Here are my Top 10 tweets from this past week, great for retweeting! If you missed these, follow me on Twitter.

10 content marketing tips for 2012. http://ow.ly/8mLqd

Top 3 Video Marketing Lessons from Nielsen. http://ow.ly/8mLRO

Bloggers: Want (recurring) donations from your readers? Just ask! http://ow.ly/8ohOz

Daily newspapers going the way of the milkman. http://ow.ly/8ox57

Authors: 10 Cool & Creative Ideas for Bookmarks. http://ow.ly/8pyWH

Blogggers & Columnists: Submit your best stuff for the 2012 Column Contest. http://ow.ly/8oy5O

How to Destroy Your Online Reputation in 3 Days or Less http://ow.ly/8obvQ

How to learn which content you’re sharing on Facebook is hitting your fans’ hot buttons. http://ow.ly/8ohbA

5 incredibly fun ideas to build your fan base & engage them on Facebook & Twitter. http://ow.ly/8mNYQ

16 things to check when you edit. http://ow.ly/8mNBH

Here are my Top 10 tweets from this past week, great for retweeting! If you missed these, follow me on Twitter.

Top 10 creative writing blogs. http://ow.ly/8gzJb

Top 5 New Year’s Resolutions for improving your presence on LinkedIn. http://ow.ly/8gBr9

10-point checklist for growing your blog in 2012. http://ow.ly/8gBY9

10 reasons why you might not be attracting the right (or any) Twitter followers. http://ow.ly/8i6tI

Authors, do you make these 3 disastrous book-writing mistakes? http://ow.ly/8i8gM

New to speaking? 5 great venues where you can book gigs and learn the ropes. http://ow.ly/8ikNR

How bloggers can use book reviews to connect with expert authors & tips on how to write reviews. http://ow.ly/8ikbh

3 big benefits to reading your articles aloud before publishing, from Ann Wylie. http://ow.ly/8jvrx

Get credit for your PR brilliance. Bulldog’s Media Relations Awards deadline is 1/16. http://ow.ly/8kuYP

Hospitals: Want Boomer business? Focus on content marketing & social media. http://ow.ly/8kw7n

Recruitment & Retention Tips Booklets

Information products can become out of date so quickly, particularly those dealing with social media sites or any type of technology.

For that reason, I’m cleaning out my massive inventory and practically giving away more than 20 titles.

CD and transcripts, regularly $39.95, are only $5 each, plus shipping.  Tips booklets on employee recruitment and retention, regularly $5 each, are $1.35, and include shipping.

Even though many of the products are out of date, all of them include valuable tips that are still as good today as they were when I created the them. Topics include Facebook, how to get PR clients, press releases, nonprofit publicity, how to get your own TV show, special event planning and promotion, employee recruitment and retention, and more.  Here’s the complete list of titles.

Some of the CD titles are gone already, and we aren’t reordering, but you can still order the transcripts. Grab them while you have the chance. 

Questions? Contact my assistant, Christine Buffaloe, at 619-955-5772 or Chris (at) SerenityVA.com.

When Google, the King of Search, gives Publicity Hounds an easy way to let our websites and blogs stand out, we need to embrace it with all four paws.

The newest tool is the +1 button, shorthand for “this is pretty cool” or “you should check this out.”

You’ll start seeing it popping up on websites and blogs.

Here’s how it works.

When you install the code that makes the button visible on your own site, people who like your content can click on it and tell Google and others that they’re recommending it.  It’s Google’s equivalent of Facebook’s Like button.

But here’s the really powerful part.  When you recommend somebody else’s content, your photo shows up when that person’s website is listed in Google’s search results.  But your photo will show up only if you already have a Google Profile. Here’s an example:

 
Do these four things today:

1. If you don’t have a Google Profile, create one. 
       
2. Read more about the Google +1 button.  Here are Google’s FAQs. You can find a video and a helpful tutorial from Francisco Rosales at the SocialMouths blog.
      
3. Install the button at your website and blog.  Or save yourself the headache and have your webmaster do it for you.
     
4. Start recommending content you see elsewhere by clicking on the +1 button.

It’s too early to tell how successful the button will be, and whether it will go to the Google graveyard like the failed Buzz experiment, but you’d be crazy not to at least try it.

Do you think this button will catch on?

Online video is the most powerful tool on the Internet for driving traffic to your websites and services.

That’s why I have my own YouTube channel.

Search engines are focusing on online video to deliver the content their customers are looking for and have even changed their search parameters to push video to the top of the search results.

What does this mean for you?  Your business can get quick, effective search engine results that could take your websites months or even years to achieve, all for next to nothing to produce.

There are secret tactics that successful marketers and smart Publicity Hounds are using on free hosting sites such as YouTube that are bringing an avalanche of traffic to their websites.

