This week, Cheryl Beck asks: "I am a freelance writer and I am trying to get more business writing clients. I also offer some publicity services because writing is so heavily involved. What I need are ideas to promote myself to get the ball rolling. I can think of campaigns for other companies, but not many for myself as a home-based B2B … [Read more...]
Pennsylvania starts tourism blog
Thanks to Publicity Hound Paul Furiga of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for tipping us off to this story in the Pittsburgh Business Times. It's about how the state of Pennsylvania is posting at its website blog items written by travelers making road trips across the state. "It seems the state is pretty tightly controlling where the bloggers go … [Read more...]
Keep track of who’s using your articles
If you write articles for print or online publications, here are three reasons why you should keep track of who's using them. --You want to thank the editors and start establishing a relationship with them. --You want to add their names to your media database and continue submitting articles as often as you can. --You want to know if anyone is … [Read more...]
Submit online articles to pull website traffic
Once a month, small-business marketing expert Sharron Senter writes a how-to article that helps small businesses tackle a problem. She submits it to up to 30 different portals. A portal is a launching pad of sorts that helps consumers find destination and commerce sites. Search engine websites you are familiar with such as Google, Yahoo!, Lycos … [Read more...]
Write special reports
If you aren't writing special reports to help your customers help themselves, or to create a quick and easy product, you're missing a wonderful chance to become better known and create an easy revenue stream. The secret is to choose topics that are only an inch wide, and then present content that goes a mile deep. Getting started is easy. Just … [Read more...]
Write a thumbnail bio for the end of your articles
While en route to a speaking engagement, I found a page in Airtran Airways' in-flight magazine that's a great lesson on how to write thumbnail bios. These are one- or two-sentence bios that you can tack onto the end of articles you write for other publications, along with your contact information such as an email address and website URL. You can … [Read more...]
Mossberg recommends MSN Spaces for bloggers
In the Personal Technology column in today's Wall Street Jurnal, Walter Mossberg recommends Microsoft's MSN Spaces as the best of the online services for free blogs. "My Verdict: MSN Spaces is very well done," he says. "It makes it easy to create a simple, attractive blog with text, links and potos, and to customize the blog in interesting … [Read more...]
A free hotline will get you great publicity
Everyone loves free, helpful information. Your customers and clients are no different. So why not create a free hotline where they can call and ask a question about how to use your product or service? Or suggest a product or service they'd like to see you offer. Or get a helpful recorded tip of the day. Or ask you a question about a particular … [Read more...]
“Savvy Senior” columnist self-syndicates
Every so often, an excited Publicity Hound writes to tell me about a terrific idea for a column they want to write and sell to one of the big news syndicates so they can become rich and famous like Dear Abby, Ann Landers, Mike Royko and hundreds of others. Not so fast, I tell them. Selling your column to a syndicate is a long shot because … [Read more...]
Tips for submitting articles online, offline
If you're submitting articles for online publications, don't make the mistake of thinking you should follow the same rules you follow for getting articles published offline. Or you'll blow your chances of ever getting them distributed on the Internet. Here are three major differences: --If you want something published in a print publication, you … [Read more...]