The Publicity Hound’s Blog  

Thousands of people who are being downsized, right-sized and capsized during this bad economy aren’t waiting around for a job offer. They’re looking to the Web for their next career—and maybe even riches.

Enter e-Riches 2.0–Next-Generation Marketing Strategies for Making Millions Online, a new book by Internet success coach Scott Fox.

If you’re one of the victims of this economy and you want to start selling online, or you’re new to Internet marketing, you can learn all about the basics of what it takes to create a successful business online. If you’ve been selling online for several years, the book will bring you up to speed quickly on how to add social media to your marketing mix.

Here are Scott’s 10 recommendations on how to use social networking as a marketing tool.

1. Invite a half-dozen or more friends to get your network started. Practice using the tools of the social network to communicate with them. For example, you can “add” friends on MySpace, “poke” or “write on the walls” of Facebook connections, or respond to some questions in the LinkedIn “Answers” section. (See Social networking ROI: A testimonial more valuable than an ad.)
              
2. Start engaging, publishing, and interacting. Get to know some people—that’s  why you’re here.
       
3. Be authentic. A big part of being authentic is letting the “real you” out to play. Nobody wants to play with a “suit,” so don’t be afraid to be yourself (within professional and legal limits, of course). Mixing the personal and business sides of your life is more common than it used to be.
       
4. Only try to connect with others with whom you really do have common ground. Indiscriminate friend requests are “friend spam.” They are  no more appreciated than email spam or junk mail in the real world. (And if people you don’t know starting linking with you, your own network will soon be less valuable, too.)
                
5. Ask for help. Most social network users are online to be social, and most are happy to help by sharing their knowledge about how the systems work.
              
6. Use feeds to keep up with your friends’ activities and broadcast your own. Posting your own status constantly and cleverly is a great distributed engagement marketing tactic. This is one of the “missed opportunities” I discussed during the teleseminar I hosted this month on 11 Ways to Avoid Missed Opportunities on Facebook. 
      
7. If you have a blog, feed its posts into your profile page. This will automatically help keep your pages fresh and share your writings with a new audience, too.
      
8. Join some groups—learn the lingo and the tools of the network by using them and observing how others use them, too. Joining groups will also begin to create a natural dialogue with other users that will grow over time.
      
9. Be a good and involved citizen in those groups to cultivate new friends. There’s no better way to gain the respect of any community than adding value by sharing info, support, or companionship—and these tools will amplify the effect. If you are an expert, social networks are a great way to spread your reputation cloud for that expertise.
     
10. Create your own group. Once you are comfortable, start a group around your product or brand. Position yourself as an expert resource and offer to help and facilitate community. Members usually proudly display the names of the groups to which they belong on their profile pages. This can lead to lots more clicks (and members) as others see your group’s name or logo on friends’ pages and in their feeds.

Scott’s book includes more than a dozen examples  of real-life Internet marketing success stories, from a North Carolina furniture store that profitably captures high-end customers using pay-per-click search engine text ads on Google, Yahoo! andMSN (Chapter 21), to the article syndication strategy that has helped a Christian stay-at-home mom to attract lots of profitable traffic for her blog (Chapter 16).

The book  is $25 and published by AMACOM, the American Management Association.

Posted In: Authors & Publishers, Blogs, Business Promotion, General, LinkedIn, Publicity on the Internet, Social media marketing, Social networking, Writing Articles, YouTube
posted On: 6/30/2009: 7:59 am: By Joan
Comments: 3 Comments

Jeanette Simpson of Lakewood Ranch, Fla., writes:

“I have just published my first book, From Interior Design Intern to Employee: How to be a Keeper (Including Tips from Those Who Hire.)”

“It’s written specifically to help interior design interns transition from college to career.

“Aside from social networking, contacting university design departments and all vendors, reps, designers and architects I know, how can I reach my target audience—college students?

“Any advice from your Publicity Hounds would be greatly appreciated.”

Posted In: Authors & Publishers, Facebook, Publicity for Niche Markets, Publicity on the Internet, Social media marketing, Social networking, Video
posted On: 6/23/2009: 9:25 am: By Joan
Comments: 5 Comments

Judith Sherven and Jim Sniechowski of Las Vegas, Nev., write:

“Already best-selling authors of five relationship books, we have turned our attention and expertise to soft-sell marketing. Our new book, The Heart of Marketing: Love Your Customers and They Will Love You Back, Morgan James Publishing, May 2009), already a best-seller at Amazon, promotes selling as spiritual service and marketing from the heart.

“This book is the voice for consciousness and conscience, caring and community in commerce—and has been released at this time when the aftershocks of hard-sell greed are being felt all around the world.

“Please don’t bother suggesting ‘get on Oprah.’  That is already a definite goal. Please DO suggest the biggest ideas you can think of to get the book standing on long legs so that word of mouth takes over and drives the book onto the New York Times Best Seller list.”

Posted In: Authors & Publishers
posted On: 6/16/2009: 11:56 am: By Joan
Comments: 10 Comments

Hugo Tschudin of River Vale, N.J. writes:

“My booklet, Wake Up to Abundant Energy: 113 Ways to Make it Easy to ‘Rise and Shine,’ takes the struggle out of getting up in the morning.

“I’d like to find licensees who could buy the booklets in bulk to give away to customers who request a catalog, visit a showroom, or download a report.  Or, a company can buy the booklets for their own employees who can wake up energized and work more efficiently.

“I have focused on companies most likely to help their customers and employees fight fatigue, such as mattress manufacturers, breakfast cereal companies and coffee shops.

“But I’m wondering if it would be more effective to focus on other lines of business, or just on very large employers?  How can I find licensees for this booklet?  Or how can I generate free publicity to let companies know about it?”

Posted In: Authors & Publishers, Business Promotion, Information Products, Publicity for Niche Markets
posted On: 5/26/2009: 2:23 pm: By Joan
Comments: 11 Comments

When a producer calls you and needs you to fill in for a guest who has canceled, move a mountain if you must, and say yes.

That’s what I did when Jon Missall of VoiceAmerica Business Network called yesterday afternoon and asked if I’d serve as a fill-in on the PRInsider show this morning with Maureen Kedes. Someone canceled, and they needed confirmation, within 30 minutes, that I could appear along with a guest of my choosing.

Of course, I said yes.

I invited Michelle Tennant of Wasabi Publicity, who has a string of A+ media hits to her credit, along with a really fun style. We’ll be a great team. And I know we’re on the same track because she was in The Publicity Hound Mentor Program for several years.

We’ll talk about a half dozen or so of the most important things Publicity Hounds must do to generate online and offline publicity. Michelle will share recent successes she has had getting her clients—including authors, nonprofits and small business owners— onto NBC in Dallas, AOL Canada, Good Morning America, the Colorado Business Journal, Dr. Phil and in other online and offline media.

The show will be at noon Eastern Time and you can listen here. I hope you join us.

Posted In: Authors & Publishers, Celebrity tie-ins, Newspaper Publicity, Nonprofits, PR Consultants/Publicists, Pitching the Media, Publicity on the Internet, Radio Publicity, TV Publicity
posted On: 5/22/2009: 8:35 am: By Joan
Comments: 1 Comment