Gannett Blogger Jim Hopkins

By the time Jim Hopkins left his job as a reporter and editor for USA Today on Jan. 10, 2008,  he had already built up a respectable following at the snarky blog he published about his employer, Gannett Co., anonymously.

Called simply Gannett Blog, it kept employees of the largest newspaper company in the United States up to date for two years on almost any work-related topics, from executive compensation and ad rate increases to ethics issues and the revolving door at individual papers.

In an industry pummeled by shrinking ad dollars, a dying reader base, and competition from online news sources, there was no shortage of topics. But there was no gossip, no inside dirt, no office politics—and no “official” affiliation with the company.

Instead, Hopkins relied on published reports and information he uncovered from public documents. His loyal readers provided a steady stream of leads and tips, most anonymously. 

The day after he took a buyout and a 40-week severance package, Hopkins identified himself as the writer of the blog. He kept commenting on everything Gannett and providing updates on budget cuts and layoffs. The sources kept surfacing. The blog kept growing.
  
  
But Who Will Pay the Bills?

When the severance ran out, it was time to start asking readers for donations. That first year, Hopkins set a goal of $6,000 revenue per quarter from the blog.

At first, the donations  trickled in. Some included notes. Many arrived as cash in his mailbox with no indication of who had sent them.

Thinking he was a tad too overly ambitious, he revised his quarterly goal to $4,000 and surpassed it in 2011. He made $5,000 in donations and $11,000 in Google Adsense revenue.

He accepts cash, checks and recently started accepting PayPal payments. You can’t help but notice the little photos of credit cards placed under PayPal’s “Donate” button on the right side of his blog. He even encourages recurring payments for people who don’t want to hassle with multiple contributions and all those postage stamps and PayPal transactions:
 

And he’s turned his appeal into a sort of game where he keeps readers updated on how close he is to reaching his goal. 

“Whenever someone gives me money, I post a note saying that,” he said. They’re accompanied by little photos of dollar bills and headlines like “In an envelope with no address: $60″ and “In the final stretch: another $100.” 

“One of my readers said I should start posting those.”

Those seeds he’s planting lead to more contributions. “It’s like one of those telethons where they have a running total and say ‘Here’s how much we’ve raised…’”

 
Keep Milking the Cow That’s in the Barn 

Hopkins says offering recurring payment is important because online marketers must make it as easy as possible for people to part with their money.
  
“The more obstacles there are for people to give you money, the less likely they are to do it. Obstacles can be something as small as having to click on a couple of links. You have to give them as many ways to donate as possible.”

Indeed. The nonprofit fund-raising arm of Wikipedia gives visitors to its website 9 ways that people can donate to the Wikimedia Foundation.

Hopkins offers space in the banner ad at the top of the blog for $150 a month. But so far, no takers.

“I thought there would be interest from financial advisors who handle retirements and rollovers, and from labor attorneys because lots of (Gannett) people think they’re victims of age discrimination. “

Advertisers might want to look twice at his blog’s monthly stats:

• From 10,000 to 15,000 visitors.
• 225,000 to 250,000 page views.
• About 100 posts.

Last year alone, the blog received 28,000 comments.

These days, the 54-year-old San Francisco resident spends from 25-30 hours a week blogging and says “it’s as much a hobby as it is a source of income.”

When I asked him how he’d respond to blogging purists who disdain any type of promotion at blogs, especially blatant requests for money, Hopkins said:  ”I don’t have any problem with it for the simple reason that  I offer a quality product and it’s entirely  reasonable to expect people to pay for it. I make it entirely voluntary. There’s nothing wrong with asking. If you ask, some people will give.”

He also said the running tally shows his audience—mostly current and former journalists—the challenge of being an online publisher in 2012. “They can see what economic survival is all about.”
 

Make Your Own Blog Go “Kaching!”

Hopkins’ request for donations will be one of 27 ideas I’m sharing on Saturday during the webinar “27 Ways to Monetize Your Blog” from 11 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. Eastern Time. If the time is inconvenient, sign up anyway because you’ll get the link for the video replay within 72 hours.

Would you be so bold as to do what Hopkins does by asking for donations? Do you monetize your blog? What ideas have worked best for you? If you don’t monetize it, why not?

