The Publicity Hound’s
Tips of the Week
Issue #435 Jan. 27, 2009
Publisher: Joan Stewart
mailto:JStewart@PublicityHound.com
http://www.PublicityHound.com
http://www.publicityhound.net/ (Blog)
Circulation: 43,505
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“Tips, Tricks and Tools for Free Publicity”
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New Teleseminar:
Can Your Social Networking Profile Pass the 10-Second Test?
Next time you’re surfing around Facebook or LinkedIn, pay
attention to how much time you spend on other people’s profiles
before you click away.
Then, be honest. How boring is your own? Online decisions are
made with clicks, and if your profile isn’t creating clicks TO
you instead of clicks AWAY from you, then chances are you have a
social networking profile that spells B-O-R-I-N-G.
Join Nancy Marmolejo and me for a paid teleseminar on Wednesday,
Feb. 11, when we ask the question “Can Your Social Networking
Profile Pass the 10-Second Test?”
Read about what you’ll learn, register for the session, and tell
us why Nancy should remake YOUR profile during the call. All the
details are at my blog at http://tinyurl.com/blvdby
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In This Issue
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1. When Oprah Calls on Sunday
2. 5 Big Blogging Boo-boos
3. Pitch Spring Gifts Now
4. I Don’t Want You to Disappear
5. Promoting Abstract Art
6. Help This Hound
7. Hound Joke of the Week
8. And at My Blog…
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1. When Oprah Calls on Sunday
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So there you are on a Sunday afternoon, watching TV with the
kids.
The phone rings. It’s one of Oprah’s producers, following up on a
pitch you sent several months ago.
Panic time! You can’t remember the details. You can’t even
remember the pitch!
That’s what happens when you send a story idea to Oprah or one of
the big TV talk shows and mistakenly assume that if they don’t
bite within a month or two, they’re not interested.
Big mistake.
Oprah’s producers work insane hours, including Sunday afternoons.
That’s why you must be ready at a moment’s notice to discuss your
story succinctly and with passion, even when the kids are
screaming and the dog is barking in the background.
But before you receive that phone call, your pitch has to catch
the producer’s attention. It’s one of the most difficult feats to
accomplish because it must be compelling enough to pique their
curiosity, but not so long that it’s rambling.
Michele Anton, a former guest booker for “Oprah,” has accepted
and rejected hundreds of pitches. She knows what works and what
doesn’t, and she’ll share her tips during a complimentary
teleseminar that my friend, Steve Harrison, is hosting on
Thursday, Jan. 29, at your choice of two times.
Michele will explain what NOT to send to producers, what NOT to
pitch to guest bookers, and mistakes you should never make, or
the decision-makers will blackball you forever.
Then, she’ll explain the three big secrets for doing it the right
way. You’ll also hear from other veteran TV producers and
surprise guests.
Register at http://tinyurl.com/Oprahcall
Then, read about my Number One tip for getting onto Oprah and the
other big TV talk shows. It’s at my blog at
http://tinyurl.com/ab9lkh
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2. 5 Big Blogging Boo-boos
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Working too hard on your blog and seeing little traffic, hardly
any comments and zero sales?
If so, Denise Wakeman and Patsi Krakoff, aka the Blog Squad, say
it might be because you’re making one of these five frequent
mistakes:
–You’re not blogging often enough, usually because you don’t
have time. Here’s my solution. Each week, I’m trying to reduce by
at least one hour the time I spend answering email (unproductive)
and using it instead to write on my blog.
–Your blog isn’t focused on a topic, or a series of related
topics. If your content is all over the landscape, you can’t get
the Google juice necessary to pull in traffic for specific
keywords.
–Your readers don’t know who you are because your name, or your
photo, or both, are missing from your blog. If they don’t know
who you are, how in the world can they eventually like and trust
you?
–There’s no way for your readers to subscribe to your blog
updates. Either you aren’t offering an RSS feed, or you’re not
letting readers subscribe to automatic email alerts each time you
post.
–You aren’t engaging your readers and making them part of the
conversation. Instead, you’re writing only about topics you like.
Offer quizzes, write about controversial topics and ask for their
opinions, find out what topics they what to read about, or
challenge them to do something that will improve their lives.
Keep them engaged, and they’ll keep coming back.
Those are only five little morsels from the dozens of tips The
Blog Squad shared during yesterday’s teleseminar on how to “Build
Your Biz with a Blog: It’s Not an Option Anymore!–How to Build a
Professional Blog that Turns Prospects into Clients.”
