The Publicity Hound’s Blog  

If you’re over 40 and you want to make a change in your life, and generate some resulting publicity, apply for the new TV show ”Life Begins at 40.”

The producers describe the show: 

“For many people in their 40s and 50s, the time has come to restructure their life and do something they’ve always dreamed of. It could be anything from owning a Bed & Breakfast to running a Scuba Diving School in the Caribbean. Our television show, ‘Life Begins at 40′ will give a husband and wife team an opportunity to Road Test their Dreams.

What a great way to announce your new business, or work you’re doing for a favorite cause or isse.

Email Amber Mike, associate producer, or call 646-747-7940.

Posted In: Business Promotion, TV Publicity
posted On: 9/29/2007: 5:55 am: By Joan
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If you’re a professional speaker or consultant who’s looking for a new revenue stream, or an author, publisher or info products creator who’s looking for a new audience for your books, CDs, DVDs or other products, listen up.

An expert on how to get onto the college speaking circuit and generate tons of publicity doing it, will be my guest once again during a free teleseminar at 4 PM Eastern Time on Tuesday, Oct. 9.

He’s James Malinchak, and this will be a high-content call chock full of lists of tips that will whet your appetite for his boot camp Nov. 29-Dec. 2 in Los Angeles. Last year, several Publicity Hounds complained to me that his book camp sold out early because James lets past attendees return as many times as they wish. So don’t wait until the last minute to register if you’re thinking of going.

Sign up for the teleseminar, and be prepared to take lots of notes. He’ll provide lists of tips on the topics most in demand on college campuses, and lots more. 

Posted In: Authors & Publishers, Business Promotion, Information Products, Special Events
posted On: 9/28/2007: 6:38 pm: By Joan
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Somebody here at the “Unconference” asked Shel Holtz how to market a video like the Dove video I wrote about earlier today so that it creates a deafening buzz online.

He didn’t know all the details but said they paid to have it on YouTube’s homepage.

He also wasn’t sure if they did a blogger outreach campaign. But he talked about one of his own blogger outreach efforts while representing a cosmetics company.

 ”I looked for the most infuential spa, health and beauty blogs using Technorati. I read the bogs and listened to the podcasts. I reached out with individual emails. I said ‘We have samples we’d like to send you. You don’t have to write about it.’ I didn’t get one complaint.  We got a lot of coverage on it. But you have to be careful. It has to be individual personal outreach.”

He explained the very clever YouTube recruiting campaign created by Deloitte & Touche USA LLC. The company sponsored a contest for employees on their intranet. “If you want to shoot a video on your perceptions of this company’s value and culture, we’ll send you a camera and an editing kit, ” the company told employees.

They handed out 350 cameras. Employees created their own videos and then voted on their favorites. The top videos were posted to YouTube.

“These employee-produced videos have an authenticity that videos created by the company can’t express,” Holtz said.

Indeed.

Posted In: Blogs, Business Promotion, Publicity on the Internet, Social networking, YouTube
posted On: 9/26/2007: 3:04 pm: By Joan
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Shel Holtz is moderating the afternoon brainstorming session at Ragan’s “Unconference” in Chicago and we’re talking about how to measure whether social media marketing efforts is effective. Some ideas we’re discussing:

–Use social media to drive traffic to your website, then capture email addresses and start building an opt-in list of people who have given you permission to market to them. I use the Hover Ad Generator that makes the box bounce down from the top of the screen at my website. Offer a freebie in exchange for an email address.

–There’s a Facebook page called “I Love Triple A” which Triple A didn’t know about.

 –A mid-size marketing communications firm in Milwaukee has partnered with OnMilwaukee.com. The creative director writes about marketing issues such as new digital outdoor billboards. It helps position himself as an expert.  

–Viking Community College in California has its own bookstore on MySpace, and more than 800 friends.

–Park and Fly apparently monitors blogs to see what customers are saying about them. When Shel Holtz had a bad travel experience with the company, he blogged about it. A real human from the company contacted him, apologized and offered a refund. A customer who is unhappy by bad customer service and is made happy by that same company is 10 times more likely to talk up the company, Shel said. And indeed he does. Monitoring the conversation about you online makes it easier to tell your boss “people are out there talking about us and we need to do something about it.”

–Finally, he showed this cool video for Dove soap company, which illustrates how our perception of beauty has become distorted. Ogilvy Mather created it and uploded it to YouTube, as well as to the Dove website. So many people copied it that it ended up on diet, wellness, cosmetics and health blogs and websites. It was also featured on “Oprah,” “Ellen Degeneres,” “The View” and “Entertainment Tonight.”

–Offer an RSS feed at your website for things such as articles and press releases. Use Feedburner to track the results.

–Cost avoidance. Does a viral PR campaign head off trouble like a strike? If so, how can that be measured in dollars and cents?

Great stuff. 

Posted In: Blogs, Press Releases/News Releases, Publicity for Niche Markets, Publicity on the Internet, Social networking, Writing Articles, YouTube
posted On: : 2:02 pm: By Joan
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I’m in Chicago, at Ragan  Communications’  “Unconference,” the daylong brainstorming session just before the big two-day event, designed to help corporate PR people understand how to use social media. After the first hour, here are some quick notes in Q&A format.

Q. What is social media?

–Wikis (Editable HTML pages)

–Blogs (Posts with commenting)

–RSS feeds (Subscribe to news feeds)

–Podcasting (Audio or video files)

–People-finder tools

Q. Why is it important for companies to use social media?

–Nobody owns the conversation
–Everything is interactive (There’s no gatekeeper to censor content)
–Using inexspensive tools like a $40 voice recorder or a free blog platform, everyone can now become a publisher or a radio talk show host.

Q. What are the 3 biggest mistakes companies make when trying to use social media?

–They sell it as a communications tool. Instead, sell it as a business tool (CEOs don’t care about communicaxtions.)
–Pushing it when you shouldn’t  (Not every company is ready for it)
–Not tailoring it for internal world

Q. What are some of the benefits?

–You can turn a one-way article into a two-way conversation
–Tools like inernal wikis only for employees save time (”Who’s bringing watermelon to the picnic?”)
–Use tools for employee recrutiment and retention. Employees feel good when they can participate in the discussion.
–Let employees use social networking tools to solve their own problems.
–Ideas get to folks who matter—even the CEO
–CEOs can throw an idea out to everyone in the company and get instant feedback
–Allows for clarification. Pushes communicators to write in plain language without acronyms.

So far, great stuff. Stay tuned….

Posted In: Blogs, Social networking
posted On: : 10:30 am: By Joan
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