This week’s Help This Hound question is from Anne Roos of South Lake Tahoe, CA:

“I’m an author and I’ve received 40 free books from the publicist I used last year, 20 copies each of  ”The Musician’s Guide to Brides: How to Make Money Playing Weddings” and “The Brides Guide to Musicians: Live Wedding Music Made Easy and Affordable.”

“They were copies supplied without cost from the publisher to be sent out for review. Since I didn’t pay for them, I want to do a giveaway.

“What’s the most effective way to do a contest/giveaway? Where do I post it to get it noticed? Should it be a quiz with a question of the day? Should it be some kind of silly trivia? I just don’t know how to attract people to a little contest.

 ”Even when I had a big grand prize giveaway that I tried out about a year ago, it garnered very little interest. I’d love ideas from your Hounds on how to really attract attention with this.”

Ideas are welcome below. If you have your own dilemma involving publicity or social media, email it to me.

“The Musician’s Guide to Brides: How to Make Money Playing Weddings” and “The Bride’s Guide to Musicians: Live Wedding Music Made Easy and Affordable”

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One of the biggest myths of press releases is that they must contain news.

That was true two decades ago when we wrote press releases primarily for journalists and we had to worry about insulting them with trivia about our business.

But now that we post them online, mostly to pull traffic to our websites, we’re free to write about whatever we wish.

Here, then, are 13 press release topics when your pockets are empty and there’s absolutely nothing newsworthy to write about. They’re excerpted from my free email course on 89 Ways to Write Powerful Press Releases. (PR people, take the course to sharpen your press release skills. And then use the tips below when you’re scrounging for ideas to publicize your clients.)

Publicity Hounds who have a subscription to Expertclick, The Yearbook of Experts, which lets you post up to 52 press releases a year, will find these tips particularly helpful.

1.  Take a Stand on a Controversial Topic

Controversial topics can include everything from the old standbys such as abortion and gun control to local issues like proposed zoning laws.

When you’re done with the press release, generate extra publicity by writing a letter to the editor of your local or national newspaper. How to Use Newspaper & Magazine Editorial Pages shows you all the ways you can rally support for your cause or issue by using editorial pages, from writing letters to asking for a meeting with the newspaper editorial board.

2.  Write About Your Blog 

If you’ve started blogging for business, write a press release about it so people who want information on your topic can find it. Or devote the release to some of the things you mentioned in a specific post.

This blog, for example, helps people solve problems writing press releases, and I encourage people to submit questions to me. It also teaches people how to use social media sites to self-promote. I could write two press releases, or more, just telling reades about ways they can use this blog. You can, too.

Visit other bloggers who blog on the same topic, or a similar topic, and post comments at their blogs. By linking back to your blog from your comments, you will improve the page ranking of your own blog.

3. Lead Readers to Free Articles at Your Website

If you have free articles that solve people’s problems, or entertain them, say so.

Are your articles arranged by category? Are they updated monthly? Do you let the media, ezine publishers, newsletter editors and bloggers reprint them? Do you feature articles from other industry experts?

4. Tell People Where to Find You on Social Media Sites

Smart Publicity Hounds use Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Quora profiles to position themselves as the go-to sources in their industries.

Do you post your photos and videos to Flickr? Do you have a YouTube channel chock full of helpful how-to videos? (Here’s mine.)

5.  Create Your Own Holiday

Create your own day, week or month of the year, or your own holiday, at Chases Calendar of Events. The listing is free. You can then use that holiday as a springboard to even more publicity.

The topic doesn’t have to be serious. In fact, the more fun, the better. I love Doing Business in Your Bathrobe Day.

6. Make a Prediction

Predict something that ties into your area of expertise—or not.

Predict when gasoline prices, the stock market or interest rates will rise and fall. For fun, predict who will win the Super Bowl or when the first snowfall will occur in your area. Predict the winner of local or national elections.

7. Issue a Proclamation

Congratulate the local high school football team for winning a state title, or a local business for celebrating its 10th anniversary.

8. Write Tips That Tie into an Upcoming Holiday

Professional orgnizers can write about how to stay organized during the Christmas holidays. A child safety expert can offer tips on how to keep kids safe during fireworks season on the Fourth of July.

9.  Identify A Trend You’re Seeing in Your Business or Industry

You don’t even have to think very hard to identify a trend you’re seeing. How has your customers’ behavior changed the way you do business? What’s happening with your orders? Is your nonprofit serving more people in a particular age group or income level?

If you want to cheat, Google “Top trends in the (fill in the blank) industry” and write about one of those.

