Get free publicity for your business by tying into breaking news stories

I often write about online PR but lately a lot more of my clients want to get interviewed by the media. If you get a story published it can be good for you in many ways. Media web sites get excellent rankings from search engines and you’ll also get print coverage.

In my book, I Need a Killer Press Release, Now What??? I talk about tying into the trend or news to get coverage. When you’re the local angle to a national story, or you can comment on the hot topic of the day, TV producers, newspaper reporters, and bloggers will practically beg to talk to you. It’s one of the best ways to get free PR for your business.

But too many people miss this opportunity. They don’t pick up the phone or email. They think the media are too busy. Or they don’t know what to say.

But this is the very best time to pitch. I’ve seen it work with my clients.

There’s a PR webinar next week that I highly recommend:

How to Get Free PR by Tying Your Pitch to Breaking News

by Joan Stewart with guest Michelle Tennant of Wasabi Publicity

Time and date:
3 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday, July 21

Registration:
$39.95 (includes a link to the webinar video if you can’t attend live and a PDF of the slides)

Register for the webinar

Publicist Michelle Tennant will explain the exact details of what she does when she pitches a client during a breaking news event.  She’ll even show you the word-for-word email pitches she sent to the media–pitches that resulted in major publicity for her clients.

She’ll also tell you about a free media resource website she uses, thus saving her thousands of dollars on media directories.

I’ve worked with Joan and have been a guest on a webinar she held about using keywords in press releases. It was an absolute honor. She always delivers such practical advice that you can implement. Plus her webinars are very affordable. She wrote a recommendation for my book too. Because of the trust I have in her work, I am an affiliate of Joan’s programs.

I attended the IABC and PRSA joint conference in Salt Lake City Utah yesterday.  I’d probably talk more about trends in social media, crowdsourcing stories with Twitter and Facebook, promoting content with social bookmarking, etc. It was only half a day though.

Here are 3 takeaways from the conference – because Cary Snowden asked me to.

1. Your online newsroom is a dinosaur.

As speaker David Henderson pointed out most online newsrooms are “graveyards for press releases.” He sets up WordPress-powered newsrooms that have rich content that is updated frequently. Not just from the company but stories from industry leaders, customers and employees. It should be multimedia rich with video and images that anyone can use in blog posts or stories. Tie in your social media sites. This one change can have a huge impact on a company – even impacting stock prices. It definitely helps your search engine rankings.

Example: ISCNewsroom.com

2. A successful viral campaign has unintended (positive) consequences.

When the legendary “Will It Blend?” campaign started with $50 and an idea to “sing and dance” the product – they had no idea where it would take them. They simply wanted to show how their $400 blender could blend just about anything. It was 2006 and YouTube was not well-known. My favorite is the Glow Sticks blend. I finally got to see a live blend – of a rake handle.  It was scary but fun.

Here’s what the campaign led to and takeaways:

• When video blending the iPad didn’t impact sales they connected the video about the iPad to a campaign to their web site where you could go to win a free in tact or blended iPad. That helped. At times it felt like they were advertising Apple more than Blendtec.

• Their new infomercials and boxes will say “As Seen on YouTube” rather than the way most companies make it say “As Seen on TV.”

• The campaign spawned additional opportunities such as co-branded blending where they took a new Nike shoe that was a combination between 2 shoes and blended it. They’ve done shows for other brands too.$200K will buy you a custom blend.

• Sales went from $24 million to 40 million in 5 years and their consumer blender now sells better than their commercial blenders. Even in a recession.  Total blender sales are up 700% from 2006.

• They sold blended products etc on eBay and a blended iPod fetched $1k (which they gave to charity). One episode showed them trying to return a blended video camera to Best Buy claiming they accidentally dropped it in. The manager didn’t buy the story that a blender could do that. Classic. I’m laughing about it again as I type this!

• The campaign has been called one of the most successful marketing campaigns ever. It has been covered on The Today Show, the Discovery Channel, QVC, Shopping Network, CNBC, The Tonight Show, and more…
• Tom, the mad scientist has reached celebrity status just being himself. In our world we crave the real and authentic as much as the glitz and fake perfection. Both extremes seem to sell. They’ll leverage the brand and Tom to do more campaigns.

