The Publicity Hound’s Blog  

Any day now, you’ll be able to let your Facebook friends and Twitter followers know where you are when you post status updates.

Daniel Ionescu’s article in PC World says Facebook will start adding friend location starting next month, though it’s uncertain exactly how this will work. Twitter turned on its feature briefly this week and then turned it off. On the main stream, Twitter will show maps overlaying individual tweets, together with place names and your location. On both sites, the geo-location features will be optional.

Ionescu offers three reasons for using them:

• To get social recommendation from real people
• To find relevant local news
• To find friends and cool people around you

His three reasons for not using them:

• Criminals are reading Facebook and Twitter status updates, too. I wrote about how unsuspecting Twitterers are showing up on sites like PleaseRobMe.com
  
• Even more advertising in your face
• The lack of control over who actually sees your location.

If you’re planning to use the geo-location features, let’s hear why. If not, why not? Share details of how you’ll use these features in a PR campaign. Comment here.

Posted In: Facebook, Social media marketing, Twitter
posted On: 3/11/2010: 2:44 pm: By Joan
Comments: No Comments

Boring bios are more potent than sleeping pills.

Yet you read them all the time in people’s online press rooms, in their books, and even on the mini-profiles they write on their Twitter and Facebook pages.

Sometimes job-hunters include a useless paragraph of incredibly dull information on their resumes.

Publicity expert Nancy Juetten hates boring bios, too. The arrogant ones really get under her skin. They include sentences like this:

“Complimenting her extraordinary capacities as a prodigy composer of collaborative entrepreneurial masterworks is her former multi-disciplinary career as an entrepreneur and corporate executive, encompassing 34 years of exemplary achievement in well over twelve industries, including…”

She wrote about those kinds of bios at her blog, and  just created the Bye-Bye Boring Bio Action Guide ($49), which should be must-reading for every author, speaker, entrepreneur, coach, consultant and expert who needs to rewrite a bio or make over their current one, and for every job-hunter who really wants to stand out from the crowd.

It includes handy templates, examples of great bios, and work sheets that will help you inject life, fun and even humor into even the most boring bio. 

Nancy is running a special promotion that ended on Sunday. But she said that anyone who writes  “Joan Stewart” in the comments section of their online order form throughout the month of March 2010 can get an anniversary bonus gift, her Publicity Express Digital Workshop which is a package of audio files and other goodies. The bonus applies to the Bye-Bye Boring Bio Action Guide and her DIY Publicity Success System.  Order here.

Here’s Nancy’s own bio:

Nancy Juetten (rhymes with “button”) is a passionate and engaging publicity trainer who shows business owners across America how to get seen, heard, and celebrated in their own backyards … and beyond.  She created the NEW Bye-Bye Boring Bio Action Guide to help job and publicity seekers wake up decision makers and open doors fast.  Her essential advice: “It’s your story.  Tell it well.”

Posted In: Authors & Publishers, Business Promotion, Facebook, PR Consultants/Publicists, Twitter, Writing Articles
posted On: 3/8/2010: 2:10 am: By Joan
Comments: 3 Comments

Lots of people don’t think twice before advertising where they are, or where they’re going, on Twitter or Facebook.

“Dinner’s only half made, but I’m rushing to pick up my kid from soccer.”

“Leaving home and heading to a client meeting at Pete’s Bistro.”

“Outa here for a weekend on the ski slopes.”

If that describes you, and you also use the FourSquare app on your phone, don’t be surprised if your smiling face and your next tweet show up on PleaseRobMe.com, a site that mocks people who broadcast to the world when they’re leaving home and where they’re going.  

Here’s how it works. People download the FourSquare app to their phone and create a profile. You can invite friends from your Gmail, Facebook or Twitter accounts. You then use FourSquare to ”check-in.” When you tell people where you are, FourSquare tells your friends where they can find you and recommends places to go and things to do nearby.

