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

PR Pros: When you write a press release, do you share it on social media sites? Experts disagree. http://ow.ly/8486v

15 magnets to help you capture & convert leads at your website. http://ow.ly/83XYg 

Heading To a Trade Show in 2012? 5 Tips for Getting the Most ROI Out Of Your Event: http://ow.ly/859iM

Retailers: 17 ways to use Twitter to engage your audience. [No excuse not to tweet!] http://ow.ly/83UdR

Publicity Tip: Readers LOVE year-end lists, like this one, The 50 Best Workout Songs of the Year. http://ow.ly/83RUZ 

The Essential word List for Lazy PR Writers.http://ow.ly/859s3 

5 ways to master the new Facebook timeline. http://ow.ly/86rsi 

When Business Blogging Works Too Well… | Writing On The Web by Patsi Krakoff, The Blog Squad http://bit.ly/ukgnlr

Do you have a form at your website? Add this clever tool to encourage people to promote you: http://ow.ly/85fX7

Local news outlets among Google’s most-searched terms:  http://ow.ly/85ath

Barbara Roy

This week’s Help this Hound question is from Barbara Roy, a communications specialist  in Oakland City, IN:

“I  need ideas on how to promote an upcoming charity car raffle in 2012 through the Mad Mac Foundation, a group that sponsors educational programs for at-risk youth.

“Proceeds from the raffle will be used to get teenagers, who illegally race their cars on street, into the classroom where they can learn how to build tuner cars from the ground up. The training will help them transfer their skills, which they’ve been using illegally, into career paths that might include auto engineering and design, auto repair, and creating video games that involve cars.  The curriculum includes science, technology, engineering and math.

“Two cars will be given away during the July raffle.

“The winter months will be spent on materials prep and strategy. But beginning in January, we’ll focus more on going after sponsors and businesses to carry the raffle tickets.  I could really use recommendations on how to gain mass awareness for this nationwide event. 

“We will have branding, messaging and content on the website by January, as well as a Facebook event page.  Can your Hounds offer their best ideas?”

If you have ideas, please comment.

Create a buzz all over town long before your store opens.

These days, in a sour economy, businesses opening just about anywhere are major news. So don’t shy away from publicity. Here six ways to promote your retail business before you open.

1. Display a large banner or sign outside your building letting people know you’ll be opening. Thanks to Alyson Stanfield, a business coach for artists and an art marketing expert, for this idea which I read at her blog yesterday.
   
   
2. Pitch the story to the local media. Contact a reporter at your local newspaper, business journal or business magazine and pitch a story about the opening. Angles can include why you chose this time, when the economy is bad, to open a new business.
   
   
3. Write a press release. Post it on a site like Craigslist, which gets millions of eyeballs. Post it only in one category and only in the city closest to where your business is located.
   
   
4. Plan a fun grand opening celebration. Publicize it on a local event sites like Yelp, EventCrazy.com and MeetUp.com.  This list of 27 questions to ask before promoting your event will stimulate ideas and help you plan a more interesting event. Please, no boring ribbon-cuttings. You can do  better than that. Here are some alternatives to ribbon-cutting events.
   
   
5. Just before you open, create a business profile on Google Maps.
   
   
6. Contact related businesses and offer to cross-promote. Ask them to display flyers about your grand opening at the front counter. Tell them that once you open, you’ll be happy to promote something they’re doing. If you’re opening a pet store, contact owners of dog kennels, dog obedience schools and veterinarians.

What other ideas can you offer for ways that retail businesses can promote long before they open? Any examples in your own community?

Leticia Meireles of San Diego, CA, writes:

I just had my birthday and in lieu of gifts, I’ve been asking friends to support a cure for breast cancer.

Many generous business owners helped me to gather almost 100 items to be sold on my fundraising online auction—items on Ebay too. Many of them are from retailers and restaurants in San Diego. Others are for national chains such as Borders and BestBuy. All proceeds will benefit the Susan Komen 3-Day for the Cure.

I need to raise $10,000 but no one seems to be bidding. What should I do differently?  You can see the items up for bid here.

If you need local publicity, and you live in one of 19 states in the United States, or the District of Columbia, Patch.com is almost begging for your pitch.

A memo from Patch editor-in-chief Brian Farnham outlines a plan to increase traffic by increasing article production.

Patch currently requires every site to post a minimum of four times per day, but many are not. Hence, the memo.

Patch covers California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.

It loves news about new businesses, community events, local government, crime, items for the events calendar, columns from local residents and government officials, news tips, and the all-important and often overlooked photos and videos.

This is the perfect time to pitch Patch for another reason.  AOL Inc, which owns Patch, is launching 33 sites in New Hampshire, Iowa and South Carolina, key states that play an early role in the U.S. presidential election.

