The Publicity Hound’s Blog  

My friend, TV producer Shawne Duperon, has a terrific idea for tying publicity into the July 4 Independence Day theme.

Think of a “freedom from…” and use that in your pitch. Examples:

—A health department in the Midwest might pitch tips to give people “freedom from mosquitoes” after the recent floods.

—Credit counselors can pitch a story idea on “freedom from credit cards.”

—Tourist destinations can encourage people to have “freedom from the presidential campaign commecials” by escaping to a vacation get-away.

—A bicycle shop can pitch a story on how sales of bikes are giving people “freedom from high gasoline prices.”

During a teleseminar Shawne did with me on “103 Sizzling Story Ideas from July through December,” Shawne says TV producers love those kinds of tie-ins, even if they don’t relate directly to the July 4 holiday. I’ve seen this kind of an idea land in newspapers, too, but it’s of greater appeal to broadcasters than the print media.     

It’s also worth remembering that on long holiday weekends like the upcoming July 4 weekend, news departments are working with skeletal crews. That means that print and broadcast media might welcome decent-quality user-generated amateur video on topics they might not even consider reporting on during the typical busy weekday.

Posted In: Pitching the Media, TV Publicity, Video
posted On: 6/30/2008: 11:39 pm: By Joan
Comments: 1 Comment

If you’re a member of your local chamber of commerce and the only thing you have to show for it is the receipt for your annual dues, don’t even think about dropping out.

Because you’re a smart Publicity Hound, you have an opportunity right at your fingertips to be a star in the organization and generate so much publicity for yourself that all the other members will be scratching their heads, wondering how in the world you’ve done it. Nonprofits, this applies to you, too.

Here’s what to do.

The next time the chamber has an event that the local media won’t cover, act like a reporter and cover it yourself. Buy an inexpensive Flip video camera and interview people at the event. (The camera shown in the photo above isn’t a Flip.)

If it’s a routine chamber breakfast meeting with a speaker, interview the speaker after the presentation for a segment of two to three minutes. At the same breakfast, create another short video. Ask the chamber president to provide a brief infomercial of upcoming chamber events like the annual golf outing or street festival.

At bigger events, like the annual awards banquet, interview the Business Person of the Year. If you really want to create a stir, choose a controversial topic that chamber members are buzzing about, like a proposed sales tax increase in your state. Interview one person on each side of the issue. You’ve just created two more videos.

Import the videos into your computer, which takes a minute or two, edit them, upload them to your website, give the chamber the links to the videos, and then watch what happens.

The chamber will probably email all its members and tell them to go to your website. Many of those members will share the links with their friends. The links will end up in the next chamber newsletter. And who knows where else.

Here’s the best part. You can offer that same videos to the local newspaper, magazine and TV and radio stations for use at their websites. Print media, in particular, are hungry for user-generated video, even if it’s of events that they’ve decided not to cover.

That’s what videographer John Easton does in Charlotte, North Carolina. He covers local business events and uploads them to his blog, or to his own streaming video channel, sort of like his own TV station, and then he offers the video to local media.

Too busy to fuss with all these details?

John says every community is teaming with people who you can hire for next to nothing to shoot and edit the video for you. He explained how to find them when he was a guest on a teleseminar I conducted recently on “9 Clever Ways to Use Video to Become a Publicity Darling in Your Industry or Community.”

If you’re not a member of a chamber of commerce, you can still cover events in your community and submit the video to local media that are hungry for user-generated content.

Posted In: Blogs, Business Promotion, Citizen journalism, How to Interview, Magazine Publicity, Media Leads, Publicity on the Internet, Radio Publicity, Special Events, Video
posted On: 6/3/2008: 6:35 pm: By Joan
Comments: 1 Comment

Of all the people who need to promote what they’re sellings, artists are among those who have the most difficult time.

I don’t know why. But Nicolette Tallmadge, who blogs at The Crafted Webmaster, offers 10 tips on How to Use Online video to Promote Your Art. She makes an interesting point. People who buy artwork love to watch artists at work. They’re also curious about things like what inspired the artwork, if the artist sells fulltime or has another job, and if more works are being created.

“Those who attend craft shows say that meeting the artists and talking with them about their artwork is part of what makes the whole experience fun. If you sell exclusively to galleries or exclusively online…this is an important piece of promotion that you are missing.” 

That’s where video comes in. Create a video showing your artwork in various stages of completion. Or talk about what inspired you to create it, how long it took, and even stories about problems or challenges you encountered along the way (people love this stuff!). 