Here are my Top 10 tweets from this past week, great for retweeting! If you missed these, follow me on Twitter.

Top 10 creative writing blogs. http://ow.ly/8gzJb

Top 5 New Year’s Resolutions for improving your presence on LinkedIn. http://ow.ly/8gBr9

10-point checklist for growing your blog in 2012. http://ow.ly/8gBY9

10 reasons why you might not be attracting the right (or any) Twitter followers. http://ow.ly/8i6tI

Authors, do you make these 3 disastrous book-writing mistakes? http://ow.ly/8i8gM

New to speaking? 5 great venues where you can book gigs and learn the ropes. http://ow.ly/8ikNR

How bloggers can use book reviews to connect with expert authors & tips on how to write reviews. http://ow.ly/8ikbh

3 big benefits to reading your articles aloud before publishing, from Ann Wylie. http://ow.ly/8jvrx

Get credit for your PR brilliance. Bulldog’s Media Relations Awards deadline is 1/16. http://ow.ly/8kuYP

Hospitals: Want Boomer business? Focus on content marketing & social media. http://ow.ly/8kw7n

Here are my Top 10 tweets from this past week, great for retweeting! If you missed these, follow me on Twitter.

Prevent the “lago effect” from dooming your CEO who tries to “help” during a crisis. http://paper.li/clayedwardspr/pr-pros-paper

How Restaurants Are Using Social Media to Their Advantage. http://tinyurl.com/8xbuyuo

How to Use Great Testimonials, Once You Get Them. http://ow.ly/8b2LS

Get Blog Results for Business | Writing On The Web by Patsi Krakoff, The Blog Squad | Writing On The Web. http://tinyurl.com/7dzodzr

Top 50 Women Entrepreneur Experts to Follow on Twitter. http://ow.ly/8dj2U

Nice year-end gift for your clients. Free ebook with 2 dozen publicity/social media tips. http://ow.ly/8dj8Z

5 clever uses of LinkedIn’s brand new “group polls” feature. http://ow.ly/8dkJL

5-part strategy for cashing in on content and social media marketing in 2012. http://ow.ly/8dTU6

Freelancers: Pick up some extra cash in 2012. Pitch articles to these paying markets. http://ow.ly/8dUTu

Authors: Compare major print-on-demand companies. http://ow.ly/8dV2u

Another case of a celebrity behaving badly, and another opportunity for Publicity Hounds in a variety occupations to generate some PR by tying into this story.

This time, it’s Alec Baldwin who was kicked off an American Airlines plane on Tuesday for refusing to stop playing Zynga’s Words With Friends on his phone.  The plane was parked at the gate and the seat belt light was still on.

When Baldwin was asked to turn off his phone, things got ugly. He stood up, took his phone into the plane’s lavatory, slammed the door and started yelling at the crew.

Here are 7 ways you could piggyback onto that story:

1. Why are airline regulations so strict? This is a perfect time for flight instructors, pilots, and owners of aviation schools to explain why you can’t use a Kindle, cell phones, laptops or other electronic devices at certain times either in the air or on the ground.
     
2. What makes this game so addictive? “Words With Friends” has 12.6 million active monthly users, according to tracking service AppData. If you’re an addict, let the media know. Where do you play it? When do you play it? How good are you? And what’s the big attraction?
     
3. Is this game a teaching tool for kids?  The game is intended for children 9 and older. Teachers, librarians, tutors and others who teach kids: Explain the benefits of this game for teaching children how to spell and read.
     
4. What are the best ways to control your temper when you’re ready to explode?  And if you do lose control, what’s the best way to apologize? Anger management experts, what a great opportunity for offering tips on how to behave nicely with others on a cramped airplane, and then say you’re sorry. Baldwin apologized to fellow passengers, but not to the airline.
     
5. What are the worst behaviors exhibited by airline passengers? Baldwin is just one of hundreds of boors who make life difficult for airline crews and passengers. What are the Top 10 worst behaviors on airplanes? Frequent fliers, start making a list. And then explain how—or if—you get involved. Offer it as a guest blog post to bloggers who write about etiquette, electronics, human behavior or the airlines industry. Or pitch it to your local newspaper.
     
6. How did American Airlines handle this from a PR standpoint? The airlines wrote about it on its Facebook page, but didin’t mention Baldwin by name.
     
