Publicity tips/Don't Make Yourself Sound So Boring Feb 10, 2009

The Publicity Hound's
Tips of the Week
Issue #437 Feb. 10, 2009
Publisher: Joan Stewart
mailto:JStewart@PublicityHound.com
http://www.PublicityHound.com
http://www.publicityhound.net/ (Blog)

Circulation: 42,567

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"Tips, Tricks and Tools for Free Publicity"

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Last Call for the National Publicity Summit:

Thursday, Feb. 12, is the last day for the early-bird
registration for Steve Harrison's National Publicity Summit in
New York April 22-25. This is the event where you can meet
journalists from top-tier publications and TV and radio shows
face to face and pitch them. Steve will even provide coaching on
how to deliver your pitch so you make a great first impression.

You can learn more about the event here:
http://www.NationalPublicitySummit.com/?10011

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In This Issue
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1. Don't Make Yourself Sound So Boring

2. Cool Tool for Hounds & Journalists

3. 5 Tips for Hiring Interns

4. Bloggers Gush About Cleaning Products

5. How to Piggyback onto Book Publicity

6. Help This Hound

7. Hound Joke of the Week

8. And at My Blog...


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1. Don't Make Yourself Sound So Boring
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I'm not mentioning any names.

But when I read the social networking profiles of some of my
friends and business associates, I think to myself: "You're
really interesting. And you're lots of fun. You even have unusual
hobbies. So why are you making yourself sound so boring?"

Yes, that little snippet of information just below your photo on
your Twitter or Facebook profiles can determine whether a visitor
follows you, friends you, or decides that you have nothing to
offer and leaves in search of somebody else who does.

On LinkedIn, that much longer profile will determine whether
somebody wants to connect with you, or forget you.

I can't begin to count the number of Twitter replies and direct
messages from my followers who comment on my love for the Food
Network and motorcycles, which I've mentioned in my profile at
http://Twitter.com/PublicityHound

What does that have to do with publicity?

Absolutely nothing. But if a fellow Food Network junkie follows
me, and then one day hopes to generate publicity, she might look
to me for advice, my products, or my mentor program.

Consider adding these topics to your social networking profiles,
depending on the type of people you're hoping to attract:

--Your hobbies

--Your pets

--Your favorite TV shows

--Your favorite movies and music

--The most unusual thing you've ever done

--Your biggest business accomplishment

--Your most unusual personal accomplishment

--What makes you an expert

--Humor!


A word of caution: Don't treat all your profiles the same.

Social networking expert Nancy Marmolejo will be my guest during
a 70-minute teleseminar at 4 p.m. Eastern Time tomorrow. It's
called "Can Your Social Networking Profile Pass the 10-Second
Test?" In addition to tips galore on how to write your profiles,
you can listen as Nancy remakes the profile of one lucky
participant. If the time is inconvenient for you, sign up anyway
because I'll send you the link for the MP3 recording and the link
for a webinar Nancy hosted that goes into even greater detail.

Learn more about the topic at my blog and register at
http://tinyurl.com/blvdby


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2. Cool Tool for Hounds & Journalists
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I just discovered a new service that costs you nothing and helps
connect Publicity Hounds with journalists who are looking for
specific types of sources.

It's called PitchRate.com and here's how it works.

--Journalists write a query explaining the types of sources
they're seeking. If they're from a top-tier media outlet, they
have the option of cloaking their query and not revealing exactly
where they work. When you sign up for the service, you can see
all the journalist queries and decide which ones you want to
respond to.

--The technology behind the platform automatically rates your
pitch on a five-star scale. It then delivers all the pitches from
a particular query to that journalist, who can then sort them
according to how many stars each receives.

--Journalists will open the five- and four-star pitches first
and, most likely, disregard all the others. This saves them
valuable time.

--If they contact you for an interview, they can then rate your
interview on your PitchRate.com profile so other journalists can
tell instantly if you're helpful and worth contacting.

Is that cool or what?

I've already signed up as both an expert and a journalist.
Bloggers and newsletter editors, I suggest you sign up as a
journalist, too. This is a terrific place to find sources.

Drew Gerber, who owns the site, tells me it's in its infancy but
that response from journalists has been so overwhelming that the
site doesn't have enough experts to respond to all the queries.
So sign up NOW while there's less competition among experts.


Go to http://www.pitchrate.com/publicityhound


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3. 5 Tips for Hiring Interns
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If you're laying off employees at your PR agency or in your
corporate PR department, why not rely on a few interns to pick up
the slack?

