When I listed 9 ways to use webinars for PR, to make money and save time, one of my tips was to host a free Q&A webinar for your customers, ezine subscribers, blog readers or anyone who needs help in your area of expertise.

Andrew Darlow, a photographer and digital imaging consultant, did just that. He hosted a free webinar for subscribers to his e-newsletter, Inkjet & Imaging Tips Newsletter, which includes news, tips and techniques on fine art printing and digital imaging. The webinar topic was Travel/Street Photography and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4.

Rather than just assume he knew what the registrants wanted to learn, Andrew asked them to submit a question when they registered through Eventbrite.com.

“I informed my subscribers that I would make the replay available to them for free, but that it would be sold to non-subscribers for $27,” he said. “I also promised that I would choose seven people to receive prizes for submitting questions.”

Total value of the prizes was about $300, and included $25 gift certificates to FrameDestination.com, and one-on-one consulting with him.

After the webinar, which was a success because of the many questions that people submitted, he offered the edited replay for free at his blog, under the headline One Hour Street/Travel Photography and Lightroom 4 Video Available.

“Results have been very good,” Andrew said. “I’ve received a few private consulting inquiries, and increased my list size by about 100 people in a week, which is about 10 times as many as normal for the same time period.”

Bravo. I also like the way he included the opt-in box for his e-newsletter at the end of his blog post. Smart.

Why Eventbrite?

The Eventbrite page served two purposes:

When people signed up there, they received a hidden URL to watch the webinar live, and they had the option of asking a question inside the Eventbrite system.

Also, “Eventbrite.com is completely free if you don’t charge for a ticket,” Andrew said. “I was then able to print out a report with people’s names, emails and their questions so that I could properly reward the winners once the webinar was over.”

If you’re hosting webinars, or thinking of hosting them, check out the article How to Draw Viewers to Your Webinars: 9 Tips To Increase Attendance by William Barcelon.

What other tips can you share about how to host successful webinars?

Tools That Can Help You

See “How to Host Webinars and Sell Them as Profitable Products,” a two-part video series that explains how to host webinars using GotoWebinar.com and how to promote them, gather testimonials from attendees, and them use them to sell the replay. It includes my 20-point checklist I use the day of the call, so as few things as possible go wrong.

Don’t forget to share your webinar tips below.

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Hands-down, online publicity ranks as my favorite form of publicity because it’s the most powerful and long-lasting. The list below should convince you.

Advantages

You can create online visibility for yourself through a variety of formats. Promote yourself through a blog, a YouTube channel, a podcast, or an archive of email newsletters. In other words, YOU are the media.

It’s instantaneous. With print or broadcast publicity, you have to pitch your idea for a story and wait for someone to cover it. When you’re the media, you can write a blog post and publish it within minutes.

You can repurpose your own news in a variety of formats. Take a blog post and slice and dice it into 20 tweets. Record it and turn it into a podcast. Create a slideshow and upload it to a photo sharing site. Turn it into a video, or a series of videos, for your YouTube channel. Take the same information and use it to answer a question in a LinkedIn group, or on a Q&A site like Quora.com.

You can target a niche very easily. Whether you’re promoting yourself, or you want to generate publicity in an online media outlet, you can find places to target within seconds. One of my very favorite ways of finding lists of blogs or news outlets is to Google “top 10 small business blogs” or “best marketing ezines” or “most popular mommy blogs” or “aviation magazines.” Chances are pretty good that a blogger already has compiled a list. If you’re an author and you want book reviews, you can target niches very easily at the wide variety of book review and recommendation sites.

It has staying power. Often, blog posts, online news articles, videos and other content live online for years and can be found by the search engines.

You can gather and analyze statistics. What’s the Alexa ranking of a news site you’re targeting? How many people have subscribed to the RSS feed at your blog? How many people opened the press release that was distributed through out of the online services? Which websites, news or otherwise, are referring the most traffic to your website? How many people retweeted your content yesterday? How big are the LinkedIn news groups that include your target audience? Promote online, and you have statistics galore at your fingertips.

Social media builds relationships. On sites like LikedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google+, you can meet people, share valuable content with them, and encourage them to follow you. If you do it right, some of them will eventually buy from you.

Let Google do the work. Create great content, and the search engines will find it and deliver the content to whoever is searching for it. A service like Google Alerts will even send your content into the email of people who ask for it.

