The Publicity Hound’s Blog  

Companies that want  to hire a PR firm, or do their own publicity, can find some helpful suggestions in the Forbes.com article The Single Greatest Marketing Tool.

One tip, however, is just plain wrong.

The article recommends hiring a PR intern from a local college on the cheap, and then using that intern to deal with the press:

“Mine the local schools for eager interns looking to pad their resumes at rock-bottom rates. The smartest can deal with the press, hunt for sponsorship opportunities (such as local events) and even develop a company blog to attract customers.”

You can use an intern to look for sponsors, help with your blog, write press releases, update web copy and call media outlets to verify contact information. But here are four reasons why you should NEVER let a PR intern pitch the media on your company’s behalf:

1. It sends the wrong message. “We’re too busy and too important to call you ourselves. So we’re putting our cheap, inexperienced intern on it.”
       
2. Pitching is an art. Catching a journalist’s attention in fewer than 10 seconds with a compelling pitch is incredibly difficult, even for experienced PR pros who have been doing it for many years. Asking a PR intern to call a business reporter and get a placement is like asking a medical school student to perform your brain surgery.
        
3. Most interns won’t be prepared to answer the media’s questions. Let’s say you have an intern who CAN deliver a great pitch. But the reporter says, ”I’m not interested in that story, but what can you tell me about the four people you laid off last month in your PR department?” The person in your company who deals with the press must know how to answer questions like that one, or find someone quickly who can.
         
4. Many college students have terrible phone manners and don’t sound professional. I know because I get calls frequently from PR firms asking me to confirm or update my company’s contact information that appears in media directories. I suspect their interns are making the calls because most of them sound bored, as though I’m the 1,587th person they’ve called that day. Or, when I start to ask questions, I hear this kind of response: “Well, like, my boss asked me to call you and… like… ” When one youngster got the information he needed, he ended the conversation with “Awesome!”

When I hosted the teleseminar series How to Help Your Boss or Client with a Publicity Campaign, I explained that the person who pitches story ideas about your business must sound professional, understand how to craft a compelling pitch,  answer unexpected questions from journalists, and build relationships with busy reporters and editors. Most PR staffs wouldn’t have the time to train an intern to do all that. And by the time the intern learned the necessary skills, it would be time to go back to school.

You can assign your interns to many valuable projects, like getting your company more involved in social media. But don’t burden them with pitching. It isn’t fair to them, to your company, or to the media.

Posted In: PR Consultants/Publicists, Pitching the Media
posted On: 6/12/2009: 12:52 pm: By Joan
Comments: 6 Comments

Several readers saw the item in last week’s newsletter about getting onto “Oprah”  and wrote to tell me that they pitched ideas months ago and still haven’t heard back from Oprah’s producers. Can they assume their pitches are in the “deleted” folder?

Never!

While getting onto “Oprah” is always a long shot, I’ve heard of cases in which journalists and broadcasters follow up on pitches as long as two years after receiving them. 

I posted a Note to my Facebook page last night, telling my friends that publicists need to update themselves periodically on pitches that are still “out there.” Also, I advised, tell your clients not to be surprised if they hear from the media when they least expect it. Clients must be prepared on a second’s notice to discuss an old story idea. 

Susan Harrow, creator of “The Ultimate Guide to Getting Booked on Oprah,” was on CNBC last week to discuss The Oprah Effect.” Several entrepreneurs discussed how they got onto the show, and what it has meant to their businesses.

I missed the show. If you did, too, you can see a short segment in which Susan gives two tips for getting onto Oprah. (Apologies for the commercial.)

                                                  


Watch a clip of Susan Harrow discussing
how to get onto Oprah

Posted In: Business Promotion, PR Consultants/Publicists, Pitching the Media, TV Publicity
posted On: 6/2/2009: 11:46 am: By Joan
Comments: 2 Comments

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’re unemployed and desperate, it’s time to muster a little creativity, stage a kick-butt publicity stunt, and call on your LinkedIn connections to help land the perfect job.

Enter Beverly Shepard, who has been job-hunting for 16 months and jobless since January when The Virginia-Pilot newspaper eliminated her job as marketing manager and her entire department.

Here’s her offer: Find her a job and you could win up to $6,000.

That’s what she paid a professional search firm when she started job hunting. But the company failed to generate even one interview.

“I’ve paid strangers,” she said. “Why not pay my friends?”

On March 15, she emailed her more than 200 connections on LinkedIn with the offer. The fee is based on a percentage of the salary for the job Beverly accepts.

A $120,000 job pays 5 percent, or $6,000. An $80,000-a-year job pays 1 percent, or $800. She has placed several conditions on the offer. It applies only to full-time positions (40 hours with benefits) and she must actually accept and start work on the job.

She’s willing to move anywhere in the U.S. and she’s open to a wide range of jobs in marketing, business development or public relations.

LinkedIn email pays off

Within 15 minutes of emailing her LinkedIn connections, the leads started pouring in. When her friend, Publicity Hound Gail Kent of The Buzz Factory, heard about what she was doing, Gail offered to write a press release. That led to an avalanche of publicity.

The ABC affiliate in nearby Norfolk called for an interview. That sparked more publicity from FastCompany.com, BlogTalkRadio, TheEbonyNetwork.com and BlackAmericans.com. A friend who’s a college student posted the Norfolk TV interview on iReport.com, the citizen journalist website for CNN. The biggest media hit was an interview on CNN network news April 18.

“I’ve gotten so many leads, I’ve stopped counting,” Beverly says. “I’ve even heard from an old boyfriend who said he’ll keep his eyes open for jobs for me.”

So far, she’s had one job interview as a result of the “Woman for Hire, Will Pay for Work” campaign, and another interview later this month.

She has even heard from Kathryn Troutman, The Federal Resume Guru.

“Kathryn heard about my campaign, emailed me and said she’ll keep me in mind,” Beverly said.

LinkedIn, it turns out, is a super tool for job-hunters.  Scott Allen, a LinkedIn expert who I interviewed last year during a teleseminar on How to Promote Anything on LinkedIn—Ethically & Powerfully, said connections are usually willing to help you promote something, even yourself, as long as they know you’re sincere and that you don’t abuse your relationship with them.
More about Beverly Shepard

Interested in promoting or hiring her? You might want to know:

• She has also worked for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Cox Enterprises, Inc.
• She’s the vice president of marketing for the American Marketing Association for the Norfolk, Va. area and the former president of the Atlanta Association of Black Journalists.
• She’s an award-winning marketer with 20 years in newspapers, and degrees in journalism and law from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

Email her with leads.You can also find her on Facebook. Find her a job, and you’re in the money.

Posted In: Citizen journalism, Facebook, LinkedIn, PR Consultants/Publicists, Social networking
posted On: 5/5/2009: 10:04 am: By Joan
Comments: 2 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