The current issue of My Midwest inflight magazine offers several
suggestions for making the most of your interns:

--Determine beforehand exactly what you want them to do for you,
and then choose the best candidate according to their skills that
dovetail with your goals.

--Consider paying them. This widens your pool of applicants
simply because many young people can't afford to work for
nothing.

--Don't waste talent by using them to bring you coffee or pick up
your dry cleaning. They won't learn much and you won't benefit.
(The Publicity Hound's idea: How about using them to research
media outlets whose audiences are a perfect match with your
pitch? This one task will help you save time because you won't be
pitching media that have no interest in your topic. And that
means you'll have time to customize those pitches.)

--Help them make connections at your company and at other
companies, and introduce them to possible mentors. Long after
they're gone, they might return the favor and refer job
candidates who would be a perfect fit.


Once you've chosen an intern, let me provide a large part of the
training. My teleseminar series "How to Help Your Boss or Client
with a Publicity Campaign" is perfect for any company or
nonprofit that hires interns or assistants. It's also ideal
for virtual assistants who want to add PR skills to their
services.

It's available as CDs, MP3 recordings and electronic transcripts
that you can download as soon as your order has been approved.
Read more about how to shorten the learning curve of your
assistants or interns at
http://www.publicityhound.com/PHU_AssistantsCourse.htm


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4. Bloggers Gush About Cleaning Products
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Household cleaning products don't seem to be the kinds of things
that would get the blogging community all excited, especially
during the holidays, right?

But if bloggers happen to be stay-at-home moms who spend a good
part of the day cleaning up after their toddlers, or bloggers who
care about environmentally friendly products, offering a product
sample to them can bring hundreds more moms to your website.

That's what happened just before the Christmas holidays when
Sweeney public relations launched a publicity campaign for Weiman
Products, a cleaning products manufacturer.

Publicity Hound Jennifer Manocchio, a Sweeney VP, said the
campaign invited bloggers to review products that help keep the
home clean. Sweeney offered each participating blogger
samples of products such as stainless steel wipes that can be
used to make kitchen faucets shiny, and Weiman E-tronic Wipes
that can be used to remove fingerprints from computer screens.

The campaign resulted in a whopping 44 positive reviews from
bloggers, like this one from the My Trendy Tykes blog:

"Weiman Stainless Steel Wipes shine, polish and protect all
stainless steel surfaces. They leave NO streaks, and the strong
odor?? Well, it's not there. It's actually a pleasant smell for
my nose. Oh, and get this...It actually repels fingerprints,
water marks and dirt. Now that's what I'm talking about!"

Blogger Rockin' Mama gushed about how the floor polish made her
laminate floors super-shiny. And at the Chocolate Fingerprints
blog, Andrea McMann said she could tell the e-tronic wipes are "a
high-quality product" and my screens still aren't dusty or
smudgy."

The campaign also resulted in 172 clips, 196 direct links to the
Weiman website, and 772 website visitors who stayed an average of
two minutes and five seconds.

When you launch a publicity campaign, are you targeting bloggers
who reach your ideal customers? If not, you're leaving money on
the table. Denise Wakeman and Patsi Krakoff can show you in step-
by-step detail how to identify bloggers who reach your target
audience, pitch them, interest them, and encourage them to
review your product or service. They were my guests during a
teleseminar on "How to Pitch the Best Bloggers & Create a
Publicity Explosion."

It's available as a CD or an electronic transcript that you can
download as soon as your order has been approved. Read more about
how to entice bloggers at http://tinyurl.com/m7ymr


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5. How to Piggyback onto Book Publicity
==========================================

This week, three Publicity Hounds have tips for astrology blogger
Michele Lessirard of Vero Beach, Fla. who wants to know how to
ride on the coattails of author Stephanie Myers' popular series
of vampire novels and the upcoming movie.


From Dal Jeanis:

"Be very careful of attempting to ride the coattails of a popular
hit, especially without knowing what it's really about...Before
doing anything else, find out what it is that you are attempting
to leverage off of. See the first movie, at the very least.

"From understanding the phenomenon, you can then move to figuring
out what products or services you can provide to that
demographic. Next, you can research to create a list of the
keywords in the Meyers books, obviously including vampire,
sparkle, romance, and so on, and figure out to what degree you
can use those keywords in your own astrology posts to increase
accidental traffic to your site.