7. What does this kind of publicity mean for a product like Words With Friends? Bloggers have already written about the perfect timing because Zynga is about to go public. Experts in marketing, branding, investmentsw and the stock market should weigh in.

What other ways can you think of to piggyback PR onto this story? Have you ever generated great publicity for yourself or your PR client because you tied your story to Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction,” a celebrity’s drug or alcohol rehab, or any other less-than-flattering celebrity story? Tell us what you did, and the results. And then share this post on the social media sites.

I write more tips like this one in my free weekly ezine, “The Publicity Hound’s Tips of the Week.” You can join the fun and learn new publicity techniques every week by typing your name and email address into the box to the right, beneath my photo.

Every December, Trendwatching.com publishes an annual list of a dozen crucial trends for the following year.

If you’re looking for a hook to hang a story onto, so you can pitch it to the media and bloggers, there are lots of opportunities.

Here’s the list of 12 Crucial Trends for 2012 (there are actually 13):

You won’t be able to determine instantly what each one means, so go to the website and read more. Trendwatching also has provided a helpful list of four tips you should read that helps you understand how you can use this list and actually make money from it: 

1. Influence or shape your company’s vision.
     
2. Come up with a new business concept, an entirely new venture, a new brand.
       
3. Add a new product, service or experience for a certain customer segment.
       
4. Speak the language of those consumers already “living” a trend.

How about a fifth? Tie a story idea from your company or nonprofit into one of the trends.

Here are some some examples I thought of that tie into items on the list above:

• 1. Red Carpet. Are you one of the department stores, airlines, hotels, theme parks, museums or cities that plan to roll out the red carpet for Chinese visitors and customers with tailored services and perks? If so, when? And how does this tie in with your overall marketing plan? A great story for local business journals. 
    
• 3. Dealer-Chic. What are you doing to reward thrifty consumers who love the thrill of chasing down bargains and deals? Have you started a Deal of the Day or a Deal of the Weak? What about membership clubs or rewards programs?
    
• 4. Eco-cycology. The media particularly love stories about making the environment cleaner. Pitch anything dealing with innovative ways you’re recycling, how you’re encouraging employees to offer their best ideas and even products you’re making, or packaging you’re using, from recycled materials. How does this affect the bottom line? Any time you can point to a dollars-and-cents savings, you’ve got a great tidbit to include in your pitch.     
    
• 8. Flawsome. What are you doing to be honest about your company’s flaws? How are you showing empathy, generosity, humility, flexibility, maturity, humor and character? Are you blogging and adopting a blog policy to address nasty comments head on? How are you showing your flaws on the social media sites? If you don’t have a social media policy yet, here are more than 80 free sample social media policies you can review. 
    
• 9. Screen Culture. What are you doing with your website or sales process to make it easier for consumers to connect with you by simply touching the screens on their tablet or smart phone or at the kiosk at the local malls? Nonprofits, are you making it easier for people to donate? 

Those are just a few ideas. I know you can think of more. Don’t miss Trendwatching’s 15 tips on how to best track and apply trends.

How will you use this list as part of your PR campaign next year? How will you be tying your pitch into these trends? 

Here are my Top 10 tweets from this past week, great for retweeting! If you missed these, follow @PublicityHound on Twitter.

Twitter and Facebook tips for food trucks.  http://ow.ly/7MOeO RT@mysurveyexpert #foodtrucks

Are women in PR just grown up “mean girls”? Weigh in athttp://ow.ly/7LXGe

Want a story in Fast Company? Writer says you must answer these 4 questions first: http://ow.ly/7LaI1

How to bait your hook for retweets. http://ow.ly/7JrsU

Why You Can’t Read a Kindle During Take-off—4 Theories.http://ow.ly/7IWGf

7 reasons to embrace nasty comments at your blog.http://ow.ly/7HZZI #blogging

10 types of writer’s block and how to overcome them.http://ow.ly/7HdpL #writingtips

Top 15 tech bloggers and tweeters in 2011. (PR people, save this list.) http://ow.ly/7JS8m

Pitching journalists? Google their name. You’ll find valuable tidbits you can weave into yr pitch. #publicity

Website traffic shouldn’t be the goal of your blog. [I disagree! Read my comment] http://ow.ly/7MO6R #seo #blogs

Welcome criticism, even from Mrs. Smith, your fourth-grade teacher

If you blog and moderate your comments, how many times do you automatically delete the nasty ones, instead of just approving them?

