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Help a PR expert promote her social media services

3/23/2010 By 17 Comments

Jennifer Melnick Carota, aka The Gift Therapist,  of Pittsburgh, Pa., writes:

“I have recently launched a new business, Virtual PR 101, that specializes in affordable social media marketing strategy,  promotion, and coaching for small businesses and nonprofits.     
    
“Services are provided a la carte, and range from basic blog set-up to the full development and execution of Facebook and Twitter outreach solutions.
    
“How can I promote my services to entrepreneurs and organizations who may be under the impression that PR services are too expensive or not within their budget?  I really want to help small businesses and charitable organizations get noticed!  Any help your Hounds can provide would be greatly appreciated!”
Filed Under: Blogs, Business Promotion, Facebook, PR Consultants/Publicists, Social media marketing, Twitter

How have my publicity tips helped you? Win $500 in prizes

3/23/2010 By 16 Comments

Jack Russell with trophy and gold medalHow has my free ezine, “The Best of The Publicity Hound’s Tips of the Week,” changed your life or your business?

That’s the question you should answer if you want to win $500 in products or consulting services from me.

Why $500? Because I’m doing this to promote Issue 500 of my newsletter, which I’ll publish on April 13.

Last week, I asked you for help on how to promote the 500th issue, and got several excellent suggestions. This promotion combines two ideas submitted by Publicity Hounds Diana Ennen and Kathy Slattengren.


The rules

  • Answer this question in 200 words or fewer: What new publicity tactics do you use as a result of reading my publicity tips and what results did you experience from them? (You may link to a newspaper article/TV show clip). PR pros can discuss ideas they used for their clients.
  • The 10 best entries I receive will be put to a vote by Publicity Hound readers (people will only be able to vote once).  The more helpful the tips in the entries, the better chance they will have at making the ballot. Blatant commercials that just promote you or your business won’t make the cut.
  • The winner gets a choice of $500 in products or consulting services, or both.
  • All entries become property of The Publicity Hound and can be used as testimonials at my website or blog.

And a Free Ebook of Ideas…

Now, I’ll sweeten the deal. All entries that adhere to the rules will be compiled into a free ebook that I’ll offer to all my readers, and I’ll encourage them to pass it along to their friends, followers and connections on the social media sites.

That’s a TON of publicity for you, with a link to your website or blog, if you participate and share a great entry.  Again, don’t enter if all you can offer is a free commercial or I won’t approve your comment or include you in the ebook. I want a success story and an explanation of how the tip worked for you.

Have at it, Hounds. Post your comments below. Next week, I’ll explain how to vote.

Filed Under: Business Promotion, Contests, Information Products, Social media marketing Tagged With: , ,

Free White Paper for recruiters can help anyone who tweets

3/21/2010 By Leave a Comment

job candidates in line in front of a deskYou don’t have to be  a recruiter to find a treasure trove of Twitter tips in the free White Paper “Twitter for Recruiters: How to Minimize Your Time & Maximize Your ROI,” from Arbita.

Twitter newbies will learn the basics like how to optimize their profiles, what to tweet and not tweet, how to quickly build a large network of relevant followers, and the guideline that for every nine tweets that offer helpful advice and tips, you can write one tip that promotes. (See “How to Use Twitter to Amass an Army of Followers, Customers & Valuable Contacts—and Promote.”)

You’ll learn about tools like Tweetake.com, which helps you back up your followers, tweets and direct messages, and Twubs.com, where you can see if a community has emerged around a specific hashtag.

From  author Glenn Gutmacher’s viewpoint, Twitter is a giant database of job candidates, and the White Paper’s real strength is its step-by-step directions that show recruiters (or anyone else) the many ways to  search Twitter to find exactly what they’re looking for.:

Tweepz.com lets you search the biographical data on more than eight million profiles. You can combine a keyword (CPA) and locaton (Atlanta) to search like this: bio:CPA loc: Atlanta. Tweepz even lets you refine the results by following/followers count, date joined and other criteria.

The White Paper is based on Gutmacher’s webinar that attracted more than 1,000 recruiters.

Filed Under: Twitter Tagged With: , , , , ,

How can I promote issue Number 500 of my free newsletter?

3/16/2010 By 6 Comments

The Publicity HoundAlmost every Tuesday during the last decade, my readers and I have been sharing our best tips in “The Publicity Hound’s Tips of the Week.”

If it’s Tuesday, and it’s Christmas, the ezine arrives via email on Christmas Day and the other 51 weeks of the year.

On April 16 this year, I’ll published Edition Number 500, and I’m looking for a clever promotion or contest that will engage current readers, create a buzz on the social media sites, and attract new subscribers.

Because I’m knee-deep in three other projects, I’m not even sure I’ll have time to pull this off. But I’d be crazy not to ask my Hounds for help.

What can I do to promote the newsletter, pull in new readers, attract attention for the archived issues, encourage people to submit questions for Help this Hound, and make this a really fun celebration?

Filed Under: Authors & Publishers, Business Promotion, Contests, Publicity on the Internet, Publicity Resources Tagged With: , ,

How to generate publicity from Pi Day

3/14/2010 By 4 Comments

Pi symbol on a blue circle

Piggybacking publicity onto popular or obscure days, weeks and months of the year is one of the easiest ways to find your way into the media, and I give lots of examples in my ebook, How to be a Kick-butt Publicity Hound.
  
Here’s one of the more obscure days of the year.  It’s Pi Day, and it’s today, 3/14.  It celebrates pi, which is 3.141592653589793, the mathematical constant that goes on without any repeating patterns, right into infinity.
    
Columnist Jim Stingl of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel wrote a column in today’s paper about two local businesses that are celebrating:
  • Discovery World Museum is giving prizes to math wizards and Einsteins who can recite from memory the most digits of pi.  
        
  • Each year, Whole Foods Market in Milwaukee gives away free slices of apple, cherry or blueberry pie, starting at 3:14 p.m. It also sells pies for $3.14.

Your business doesn’t have to be tied to food, or math, in order for you to generate a little publicity from Pi Day.  What can you sell for $3.14?  Or what challenge can you issue to your customers that ties into the numbers 3, 1 and 4?

Update:
    
Someone who commented on Stingl’s column another great publicity idea:
    
“When I used to work as a medical researcher, our department celebrated Pi Day every year by bringing pies into work on that day.  A lot of people would bring in pies and we’d set up the pies on a credenza in the hall outside of the labs along with plates and forks, whipped cream, etc. On the wall above the pies there were fun facts about pie.”
    
This is something ANY business or nonprofit can do.  Try it, and invite the local TV stations and newspapers.
    
For more ideas, see Special Report #45: How to Generate National Publicity from Your Own Holiday (or Day, Week or Month of the Year). Or if you don’t want to create your own day, you can always piggyback onto someone else’s.
Filed Under: Business Promotion, Holidays, Newspaper Publicity, TV Publicity Tagged With: , , , ,
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