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TIP # 1:
Create Top Five Tips One of the most powerful ways to get more publicity online is to create valuable tips for your target market that will make their lives easier, help them or save them time or money. Use these top tips as an example. I am offering you top five ways to get more publicity online, it has been posted on this site which has translated into more publicity for me. To take that further, these tips will save you time in trying to figure out more ways on how to generate more publicity online and they will help you grow your business, it is a win-win all the way around. When you create your top tips, make sure to keep them brief and to the point. They are NOT meant to be a sales pitch. No NOT include any sales information about your products or services in top tips.
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TIP # 2:
Post Your Tips Where People Can Engage With You One of the best places to post your tips is on your active blog (yep, that means Starr Hall is telling you it is time to get a blog or turn your current site into a Wordpress based blog). This will allow you to engage and talk with your target market as they post comments, feedback and suggestions. This makes your tips easy to access, it opens opportunity for other blogs to pick up the content and post a link back to your site from their blog or site. As your top tips get more attention and mentions from other sites, it will help you reach new markets and generate more traffic to your blog or web site.
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TIP # 3:
Let Your Network Know About it One of the most powerful ways to get more publicity online is to create valuable tips for your target market that will make their lives easier, help them or save them time or money. Use these top tips as an example. I am offering you top five ways to get more publicity online, it has been posted on this site which has translated into more publicity for me. To take that further, these tips will save you time in trying to figure out more ways on how to generate more publicity online and they will help you grow your business, it is a win-win all the way around. When you create your top tips, make sure to keep them brief and to the point. They are NOT meant to be a sales pitch. No NOT include any sales information about your products or services in top tips.
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TIP # 4:
Start Discussions in Groups Regarding Your Top Tips One of the best places to post your tips is on your active blog (yep, that means Starr Hall is telling you it is time to get a blog or turn your current site into a Wordpress based blog). This will allow you to engage and talk with your target market as they post comments, feedback and suggestions. This makes your tips easy to access, it opens opportunity for other blogs to pick up the content and post a link back to your site from their blog or site. As your top tips get more attention and mentions from other sites, it will help you reach new markets and generate more traffic to your blog or web site.
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TIP # 5:
Reach Out to Media Contacts on Linkedin Media editors, producers and bloggers are joining Linkedin just to find you. The media is using Linkedin to find quality experts and contributors in their subject area to help them provide quality content to their audience. Use the search function on Linkedin to locate media outlets and decision makers that work at the outlet. If they happened to be within your network through a friend, ask for an introduction, if not send them a friend request and let them know how you can help their audience. Remember to keep it brief and to the point. Make sure to join groups that these media contacts are in, you can find out what groups they are in if they have a public profile.
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BONUS TIP:
Kick it up a notch & GET SOCIAL HOW TO GET MEDIA PLACEMENT FROM SOCIAL NETWORKING POSTS:
One of the easiest ways to get media features and build valuable business relationships online is to create and publish a Top Five Tips release that offers valuable information to your market. These tips can also help position you as an expert in your field. Once you have top five tips, post on your blog or site and use a trackable “tiny” link (see below) and post out on social sites to get people back to your blog to read: Example: Check out a few quick tips on how to create top five tips for the media, visit: http://bit.ly/bErFHg NB: this is a tiny URL, you can do these at www.bit.ly, they offer analytics to track how many people are going to link, if they are sharing, what region they are coming from and more! Always end your blog posts with: Feel free to add your tips and experiences in regard to [insert topic here]
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OKAY, NOW IT’S TIME: Create Your Top Tips TOP TIPS 1) When writing/compiling your tips, ask yourself this questionWhy in the heck should I care? When you ask this question you will find that it will help you come up with tips that are different, of interest and valuable. 2) The best top tips are based on an angle or advice that none of your competitors can come close to matching or knowing, what do you know about your industry or market that they don’t? 3) Avoid general tips and general titles- ex: Top Five Steps to Create a Business Plan (boring) vs. Top Five Ways to Create a Business Plan in 1 Hour or Less! 4) Keep the subject line or the title short and catchy. Ask yourself- “would I read or open this?” 5) Keep your tips down to one page, no more than 2 sentences per tip, the shorter, the better, you can always elaborate for the media and or your target market and turn it into an article.
