’ll learn how to:

–Get an Amazon Digital Text Platform account so you can start
publishing immediately.

–Use material already on your hard drive to create your first
Kindle ebook.

–Make an attractive ebook cover quickly.

–Take the actual steps to publish your first ebook.

–Price strategically so you squeeze the most profit out of each
title.

…all this without spending a dime.

Daniel frequently devotes several hours to programs like this
one, so you’d be smart to clear your calendar the rest of the
afternoon.

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5. Why I’m Thankful
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When I bow my head on Thanksgiving Day, I’ll thank my Creator
for:

–Your friendship, not just your business.

–Your suggestions and ideas for things you’d like to see here.

–Your publicity and social media success stories, which I love
sharing.

–Your feedback, good and bad.

–Your own expertise that’s reflected in your ezines, and your
articles, blog posts and other content you’ve shared on a variety
of websites. It makes me smarter.

–Your wise counsel when I screw up. Thanks for helping me
correct the record.

–And, finally, your Hound jokes, quotes, photos and videos that
add a lot of fun to this newsletter. Some Hounds say it’s the one
item they go to first.

You’ve helped make me one lucky Hound. And for that I’m thankful.

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6. Hound Photos of the Week
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Thanks to Meryl K. Evans of Plano, Texas, for photos of these 10
Extreme Dog Houses:
http://www.oddee.com/item_97267.aspx

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:

A clever way to satisfy complainers at your blog
http://publicityhound.net/?p=7437

11 ways for small business to use Yelp, respond to bad reviews
http://publicityhound.net/?p=7464

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Follow me on Twitter:
http://www.twitter.com/PublicityHound

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http://www.facebook.com/publicitytips

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http://www.linkedin.com/in/publicityhound

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Joan Stewart
The Publicity Hound

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