How to Pitch Patch

1. Build a relationship with Patch writers and editors. Spend time at the Patch site for your community, and identify who is responsible for your local news. The editor’s name and email address is under the logo at the top of the page.
2. Email the editor and ask questions. I’ve found Patch writers to be incredibly helpful and friendly.
3. Many Patch writers are former journalists. And all journalists love to report news first. Keep Patch in mind when hear a newsy item about something in your community.
4. Add Patch to your media database. Every time you write a press release, ask if the content is something that Patch would like.
5. Is your business doing something new? It’s much easier to get business stories onto Patch than it is to get your story told in your local business journal, which usually requires multiple sources.
6. Don’t forget about stand-alone photos with captions, and video. (See How to Use Photos & Graphics in a Publicity Campaign)

One of the other reasons Patch is such a super tool in a publicity campaign is because people can sign up for the Patch newsletter in their community, and receive email alerts.  I’ll often stop what I’m doing when I see the Port Washington/Saukville (Wisconsin) newsletter arrive in my Inbox.

What kind of publicity have you gotten from Patch? Do you have any pitching tips to add to my list?

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?”

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?

When it’s time to promote your next live or virtual event, don’t assume that you’ll find your target audience on all of the Big Three social media sites: Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Spending too much time promoting on one of those sites, particularly if the people who you’re trying to reach aren’t active there, can waste precious time.

The only way to know which sites they like most is to ask them. Or, you can do some quick research.

Better yet, do both.

This morning, Roberta Chopp, one of my Facebook fans, posted the question below on my wall. I’ve decided to answer it here, and link to this post from the comments section, because it will help you understand how to spend your promotion time wisely:

Roberta is assuming that because she has found breast surgeon groups on Facebook, she’ll get a decent response.

If her client is already active in those groups and knows for sure that breast surgeons are too, and that they would want to know about the event, then go ahead and start a discussion in that group about your event. She should also check to see whether her client is connect to surgeons in that group, either as friends or as fans.

Another option is to create an Event on Facebook and invite friends with whom the client is already connected.

But I think there’s a better way.

Most Facebook Groups Ineffective

The truth is, with a few exceptions, the shine has worn off most Facebook groups. As I’ll explain on Tuesday, March 15, when I host the webinar 12 More Ways to Avoid Missed Opportunities on the New and Improved Facebook, Groups have fallen out of favor for two major reasons:

1.  Too many people are using them as places to spam group members.

2.  Facebook Pages offer so many more opportunities to attract a huge following, promote a brand and encourage interaction with fans.

Besides, I wouldn’t expect breast surgeons to be active on Facebook. I’d expect to find them on LinkedIn.

Find Your Target Audience on LinkedIn

I went to LinkedIn just now and used the Advanced Search function to look for contacts who have the word “physician” in their job title and the word “breast” anywhere in their profile. I found 232 people.

Then I searched for contacts who used the word ”surgeon” in their job title and the word “breast” anywhere in their profile. I found 411 people.

But how many groups are devoted to those topics? I found 50 groups that include the word “surgeon” and 422 that include the word “surgery.”

Wayne Breitbarth, a LinkedIn expert, demonstrated how to used the Advanced Search function during my webinar last week on “Your LinkedIn Power Formula: How to Make Killer Contacts, Pull Crowds to Events, be a Star in Your Industry & Track Down Leads Like a Bloodhound.” We recorded it, and you can learn more about what else Wayne taught here.

He explained that if you’re a member of a LinkedIn group, you can communicate with fellow group members even if you aren’t connected to them. So I’d advise Roberta to tell her client to check out the LinkedIn groups that are attracting breast surgeons, and join those groups. Her client can also use LinkedIn’s Event function and share information about the event to all members of the client’s group, as well as the client’s connections.

Those are only two of 12 ways that Wayne explained during the webinar on how to promote events on LinkedIn.

How to Promote on Twitter

Promoting an event on Twitter is about more than just pushing out a steady stream of free commercials of 140 characters or fewer.

Denise Quashie, who is @DQtweets on Twitter, is an event planner in Atlanta who wrote a fabulous list of five tips on how to use Twitter to promote an event. I particularly love her idea about creating a public list on Twitter and adding to it the names of people who have registered for the event.

“No one really knows what to do with the list feature on Twitter.  However, with events it’s simple.  Add every attendee to your event on a list titled “GoingTo[YOUREVENTNAMEHERE]” and publicize the list on your blog/web site.  Let’s face it, people want to go places when other people they know are going.  By showcasing and updating the list you’re giving prospective attendees and sponsors the ability to weigh the odds of attending your event.”  (See How to Use Twitter Lists & Directories to Generate Business & Build Your Brand).

You’ll also find a similar list of Twitter tips for event planners and promoters on the SocialBrite blog.