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Create Your Top Five Tips- Make a list of top 5 tips and or advice that you would offer your target market in regard to your offerings. For example, I might offer top 5 tips for social networking. (TIP: Have your team and or customers submit) See www.starrhallblog.com for examples
1 2 3 4 5
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OR You Can Extend Your Top Five Tips And‌ Create an Article Brief An article brief is an extension of top tips, it is 3-5 short paragraph piece with a 1-2 paragraph intro. You can also post out on your blog and or certain article marketing sites for additional pick up as well. (NB: some article marketing sites will not allow you to post an article if you already have posted somewhere else online- e.g your blog). Article briefs are great for getting picked up for additional media coverage, basically you have already done the media’s job for them- provided them QUALITY content. I suggest that you switch your blog postings between top tips and article brief posts. An article brief elaborates on top tips or a certain subject.
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ARTICLE BRIEF SAMPLE The Top 5 Myths About Branding
Do you remember the story of Chicken Little?
If one person tells you the sky is falling, you laugh at them, but if you are told the same story over and over, pretty soon you believe it to be the truth. This also rings true with branding, just because every one else is saying or doing something, it doesn’t mean that it works. Time and again I see businesses throw thousands of dollars away in trying to grow their business with traditional branding techniques because every one else is or has been doing it in the past. These myths can break a company before they even get off the ground. Times have changed, technology has created new ways to build and brand your company, traditional techniques are now a way of the past. The following five myths will help you to avoid these mistakes, save you thousands of dollars and countless hours.
Myth #1
Offering a consistent and GREAT product will make a successful business Is the quality of your product or service important? Of course it is, but it has very little to do with how successful your new or established business will become. The truth is that there are very profitable, successful brands that offer a marginal product and there are some failing businesses that offer amazing products. The success of your brand venture is dependent on much more than just the quality of your product. You don’t need a consistent and GREAT product in order to build a company or brand. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that creating the perfect product or service will have the world beating a path to your door! It will make you proud, but by itself, it won’t make you money.
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Myth #2
The more you spend on advertising the more profitable you will become. Right now, wherever you turn, you’ll hear this mantra repeated from every advertising salesperson out there. Unfortunately, because there are so many of these salespeople reinforcing this myth, the new and even established business quickly starts to believe this costly myth is a fact and because that is the way it has always been done. This constant repetition gives this myth credibility. If you do anything in business just because it’s what everyone else is doing, you are in big trouble. Many current brands spend huge amounts of money on their monthly advertising budget, most of this money is completely wasted on ineffective ads. There are much SMARTER ways to build a brand. Don’t get me wrong there is a place for advertising in branding it is brand maintenance not brand building. Advertising lacks the credibility that building a brand requires.
Myth #3
Word of mouth and referrals will make you a successful, profitable business. This myth is the major cause of failure for under funded startup brands. I have heard many new brands say that they don’t spend a penny on advertising or any other branding method, because they are waiting for the “word of mouth” to kick in and build their business. Years ago this was possible, in a small industry where there wasn’t a lot of brand competition or mass messaging, it didn’t take long for the word to spread. Those days are over! With a different customer attitude and the many options available to the consumer, waiting for the word of mouth to kick in will cause many brands to close their doors. It’s a great way to increase business over time, but it isn’t something to base your business plan and success on. It isn’t proactive and it simply doesn’t work in today’s competitive climate, it’s wishful thinking and it is not a realistic business plan. It’s like calling your bank and saying, “I can’t be overdrawn, I still have checks left in my checkbook!”
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Myth #4
You need to possess a wide range of skills to become a successful entrepreneur and brand. I have met many personable, skilled, well organized, business minded individuals that have unfortunately failed to create a profitable brand. If you are great with people, a real motivator, good at accounting, and a hard worker sure you’ll have an advantage. But, the truth is that even if you have none of those skills or attributes, you can still be an extremely successful entrepreneur. There is one skill that most brands don’t even consider. If you were to focus solely on improving your skills and knowledge of this one specific area and make it your number one priority, you will be very, very successful. There is only one task you must do yourself to be profitable. It is the one thing you really can’t hire someone else to do. If you master this skill you can launch as many successful brands as you wish. Okay, here it is- it is daily marketing. Now notice I didn’t just say marketing, I said DAILY marketing. I have never met a business owner who made this one task their number one priority and not succeed.
Myth #5
“The costs to brand your business (including advertising, PR, marketing, social media) are enormous.” This myth is also considered written in stone. Yes, many new brands close due to lack of funding. You may need some “credit” to get through the lean times until things explode, BUT, you don’t NEED to spend a fortune to launch or grow a successful brand, of course, if you are loaded, feel free. There are some inside secrets that can help you get started and build your brand for very little money. I started my agency with NO CAPITAL, Spending a fortune to build or grow a brand is NOT a necessity. With all of the tools available on social networks and with online and in print media, you should focus on marketing to larger markets online and build your credibility through media features and placements.
