The Publicity Hound’s
\nTips of the Week
\nIssue #447 April 21, 2009<\/p>\n
Publisher: Joan Stewart<\/p>\n
==========================================<\/p>\n
“Tips, Tricks and Tools for Free Publicity”<\/p>\n
==========================================<\/p>\n
In This Issue
\n================================<\/p>\n
1. You Have No Control<\/p>\n
2. Help the Unemployed<\/p>\n
3. Social Networking Annoyances<\/p>\n
4. Dating Service of PR<\/p>\n
5. Promote a Women’s Website<\/p>\n
6. Help This Hound<\/p>\n
7. Hound Joke of the Week<\/p>\n
8. And at My Blog…<\/p>\n
=================================
\n1. You Have No Control
\n=================================<\/p>\n
If you work for a boss who refuses to let your company have a
\nblog or participate in social networking, you’ve already heard
\nall the lame excuses:<\/p>\n
“We don’t want bad comments showing up at our blog.”<\/p>\n
“We have to protect our brand.”<\/p>\n
“We want complete control over what’s said about us online.”<\/p>\n
Yeah, right.<\/p>\n
Tell the boss there is no such thing as complete control. Or any
\ncontrol.<\/p>\n
Then, refer the boss to the ugly messes that Domino’s Pizza and
\nAmazon.com found themselves in last week.<\/p>\n
A Domino’s employee videotaped a fellow employee doing nasty
\nthings to food, and uploaded the video to YouTube. Within two
\ndays, the video had been viewed more than a million times.<\/p>\n
Over at Amazon, sales rankings and search results for a category
\nof books plummeted after titles seemed to disappear from the
\nwebsite. The bloggers went nuts. So did those on Twitter,
\nFacebook and on the author discussion boards.<\/p>\n
Neither company was prepared to weather the storm. Of all the
\nbloggers I read who weighed in on Domino’s and Amazon’s debacles,
\nsocial media expert BL Ochman nailed it. She offered these five
\nsimple tips for any company that doesn’t want to see itself in a
\nsimilar mess:<\/p>\n
–Monitor your brand 24\/7.<\/p>\n
–Establish a credible presence in blogs and social media.<\/p>\n
–Acknowledge the conversation where it’s happening.<\/p>\n
–Explain how you’ll address the problems to prevent them from
\nrecurring.<\/p>\n
–Have a crisis strategy ready to roll.<\/p>\n
How many of those five crisis tools do you have in place?<\/p>\n
If you or the boss fears social media, or you don’t have time to
\nparticipate, BL can help. She was my guest during a teleseminar
\non “How to do Social Networking, Run a Business & Still Have a
\nLife.” We recorded it, and it’s available as a CD, MP3 or
\nelectronic transcript that you can download and be reading as
\nsoon as your order has been approved.<\/p>\n
=================================
\n2. Help the Unemployed
\n=================================<\/p>\n
If a clever idea can generate mountains of publicity for the big
\ncar companies, it can work for a real estate office. And maybe
\neven you, too.<\/p>\n
Decide what your business will do to help the unemployed. And
\nthen pitch the story to the media.<\/p>\n
Realtor Bob Shultz says he liked the idea of GM and Ford making
\nnine payments of up to $500 for any car owner who loses a job
\nduring the first 24 months of ownership.<\/p>\n
Bob, of the Century 21 Landmark Realty Group in Elkhart, Ind.,
\nsays his office came up with its own offer. If anyone who buys a
\nhouse through his office gets laid off in the first 24 months, up
\nto $10,800 will be paid toward that person’s mortgage.<\/p>\n
“I thought we might get a 30-second blurb on the local TV news
\nwhen I pitched the story,” he said. “WSBT Channel 22, one of the
\nlocal stations, jumped in with both feet. We were their lead
\nstory on their Friday evening and weekend news. What a pleasant
\nsurprise!”<\/p>\n
The station also wrote a story for its website, which you can
\nread.<\/p>\n
Real estate agents need every possible idea to generate publicity
\nwhen the market is flat. Real estate coach Jim Gillespie
\ninterviewed me for my very best tips.<\/p>\n
=================================
\n3. Social Networking Annoyances
\n=================================<\/p>\n
Stuff I’m starting to hate in the social media world:<\/p>\n
–The glut of invitations to every teleseminar on earth is bad
\nenough. I RSVP to all of them and comment. I explained why in the
\nblog post I wrote. But please, don’t write back and thank me for my
\nRSVP. Enough already.<\/p>\n
–People who ask questions on LinkedIn but fail to give enough
\ninformation so I can offer an intelligent answer. If you want my
\nhelp marketing your book, don’t make me visit your website to
\nfind out what the book is about. Tell me in one or two sentences
\nor I’m bailing out.<\/p>\n
–People who invite me to connect on LinkedIn but don’t explain
\nhow they know me. This results in back-and-forth emails that
\ncould have been avoided.<\/p>\n