Do you delete comments you don’t like from your Facebook profile or Facebook page?

How many times have you heard a retailer bellyaching that they don’t want a profile on Yelp, because somebody might give them a bad review?

Bad comments can do you more good than harm, so stop treating them like a case of the cooties.

I’m not referring to comments from gutter mouths, perverts or people who want to pick a fight. I’m referring instead to comments from people who simply want to disagree with something you’ve written, point out a mistake or bad customer service issue, suggest a better way to do your job, or anything else that makes you look bad.

I’m tempted to hit the “Delete” key when I see things I don’t like but I try to resist the temptation. Here’s why you should, too:

1. They make your blog or website appear authentic and believable.

Admit it. What do you think when you’re at somebody else’s website and you see a long string of glowing comments but not one negative comment?
     
    
2. They flag you to let you know how you’ve really screwed up.

If a link in your blog post leads to an error page instead of a sales page, or you wrote something inaccurate, better to find out as soon as possible so you can repair the damage quickly before you lose business. And thank the person who pointed it out to you.
     
     
3. They let you address customer service problems head on and show the public you’re committed to making things right.

The folks at Yelp say that when someone posts a bad review about a local business, like a restaurant, it’s smart for the restaurateur to address comments publicly and privately. The writer’s hour-long wait for his meal might have been because two chefs were out sick with the flu. If the owner explains that, the writer might be inclined edit the review and soften the criticism.

Watch these two videos of how small business people tackle bad Yelp reviews head-on.
     
    
4. They show you—and other visitors—that people are reading your content.

What’s the Number One frustration among bloggers? Not enough traffic!  The Number Two frustration is not enough comments.
     
    
5. Bad comments can encourage your supporters to rally to your defense.

All it takes is one nasty comment. If your audience loves you, they’ll jump into the fray and support you with glowing prose about things like your ethics, integrity and business acumen. Without that one comment to prod them, they might have said nothing.
     
    
6.  It gives your followers a chance to help make your business better.

People who already know, like and trust you will want to be a part of your success, even if the criticism does sting. Who can argue with that?
     
    
7. If somebody is going to speak poorly about you, better it be at your own blog where you’re aware of it and do reputation management, and not at  somebody else’s blog and you’re clueless that they’re trashing you. 

One of the dumbest reasons bloggers give for not allowing comments at their blog is “so people can’t say bad things about me.” If people feel that strongly about something you’ve done that they don’t like, they’re probably already trashing you—at another blog, in a forum or in a social media group.

What other reasons are there for embracing nasty comments? And if you think I’m wrong, please let me know.

The next time you’re struggling with a headline for an article, press release, blog post, a page at your website or a paid ad, whip out this handy five-page cheat sheet and steal one of the 102 headline-writing formulas.

Fill in the blank, and you’ve got a killer headline.

It’s courtesy of blogger Chris Garrett, and it could be one of the most valuable tools in your office. Download it here.
     

Why Writing Great Headlines Is Important 

Killer headlines pull people into your copy. They beg to be retweeted. And they often tell the reader, “You have a problem and this article will solve it.”

For added oomph, choose several other headlines from the list and place them throughout your article or blog post as sub-heads, like I’ve done in this blog post. Sub-heads are great for scanners, who often won’t take the time to read every word. They’re visual clues that tell readers what else they’ll find within an article.
     
     
Sample Headlines 

Here are examples of headlines from this free report:

Get Rid of Your ___________ Once and For All

What Your _____________ is Not Telling You About _____________

10 Lies We Tell Our ________________

How to Spot a Fake ________________

5 Reasons _____________ is Better Than _________________

If those don’t fit the article or blog post you’re writing, you’ll find several that will.
     
    
More Tools to Help You

This report is one of 60 free or inexpensive tools I shared during the webinar “60 Ideas in 60 Minutes:  Free (or Practically Free) Tips, Tricks, Tools & Tutorials for Publicity & Social Media.” Click here to read more about what it includes and how to access the video replay and the handouts.