You can link to it. When you get publicity online, link to it from the Media Room or Press Room at your website. This gives you instant credibility.

It works for you round-the-clock. People can access articles about you, blog posts, video, etc. 24/7. With traditional media, like TV for example, a news show’s ratings will often determine whether or not someone sees your story.

Bloggers are often easier to pitch than traditional media. Bloggers are passionate about their topic, unlike many reporters who hate their beats and their jobs. Bloggers also have loyal followings. And they love to link to other blogs. Newspapers and magazines seldom refers to articles in other publications.

Disadvantages

People can steal your content. If you’ve created Google Alerts for your important keywords, it should be fairly easy to find thieves who duplicate your content for their own websites or blogs. This happens to me occasionally, and I don’t always go after them and ask that they remove the content, either because the website looks like it gets little traffic, or I simply don’t have time.

You open yourself to scathing criticism whether or not your deserve it. Whether it’s a comment on someone else’s blog, or a book review on Amazon, the Internet makes it possible for anyone to say anything, often anonymously, and never have to face the consequences. Sleazy freelancers make money writing bad book reviews under fake names. Flamers go wild in the Comments section at blogs. And folks with a resentment against you can say whatever they please, for attribution or anonymously, even if their facts are wrongs. (See the next bullet point.)

Errors don’t have to be corrected. When you find a factual error written about you online, good luck trying to get it corrected. Most reputable bloggers will correct an error. But it’s often impossible to identify the owner of a website and obtain contact information. Errors can be cut and pasted into someone else’s article or blog post within seconds, multiplying the error. Others can link to articles or blog posts and never know that they include errors.

That’s my very long list. I know I’ve missed many more advantages. Please add yours below.

If you liked this series, please share it with your friends, followers and fans.

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Earlier this week, I listed the pros and cons of publicity in newspapers, magazines and other print media.

Today, let’s look at publicity via broadcast media, a very different opportunity.

Advantages:

• You can do radio interviews at home, in your pajamas. That’s what Alex Carroll does frequently, even when he gets booked on big radio shows in the Top 20 markets.
• Radio and TV are instantaneous. If news breaks, and you have something compelling to offer, chances are good you can call the station, offer your expertise and be on the radio or TV within minutes.
• It’s much easier to share recordings of TV and radio interviews. I’m not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. But I seldom hear about TV or radio stations that hassle you for including, at your website, a segment in which you’re interviewed. I also haven’t heard about broadcast outlets requiring hefty fees similar to the fees for reprint rights that big newspapers and magazines require.
• TV and radio frequently welcome back guests they like. If a talk show host loved your interview, don’t be surprised if the program invites you again.
• Radio stations sometimes offer live remotes. These can help your publicity campaign if you’re sponsoring a major event or opening a big business in a small community.
• If you’re passionate about your topic, you’ll be a hit. But that same passion might not come through in a printed story because the reporter has complete control.

Disadvantages:

• If a news item about you is inaccurate, you’ll almost never convince the broadcast outlet to correct the record. The exception is when the error is so severe that it borders on slander. With print media, you can write a letter to the editor or an opinion column correcting the record. TV and radio offer no similar opportunity.
• On TV, you must look and sound your best. That means crafting and practicing your sound bites, wearing clothing appropriate to the interview, and paying close attention to your hair and make-up.
• Because TV and radio love those three-second sound bites, you might be quoted out of context. This has happened to me.
• Radio interviews require very short answers. You must learn to talk in “chunks.” If the host wants more information, she’ll ask a follow-up question.
• If you have a voice that sounds quiet, meek or mousy, you might not be invited on the air. How do radio hosts know how you sound? They call you and do a “pre-interview.” They don’t refer to it as a “pre-interview.” They simply call and start talking to you. If they like what they hear, you’re in. If not, sorry.
• Doing in-studio TV interviews is very difficult because of all the commotion on the set. The lights produce annoying glare. The cameras move back and forth. Somebody is holding up cue cards. The words are whizzing by on the teleprompter. And you need to be looking at the host, not at the camera.

I recommend two excellent books that go into more detail on how to deal with the media:

Kudos to Clarence Jones, a former award-winning investigative reporter who worked in TV and newspapers, for constantly updating Winning with the News Media, now in its 8th edition. This is the book I wish I had written.

The Media Training Bible by media trainer Brad Phillips, published a few months ago, concentrates on the media interview. It will prepare you for today’s media culture “in which a tweet can become newsworthy and a news interview can become tweet-worthy.”