My friends, Colin Martin, who edits my video, and Marc Bullard are offering a free one-hour webinar to show you how easy it is to pull traffic for specific keywords that your customers are typing into the search engines.  ““YouTube Super Secrets: Getting Views, Subscibers and Branding Your Business” will be from 8 to 9 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday, May 18.

Here’s What You’ll Learn

One of the biggest mistakes most people make (OK, I’m guilty as charged) is creating the video first. And then, when it’s time to upload the video to YouTube, they’re scrambling to come up with enough keywords to pull traffic.

If they’re in a hurry, they sit and guess which words their customers will be searching for, because there’s no time to do keyword research. Collin and Marc will show you how to do the critical keyword research you need BEFORE you start shooting.

You’ll also learn:

• How to properly fill out your video titles and descriptions for maximum search engine placement.
• How to find subscribers and friends for your channel.
• How to brand your channel to effectively promote your business.
• How to use comments wisely to drive traffic to your channel.
• How to share your YouTube video on all of your other social profiles.
• How to script your video to get the most traffic to your website.
• How to decipher YouTube’s statistics program to create better videos.

A Super Bonus

They’re also offering a killer bonus on how to add duplicate video content to your channel without it being rejected.  Smart Internet marketers know that the search engines frown on duplicate content. But this trick is so sneaky—and so effective—that YouTube doesn’t want you to know about it.

Who should attend the webinar?

Authors, coaches, consultants, public speakers, musicians, small business owners, and publicists who want to incorporate video into their clients’ PR campaigns.

Register for the free webinar. We’ll see you on May 18.

Don Luepnitz of Norwalk, CA, writes:

“I am with the Norwalk, CA,  Moose Lodge, and we can sure use some help getting the word out and trying to get new people to come down and or join.

“We offer dinners, breakfast, bingo, darts, full bar, kids room, and have fundraisers for ourselves and other charites. We also sponsor kids’ sports teams, and we have a Facebook Fan Page.”

“How can we use traditional and social media to attract more members and visitors?”

What nasty things are people saying about you online, even if they haven’t done business with you?

Has somebody tried to buy a product at your website, but a glitch in your shopping cart wouldn’t put through the order?

Have they called you, left a message, but no one has returned the call?

Have they filled out one of those annoying customer service tickets at your website, but never received a reply?

Unless you’re regularly searching for “(Your brand) sucks,” as in “Publicity Hound sucks,” via the search engines, or on a site like Twitter, how would you ever know?

I seldom use Twitter to gripe about my consumer problems, but during my nightmare with AT&T last week, I couldn’t help myself.

I switched Internet and telephone service from AT&T to Time Warner Cable, and cable service from Direct TV to Time Warner. When I called AT&T to ask a simple but important question about ending my service, I was transferred to the wrong department four times.

The fifth agent, who promised to stay with me on the call until I got through to the right person,  said she, too, was frustrated because no one would answer. But by then, I’d been tweeting about the experience, using the hashtag “#attsucks”. 

Six of my Twitter followers started replying, either complaining about their own experiences with AT&T, or simply commiserating:  

Finally, @ATTJessica, responded: 

But that time, the fifth agent was so frustrated, she called up the notes in my account and answered my question for me. (Why didn’t she just do that as soon as I was transferred to her?)

Companies ought to be monitoring Twitter, Facebook, discussion boards and consumer websites and trying to help. But more importantly, they can save a lot of wear and tear on their brand if they provide excellent customer service from the outset.

I’ve been a new Time Warner customer for less than a week and already love their service.

• I dealt with the same salesperson when I ordered Internet, phone and cable service, and she gave me her direct phone number if I needed to call her back. AT&T won’t assign you one agent. In fact, I called AT&T three times about the same problem and got three different answers.

 

• I can call Time Warner tech support 24/7. AT&T isn’t available on weekends. This was particularly annoying when, over the weekend, I could make calls but couldn’t recevie them. Time Warner tried to solve the problem, but couldn’t, because AT&T agents weren’t available.

 

• Time Warner’s friendly agents don’t put me on hold while trying to get answers to my questions. They always ask if they can call me back. And they do. Promptly.

 
What companies have you dealt with that have provided such horrendous customer service that you’ve shared your bad experiences online? Did they find your complaints and respond? Did you stop doing business with them and switch to a competitor?

The next time you generate publicity in a major newspaper or magazine, or at a blog, or you get onto a TV or radio show, don’t stop there.

You also need to publicize your publicity.

That’s what Michelle Tennant of Wasabi Publicity is doing, after landing her client, Landmark Education, in an article headlined Friendly Fight: A Smarter Way to Say “I’m Angry” in  Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal. She first heard about the need for sources when her company received a query from the journalist and posted it on PitchRate.com, Wasabi’s media leads service.