THEY ANNOUNCED THE IPAD WAS THE LAST “WILL IT BLEND” VIDEO. This kills me. Some have denied this.

3. You too can learn to speak in sound bytes.

When the camera is on it’s natural to be nervous but what the media looks for is sound bytes for stories. This is David Henderson again.Make sure you pause after each question because they will edit out the beginning to get to the main point.

Practice saying these prompts to help you remember to get back on track during an interview:

• I think that the main point is…[pause]
• What really excites me about this is…[pause]
• The first thing that comes to mind about this is…[pause]
• I think the big issue we need to consider is…[pause]

and a natural way to say what you want to answer any question…is to say something like yes but the bigger issue is….and go on about what you want to say.

I could write more but you only asked for 3!

Related articles by Zemanta

• Why One Entrepreneur Threw His iPad Into a Blender (blogs.hbr.org)
• Will It Blend iPad video seen by 4 million people (telegraph.co.uk)
• Social Media Use on the Rise in TV Newsrooms [STATS] (mashable.com)
• “LIFE should be a networking event” – Peter Shankman (newspapergrl.com)

I got a mention in an article about getting paid to tweet on ReadWriteWeb (thanks HARO!). I occasionally tweet ads for pay on SponsoredTweets. I’m also trying it out more as an advertiser. I’m totally sold on having @Shoemoney tweet something – awesome results! I try to get the cost per click down to less than $3 and most average half or less. I also look for people with high engagement scores.

I’ve made all of $60 total on SponsoredTweets but the great thing is it’s easy. I’ve turned down some offers because they don’t fit my audience but several have worked out. The best is from an outsourcing company. They hired me to tweet. Then they became my client. Now I hire them back.

After reading the article I wanted to try Twittads but I gave up after not really getting how it worked and not having the time to look into all the details.

Here are 5 tips for using Sponsored Tweets:

1. Post something conversational or like a question – not an advertisement.
2. You can and should rewrite tweets so they are in your own voice.
3. Use related hashtags in your tweet.
4. You can use the term “brought to you by” instead of ad.
5. Don’t be greedy. It’s crazy what some people charge for a tweet. Keep it reasonable and you’ll get to choose from more offers. I’ve found little correlation between cost and results. As an advertiser I skip the people who are priced much higher than their peers with similar numbers of followers and engagement.

As John Chow said in the article: Since they allow you to use “brought to you by” as one of the disclosure mechanisms, you could write: “Hey guys! I found this great $1.99 web hosting deal bought to you by bluehost. Go check it out. URL” and get away with it.

He was also mentioned in a New York Times article about being paid to tweet.

Who should use SponsoredTweets? Authors (like me). People planning events. People who are launching campaigns and want to attract more participation and visibility. The results are quicker than some other methods like SEO, press releases and articles that build over time. Plus it tends to cost less than Google AdWords which has gotten quite crowded (read: expensive).

Sponsored Tweets made me a hero today – so I’m extra motivated to write about them. Plus I’m so fascinated by the instant feedback you get on the results. It’s like candy to a marketer.

Note: I’m partial to Sponsored Tweets (so far in the past several months I’ve experimented with others & it’s my fav so far). I’m also an affiliate. As mentioned I also manage advertising campaigns on Sponsored Tweets. You can use my links above to give me credit for referring you or go there directly (or not at all).

Related articles by Zemanta

• How To Make Money On Twitter By Telling People What You Like (johnchow.com)
• 5 best Web Apps to make money from Twitter (shoutmeloud.com)
• Sponsored Tweets: Kim Kardashian’s $10,000 Tweet Has Been Surpassed (blippitt.com)

Whenever I go on a trip I subscribe to Problogger on my Kindle and then write blog posts and “to do” lists based on what I learn. This time it’s about one of my favorite topics, which is blogger PR.

Cirque Du Soleil – the offbeat circus/acrobatic show was smart. They teamed up with bloggers who were in town (Vegas) for Blog World this year. They invited 250 bloggers to see a show and then blog about it.

They point out that bloggers tend to give a lot of detail about the experience of watching one of their shows. The emotions and feelings, not just the facts. And a lot of bloggers, if they are really happy are also on Twitter, Facebook and other social sites. So you can get coverage on many different networks.

