The Publicity Hound’s Blog  

Attention PR and marketing consultants, and anyone who has clients who are confused about how to dip their toes into social media.

You may be in an ideal position to add social media consulting to your line-up of services and generate another stream of income. 

Most of what I’ve learned about social media has been from Don Crowther.  I took his social media course called SMARTS through Stompernet a few years ago, on how to get started in social media, and I’ve adopted many of his strategies. Now, I teach social media through my newsletter, blog and corporate consulting.

I’ve never stopped following Don because the world of social media changes by the minute. But since the SMARTS course ended, the Number One complaint of people who have been participating in social media is that they don’t know what to do to see an adequate  return on their investment.

Don heard the complaints and created an entirely new course called Social Profit Formula. It’s delivered in six modules and comes with a series of killer bonuses, including Don’s step-by-step instructions on how to get started teaching social media to your clients. This past week, he shared  three free videos chock full of tips on how make more money than friends using social media.  

I’m ready to dive into his course, and I’m setting aside a chunk of time to devour his bonus on how to be a social media consultant. It includes step-by-step directions for everything he does in his business, from getting started, to advanced client campaigns—perfect for PR people, publicists, consultants and others whose clients can benefit from things like Facebook Fan Pages.

Don is throwing in his personal consulting guides, checklists, planners, templates, and agreements so you can start from scratch.  That’s copyrighted material, however, that I CAN’T share with you.

So how about joining me in his course?

Don is pulling Social Profit Formula off the market at midnight tonight, Pacific Time.  Today is your last chance to buy it.  And if you use this link, you’ll get a coupon good for $500 worth of my own products or consulting services from The Publicity Hound website. That’s assuming you love his material and don’t ask for a refund.

Don’t snooze and lose.  Get it now before it’s gone.

All the risk is on Don, including the $5,000 guarantee he’s offering if you implement all that he teaches and you don’t make back the cost of the course

Posted In: Social media marketing
posted On: 7/30/2010: 4:51 pm: By Joan
Comments: No Comments

By now, you’ve probably read most of the arguments on why companies should be blogging.

But here’s one you don’t read about very much.

Blogging makes you smarter. And that goes for your employees, too, if they’re posting to your blog.

Almost every time I write here,  I do research, even if it’s simply Googling the topic I want to write about. That usually leads me to a few websites I check out before I start to write.

Other simple research includes double-checking names, searching for the exact definition of words if I’m unsure of their meaning, and reading other bloggers’ posts if they’ve written about my topic.
   
  
What blogging forces you to do

Here are 7 other ways blogging can make you and your employees smarter (use this for ammo with your boss):

1. Good bloggers know they are accountable for what they write. So they check and double-check facts until they’re confident that what they’ve written is correct. I learned this the hard way when I was sued for defamation. 
       
2. Linking to outside resources from your blog is a valuable service to readers. But you can’t link to garbage. You have to find quality content. That takes time. During your search, you can stumble onto other meaty topics that are also worthy of blog posts—and learn a few new facts along the way.
       
3. Employees who are well trained in business blogging will repeatedly communicate to readers the company’s key message. And they won’t forget it. 
      
   One of my corporate clients, who will be recruiting a group of employees to post to the company’s new blog that I’m helping them create, asked about how to make the blog posts cohesive. Easy. Make sure everyone in the company, not just the bloggers, understands the company’s key message and incorporates it into their posts.  Each blogger can write in his or her own voice. That will make the blog more interesting. But the message should be consistent.     
     
4. Blogging is a smart way for writers to learn about other departments within the company, and vendors too.  If you work in customer service and blog about what’s happening in your department, you may not give a hoot about the vendor that prints the paper bags in your bricks-and-mortar stores, until somebody calls you to complain that the ink from the bag bled onto her white skirt when she was walking in the rain.  If you’re writing about how your company will solve that problem, you’ll most likely be calling the vendor to see if they can use a different type of ink.
    
5. You’ll learn a lot from people who leave comments at your blog, including people who complain about your products and services. Even though this post lists six ways blogging makes you smarter, I’m betting somebody will comment and add one more reason to my list. Or, perhaps, a complaint. Better they list it here than someplace else.
      
6. Really good bloggers respond to comments. For me, that sometimes means even more research. It’s also means, occasionally, admitting I was wrong when somebody points out something dumb that I said.
     
7. You’ll know what other people are saying about you when they link to your blog posts. You can then comment at their blogs, mention your expertise, and get a backlink to your corporate blog, thus driving more traffic.

How has blogging made you smarter?

What about you? How has blogging made you or employees within your company smarter?

Does your company give employees the time to research topics?  Do you encourage employees to go outside the company to find information? Have you found any super-helpful online research tools?

Posted In: Blogs
posted On: 7/28/2010: 4:43 pm: By Joan
Comments: No Comments

If you’ feel like you can’t do it all, start pushing the monkey off your back by delegating some of your work—particularly the stuff you hate doing—to an assistant.

A good virtual assistant and other subcontractors can free you up to concentrate on the strategies and tasks that bring in the money.

But knowing where to look, understanding the kinds of work you can delegate to an assistant, and working in tandem with an assistant so you aren’t stepping on each other’s toes, can be confusing.