If you’ve been interviewed on radio or TV, what do you think are the advantages or disadvantages? Add to my list in the Comments below.

That would be a big mistake.

Pick yourself up. Brush yourself off. And move on!

That’s what I told an author this week when I presented a webinar for the Independent Book Publishers Association on 17 Story Ideas Authors & Publishers Can Pitch Tomorrow for Publicity.

At the end of my presentation, she asked, “How do you handle rejection?” Here are five tips for doing just that:

1. Don’t take it personally.

The reporter who isn’t interested in your story idea probably doesn’t think you’re a bad person. It could be that the idea simply isn’t a good fit. Or he’s covering for somebody who is out sick and he’s too busy right now. Pitch it to someone else whose audience needs to hear what you’re offering.

2. Ask, “May I help with any other stories you’re researching or writing?”

Sometimes journalists and bloggers want to cover a certain topic, but they don’t have time to do the research, and the idea ends up on the back burner permanently. This happens to me occasionally. If a journalist knows you could be a valuable source for his next article, he’ll want to stay in touch.

3. Ask, “Is there any other way I can help you?”

Let’s say you’re pitching an idea to a blogger, and she isn’t interested because she wrote something very similar to it last week. Ask her if she needs your help with anything else. She might have an idea for a guest blog post she’d like you to write. But you’d never know unless you asked.

4. Offer yourself as a source.

Invite her to call on you if she needs sources, background, commentary, story ideas or anything else in your area of expertise. Chances are pretty good she’ll add you to her database of sources.

5. Ask if you can submit photos, video or other materials after an event.

If you let journalists know about an event you’re hosting, but they don’t cover it, consider offering them photos, video, an op-ed, tips, a letter to the editor, or any other material afterward. Local TV stations, newspapers and other media often welcome things like for their websites. And remember, if it’s online, it might stay there forever.

2 Things You Should Never Do

After pitching, don’t ask, ”Are you on any of the social media sites?” You should already know the answer, if you’ve done your homework. If you know a report is Twitter or Facebook, you can ask if they’d like you to pitch ideas there, or do it privately.

Also, never try to change a journalist’s mind about a story idea. They know their audience and what the media outlet already has covered. You don’t.

Those are my ideas. What are your best tips for handling rejection in a PR campaign?

(Photo by pakorn at FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

* * *

When it’s time to launch your next promotion, and free publicity is an important component, know the pros and cons of print, broadcast and online publicity.

If you know the advantages and disadvantages of each, long before the campaign begins, you’ll be in a much better position to schedule your pitches in enough time for certain media to cover your story. You’ll also be able to react quickly and know which media can cover you just a few hours after they learn about what you’re offering.

Here are the most important things you need to keep in mind for print publicity. This includes newspapers, magazines, industry publications, alumni magazines, business journals, print newsletters and niche publications like church bulletins.

Advantages:

• You can take advantage of newspaper and magazine editorial calendars. Larger publications create these for the benefit of advertisers who need to know which topics will be featured in which issues. Even if you don’t advertise, an editorial calendar can help you determine where your story might be the best fit.
• Readers clip articles and pass them along to friends. Or they pass along the entire issue. Consider what happens to magazines inside your doctor’s office. Or on airplanes, where inflight magazines are stuffed into the seat pockets. Or in libraries, where a year’s worth are bound in big volumes, and can be viewed by patrons years after they were printed. Magazines published every other month have the longest shelf life of all.
• You can target niches. Niche publications, like special interest magazines and newsletters, can have very loyal audiences and can let you target your message like a laser.
• Daily newspapers have short lead times for news. If you’re pitching to a daily newspaper on Monday, it might appear in the paper on Tuesday if it’s newsy.
• You can make reprints. Be very careful about this, however. Because the publication owns the copyright, you must ask permission to reprint. Some big newspapers and magazines have hefty fees for reprint rights. If you can’t afford the cost, buy as many copies of the publication as you can afford, as soon as it’s published. Don’t assume you can reprint articles written about you.