Use Your Blog, Too

Writing about your event at your blog and offering a Q&A session with a speaker, or posting a video welcome by the keynoter, can be very effective when combined with the Big Three sites above because you can provide so much more information at a blog than you can on the social media sites. Write enticing tweets and status updates on Facebook and LinkedIn, and link those to your blog where people can find more information.

You can publish a series of posts in the weeks leading up to the event and use the social media sites to create a buzz.

All the ideas you see here can keep you busy for months promoting your event. How else do you use Twitter, Facebook and Linked to build anticipation for your events and fill seats?

If you do business in your own community, start participating on Yelp, the popular social media site that helps people share the best (and worst) of businesses like dentists, hair stylists and car mechanics. If you’re a  PR person whose clients are small business owners, incorporate this site into a publicity or marketing campaign.

But don’t try to persuade customers to write positive reviews about you or your client, or you could be sabotaging yourself.

Yelp allows users to contribute different kinds of content, including reviews, photos, events, private messages and more. It’s a powerful way to pull local customers into your store, build a loyal following and promote your events. Yelp is one of the Top 10 sites I designated during the webinar I hosted last month on 50+ Places Online to Promote Your Live & Virtual Events to Reach Your Target Market & Pull Sell-out Crowds.  

Three times in the last week, Publicity Hounds have asked me about the best ways to solicit good reviews for their businesses.

My answer: Don’t, or you’ll be violating the Terms of Service. I’ve explained more about that in this quick guide on how to make the most of Yelp.
     
    
1. Create your profile.

This shows Yelp users who you are, where you’re located, etc. Don’t include your birthday and make it easy for thieves to steal your identity.
   
  
2. Unlock your Business Page.

This video shows how business owners can use the business tools. For example, you should add photos to your listing. If you’re a coffee shop and you use an antique coffee grinder, say so, and include a photo. Is your cafe a popular meeting spot for Meetup groups? That’s worth mentioning.

   
   
3. Add an Event

If you’re a local restaurant and you’re sponsoring a “meet the chef” event, let people know. Don’t forget to take photos of as many in-store events as possible for sharing on Yelp and other sites.
     
    
4. Add your bio.

Keep it fun. What’s your dream for your business? What’s the one thing that persuaded you to do what you’re doing? What’s the most rewarding part of the job?
     
    
5. Choose a personal URL for your Yelp profile.

People can easily get to your Yelp profile without remembering a long, complicated URL.
     
    
6. Offer special discounts.

Encourage people to check out your listing by offering special discounts, special events, or limited time offers on your page. Consider a special discount if a customer says “I saw you on Yelp.” This week, Yelp is rolling out check-in offers, similar to Foursquare.
     
    
7. Recommend other businesses.

Don’t just wait for the reviews to start rolling in for your own business. Review other businesses. (No wheeling and dealing: ”You write a good review for me and I’ll write a good one for you.” See next item.)
   
  
8. Don’t solicit good reviews.

Yelp has a filter that weeds out suspicious reviews. Besides, consumers are very wary of reviews that don’t sound authentic. There’s nothing wrong with a sign in your shop that says “See us on Yelp for special discounts and other events” or something like that. But don’t even suggest that they write a positive review. If customers have something good or bad to say, they will.
     
    
9. If you get a good or bad review, respond to it publicly.

A public response, particularly one that acknowledges problems and promises to make things better, shows that you appreciate the feedback and are committed to improving things for customers. It also gives you a chance to set the record straight if the negative review included errors.

Here’s a helpful list of 10 tips on how to respond to bad reviews.

By the way, Yelp won’t yank a bad review if you’re an advertiser. So don’t waste time asking.
     
    
10. Also respond to good and bad reviews privately.

Responding privately to the person who posted a negative review can reap big dividends. Yelp says that its users often change a negative review to a positive one after they receive a private response, especially an apology, from a business owner.

Don’t view negative reviews as always bad. These reviews flag problems that you might not otherwise know about, and they give you a chance to correct them before you lose business.
     
    
11. Publish your reviews to Facebook and Twitter.

This explains how.

What other ways do you recommend business owners use Yelp? How has it helped you gain a loyal following?

Do you respond to reviews? If not, why not? If so, have you been able to turn a negative review into a positive one?

This week’s “Help this Hound” question is from me and my fellow members of the Port Washington Garden Club in Port Washington, Wisconsin:

We’re sponsoring our first-ever daylong lecture series on Feb. 26, and we’re looking for a catchy title that will really build the buzz and draw a huge crowd.

Guest experts from within and outside the club will be speaking on topics that include tips for gardening with your pet, how to incorparate native plants and dramatic grasses into your garden, unusual plants for shade gardens, the kitchen garden, and how to create a worm farm for richer soil. The event will give local gardeners something to do in the dead of winter in Wisconsin. 

So far, the working title is “Throw off the Winter Blues with a Day of Gardening.” Can you do better than that?

I’m offering a $50 gift certificate for Publicity Hound products to the person who suggests a title that we end up using.