Here are my top five tips for outsourcing:

1. Ask for referrals.

Ask business friends and your social media connections for referrals.  LinkedIn is an excellent resource. Do this before you follow Tip #2. 
    
2. Use the outsourcing sites.
  
VWorker and ODesk are great, but you have to spend a lot of time sorting through bids, portfolios and other details, then communicating back and forth via email until your project is completed. 
   
3. Check references

When you find an ideal assistant, check references!  If you’re looking for someone to help with PR or write press releases, checking refernces is imperative because those tasks require special skills. Ask to see samples of their work. When checking references, ask about the person’s weaknesses as well as strengths.
   
4. Ask your assistant for suggestions

Give your assistants the freedom to suggest other types of work they can do for you. My assistant, Christine Buffaloe of Serenity Virtual Assistant Services, often suggests that I delegate tasks she KNOWS I hate doing.  And she shares with me tasks she has done for other clients.

5. Listen to Charlie Cook’s series of interviews on hiring assistants.

If you need more guidance on hiring an assistant, take advantage of Charlie Cook’s free series of interviews with 10 of the top experts who will reveal their practical insights on how they achieved their BIGGEST dreams through outsourcing and delegation. You’ll hear hundreds of tips you can start using immediately. It starts next week. Many of these luminaries charge $30-$20K for keynote speeches, but you can listen to the entire series of interviews for free by signing up here.

What tips can you share about hiring and working with an assistant? What pitfalls should people avoid? What horrible tasks have you been able to delegate to an assistant?

Posted In: PR Consultants/Publicists, Press Releases/News Releases, Publicity Resources
posted On: 7/27/2010: 2:42 pm: By Joan
Comments: No Comments

Cathy Berger of Roslyn, New York, writes:

I keep having to cancel events because I don’t have enough paid registrations.

I have a live, hands-on “dress better” fashion company full of classes.  Most are $36 for 90 minutes of instruction, and attendees can take individual courses whenever they are held, but they must be physically near to New York City or Long Island/Nassau County.  You can learn more about it here.

Posted In: Business Promotion, Special Events
posted On: : 11:01 am: By Joan
Comments: 6 Comments

I love exposing readers of this blog to new viewpoints related to publicity, even if  they disagree with mine.

Topics can include anything dealing with traditional publicity to reviews for books and products that deal with publicity, online marketing, self-promotion or social media. I’m not interested in posts that aren’t related to those topics.

Truth is, I wish more people offered to write for this blog.

And I’d like to hear what you have to say. Here, then, are the guidelines you should follow if you want to write a guest post.

Read the blog!

Don’t  even think of pitching an idea to me unless you’re familiar with the content here.

Take a quick peek at the topic categories by clicking on the arrow next to the blue “Topics” bar in the right margin.  Click on a category and you’ll see a long list of all the topics within that category that I’ve already written about.

If I’ve already covered it, I’m probably not interested in your pitch, unless what you will say is substantially different than what I’ve already covered, or if you’re providing updated information or taking a contrarian viewpoint.    
   
Original content only

I only want content that hasn’t appeared elsewhere online. Please don’t pitch one of your recycled blog posts, or an article or post you’ve written for someone else’s website. Original content will guarantee that the search engines give this blog credit for what you’ve written.

Why should you write original content for me when you can just as easily write it for your own blog? Because my blog, which gets about 10,000 visitors a month, will expose you to many people who don’t already know about you.

Pitch before you write

Don’t send me anything unless we’ve discussed it by phone or email.

If I like your topic, I may want you to touch on a particular sub-topic that would interest my readers. I love talking to potential guest bloggers by phone, so don’t hesitate to call me at 262-284-7451 or email at JStewart (at) PublicityHound.com.

Explain your expertise

Be ready to answer the question, “What makes you an expert on this topic?”  Have you written a book about it? Do you speak on it? Are you a coach?     
 
What visuals can you offer?

Let me know if you have a photo, map, bar chart, graphic, drawing or cartoon to accompany your guest post. You must own the rights to whatever content you are offering me.  I almost always use a photo or graphic for my posts. So don’t make me work hard to find one.
   
I will also need your above-the-shoulders business photo.
       
Show me samples of your writing

If I like your pitch, I’ll want to see a sample of other things you’ve written. I worked as a newspaper coach for many years, and my standards are pretty high.   Please provide three samples to give me a good idea of your writing style.

Make it easy for me to work with you

I usually don’t give guest bloggers a deadline, and I can work around your schedule. But if you promise me copy by a certain date, please keep your promise. And don’t be a prima donna.

Guidelines for editing and rewriting

I edit as little as possible. But if I think you need to rewrite the post, I’ll ask you to do so and make specific suggestions. I edit out all obscenities and inappropriate content.

Please help me promote your work

When your guest post appears here, I’d be grateful if you’d try to pull traffic by tweeting the link and sharing it on Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media sites.

Stay in touch

If you think your guest post was a win-win for both of us, stay in touch, and please pitch another idea several months later.  And, by all means, please encourage others who you think would make terrific buest bloggers to pitch me, too.

Posted In: Blogs
posted On: : 12:07 am: By Joan
Comments: No Comments