10.  Comment on Breaking News

This one’s easy. The news can tie into your business or industry—or not. If you’re an expert who welcomes interview requests for radio talk shows, say so in the release. See 6 ways to tie your pitch to breaking news for PR and publicity.

11. What Event Are You Attending?

Most people don’t think it’s a big deal if they attend a trade show or industry conference. But why not turn this into a publicity opportunity?

Write a press release telling people that you’d welcome meeting them. Encourage them to ask you questions about problems they’re facing.

12. Take a Poll or Survey

Sites like Survey Monkey make simple polling a breeze.  You can also take a poll on Facebook. Don’t forget to write a follow-up press release that reports on the results of the poll.

13. Explain How to Solve a Problem

Press releases offering tips and advice are often the very best for pulling traffic to your website. That’s becauase you can dazzle readers with your expertise, help them solve their problem, and then link to a website where they can find more information about a product or service you sell that can help them even more.

What topics do you write about when the idea well is dry?

Tools to Help You:    

How to be a Kick-butt Publicity Hound

Keywords: The Magic Magnets That Pull Journalists & Consumes to Your Press Releases

The New Rules of Press Releases: How to Write them for Consumers, Not Only for Journalists

The Big Press Release Samples Ebook: Press Releases for Every Occasion and Industry

If you want to write a guest blog post at your favorite blog, and you’re writing the pitch,  don’t make the five mistakes this blogger made when he emailed me today.

Can you guess what they are?

Here’s the entire pitch:

OK, what did the blogger do wrong? But let’s be fair. What two things did he do right?

Comment below. I’ll return here a week from today and share my thoughts.

Whoever comes closest to identifying the five mistakes, and the two things he did right, wins a $100 coupon good for Publicity Hound products.

Go to it, Hounds!

Heather John of Los Angeles, Calif., asks this week’s Help This Hound question:

“I created and manage the Facebook business page for an online store and I want to set something up on Facebook (maybe through Events?)  where we send out a mass Facebook message inviting previous customers to like our new Facebook business page.  (There are about 30,000 people on file in our customer base, though many may not have a Facebook profile.)

“The idea is that I would say something like, ‘Like [our company] on Facebook and get a promotional code for 10% off.’  But how can I set it up so that it sends the code automatically to anyone who likes us (for a limited time)?  Is there an app that I can make for that or do I just have to respond directly to each individual Like?”

The Publicity Hound says:

I’m getting more questions like this from Publicity Hounds who want to know how to reward people for Liking their Pages but I don’t think there’s an app available for what you want to do.

Wildfire is an online software application that lets you create branded interactive campaigns like sweepstakes, contests, give-aways and incentive-based surveys, and to simultaneously publish them in multiple social networks and on your website, but I haven’t tried that yet.

I’m experimenting with Suggest This, the Faceboook app at  that lets you suggest to 20 friends at a time that they vist your Page and Like it.  But it doesn’t reward them for doing so.

Please share your comments on how you actually reward visitors for Liking your page, with coupons, discounts or other incentives, and what kind of return on investment you’ve seen.  And please include a link to your Page so we can see it and Like it.

Update on April 26, 2011: Blogger BL Ochman, who commented below, just wrote an excellent post:   Disturbing trend: Big brands pimping Facebook “Likes”.

Actress Julianne Hough is teaming up with the national “got milk?” campaign and Seventeen magazine to find nine girls throughout the United States to become the next Milk Mustache stars.

The “Power of 9″ campaign emphasizes the power of milk’s nine essential nutrients and encourages girls to celebrate the power of looking and feeling their best, which can inspire confidence and help girls reach their goals.

The campaign is looking for girls who “are not afraid to speak up; who are confident; respected, quirky and smart; and know that lowfat milk is an important ingredient for a well-balanced life. ”

Watch the video:

    
    
How to Enter

Teens can log onto the site and submit a short video that shows who they are, what inspires them, and why milk is an important ingredient in their lives. The website also includes Hough’s tips for making a winning entry, plus other sample submissions from teens.  

Hough and a panel of judges will choose the top entries, and teens across the U.S. will have a chance to vote on their favorite nine.

Winners will be flown to Los Angeles where they’ll meet their fellow winners before posing together for a Milk Mustache ad, to be featured as a special two-page spread in the pages of Seventeen magazine this fall.  They will also be able to write at the Power of 9 blog on Seventeen.com.

This is a terrific opportunity for any girl who wants publicity.
    