You can listen to the replay at
http://blogsquad.audioacrobat.com/download/bizblog_012609.mp3
Important Note: Wednesday night, Jan. 28, at midnight is the
deadline for The Blog Squad’s special offer for Publicity Hounds
who want to take 20 percent off the price of any of their three
levels of coaching. That means that if you want them to do
everything for you, including setting up your blog so you don’t
have to bother with all that techie stuff, you can save $400.
Go to http://www.theblogsquad.net/joan and at check-out, use the
code js20 so you don’t have to pay full price.
Grab it now, or kick yourself later.
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3. Pitch Spring Gifts Now
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With all the shake-ups in the newspaper, magazine, TV and radio
industries the last few months, you can’t afford to rely on
outdated reference materials.
If you sell a consumer product, including a book, that would make
a great gift for Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Graduation Day, a
prom, a wedding, or any other event taking place in April, May or
June, you must know about the Gift List. It’s a subscription
service that provides contact information and leads for more than
1,000 media outlets.
It profiles new product editors from a range of national
magazines, regional publications, news wires and syndicates,
national broadcast television, syndicated television, national
radio, and the top daily newspapers.
The Gift List interviews them and profiles their interests from
fashion, beauty, tech, home, fitness and more. This is the time
to kick your spring publicity campaign into high gear because
deadlines are now for major national magazines.
Nobody produces a more extensive list of consumer product media
interests, submission guidelines, contact preferences, deadlines
and more.
Learn more about the service and take a test drive at
http://tinyurl.com/9es8y
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4. I Don’t Want You to Disappear
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I recently changed servers at the list management company that
distributes this newsletter, and I don’t want you to drop off my
list.
Please add galaxy.sparklist.com to your Friends list or Whitelist
and contact me immediately if you suddenly stop receiving the
newsletter so we can find out what went wrong.
You can find back issue you have missed in the archives at
http://www.publicityarticles.net/archive/
Thanks for your loyalty, Hounds, and for your great ideas,
publicity success stories and other content for this newsletter.
Making sure readers continue receiving your newsletters is a
major problem, but the rewards are worth it. You will increase
your chances of generating publicity if you have both a blog and
an ezine, and cross-promote from each.
I interviewed online marketing expert Don Crowther, who is a
stickler for testing, on all the ways to cross-promote. He
explained the results of his tests during our teleseminar on “How
to Use a Blog and an Ezine Together to Grow Your Business.” It’s
available as a CD or an electronic transcript that you can
download and be reading as soon as your order has been approved.
Read more about what you’ll learn at http://tinyurl.com/79383q
Coming soon: My survey, asking you about what you want to read
here, how I can serve you better, and what products and services
you need that I don’t offer. And you’ll love the way I’ll say
“thanks” to everyone who completes it.
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5. Promoting Abstract Art
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This week, three Publicity Hounds have tips for Beth Stafford of
Concord, N.C., an abstract artist who is looking for a few quick,
simple ways to promote her website at
http://www.bethstafford.com/ and her blog at
http://www.airedale-art.blogspot.com/
From Michele Bailey-Lessirard:
“Your art and website are beautiful. My first reaction is why not
blog more. The last post was back in October. It’s about UFOs
which was very interesting and leaves me wanting to know more
about you–and then there is nothing…Join Facebook. Start
twittering in your dog Cassie’s voice, from Cassie’s perspective.
Play up the PiCassieO angle. It’s original and fun.”
From Shelli Johannes-Wells:
“Market to dog organizations, hotels that allow dogs, pet stores,
veterinarians, etc…”
From The Publicity Hound:
Dive into social networking right now, or leave a lot of money on
the table. Here are three of my best tips:
–Create a profile on Facebook and build one or more fan pages.
This is the place to display and promote your artwork. Fans do
not have to be followers. That’s why these pages are so valuable.
–Also, start uploading photos of your artwork to Flickr, the
photo-sharing site.
–Create videos, or an entire series of short videos (about 2
min, 30 seconds each) of you, dog Cassie and your artwork, and
upload to YouTube and the other video-sharing sites. These will
bring tons of traffic to your website.
If you’re new to social networking, find a teen-ager to walk you
through how to do all of the above. For many more tips, check out
“How Artists Can Sell More Artwork through Online & Offline
Publicity,” a recording of a teleseminar I did with art marketing
expert Ariane Goodwin, at http://tinyurl.com/yvewm8
Read all the responses to this week’s Help This Hound question
http://tinyurl.com/7jqucq
Send your own Help this Hound question to:
mailto:JStewart@PublicityHound.com and include your city and
state.
