The Publicity Hound’s Blog  

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

If you want to create a video for an upcoming event as part of your publicity campaign, or for a product or service you’re launching, and you’re on a tight deadline, here’s a great alternative to a talking-head video where you have to look good.

Animoto lets you produce TV-quality music videos using your own photos, or stock photos, in just minutes. You don’t need any technical expertise. If you can click the mouse, you can create a professional-looking video that has a lot of pizzazz.

I’m doing publicity for my garden club’s annual plant sale May 23. Yesterday, I created this fun little video in less than an hour and uploaded it to YouTube:

 How I did it:

• First, I chose my still photos. I took photos with my iPhone at a garden club event over the weekend. We were planting annuals inside teacups to sell at the plant sale. 
      
• Then I searched Animoto’s limited photo archive for photos of flowers.
        
• Then I bought a few stock photos from iStockPhoto.com.
      
• In Animoto, I lined them up according to how I wanted them to appear in the video.
      
• Next, I wrote all the text boxes. 
     
• When all the photos and text boxes were in place on the tiles, I clicked and dragged to rearrange them. One thing that tripped me up: When you create a text box, it appears as the first tile, right at the beginning of the video. Once you’ve added text, click and drag it to whereever you want it to appear in the sequence.
            
• When I produced the video, I chose one of Animoto’s jazz soundtracks, Blowin’ in from Chicago, from Hank Hirsh.
     
• Animoto worked its magic behind the scenes and delivered a sharp-looking video with fun transitions.

If you don’t like the way the video looks, you can ask Animoto to remix it for you. No two videos are the same, so you never know what the second version will look like.
   
  
Share your Animoto videos

Sharing your videos is a cinch. Add them to your MySpace & Facebook profiles, on your blog, email them to friends, put them up on YouTube or download them onto your computer. I uploaded mine to YouTube, added it to my Facebook profile and sent it to everyone in the garden club. Later this week, I’ll upload the video to the local TV stations’ websites.

Some of Animoto’s founders used to produce shows for MTV, Comedy Central & ABC. They studied classical music in London, played in rock bands in Seattle and developed software in Japan. They developed a patent-pending, Cinematic Artificial Intelligence that thinks like an actual editor and director.
    

How much it costs

You can create all the 30-second videos you want, for free. Each can accommodate from 12 to 15 images.

An all-access, non-commercial pass costs $30. Or buy a non-commercial three-month pass for $99. I paid $249 for an annual commercial pass which gives me several nice options the two others don’t have. First, I can remove the Animoto logo from the video. Second, I can include a button at the end that lets visitors click and visit a website. 

Animoto supports not-for-profits and other humanitarian causes with free pro accounts. You can apply at the site. 

One other thing I’ll do differently the next time I create a video. When I produced the video, Animoto gave me the option of mentioning the musician’s name and the name of the song, which I did.  But after I uploaded it to YouTube, YoutTube notified me and said I might be violating copyright. It said I don’t need to do anything but I can refute that if I so choose. I decided to do nothing.

Also, when visitors click on the link to watch the YouTube video, YouTube gives them the option of buying the music while the video is playing, which is distracting. Next time, I’ll remove the artist’s name from the video.

If you create Animoto videos, share them here. And have fun.

Posted In: Business Promotion, Facebook, Nonprofits, Photos & Graphics, Social media marketing, Special Events, TV Publicity, Video
posted On: 5/12/2009: 12:09 pm: By Joan
Comments: 19 Comments

If you’re promoting a Tweetup, an event where people who Twitter come together to meet in person, or an event that’s open to anyone regardless of whether they tweet—like a class, a book-signing, a fund-raiser, or a fashion show at a department store—check out Twtvite.

Just fill in the blanks on the screen (event name, where, when, time) and describe your event in 140 or fewer characters.

Here’s an example of an event on Friday, May 1, hosted by Hanes, where people can meet their Hanes Comfort Crew bloggers and experience the Disney Design-a-Tee Store at Disney World in Lake Buena Vista, Fla.:

After creating your event, you can also:

• Designate whether the event is public or private, and limit the number of RSVPs.
      
• See pictures of attendees
       
• People following you on Twitter can leave comments and questions.
      
• You can display all tweets related to your Tweetup (and #hashtags).
        
• Make it searchable and available to travelers via TwtTRIP.
      
• Display the location on a Google map and add it to your calendar.
       
• Embed the invitation on your website.

Smart Publicity Hounds should be able to think of all kinds of uses for this.

Public speakers can promote public and private speaking engagements and training sessions. Musicians can promote concerts. Artists can advertise art shows and gallery openings. Tourist attractions can use it to promote upcoming events. Retailers can promote special sales and open houses. Anyone who hosts fund-raisers can reach many more attendees and donors than through traditional media—and for free!

A hat tip to PR pro Judy Lederman, who I love to follow on Twitter, for sharing this. She says she likes Twtvite for these reasons:

“It’s shotgun—an alternative to a more targeted evite (which would be hard to send to ALL your Twitter followers).

“It’s green—no paper needed.

“It’s a wonderful way to facilitate meetings with all the random people you’ve been blasting to on Twitter. It’s always fun to meet people you’ve interacted with online.

“And yes, the events are live—although it could work for virtual meetings I suppose. But the whole point is to invite tweeps to brick and mortar events.  This is the element that is currently a bit weak in Twitter—creating the “bridge”—but apps like this will help facilitate it and hopefully assist retailers in building business.”