Written by Starr Hall, International Speaker/Author/Social Media Strategist - www.starrhall.com
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NOW Boost Your Publicity Through Article Marketing Article marketing is a type of advertising in which
businesses write short articles related to their respective industry. These articles are made available for distribution and publication in the marketplace. Each article contains a bio box and byline that include references and contact information for the author’s business. Well-written content articles released for free distribution have the potential of increasing the authoring business’ credibility within its market as well as attracting new clients. – Wikipedia FIRST: Decide what article marketing sites you should post your articles on. Some are not relevant to certain industries/focus topics. You will find certain articles will have 20, others 3-5. Article Marketing Sites List Included on next page:
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TOP ARTICLE DIRECTORY SITES 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.
http://businessknowhow.com http://buzzle.com http://Ezinearticles.com http://Goarticles.com http://selfgrowth.com http://articlealley.com http://Articlebase.com http://articlecity.com http://articledashboard.com http://isnare.com http://websource.net http://amazines.com http://article99.com
14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25.
http://articlebiz.com http://articleblast.com http://articlesfactory.com http://Searchwarp.com http://promotionworld.com http://articlesphere.com http://articletrader.com http://ideamarketers.com http://worldwebindex.com http://excellentguide.com http://AfroArticles.com http://ArticleCube.com
BONUS - 2 more for you! 26. http://SelfSEO.com 27. http://ContentDesk.com
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A FEW TIPS YOU SHOULD KNOW: Article Marketing Content Tips 1) Test Article Titles -
Besides the direct traffic results there are some other important benefits from using article marketing. One important thing to consider is how important is the article? Remember- why should anyone care? This will make all of the different between your article being republished/picked up and not. Given that most publishers first search article directories for content, your article title has to have the right keywords and has to be interesting enough to be clicked and finally, if you are lucky, republished. That’s a lot of steps to go through and a lot riding on how good your title is. You can go back and change the title of any article (in fact you can change any element of your articles at any time but it has to be re-approved each time), however you should aim to get it right the first time. Your article is featured in the Ezine Articles main highly-traffic category page when it is first published and will very quickly drop off as newer articles are published by other authors. You don’t get this benefit when you go back and alter an existing article.
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A FEW TIPS YOU SHOULD KNOW continued... 2) Short And Sweet -
It’s well known in the article marketing industry that the short, 400-600 word articles, generally get the most traffic. People have short attention spans and they want quick, easily absorbed tidbits, not long in depth quality articles. The statistics don’t lie though and the short articles will get you more exposure and more traffic, so spend some time cutting down your articles to give them a better chance of syndication.
3) The Vital Few-
Every now and then one article will do much better than all the other articles. When you get the right combination of a solid title, a brief word count and a popular topic your article can go viral and be picked up many times. Use this to your advantage, post it on your blog, tweet it, share it.
TIP: There is a short wait period for approval on most article marketing sites. Check guidelines on each site carefully! TIP: Post Articles to chosen sites and link back to your blog or campaign site. Make sure to include tags and keywords when posting.
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THE FINAL VIRAL BOOST FOR ARTICLE MARKETING 1) Post on Discussion Boards and Forums
Post snippets of your article or the article title in forums and on discussion boards, do not forget to include your signatory containing a link to your website or blog.
2) Compile Articles into an E-book (like this)
Compile the articles into an e-book and distribute them either through website, via safelists or to your list. Give your readers the right to distribute them as well. This is viral marketing at work.
3) Write a Variety of Articles/Top Tips
The trick to reaching a massive amount of people is to as many people is to create a variety of articles. Now, assuming your targeted niche is article marketing. People would be interested in topics like how to write an article, how to come up with attractive article titles, what is the right format and ideal word count, how and where to distribute the articles, how to submit to hundreds of article directories within the shortest time etc...
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THE FINAL VIRAL BOOST FOR ARTICLE MARKETING continued... 4) Proof-Read Your Articles
Ask your friends or family members, especially internet marketing friends you have made online to proof-read or test your articles. You want their honest opinions about how you can improve it. Sometimes, what seems enticing to you may not be to another. Tweak a little and the effect can multiply.
5) Bullet and Number Your Articles
Our minds respond well to organized text. Appropriate bulleting and numbering of the points we are writing about makes our articles readable. It makes the experience enjoyable for our readers. From the angle of marketing, we are also cultivating their thoughts with a seamless flow of information that pre-sells our products and ideas. Article marketing is truly one of the easiest and most powerful ways to advertising your products, expertise and services AND it’s FREE.
ADD THIS Disclosure in each article:
This article may be freely reprinted or distributed in its entirety in any ezine, newsletter, blog or website. The author’s name, bio and website links must remain intact and be included with every reproduction.