Benefits of Blogger PR

• Exposure to new audiences on each blog + any social sites the bloggers post to.
• Some bloggers post video and pictures from the show or event. This means more exposure.
• Search engine optimization benefits – blog posts tend to do well in search engine and come up when someone searches for your business or product name.
• Reviews – get honest feedback from bloggers about your product or service – bloggers tend to be great at this and are usually savvy and have strong opinions.

Payment and the FTC Guidelines
Most of the time it’s a trade – the bloggers don’t get paid but they don’t have to buy tickets. As of this year, bloggers must disclose that they were compensated (or got free products), per FTC rules. They have to Bloggers will find the positive to say about the experience, but the better it is the more raves there are. If by chance it’s a bad experience, bloggers usually won’t write anything at all. There’s not really a point in writing a bad review unless you need to warn your audience.

Why Hire a Blogger or Consultant for PR
You either have someone on staff who has strong relationships with bloggers or hire someone who does. This is important – if you email people who don’t know you and you don’t know the culture – most likely your request will be ignored. Unless you’re a big name or the offer is incredible. Bloggers should be treated like partners and not as employees.

I’ve been told, we can email the bloggers ourselves, why do we need to pay you to do it for us? Because the bloggers know my name and don’t know yours. I’ve been there for the behind-the-scenes talking between bloggers who get random emails from people they don’t know who act like they know them. Unlikely you’ll get a good response. And even if people come, part of the event is making sure the bloggers get the right information in a timely way and in formats they want them in.

In 2009 I participated or organized blogger PR. This was new to me until this year and I hope to do more in 2010. Here’s the list of events.

• Communal – a new restaurant opened in Provo Utah and invited about 20 bloggers to come for lunch and try it out. It was amazing and I’d go back even more if it were closer. Best new restaurant of 2009. I helped organize this.
• Grand America Hotel Spa escape. I joined 5 other bloggers for a night and a day at this beautiful and opulent hotel in Salt Lake City Utah. I was the organizer.
• Goldsmith Jewelers – Another Utah company who invited 30 or so bloggers to try a new line of bracelets. They did an excellent job and got a lot of buzz. Jyl organized this.
• Social Media Retreat – April invited several local bloggers to try out her favorite products and enjoy some time outdoors. This was a great event because it included a lot of Utah bloggers of all types, which isn’t always possible.
• The Melting Pot in Salt Lake City invited bloggers for some fondue. Jyl organized this.

Another highlight of the year was seeing Julie & Julia with a group of bloggers (we paid). I think that bookstores who bring in authors and movie theaters should do more blogger PR. I thought of doing a project for an orthodontist but I chickened out because I’m afraid of having to wear braces. This month I’m going to a cooking class with April to learn about making chocolate.

I’m using blogger my online PR book and DVD. I’ve gotten some great reviews and hope for more exposure to new audiences this year.

Please be sure to listen to this interview with me (Janet Thaeler), Pete Codella and Mark Polson. They produce a weekly show called the Online PR Podcast. This episode is about the power and purpose of online press releases. It was a lot of fun to do this interview because Pete is a PR pro and he knows online PR.

This was in person which I liked. On a webinar or phone interview you don’t get the interaction that you get in real life. Talking about online PR with someone else who loves it reminds me of how much I enjoy what I do.

We discussed:

• Online public relations versus traditional public relations
• How to identify what topics are newsworthy and appropriate topics for press releases (on a basic level, tell us what’s new in your business, industry or products)
• Blogger relations and outreach campaigns
• Press release formatting

To listen, click on the arrow at the bottom of the post and the player will start. While you’re there, check out the past episodes of the Online PR podcast. After listening,feel free to leave a comment with your feedback or questions.

PRWeb is offering free access to view their Best Webinars of 2009. My webinar with PRWeb and PR expert Bill Stroller is in the top 5.

PRWeb’s top five webinars of 2009 include:

View the Best Webinars of 2009 are available on-demand for a limited-time only. Check them out – I’ve always found PRWeb’s webinars to be top-notch. I was especially interested to hear Greg Jarboe because I mention a case study in my book about Southwest Airlines. It’s a classic. I learned that Greg is the one who was behind the successful campaign.

