The Publicity Hound’s Blog  

It’s difficult enough keeping up with all the updates, profiles, friending, etc. at social networking sites.

So thanks to Chris Knight of EzineArticles.com for reminding us to cross-promote from these sites and to include social media links in our EzineArticles.com profiles. 

His website is now supporting LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter & FriendFeed. Here’s a sample of what his author bio looks like with those links added:

He offers 6 simple steps to quickly add your social media links.

If you haven’t quite gotten this far yet and you’re still creating profiiles for yourself at some of these sites, see How to Use Twitter for Business & Publicity and Use LinkedIn to promote–ethically and powerfully.

Posted In: General
posted On: 7/1/2008: 11:13 pm: By Joan
Comments: No Comments

Michelle Suter of Frisco, Texas writes:

“Our company, Administaff, is a professional employer organization that serves as that serves as a full-time human resources department for small and medium-sized businesses.

“We have had a great deal of national advertising, yet my best clients are small business owners in the Dallas/Fort Worth area who have from seven to 50 employees.  How do I take our ‘big’ PR and marketing message and localize it so my prospects get our message in a way they can relate to?

“I feel as though they don’t understand that ‘Small Business is Good for America, and Administaff is Good for Small Business.’” 

Posted In: Business Promotion, General
posted On: : 12:03 pm: By Joan
Comments: 1 Comment

Savvy Publicity Hounds are already using Twitter for business and publicity.

Twitter has become so popular, in fact, that almost daily, people are creating a variety of tools and widgets to help you Twitter faster and more effectively, and locate tweets about you and your company. But with more than 350 Twitter tools from which to choose, where do you start?

Today’s issue of Larry Chase’s excellent newsletter “Web Digest for Marketers” includes the top 18 Twitter tools and resources.

Decide which ones you want to use, and then follow me on Twitter.

See “Special Report #52: How to Use Twitter for Business to Network, Promote, Sell, Recruit & Profit.”

Posted In: General, Publicity on the Internet, Social media marketing, Social networking
posted On: 6/30/2008: 3:53 pm: By Joan
Comments: 5 Comments

About half the posts on the popular blog Gawker deal with pop culture and celebrity gossip. That’s why it’s all too easy to dismiss this blog as frivolous.

But Michael Sebastian, a former Chicago newspaper reporter who writes for Ragan Communications, says Gawker is must reading for anybody in PR. That’s because the other half of Gawker’s posts deal with the PR, advertising and marketing industries.      

In his blog post The blog PR pros should be reading, Sebastian says:

Gawker bloggers are talking about your industry—and so are the dozens of comments each post gets. ..Gawker is to public relations what The Huffington Post and Drudge Report are to politics: informative, thought-provoking, slanted, infuriating.

As for its celebrity news, every good Publicity Hound should be paying attention and piggybacking onto celebrity gossip every chance they can get. In my Special Report #50: How to Piggyback on the Celebrity News to Promote Your Product, Service, Cause or Issue, I give numerous examples of how other self-promoters have done that. One of the best is Debra Holtzman, a child safety expert who distributes online press releases via Expertclick: The Online Yearbook of Experts about topics like Britney Spears driving her car with her baby on her lap to tips on how Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes can create a safe nursery for little Suri.

Another reason to read Gawker. A tip of the hat to Dan Janal of PRLeads.com for this one.

Posted In: General
posted On: 6/25/2008: 10:34 pm: By Joan
Comments: No Comments

If you subscribe to a service that gives you leads from journalists who are looking for certain types of sources, pay attention to the way the reporter has written the query.

Peter Shankman, whose free leads service called “Help a Reporter Out,” flags this terrific pitch from Jenny Schmitt, who works for the Georgia State Parks.

“Every once in a while, I come across SUCH a great pitch, so perfect in form, function, so on target, and so exactly what the reporter is looking for, I’ve no choice but to call the pitcher out and blog about it.

“Jenny Schmitt saw a pitch on HARO about fun father/daughter ideas that wouldn’t cause a ‘guy to get his guy card revoked.’ Seeing that the reporter obviously had a sense of humor, Jenny crafted the perfect pitch, filling it with information, exactly what the reporter wanted, and topped it off with a touch of humor. I don’t know what the result is (Jenny, let us know!) But I just had to call this pitch out as one of the best I’ve seen in a while. Learn from this one, gang.

How about it, Jenny? Did you get the publicity?

Posted In: General
posted On: 6/24/2008: 1:21 pm: By Joan
Comments: 1 Comment