The Publicity Hound’s Blog  

Dalia Wallach of New York, New York writes:

“My company has a line of specialty hair care products. Our Get Glow products nourish your hair with formulas that include vitamins, minerals and plant extracts.

“As your hair gets healthier, it starts to look better and you don’t have to wash it as often which is better for your hair’s health. Our products have wonderful scents and really make caring for your hair a more pleasurable experience.

“We’ve gotten a fair amount of coverage in national magazines which you can see at http://getglow.com/press.html but we need more people to find out about us and experiment with our products. Do your Hounds have ideas for spreading the word?”

Posted In: Business Promotion, Magazine Publicity
posted On: 7/29/2008: 7:45 am: By Joan
Comments: 9 Comments

Here’s a quick trick for creating news when there’s absolutely nothing new to pitch.

Be willing to talk about your business problems and how you solved them.

Pick up any business journal and you’ll see company after company mentioned, usually because they’ve figured out ways to solve a problem, whether it’s delivering the product faster to customers, or finding and keeping great employees, or how to enter a new market that’s already crowded with competitors.

But these stories don’t only play well in business journals.  They’re great for general interest magazines, daily and weekly newspapers, and television, particularly if you have enticing visuals.

This tip is one of more than a dozen I’ll be sharing tomorrow during Bulldog Reporter’s teleseminar on “Evergreen Magic for PR: Media Masters Show How to Make News When There’s No News.”

We’ll talk, for example, about editorial hot buttons: pegging your story to rumors, future trends, features, divisive issues, dramatic hooks and other sure-fire ways to supercharge your hit ratio, even when you’re not breaking news.

Four other panelists will join me, and moderator Brian Pittman will make sure we move things along quickly so we can squeeze in everybody’s tips.  Don’t miss this one!  It promises to be fast-paced, and you’ll come away with enough ideas to keep yo upromoting through the end of this year and beyond. 

Posted In: Business Promotion, Magazine Publicity, Newspaper Publicity, PR Consultants/Publicists, Pitching the Media, Publicity Resources, Publicity on the Internet, TV Publicity
posted On: 7/23/2008: 3:48 pm: By Joan
Comments: No Comments

Teresa Berger of North Wales, Pennsylvania writes:

“As marketing director for Creative Contracting, Inc., a Philadelphia-area design/build remodeling firm, it’s my responsibility to get the company and its ownership more exposure in the community.  The owner wants me to get him in front of more people, and find outlets for giving seminars and speeches to consumers, business networking organizations and others.

“With a tight marketing budget and limited resources, how can I work toward positioning the organization and owner as “the premier design/build firm in the area”? Any innovative, cutting edge suggestions from Hounds?” 

Posted In: Business Promotion
posted On: 7/22/2008: 12:42 pm: By Joan
Comments: 8 Comments

This is for the doubting Thomases who aren’t convinced that social networking can be profitable.

I promoted last week’s teleseminar series “How to Use LinkedIn to Promote Anything–Ethically & Powerfully” by creating an event on my Facebook page.  My assistant then invited my 1,028 friends.  At $77, I wasn’t sure how many Facebook friends would attend, but it was definitely worth it.

Fifty-four people RSVP’d to tell me that they were attending, or had already signed up.  That’s $4,158 in registration fees just from Facebook!  Something else started to happen.  I started to build the buzz about these teleseminars.  Warren Whitlock, one of my Facebook friends, wrote on my wall:

Kim Beasley, The Blog Queen, who Warren referred to, has more than 400 followers on Twitter, and I have no idea how many of those people signed up after reading her tweet.

If I still haven’t convinced you, you can listen to social media success stories galore at The Social Media Summit Sept. 10-12 in Chicago, sponsored by Ragan Communications.  I attended Ragan’s “Unconference” on social media last year in Chicago.  I made great contacts, came back with hundreds of tips to share with you, and learned about how to incorporate social media into my own marketing campaigns.

At this year’s summit, you’ll learn about Web 2.0 strategies such as podcasts, message boards, video and wikis.  The conference includes one track for internal communications and a separate track for external and marketing communications. Curious about what Web 3.0 might look like? You’ll get a sneek preview.

I hope to see you there.  This conference is so important that I worked out a special arrangement with Ragan.  Publicity Hounds save $100 on the $1,195 registration, plus an additional $100 if you take advantage of the early-bird registration, which has been extended to this Friday.  To get $200 off and pay only $995, you must use this link.

Let me know if you’re going to the conference.  Maybe we can have coffee between sessions.

Posted In: Blogs, Business Promotion, General, LinkedIn, PR Consultants/Publicists, Publicity on the Internet, Social media marketing, Social networking, Video
posted On: : 10:12 am: By Joan
Comments: No Comments

Response to the two teleseminars I’m hosting today and tomorrow on “How to Use LinkedIn to Promote Anything–Ethically & Powerfully” has been overwhelming.

I sold the last of the 100 seats on Tuesday morning. (You can still sign up to receive the MP3 audio and electronic transcripts, however.)

Anybody who has a LinkedIn profile must know how to squeeze every last drop of networking out of every single connection.  Or, like many people on LinkedIn have sadly discovered, that long list of names you’ve collected is…well…nothing more than a long list of names.

Many of the 100 people who were on today’s call own a business or work for PR firms.  For them, LinkedIn is a no-brainer.

Social networking is a much harder sell, however, in large companies, based on some of these comments I’ve heard:

“Our boss wants total control over our image.”

(Tell the boss there is no such thing as total control over your image.  Just ask Dell computers, Wal-Mart or any other company that’s been skewered by bloggers and in online discussion groups.)

“We’d rather spend our efforts getting stories in The New York Times and USA Today.”

(Guess where many of those reporters search for sources?  On social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn, and at blogs.)

“We’ve decided that Web 2.0 isn’t where we want to spend our time.”

(Too bad.  Your clients, vendors, shareholders, competitors and hundreds of potential customers spend lots of time using social media and Web 2.0 to connect with their key audiences, often with great results.)

Popular blogger and internal communications expert Steve Crescenzo says that two years ago, everybody was talking about Web 2.0 and social media.  Today, the smart companies have stopped talking about it and they’re DOING it.

“I talk to hundreds of communicators every year in my seminars and consulting work, and go into dozens of companies.  And I can tell you this: The time for big talk and theories about social media is over. The time to actually use these tools to dramatically improve how you communicate is now.”

Steve is conference organizer for The Social Media Summit Sept. 10-12 in Chicago, sponsored by Ragan Communications.  I attended Ragan’s “unconference” on social media last year in Chicago and it was fabulous–sort of an unstructured, free-flowing day in which so many tips and ideas were bouncing around that I couldn’t type my notes fast enough.

This year’s Social Media Summit will include example after example of how companies are using podcasts, message boards, social networking sites, video, widgets and other Web 2.0 applications to get closer to their key audiences.  You’ll even get a peek at Web 3.0.

The conference includes one track for internal communications and a separate track for external and marketing communications.

I’ll be there and I hope you’ll be, too.

I worked out a special arrangement with Ragan.  Publicity Hounds save $100 on the price of registration, plus an additional $100 if you register by Friday using this link.

See you in Chicago!

Posted In: Blogs, Business Promotion, Crisis Communications, PR Consultants/Publicists, Publicity on the Internet, Social media marketing, Social networking, Video
posted On: 7/16/2008: 9:34 pm: By Joan
Comments: 1 Comment