I’m going to join Joan Stewart, the Publicity Hound next Wednesday, October 21, 2009 at 3-4:10pm for a teleseminar.

It will be about using keywords in press releases.

Many people make this mistake: they fail to use keywords in their press releases. Unless you have news that the media is looking for right now, your press release is pretty short-lived. But in search engines it continues to send people to your web site.

A press release with keywords, distributed online also helps your web site rank higher for key terms relating to your business. It does that even if people don’t find and read your actual press release.

Hope you’ll join us on the call!

Send out the press release! I was just featured on the lead article of Utah Pulse in a series called “Meet Utah New Media.” Head over to read it.

Who will be next? I’ll let you know.

Jeri Cartwright interviewed me for the story several weeks ago. She called today to let me know it was live. Utah Pulse also tweeted about it on Twitter which I appreciate. I’ve never had anyone call before. My publisher Mitchell Levy at Happy About also called me recently to tell me my book was live.

You know who else in Utah new media rocks? Jason Alba! He’s a power networker. We’re working on a series of videos to show concepts of online PR.

I really appreciate these thoughtful gestures from three very busy people. In a world of email it’s nice to hear a voice. I love working with people who care.

Do you like Newspapergrl? Then you’ll love my new online pr book!

I’ve talked about this journey of writing a book and today I feel that I have completed the journey. Now my words are being sent to a publisher and compacted into PDF format. My book will be available for purchase in about 2 months (end of October).

I have to document the journey

1. I wanted to write a book. Why? I’m a writer who has thrown her whole heart and soul into learning online marketing. I documented a lot of the journey on my blog when one of my blog cheerleaders asked me if I thought of writing a book. He said he’d buy it. So he was my first customer. But I wasn’t quite ready…

2. I had many starts/stops and I gave up.

3. One of those starts involved hiring a ghostwriter to write the book for me. I couldn’t bear to put my name on it. I used a few things from the research the author did but mostly I wasted my money and got my hopes up for nothing.

4. My business partner decided to write the book. He never finished.

5. My friend Jason Alba told me about the success of his LinkedIn book and about his publisher Happy About. This provided motivation. They drive the process, tell me the next steps, provide the formatting, get me an ISBN #, in Amazon and on Amazon Kindle.

6. I started to write the book, starting with the table of contents in December 2008. It morphed a lot along the way. I always want to re-write and edit and compile but having an editor helped keep me on track. I could tell I started to annoy them.

7. I found people who might be interested and started asking for endorsements. I found someone to write the foreword.

8. I approved the cover and chose a title – a long process.  The title especially. Since my book is part of a series it needed to have Now What?!? in the title. I didn’t realize that at first and tried to come up with my own. It was almost as difficult as writing the book.

9. Edits, edits edits!! And approvals. This seemed to never ever end.

10. My publisher put all the pieces together, added a table of contents, page numbers, formatting, etc. Today I saw it completed and I thought I might begin to cry. You will see it. It will look so simple. There are so many books in the world. But this is my first one and it’s a bit overwhelming that it’s done. When I actually see one it will probably be anti-climatic (or not).  Still, this is a huge milestone. My husband thought I started more projects than I finished and finishing feels great!

What isn’t finished is the marketing part.  It is just beginning. I have a new site with its own design coming soon. I had it programmed.

Also, I’m doing a series of videos that are more “how to” that I’m now more excited about than the book. Why? because I envision them as training resources for PR pros, firms, and business owners who want to really learn this. It’s even for PR pros whose customers can’t afford or choose not to hire them to write and distribute their press releases. There will be an affiliate program for both so you can make money by referring people to either resource.

I worried many times that I might actually embarrass myself. To put something in print is so final and I’m a blogger plus I write my mind in 140 characters almost every day on Twitter. Fears go through my mind: people are going to have opinions! They might not like my book. Or worse, they’ll ignore it!

But to me it’s a milestone and a triumph. Something that didn’t come easily and for which I’ve worked hard for. So today in celebration (how did Amazon know?) my new Kindle arrived. So today has become a celebration of books, including mine.