I’ve listed several ways you can use these headlines. How else would you use them?

It used to be easy to find the movers and shakers who were the most influential people within their topic areas. But not anymore, thanks to social media.

PR and marketing pros who need to find the heavy-hitter  journalists, talk show hosts, bloggers, authors, experts and Facebook users who are discussing a particular topic right now, can slog their way through a variety of tools.

They can use Klout, which measures online influence, but only for those who are on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. Klout’s generic score ignores how often that person is quoted or discussed in traditional media.

Google Alerts can tell you instantly which bloggers are discussing certain topics. But the alerts don’t measure the blogger’s influence.

A new tool from Appinions, a New York company, tracks traditional and social media to round out a true picture of influence. It’s a subscription-based service that matches influencers to specific topics, based on opinions it finds from news reports, blogs, tweets, TV transcripts and social networks.
     
    
Give Your Clients an Edge

Within seconds, PR and marketing people can identify the most influential people who can move the needles of influence. Then, they can lead their clients to those experts to comment on a blog post, write a letter to the editor, pitch a story, offer background information for a journalist’s article, or offer commentary for an author’s forthcoming book—long before the client’s competitors are even aware that there’s a hot topic being discussed.

Watch this short video to see how it works.

Larry Levy, CEO of Appinions, will give you a free demonstration, perfect for PR and marketing pros, during a webinar I’m hosting from 3 to 4 p.m. Eastern Time on Thursday, Oct. 13. Register today because we have room for only 50 people.

Levy will explain the three key elements that the service measures to determine influence:

• Are trusted writers and publications covering the influencer’s opinions?
      
• Is the influencer’s opinion being shared, retweeted, quoted, requoted and linked?
    
• When did a certain topic or issue first emerge, and who introduced it?

The ideal company for this service is a PR or marketing agency that has multiple clients and does at least $5 million a year in revenue.

When a favorite journalist is promoted, leaves the newspaper for a new job, or wins an award, smart Publicity Hounds swing into action and deliver their congratulations, a very important part of building the relationship.

Be aware, especially, of things like writing, editing and photography awards. They don’t  mean a hill of beans to the success of the newspaper, but journalists think they are a very big deal. I worked in newsrooms for 22 years, won many awards, and they were a huge deal.

How do you congratulate them without gratuitous brown-nosing? Here are seven ideas:

• Send a handwritten note. Most well-wishers would cop out with an email. But you want to zig when everybody else is zagging. A postage stamp and a few minutes of your time are a cheap price to pay to stand out from the crowd.
• Is the journalist on Twitter? If so, send a congratulatory tweet. Link to an article about the award so others who follow the journalist can read it.
• Are  you friends on Facebook? If so, post congratulations to their wall, and give the URL for the article announcing the award. You can also link to the winning article or project.
• Create a short “way to go!” video and email the link. With a little editing, you can also provide the link for the winning project. Consider posting the video to their company’s website.
• Go ahead. Ask the journalist if it’s OK to post the video to YouTube.
  
• Is the journalist on LinkedIn? If so, consider writing a recommendation. But sure to explain what factors made their work so special, or what happened as a result. This is the place to recommend, not just congratulate.
• Call and leave a short, cheery voicemail message.

Don’t do all of these, or it will, indeed, be brown-nosing. And never sneak in a pitch while you’re congratulating.

What Else You Shouldn’t Do

• No flowers. Women reporters I’ve worked with love flowers, but they’d get the heebie-jeebies when sources sent them.
• No gifts, gift cards or anything of value. Many newspapers have ethics policies that prohibit reporters from receiving these. Don’t put someone in the uncomfortable position of having to return a gift to you.
• No tickets to sporting events, the theater or other entertainment venues.
• Don’t invite the journalist to lunch and dive for the check. He might not be able to accept a free meal. See 18 ways to schmooze with reporters.

Don’t forget sports reporters, copy editors, photographers, graphic artists and other newsroom employees. Ditto for TV producers, anchors, sportscasters, meteorologists and radio talk show hosts. They love being congratulated, too.

What have I missed? If you’re a PR person, a journalist or a Publicity Hound, what ideas can you share that have worked well?

Also see: 12 ways to say “thanks” to a blogger or journalist