"You could do mock-horoscopes for the characters just for fun,
although that's a lot of work and might not get you anything in
return. The key to doing that well would be to get copies of the
books and read them, picking incidents to warn about."


From Christine Buffaloe:

"Create Google Alerts for keywords that relate to both Stephanie
Myers' topics and yours. You can do this at
http://www.Google.com/alerts

"Tell Google you want to receive the alerts once a day. Then
follow them and see what Google delivers to you in the way of
news stories, videos, blog posts, etc. In some cases, if a
blogger is discussing Myers’ books, you can post a comment and
you'll get a link back to your website or blog."


From The Publicity Hound:

Go over to Amazon.com and review Stephanie's books, which will
let you link back to your blogs. You can also create "best of"
lists dealing with your topic and all kinds of other content to
attract the attention of her readers.

Randy Gilbert and Don Mitchell are all over that website and pull
in tons of traffic to their own sites as a result. They were my
guests during a teleseminar on "How to Make Amazon a River of
Gold (for Authors, Speakers & Experts)."

It's available as a CD or an electronic transcript that you can
download and be reading as soon as your order has been approved.

Read more about how to piggyback off the popularity of other
best-selling authors or products at http://tinyurl.com/7u76e

And then read the complete responses to this week's Help This
Hound question, or add your own, at http://tinyurl.com/dmzml4


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

Rose Strong of Springtown, Pa. writes:

"I am a volunteer for the Springtown Farmers Market and I'm
looking for some marketing and publicity ideas.

"We started off with a bang last year but for some reason we lost
our shoppers, and our vendors sort of dwindled down a bit. One
week there'd be lots of customers, but not too many vendors, the
next week it was a good vendor attendance and a lack of shoppers.

"This year, we were fortunate to receive a $10,000 donation from
a local resident as well as applying for a Dept. of Agriculture
grant. So we are planning a website, major advertising in a
local weekly newspaper and rack cards for local businesses to
have on their counters and hand out.

"What other inexpensive, creative ideas can your Hounds suggest
to help us promote this year’s market from May 20 to Oct 28?"


The Publicity Hound says:

The bad economy should certainly be a springboard from which you
can pitch all kinds of interesting story ideas to your local
media. Let's see what other ideas my Hounds can suggest. Hounds
with suggestions for Rose can post them to my blog at
http://tinyurl.com/bayg2c


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

A client brought a litter of Golden Retriever puppies to the
local veterinary clinic for inoculations and worming. As the
look-alike pups squirmed over and under one another in their box,
the vet realized it would be difficult to tell the treated ones
from the rest. So he turned on the water faucet, wet his fingers,
and moistened each dog's head when he had finished treating them.

After the fourth puppy, the vet noticed the hitherto talkative
client had grown silent. As he sprinkled the last pup's head, the
woman leaned forward and whispered, "I didn't know they had to be
baptized."


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://www.publicityhound.com/dogjokebook/


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8. And at My Blog...
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Workplace columnist needs sources in South Florida
http://tinyurl.com/cq8tct

Speakers, use local stories in towns where you speak
http://tinyurl.com/apmdgu

How a Dallas hardware store generated national publicity
http://tinyurl.com/am8bbm


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WHERE TO SEE AND HEAR THE PUBLICITY HOUND:


"Boost Your Biz with a Blog Teleseminar Replay"

Listen to the replay of "Boost Your Biz with a Blog," the
teleseminar I hosted on Jan. 26 with Denise Wakeman and Patsi
Krakoff, aka The Blog Squad. They explained how to draw more
traffic and boost more sales from a blog. You can hear the replay
at http://blogsquad.audioacrobat.com/download/bizblog_012609.mp3
by cutting and pasting this link into your browser window.


Wednesday, Feb. 11--Teleseminar

"Can Your Social Networking Profile Pass the 10-Second Test?"
with Nancy Marmolejo. From 4 to 5:10 p.m. on the telephone. All
participants will receive the electronic transcript, the MP3
recording and a one-hour webinar on the same topic that goes into
even greater depth on how to write social networking bios.
Register at http://tinyurl.com/blvdby


March 6-8--Atlanta, Ga.

I'll be at the Stompernet's Live 7 event. If you're going, let's
meet for coffee.


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Reprinted from "The Publicity Hound's Tips of the Week," an ezine
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Joan Stewart
a.k.a. The Publicity Hound®
3434 County KK
Port Washington, WI 53074
USA
Phone: 262-284-7451 (Central) Fax: 262-284-1737