How will you be using Twtvite to promote your events? 

Posted In: Authors & Publishers, Business Promotion, Nonprofits, PR Consultants/Publicists, Publicity Resources, Social media marketing, Special Events, Twitter
posted On: 4/29/2009: 3:55 pm: By Joan
Comments: 2 Comments

Gone are the days when we must bow at the altar of traditional media, genuflect, and then pray that they cover us.

David Mathison, who worked in the traditional media in the 1990s as vice president of syndication for Reuters, the world’s largest internatonal news and television agency, calls what has happened during the last decade a ”media renaissance.”

Until recently, generating publicity meant you had to catch the attention of frazzled TV news directors, hassled newspaper reporters and grumpy editors—and often grovel. Publishing books, music and film required years of education and the expensive assistance of publishers, labels, studios, distributors and lawyers. 

No more.

With just a few free or inexpensive tools like the Flip Video camera, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, and a blog, anyone can be the media.

“Artists can leverage low-cost tools and new methods of distribution to connect with their audience directly, and keep more of their royalties and rights,” he says.

How to turn the dream into reality
 

His new book, Be the Media—How to Create and Accelerate Your Message…Your Way, explains how by following three basic steps:

1. Cultivate a Core Audience: Create a direct relationship with your fans, thus cutting out the intermediaries. This enhances the bond between you and the fans, while also increasing both opportunities and profits.

2. Own Your Rights: Control your material so that you have the freedom to create new products and to “repurpose” existing products differently. Artists should avoid exploitative agreements that take all rights exclusively and in perpetuity (which are truly a pact with the devil.)

3. Repurpose Your Work: Because you own the rights, you can constantly reconfigure your material and expertise into a range of progressively higher-value products and personalized experiences for your fans or your clientele.

David was my guest during a teleseminar Wednesday on “How to Use Social Media to Build an Email List and Sell More Products.” 

3 tips on how to use social media         

Here are just a few nuggets from Wednesday’s call:

• On Twitter, lead your followers to helpful, fun information by linking. But don’t link only to articles. Link to photos you find on the Web, or to photos you’ve uploaded to photo-sharing sites. People love visuals.
    
• Look for videos in your topic area or niche—and find the ones that get huge amounts of traffic. Post a video comment to each. They will attract lots of viewers. Then tweet about them. Encourage your Twitter followers and Facebook friends to watch the videos and your video comments, and to encourage THEIR followers and friends to do the same. We even gave you tips on how to retweet.
      
• Speakers, slice and dice a presentation and turn it into a series of two-minute videos that you can upload to video-sharing sites like YouTube. Each can be tagged with its own set of keywords which can pull traffic to your website or blog. 

Listen to the teleseminar

If you missed the teleseminar, you can listen to the replay below, or download the MP3 file.

 
We covered a lot of ground in one hour. You’ll learn:

• How David, a once unknown author, pre-sold 5,004 books in just eleven days—through one new Twitter connection.
    
• How he used Twitter to get invited to a prestigious university symposium and get invited back a second time.
     
• How you can use Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook to build your email list and create an unbeatable lead-qualifying machine.
      
• How to find interesting, helpful content for your Twitter and Facebook followers—and let somebody else do all the hard work! (Today, I found this very helpful list of 50 Content Ideas That Create Buzz.)
       
• How politicans, nonprofits and activists can use social media to raise money, promote causes and win elections.
    
• How authors, speakers, musicians and politicians can use their email lists and social media to sell more books, speaking engagement and albums, and even win elections.

Where to learn more about social media

Here’s a list of blog posts I wrote recently that go into greater depth and explain some of the topics we discussed on Wednesday:

Social Networking ROI—A testimonial more valuable than an ad

4 ways I censor myself in social media circles 

How to use Twitter hashtags for promotion, publicity

How to get Google juice from your LinkedIn profile

Follow Dave on Twitter here and on Facebook here. Follow me on Twitter here and on Facebook here.

Then buy his book. We’d both love to hear your success stories. So would your thousands of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube  friends and followers!

Posted In: Authors & Publishers, Blogs, Business Promotion, Facebook, LinkedIn, Nonprofits, Photos & Graphics, Social media marketing, Social networking, Twitter, YouTube
posted On: 4/11/2009: 2:02 am: By Joan
Comments: 1 Comment

Rose Strong of Springtown, Pa. writes:

“I am a volunteer for the Springtown Farmers Market and I’m looking for some marketing and publicity ideas. 

“We started off with a bang last year but for some reason we lost our shoppers, and our vendors sort of dwindled down a bit.  One week there’d be lots of customers, but not too many vendors, the next week is was a good vendor attendance and a lack of shoppers.

“This year we were fortunate to receive a $10,000 donation from a local resident as well as applying for a Dept. of Agriculture grant.  So we are planning a website, major advertising in a local weekly newspaper and rack cards for local businesses to have on their counters and hand out.   

“What other other inexpensive, creative ideas can your Hounds suggest to help us promote this year’s market from May 20 to Oct 28?”

Posted In: Business Promotion, Magazine Publicity, Newspaper Publicity, Nonprofits, Publicity for Niche Markets
posted On: 2/10/2009: 2:11 pm: By Joan
Comments: 13 Comments