   
My Ideas on How to Use This Contest 

• PR people, your clients’ daughters might want to know about this.
• Nonprofits, if your cause or issue ties into the topic of healthy eating, or girls, this contest is a natural for you. 
• Schools, let your students know.
• Girls Scouts, 4-H and Campfire Girls, tell your members.
• If you blog about these kinds of topics, and your audience would want to know, share this with your readers.
• Spread the news on Twitter and Facebook.

Drink up! And start shooting.

Taglines, those pithy one-liners that follow the name of an organization, can let people know within two seconds what your organization does and how it helps them.

Yet too many companies don’t have a tagline because they can’t think of something clever.

If that’s you, Nancy Schwartz’s 2010 Tagline Contest for Nonprofits will inspire you. Nancy is a nonprofit marketing expert, and she’s sponsoring the third annual Getting Attention Nonprofit Tagline Award (a.k.a. The Taggies).

“A strong tagline does double-duty—working to extend your organization’s name and mission, while delivering a focused, memorable and repeatable message to your base. It’s one of your most basic, and effective, marketing tools, but a GettingAttention.org survey showed that 72% of nonprofit organizations don’t have a tagline or rate theirs as performing poorly.”

You can see a complete list of 2008 and 2009 tagline winners here.

These are some of my favorites:

Montana Historical Society:
Big Sky.  Big Land.  Big History.

Texas Nonprofits:
Building community deep in the hearts of Texans

The United Negro College Fund:
A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste ®

PA Breast Cancer Coalition:
Finding a curenow…so our daughters won’t have to

Nothing But Nets:
Send a net.  Save a life.

Homeboy Industries:
Nothing Stops A Bullet Like A Job

NYC Theatre Spaces:
Where Actors Find Their Space

If you want to enter this year’s competition, turn it into a fun contest for your organization. Ask your employees, volunteers and others to submit ideas for the your tagline, and then award a prize for the best one. Once you’ve chosen it, enter it in the 2010 Taggies contest.

Do you have a clever tagline? If so, share it here.

The most fun thing in my office: A miniature replica of my first car, nicknamed “The White Tornado”

Fiction writers often struggle with what to write about at their blogs.

Help is on the way.

1. What writing problems do you struggle with, and how do you solve them?
2. Share fun facts about geographic locations where your romance novels or other fiction takes place.
3. Pay attention to questions people are emailing you. Often, these are great fodder for a blog. (Excerpted from the handout “101 Ways to Find Content for Your Blog” from the teleseminar Time-saving Tips for Smart Business Blogging.)
4. What’s the most unusual thing in your office that inspires, entertains or humors you?  Make sure to include the photograph when you post.  Mine is a miniature replica of my first car: a 1962 white Chevy Nova we affectionately nicknamed “The White Tornado.”
5. What sparks your creativity?
6. Who is your hero?  And why?
7. What one event in your childhood had the greatest effect on your writing career?
8. If you weren’t doing what you do today, what other job would you have?
9. Who is your best friend, and what do you like best about him or her?  List your best friend’s favorite books. How do they compare to yours?
10. What “lesson from mom” do you still live by today?
11. What’s the one thing you want to accomplish, or write about, before you die?
12. If you could spend a week anywhere in the world, where would it be?  Would you write or read there, or do something else?
13. Do you have a pet that keeps you company when you write?  If so, write about him or her.  Has your pet taught you anything about writing?  If so, what?
14. What’s the worst writing mistake you ever made that taught you a valuable lesson?
15. What’s the most unusual place you have visited?
16. What’s the most unusual book you’ve read that’s made a lasting impression on you?
17. If you could have a quiet dinner with just one author, who would you choose?
18. Create a survey that’s related to the topic of your book and share it with readers.  Report the results.
19. Create a fun quiz about one of your books and award a cool prize.

Finally, the very best free tool for finding content for your blog is Google Alerts. Create one or more alerts using keywords or keyword phrases that tie into the topics you write about. You’ll have so many ideas for blog posts that you’ll wonder how you ever worried about finding enough.

Authors, what do you blog about? Which posts elicit the greatest number of comments from your readers?

Here’s a great example of how to generate publicity from an embarrassing mistake.

When the editors of Texas Dogs & Cats magazine discovered a typo in a paid ad in the April issue, they invited readers to find the typo. Everyone who emails the editor with the correct answer gets a coupon for $5 off an order of $10 or more.

Brilliant.

Deadline for entries is April 30.

It reminds me of a story I heard several  years ago about an author who discovered a missing line from her book after it had been published. She invited writers to write their own line to replace the one that was missing, and awarded a prize to the winner.

Does anyone know who the author was? What about embarrassing mistakes in your own work? Have you turned it into a contest?  If so, tell us how.

How 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.