The problem occurs when you tell FourSquare to automatically broadcast your whereabouts to your Twitter and Facebook followers. As soon as somebody checks in, their tweet or message shows up on a scrolling list on PleaseRobMe.com’s home page. Dozens of new messages appear each minute.

Thieves can use the information on PleaseRobMe.com several ways. They can set up a filter and search by username or city. Both Twitter and FourSquare note when you have marked your location. That gives thieves an idea of about how long you’ll be away from home.

“The danger is publicly telling people where you are,” says PleaseRobMe. ”This is because it leaves one place you’re definitely not… home.  So here we are; on one end we’re leaving lights on when we’re going on a holiday, and on the other we’re telling everybody on the internet we’re not home.”

Social Media Rx, the social media assessment I created with my business partner, Jeanne Hurlbert, through our company, MySocialMediaSolution.com, warns people about sharing information about when their homes are unoccupied. The assessment is a series of multiple-choice questions designed to test the user’s knowledge of social media. The report it generates gives each user a customized formula that guides them on what to discuss at social media sites. And it offers hundreds of other helpful suggestions about social media protocol, tips and tools, including advice about safety.

Here’s what our report says about advertising when you’re going on vacation:

Sites like Twitter, where some people bare all, could be a criminal’s best friend. Some people love sharing details of their vacations and other out-of-town trips with their social media friends. But not us. We think it’s smart to never let people know when we’re leaving a house or office that will be unoccupied.

What about you? Do you use FourSquare with Twitter or Facebook, and if so, do you restrict the types of messages you broadcast to the world?

What about PleaseRobMe.com?  Do you think the site is a public service because it underscores the safety problem? Or does it give burglars one more tool? Do you think most of the people who show up on that site have any idea that they’re there?

Posted In: Facebook, Social networking, Twitter
posted On: 2/22/2010: 11:48 pm: By Joan
Comments: 8 Comments

Gabrielle Javier-Cerulli, of Rochester, New York writes:

“I just launched the Global Network of Expressive Arts Facilitators and need to get the word out about it and attract new members on an international scale.

“It’s a membership-based organization for facilitators, all non-therapists, who use the creative process (painting, drumming, singing, journal writing, collage-making) with their clients with the intent of self-discovery, clarity, enjoyment and healing.

“Our mission is to build community for these heart and soul-centered facilitators and also to publicize our members and what they do via listing them on the online directory, by highlighting them in the Member of Week, a BlogTalkRadio show, and opportunity to submit their articles on videos to the website.

“We have Twitter and Facebook pages and a blog. I’d love to hear other ideas of getting the word out to this global niche market. Also, how do we go about finding speaking engagements to talk about the network?”

Posted In: Blogs, Facebook, Social media marketing, Twitter
posted On: 2/16/2010: 10:44 am: By Joan
Comments: 8 Comments

Jenni Bowring-McDonough of St. Paul, MN, writes:

“My husband, Tim McDonough, is a graphic artist who is now producing book trailers at Standard Book Videos.

“Because I work in publishing, I introduced him to our president who hired Tim to design several trailers (book videos) for us. That’s terrific, but Tim needs more exposure to attract more clients. He advertised in the event catalog for a regional publishers conference and he will be running an ad in ForeWord Magazine’s national online newsletter later this month. 

“We have reached out to other local publishers to introduce Tim’s business. He’s on Twitter, and we will be building a Facebook page soon. We have also reached out to other contacts via the local Book Publishers Association, but thus far, to no avail.

“I even pitched Tim’s story of reinventing himself after 20 years in broadcast news to several weeklies and dailies, but no one bit on the idea.  We have also begun branching out into web videos and hope to expand into promotional/sales web videos for small businesses. Thanks for any and all advice!”

Posted In: Advertising, Authors & Publishers, Facebook, Twitter, Video
posted On: 2/9/2010: 12:46 pm: By Joan
Comments: 8 Comments