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6. Help This Hound
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Michele Lessirard of Vero Beach, Fla. writes:
“I have been blogging for more than seven years at New Moon
Journal http://www.newmoonjournal.com and my blog
http://newmoonjournal.blogs.com
“Now, there’s a high-profile Harry Potter-type author named
Stephanie Myer who’s written a series of vampire novels. One
best-seller is New Moon. Of course, I am competing now for search
engine optimization with her New Moon book and soon-to-be movie.
The New Moon Journal is an astrology blog dedicated to creativity
and personal growth using the lunar cycles for power, healing and
problem solving.
“How can I use this name recognition and ride on the coattails of
her book. Is it possible?”
The Publicity Hound says:
It sure is. The many authors, publishers and book publicity
experts who read this newsletter can post their best ideas to my
blog at http://tinyurl.com/dnju3x
Here’s my idea. Go over to Amazon.com and review Stephanie’s
books, which will let you link back to your blogs. You can also
create “best of” lists dealing with your topic and all kinds of
other content to attract the attention of her readers.
Randy Gilbert and Don Mitchell are all over that website and pull
in tons of traffic to their own sites as a result. They were my
guests during a teleseminar on “How to Make Amazon a River of
Gold (for Authors, Speakers & Experts).”
It’s available as a CD or an electronic transcript that you can
download and be reading as soon as your order has been approved.
Read more about how to piggyback onto the popularity of other
best-selling authors or products at http://tinyurl.com/7u76e
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7. Hound Joke of the Week
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Thanks to Elaine Grassbaugh of Columbus, Ohio for this one, which
I ran by the censorship police. They said go for it.
Yesterday I was buying a two large bags of Purina Dog Chow at
Wal-Mart for my dogs Dexter, Gypsy, Sky, & Blade. I was about to
check out when a woman behind me asked if I had a dog. (What did
she think, that I had an elephant?)
Since I had little else to do, on impulse I told her that no, I
didn’t have a dog, and that I was starting the Purina eating plan
again, although I probably shouldn’t because I ended up in the
hospital last time. On the bright side, though, I’d shaved off 50
p~ounds before I awakened in an intensive care ward with tubes
coming out of every hole in my body and IVs in both arms.
I told her that the way it works is to load your pockets with
Purina nuggets and simply eat one or two every time you feel
hungry, and that the food is nutritionally complete so I was
going to try it again. (I have to mention here that practically
everyone in the line was enthralled with my story by now.)
Horrified, she asked if I ended up in intensive care because the
dog food had poisoned me. I told her no–a car hit me after I had
stopped in the middle of the parking lot to lick my butt.
I thought the guy behind her was going to have a heart attack, he
was laughing so hard! Wal-Mart won’t let me shop there anymore.
DOG JOKES & QUOTES EBOOK: 170+ G-rated dog jokes and quotes,
perfect for a dog-lover, your favorite vet, or just for a few
good laughs.
BONUS: Buy the ebook and you also get a compilation of the 50
best websites for dog humor.
http://www.publicityhound.com/dogjokebook/
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8. And at My Blog…
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Show both sides of your life at social networking sites
http://tinyurl.com/cygctz
Here’s another keyword density tool for press releases
http://tinyurl.com/ca7haw
My #1 tip for getting onto ‘Oprah’ and other big TV shows
http://tinyurl.com/ab9lkh
Can your social networking profile pass the 10-second test?
http://tinyurl.com/blvdby
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WHERE TO SEE AND HEAR THE PUBLICITY HOUND:
Monday, Jan. 26–Teleseminar Replay
During yesterday’s “Boost Your Biz with a Blog” teleseminar,
Denise Wakeman and Patsi Krakoff, aka The Blog Squad,
explained how to draw more traffic and boost more sales from a
blog. Listen to the replay at
http://blogsquad.audioacrobat.com/download/bizblog_012609.mp3
March 6-8–Atlanta, Ga.
I’ll be at the Stompernet’s Live7 event. If you’re going, let’s
meet for coffee.
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Reprinted from “The Publicity Hound’s Tips of the Week,” an ezine
featuring tips, tricks and tools for generating free publicity.
Subscribe at http://www.publicityhound.com/ and receive by email
the handy cheat sheet “89 Reasons to Send a News Release.”
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Joan Stewart
a.k.a. The Publicity Hound®
3434 County KK
Port Washington, WI 53074
USA
Phone: 262-284-7451 (Central) Fax: 262-284-1737