–People who thank me for following them on Twitter and then Warren Whitlock’s how-to-Twitter tips, his etiquette advice and ================================= Have you seen the “Dating Service of PR”? That’s what PRWeek I’ve been a member for years, and my press room page has helped To celebrate their 25th year, Expertclick is offering great –Open access, without registration or purchase, to both –F*ree opt-in to get their feed of questions from journalists. –You also have full access to experts, and their press –As one of my Publicity Hounds, you can get listed as an expert Call Mitch, Randy, Robert, Phil or Brian at 202-333-5000. They ================================== This week, seven Publicity Hounds have suggestions on how Karen From Meryl K. Evans:<\/p>\n “Have a contest or celebration. Get sponsors for prizes and let “Have them email you a list of what they’ve done with their From Jeff Rutherford:<\/p>\n “In addition to any proactive PR outreach that you do, you From Mary:<\/p>\n “Establish a YouTube presence. Before you know it, you’ll be a The Publicity Hound says:<\/p>\n My “Special Report #17: Powerful Ways to Promote Your Website to<\/a> Read all the responses to this week’s Help This Hound question. <\/a><\/p>\n ============================== Shametra L. Thomas of Dallas, TX writes:<\/p>\n “I have a new concierge business, The Savvy DFW Mommy, in Dallas, “It serves the Dallas\/Fort Worth area and specializes in on-call “This is a new city for my company and I have no previous ties. The Publicity Hound says:<\/p>\n First, show your website visitors who you are. I searched your ============================= Thanks to Erica Gorsuch of Thiensville, WI for this one:<\/p>\n Q. Why did the cowboy want to buy a dachshund?<\/p>\n A. (Said with a southern drawl) He wanted to get a long little ================================ Oprah, here are 5 ways to improve your Twitter bio<\/a><\/p>\n Am I stingy by not answering a LinkedIn question? You decide<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Publicity Hound’s Tips of the Week Issue #447 April 21, 2009 Publisher: Joan Stewart ========================================== “Tips, Tricks and Tools for Free Publicity” ========================================== In This Issue ================================ 1. You Have No Control 2. Help the Unemployed 3. Social Networking Annoyances 4. Dating Service of PR 5. Promote a Women’s Website 6. Help This Hound\u2026 Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","iawp_total_views":2,"wds_primary_category":6,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[34,9,10],"class_list":{"0":"post-91","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-tips-of-the-week","7":"tag-help-this-hound","8":"tag-publicity-for-niche-markets","9":"tag-twitter","10":"entry"},"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Joan Stewart","author_link":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/author\/jstewart\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43248,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91\/revisions\/43248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\npitch a book, ask me to sign up for their ezine or–this is the
\nworst–buy a product that will help me get a zillion Twitter
\nfollowers in only five days. I don’t want a zillion followers. I
\nwant only people who are interested in what I have to say. If
\nyou’re promoting something right out of the gate, I will no
\nlonger follow you. If you have interesting, helpful content,
\nlet’s follow each other on Twitter<\/a>.<\/p>\n
\nthe smart strategies he advocates for promoting on Twitter have
\nhelped me offer a lot of value to my more than 6,600 followers.
\nLearn what I’ve learned. The teleseminar I hosted with him on
\n“How to Use Twitter to Amass an Army of Followers, Customers &
\nValuable Contacts–and Promote” is available as an audio and
\nelectronic transcript.<\/p>\n
\n4. Dating Service of PR
\n=================================<\/p>\n
\ncalled ExpertClick, the site that connects experts and
\njournalists.<\/p>\n
\nme capture the first three spots on Google for the phrase
\n“publicity expert.” This drives my competitors crazy.<\/p>\n
\nbenefits:<\/p>\n
\ndatabases: the Expert Directory and the Journalist Directory.
\nYou can open PDFs of both books live from their website.<\/p>\n
\nJust enter your email address in the top tool bar and you’ll
\nstart receiving questions on your topic.<\/p>\n
\nreleases, on thousands of topics–great for bloggers and ezine
\npublishers who are looking for content. And you can see
\njournalist profiles.<\/p>\n
\nand double-dip on the $100 Publicity Hound discount when you call
\n202-333-5000 and ask for the special rate today or tomorrow,
\nApril 21 and 22.<\/p>\n
\nanswer their own phones and give great customer service.<\/p>\n
\n5. Promote a Women’s Website
\n==================================<\/p>\n
\nKalisek of Escondido, Calif. can promote the WomensMedia.com.<\/p>\n
\npeople qualify for entries. Example: If they Tweet a link to your
\nwebsite, they get an entry. If they mention your site at their
\nblog, they get an entry.<\/p>\n
\nlinks.”<\/p>\n
\nneed to focus heavily on search engine optimization. Make sure
\nthat your content is titled and tagged correctly so that Google
\nand other search engines will index all that great content for
\norganic search results.”<\/p>\n
\nYouTube partner who receives 10,000 visits per month from people
\nwho are looking for your content. If you are teaching classes,
\nyou may be able to join YouTube’s education channel. If you are a
\nnonprofit, you’ll receive free advertising from YouTube.”<\/p>\n
\n Draw Traffic and Boost Sales” <\/a>includes more than 70 tips, and
\ndozens of resources. A steal at only $15. Cherry-pick the tips
\nthat will work best for you.<\/p>\n
\n6. Help This Hound
\n==============================<\/p>\n
\nTexas. The business targets professional\/working moms.<\/p>\n
\npersonal assistance, corporate concierge services, home
\norganization, home improvement project management, event
\nplanning, personal shopping, and style and decor consulting.<\/p>\n
\nHow do I get the word out to potential clients and keep them coming in?”<\/p>\n
\nwebsite and couldn’t find your photo. Once you’ve done that,
\nstart following the helpful advice my Hounds will post to my blog.<\/a><\/p>\n
\n7. Hound Joke of the Week
\n=============================<\/p>\n
\ndoggie.<\/p>\n
\n8. And at My Blog…
\n================================<\/p>\n