You can check it out here: I Need a Killer Press Release, Now What?!? A Guide to Online PR

I’m still answering the question how to best spend your time on social media marketing tasks. Choose one of these categories to start…

Social bookmarking: If you have existing content and need to promote it
1. Sign up for accounts depending on the information you have to share.
Sign up for Digg.com if your articles have to do with politics, tech or science and you have thick skin
Sign up for Delicious if you save a lot of web sites and want to target keywords
Sign up for Kirtsy if your stories appeal to women
Sign up for Stumble Upon for just about any content or web site (this is one of my favorites)
Sign up for Sphinn if you have social media and online marketing topics.
Use Google to find niche social bookmarking sites to target your content even more to a specific audience

2. Fill out the profiles/bios and add your picture.
Be sure to include bios and links to your web site (using keywords if possible) and other sites you’re on.

3. Build your network of friends, contacts, fans, etc (everyone calls them something different)
Find people whose articles you like and friend them or add them to your network.
Get to know the culture and learn the features. If you get stuck, search on Google for “how to” do what you are hoping to learn (i.e. “how to set up a Delicious account”)

4. Bookmark or vote for articles from people in your network.
Leave comments for them. Make friends. Later you’re going to ask them to promote your work by tweeting a DM to them, IMing them with a link to your blog, emailing them, etc. Some tools like StumbleUpon have notifications you can set for others asking them to review your link and vote for it if they like it. Don’t be selfish and only promote yourself and be careful of being a spammer. Make it about how you can help or how you add value, not how great you are (let them decide that).

5. Test article headlines and see what’s working. Note the type of stories that are doing best in your niche.

If you don’t have information to share, start building content
If you don’t have content but want to social bookmark, start blogging to build a base to start with. If you want to put content on other sites start writing articles to submit to places like ezinearticles.com If the link comes from a blog post it carries more weight. Don’t submit press releases, submit blog posts that talk about news and link to the press release.

Don’t start a blog if you have nothing to say just because someone tells you too. Instead, guest post on someone else’s blog and link to your content in the post. It looks bad to have nothing or outdated content on a blog and it’s a big commitment to keep it current and updated with the latest versions. Don’t start unless you want to do that.

Go ahead and create a Twitter account if you want. Fill out the bio, include keywords, put a link to your blog and a picture. Even if you don’t keep it up it’s a placeholder and can show up in search results. Same with social sites. I’m not a purist and I don’t think you have to participate in the community to have a profile, but of course you’ll get more out of it if you do.

Skim news articles and HARO emails to see what is hot and what people are writing about. Liberally steal ideas for headlines or stories but give it your spin or tailor it to your audience. Let these sites give you ideas and inspire you. If you’re in the arts, look at what stories are being printed in that section, etc.

If you don’t have a lot to say on your own, find a community and comment on other people’s work with a link or contact info.

Use Twitter search to see what questions people are asking (the advanced search has a checkbox to search for tweets with question marks). Then answer questions people ask. If you put your mouse to the right of a question you’ll get an arrow to reply to that person.

When there is something new, try it if you want and see how it helps or doesn’t affect your results.

If you don’t have news and aren’t creative that way perhaps sending out press releases isn’t a good fit.

Then, here’s my overall advice: do what is working. Find something that works for you and look for ways to find and join their networks. Ways you could partner, etc. Go deeper. If you’re not getting much traffic or the people who come to your site from certain sites leave quickly or you’re not getting leads or reaching your goal, stop that activity. Spend the time on what works instead.

Looking at the results I spend far more time on Twitter than it’s worth to me. I’d do better to tighten my focus or cut way back on the time I spend. It’s fun but it’s not really getting me anywhere. I could probably spend about 30 mins a day or less and get just as much benefit. Maybe instead of tweeting my links or tweets, I see if someone with a bigger audience than I have will tweet it out. I could schedule tweets out with TweetLater rather than spend time each day.

Don’t spend so much time reading and attending webinars (or just go to the ones that help you get quick practical advice on social media marketing – I like Joan Stewart’s – most are beginner to intermediate level). Once you learn enough to get started – spend more time DOING.

That’s my advice. Now I just need to follow it! If you have specific questions, please ask them in the comments. It might turn into another post – this one is already VERY long.