Turns out that Michelle already had had a relationship with the reporter. And she not only responded with her own client, but she did much of the leg work finding couples who the journalist could interview.

She emailed me earlier today to share the good news:

“A career high for me, Joan.  I just HAD to share it with you.  Masthead teaser of the Wall Street Journal for my client Landmark Education.  Here’s my blog post in case you can use it and remind people you were my mentor years ago!!!!  You helped me understand the subtle needs of newspapers because of your background.”

So I asked Michelle, one of the first graduates of The Publicity Hound Mentor Program,  to make a list of all the ways she’s going to publicize the publicity. Here’s her short list:

1. Twitter.com.
2. Facebook post.
3. Blog post featuring my role.
4. New business reference; secure quote from client and/or media contact about placement.
5. Suggest to media contact that I would love to help their media friends and co-workers (this landed me another HUGE top tier contact).
6. Add to new business proposals and new business conversations.
7. Thank media contact.
8. Create short Bitly links to track traffic inside social media.
9. Share with other media contacts, affiliates, family and friends about mentioning this placement in how to score PR, build media relationships and teach others about what it takes & how long it takes to score such a placement (look in mirror Joan–wink–you are part of this task).
10. Do a YouTube video promoting; discussing placement.
11. Schedule a teleseminar discussing how placement was generated.
12. Add to websites establishing further credibility.
13. Write “how to score media coverage like this” bylined articles for web portals, blogs, magazines and other media venues.
14. Invite radio and TV producers to interview me on how I scored the WSJ front page masthead.
15. Challenge potential new clients to find out from competing PR firms the size, scope and timing of their recent media coverage to see if they can top a WSJ front page masthead within the recent year; any PR firm worth their salt will have top tier media coverage in the past year or don’t hire them.

Michelle, by the way, is the consummate expert at piggybacking onto breaking news events to generate publicity for her PR clients. That’s why I invited her to be my guest on the webinar I hosted last year on ”How to Tie Your Pitch to Breaking News and Make the Media Interview YOU.”

Many of the items on her list above come from years of generating media hits. Can you think of anything else that should be added to her list?

Here’s another hyperlocal website to add to your publicity toolbox: EveryBlock, perfect for publicizing local news in bigger cities, and also for finding other local blogs and media outlets you might not know about.

MSNBC.com bought it in 2009 and unveiled the new version yesterday.  It operates in 16 cities mostly on the east and west coasts: Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, Portland, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle and Washington, D.C.

EveryBlock offers news down to the block level and encourages collaboraton among neighbors.  Enter any address in one of those cities and you’ll see news articles, blog coverage, crime reports and a wide variety of other local information, all updated throughout the day. 

You can also submit your own news, which they don’t edit.  Create a free account, and you can participate in discussions and even get email updates.
   
  
3 Main Types of News

• Civic information, including building permits, crimes, restaurant inspections and more.  In many cases, this information is already on the Web but is buried in hard-to-find government databases.  In other cases, the data hasn’t been posted online, but Everyblock gets it through government agencies.  
      
• News articles and blog entries, including information from major newspapers, community weeklies, TV and radio news stations, local specialty publications and local blogs.  If you can track down a local blogger who you didn’t know about, you can start pitching that blogger when you have local news to share. I found Meetups and even school reviews for Atlanta.
      
• Fun from across the Web, including local photos posted to the Flickr photo-sharing site, user reviews of local businesses on Yelp, and lost and found postings from Craigslist.  You’ll even find local deals from Groupon and ValPak.
       

This site is perfect for news from clubs and civic groups, schools, nonprofits, churches, political campaigns and neighborhood groups, and it’s continually updated daily throughout the day. EveryBlock welcomes you to draw a map of your own neighborhood (the example here is from Atlanta) if you don’t see it on the master list. 

It differs from Patch.com because EveryBlock concentrates on larger motropolitan areas. Patch is for suburbs and outlying areas. 

I’m adding EveryBlock to the long list I’ve already accumulated and shared on the webinar 50+ Places Online to Promote Your Live or Virtual Events to Reach Your Target Market & Pull Sell-out Crowds.  
     
    
Share a Tip for Using EveryBlock

Are you already using EveryBlock? If so, share tips on exactly how you use it, or how it has saved time for you.

If not, how will you integrate it into your publicity campaign?

This month’s guest blog post is from Mark Macias, a crisis communications consultant. He runs a TV production and PR company that has consulted with restaurants, retailers, lounges and Congressional candidates. He also wrote the communications book, Beat the Press: Your Guide to Managing the Media.  You can read excerpts at BeatthePressBook.com. 

By Mark  Macias
Guest Blogger

Everyone likes to secretly Google himself, but what happens when Google turns up results you don’t like? How do you get your name removed from the search engines when the material is damaging?