In additon to Nicollete’s many great ideas, I think artists—and anyone else for that matter—should embed video links within press releases. They make the releases more interseting and will help them rank higher in the search engines. My free email tutorial ”89 Ways to Write Powerful Press Releases” explains everything you need to know about how to write and distribute direct-to-consumer releases.

That’s the topic I discussed during the second annual smARTist™ Telesummit in January. Artists from 35 states in the U.S. and 12 countries participated in the art career conference that taught artists about topics like marketing, how to sell more artwork and how to license their work. Ariane Goodwin, who sponsored the telesummit, is offering all the conference materials for sale at her website.

The testimonials from artists who already have seen great results from the telesummit and the line-up of guest experts ought to convince any artist that the materials can turn “just a hobby” into a thriving business.  Artists, you have until June 16 to take advantage of the early-bird special.

Posted In: Business Promotion, Press Releases/News Releases, Video
posted On: 5/30/2008: 10:24 am: By Joan
Comments: No Comments

One of the best ways to use video for publicity is to give visitors to your website the red-carpet treatment by taking them on a video tour of your site. 

I’m creating a video right now for that very purpose, using Camtasia Studio 5.0. It’s a software program that captures whatever is on your monitor screen. The screencasts can be saved in a range of formats, including Flash, WMV, AVI and QuickTime.

The latest version, by the way, is far superior to Camtasia 2.1. One of the coolest features is the writing tool, so you can actually “write” on the screen with a red marker. Or change the color if you wish.

I’m experimenting by starting my video with a “talking head” clip of me in front of my computer screen, created with my Flip Video camera, then segueing to the Camtasia video tour. Come to think of it, a video tour would be equally helpful at a blog.

The “Welcome to my website” video idea is one of several ideas for using video that I’ve explained in my new article “Amateur video can propel your publicity campaign, search rankings.”

What does placing video at your website have to do with getting publicity? Several things:

• If journalists visit your site and see a helpful video that leads them by the hand and takes them through your website, they will be more inclined to stay.
• Ditto for visitors who aren’t journalists.
• The more journalists are impressed with your website, the more inclined they will be to cover you.
• Any tour of a website should certainly include a short explanation of your press room. This is the place where journalists can find what they’re looking for quickly. And if you’re smart, your press room will explain all the ways you can help journalists, like mine does at the bottom of the page.

Stay tuned…

Posted In: Business Promotion, Publicity on the Internet, Video
posted On: 5/2/2008: 11:09 am: By Joan
Comments: 3 Comments

Stop wasting time trading links with other websites, posting the same how-to article to a gazillion article directory sites, and doing sneaky little things at your own website to try to trick the search engines.

Those strategies can actually hurt you.

Spend your time instead creating video, one of the most powerful ways to pull traffic to your website or blog.  It can boost your position in the search engine rankings and, in some cases, take tons of business away from your competitors.  Do it right, and they’ll be so shell-shocked they’ll pack up and go home.

During my 70-minute teleseminar “How to Use Web Video for Your Website to Pull Traffic, Impress Visitors, Make the Phone Ring and Close the Sale” with video expert Mike Stewart earlier this month, the 400 people who were on the line listened as Mike outlined lots of creative, powerful ways to use video in your publicity campaign, or to sell a products or services.

We’re not talking about full-length productions here.  Just short clips of about two minutes or less.

Here are our ideas on how to use video in a publicity or marketing campaign:

—-Create short videos about your products and services, upload them to your website, and include video links in your press releases.

—Speakers, create short video snippets of your presentations and post them at your website.

—Use videos to demonstrate how to use your product.

—Authors, create short little videos that discuss portions of your books.

—Take visitors on a tour of your website using a screen-capture software program like Camtasia.

—Shoot your own video of events the media won’t cover, and submit the video to local newspapers and TV stations, many of which offer consumer-generated video at their websites.

—Use video on a one-page sales letter.  If a picture is worth a thousand words, video can close the sale.

—Generate leads and pull traffic by creating videos and posting them to YouTube and other video-sharing sites.

—Use video at your blog, or create a video blog on a free Wordpress platform like I’m doing.  (I should be ready to introduce it to you next week.)

If you missed last week’s call, you can hear the replay by clicking the link above.

Mike will show you the absolute easiest-to-use equipment you’ll need to start producing video that will turn you into the type of marketing warrior that will send your competitors running home to mommy.

P. S. Many of you who participated in the call emailed me, asking if Mike and I could give you more options in terms of buying a camera, the editing software and the training tutorials.  You said you want to get comfortable shooting and editing video first before you create a video blog or a one-page sales letter.  We have.  Now you can get what you want when you want it.  Take another look here. 

Posted In: Blogs, Business Promotion, Video
posted On: 4/29/2008: 8:52 am: By Joan
Comments: 2 Comments