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BUILD YOUR MEDIA CONNECTIONS ON Linkedin Create Media List
Identify Outlets You Want to Target within your industry or area of interest (Start with Top 20)
NOTE: Once you have identified the outlets you want to target, I suggest that you visit the website for each outlet to research it thoroughly.
To get you started on finding outlets you might want to target, here are some resources you can use for free to learn about outlets that cover your industry or news in your part of the world:
The Internet Public Library
The Internet Public Library includes a list of popular magazines and newspapers organized by their respective subject area or geographic focus. Each individual listing includes a brief description of the outlet’s coverage area, along with a link to their website. Other similar directories include World Newspapers & Magazines (some of these listings are outdated, but it’s still a good starting point), the Yahoo! News and Media directory and Mondo Times.
Technorati
Technorati is a blog search engine. You can use it to search for blog posts on any subject. The company also manages a list of the Top 100 Blogs, which is a great place to find the world’s most popular blogs on subjects you’re interested in. You can also explore Technorati by many different categories to find relevant blogs. Some of the more popular categories include Technology, Business, Entertainment, IT and Finance.
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BUILD YOUR MEDIA CONNECTIONS ON LINKEDIN continued... Congress.org Media Guide
This is a useful directory of media outlets organized by your geographic area. You can click on an interactive map to find newspapers in different areas of the country. Each listing includes a description of the outlet, along with some contacts for the publication (geared toward those that cover politics, but still useful).
Audit Bureau of Circulations
The Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) lists its members on its website, including Business Publications, Consumer Magazines and Newspapers.
HARO (Help A Reporter Out)
This is a free service that connects journalists with expert sources. Each email (there are three a day) includes reporter queries that you can respond to (provided you have a relevant pitch or expert to offer up). What if you’re not a fit for the opportunity, but are for the outlet? Keep track of journalists and bloggers that regularly write about topics related to your subject areas, then and contacts to your media list.
TradePub
TradePub works with business and trade magazine publishers to market free subscriptions to qualified professionals. This is your one-stop-shop for subscribing to a wide-range of free business and trade publications of interest to you. It’s also a great place to find outlets you’ll want to add to your media list.
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REACH OUT TO MEDIA ON Linkedin Using your top 20 list, reach out and connect to key connectors on Linkedin at those media outlets and send invite (suggested script below, complete keywords before search) LinkedIn is a great resource for finding professional journalists and segment producers. With LinkedIn’s new search features, you can dive deeper into user data to find contacts that fit your criteria. For example, I recently created a search to find contacts with “reporter” as their professional title within a 50 mile radius of my zipcode. There were more than 15,000 contacts, I easily narrowed this search by limiting other fields or adding a keyword like “business” or “features”. LinkedIn also lets you save five searches, so you can be alerted to new contacts that join LinkedIn matching your criteria.
Key Connectors for PrintManaging Editor Staff Writer
Key Connectors for Broadcast (radio/TV)Segment Producer Assignment Editor
Not necessarily key media decision makersassociate, columnist, contributor
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REACH OUT TO MEDIA ON LINKEDIN continued... Send an invite to connect with the following script: (NB: Linkedin changes character limits often, this script might need to be edited back) Hello [insert name] I specialize in [insert specialt(ies) here- no more than 2]. If I can be of any help as a contributing/leading authority in this area, you can call on me for quotes, statistics, interviews and features. If you do not want to connect, no worries-please do not click on the “do not know� button, simply archive my email. Otherwise, I look forward to connecting with you on Linkedin. Kindly, [insert name here]
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LAST THING BEFORE YOU GO! Do you have a follow up plan when you reach out to the media? This is the key issue with why most people do not get publicity about their products & services They DO NOT follow up and check in with the media where they sent top tips to nor do they do their research about the outlet to see if it was a good fit in the first place. IYAHHH! DO THIS RIGHT AWAY: Develop a follow up plan or strategy. If you do not like calling and following up then hire someone to do it for you, get an intern from a local college or get a VA that specializes in follow up calls. If you are not going to follow up with the media then do not pitch them in the first place. For a complete publicity course, check out www.TheSmartyWay.com
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ABOUT
l l a H Starr Starr specializes in PR, co-branding, licensing, online branding and building businesses worldwide using the power of social networking.
Starr Hall is the author of Get Connected: The Social Networking Toolkit for Business. Available from Entrepreneur Press. For more information, visit www.TheSmartyWay.com or www.StarrHall.com GET BUSY- TAKE ACTION- MAKE IT HAPPEN. Starr Hall Š TheSmartyWay.com a Division of SmartyVA LLC, All rights reserved, permission for use in the beginning of this document
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