Disadvantages:

• Circulation has been plummeting at most major daily newspapers. If your story makes it into the print version of a newspaper, but not onto the newspaper’s website, it can be here today and gone tomorrow.
• Many people under 40 don’t read newspapers. If people under 40 are a significant part of the target audience for your publicity campaign, you need to concentrate on online publicity. Most of those people read their news online.
• Lead times for various types of print media can be very confusing. While your daily newspaper might need only 24 hours notice, the big national magazine you’re dying to get into might want pitches a full six months before the issue is printed. Pitching a Christmas story? You’d better be working the phones in July. Weekly newspapers, on the other hand, sometimes want their stories a few weeks in advance.
• Errors appear in print forever. If a fact in your story is wrong, it’s there for all the world to see for months and maybe even years. Even if you call the publication to correct an error in a front-page story, the correction might run on the bottom of Page 27 three days later.

That’s my list of pros and cons. Did I miss anything? Please add to them in the Comments below.

That old LinkedIn phishing scheme is back again. I got three identical emails within 90 minutes this morning. Notice the “From” line in the header below. The other two emails were sent from emailconfirm@locomp.net and from emailconfirm@eco.co.uk.

While reading LinkedIn’s Account Security & Privacy Best Practices, I noticed that it cautions against including your physical address, email address and phone number in your profile. My profile included my email address and phone number until I deleted them a few minutes ago. That could be why I received the email.

Here are seven shortcuts when time is really at a premium:

1. Compile a list of FAQs.

This morning, a social media client emailed me to let me know how many inquiries and industry-related questions her company received during December from their website.

Every time someone emails a question about your product, service, industry or expertise, save the question and the answer on a Word doc. At the beginning of every month or two, open the document, cut and paste, and blog quickly about frequently asked questions. If you receive a lot of questions, you can group them by topic. Each topic can be a separate post. This is perfect, by the way, for an assistant.

2. Compile a list of must-read articles on a certain topic.

If you’ve created Google Alerts, you’re getting lots of helpful articles in your inbox regularly. If you’re on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn, and you frequently click on links to articles others are sharing, you might feel like you’re drinking all that great content from a fire hose.

Create another Word document of articles you find particularly helpful. When you add one to the list, make a notation of what you found particularly helpful. When you compile a dozens or so links, write a post.

3. Record a short phone interview with an expert and have it transcribed.

One of my other resolutions is to call people I meet via social media and record a very short phone interview on their area of expertise, outsource the transcription, and create it as a blog post.

Want three blog posts from one conversation? Do a short interview on three topics during the same call. Each one gets its own blog post.

When you create the posts, let the experts know and ask them to share the link.

4. Share industry definitions.

While updating my my ebook, How to be a Kick-butt Publicity Hound, I added to the long list of PR definitions and social media definitions in the back of the book. Then it hit me. The list can be divided into separate blog posts by topic. Another great task for an assistant. If you don’t have your own ready-made list, you can create one simply by Googling.

5. What’s the most valuable tool, trick, tip or advice you learned each day?

It can be a free tool like FreeDigitalPhotos.net, where you can download free stock photos. Or an expert you discovered and started following on Twitter. Or a trick on how to encourage more people to comment on your status updates. At the end of the day, you can write a very short post—two or three paragraphs are fine—or compile the tips from each week into a blog post every Friday.

6. Let blog readers know about your favorite tweets from the past week.

Every Friday, my assistant—Christine Buffaloe of Serenity Virtual Assistant Services—compiles a list of my 10 most helpful tweets from that week and turns them into a blog post for my blog readers who might not be following me on Twitter. I’m amazed at the number of people who retweet the list. You can see my “Dog Tweets” from last week.

7. Let followers know about your next event.

This is the one area where I need the most improvement. Even though I blog regularly about events I’m sponsoring, like webinars, I frequently forget to let my readers know about other people’s teleseminars or webinars where I’ll be appearing as a guest. Update your readers about your book signings, tweet chats, Meetups, industry meetings, networking events, trade shows, radio or TV shows where you’re appearing, podcasts, etc.

8. Now it’s your turn.

What are favorite ways to create really fast blog posts? Comment below, and feel free to link to a post you created quickly so we can see the example.

If you like these tips, please share the link.

Let’s start of the new year on the right foot and fill the hopper with about a dozen story ideas you can pitch to the media and bloggers this month. Use these when the idea well is dry, or work them into your publicity plan for 2014.

How? By pitching them to national magazines in July this year. Remember that many magazines have a six-month lead time.

These ideas will also come in handy for bloggers, ezine editors, podcasters, article writers and anyone who needs to create content for their websites and share in social media.

1. Salvaging New Year’s Resolutions

The new year is less than a week old, but I’ll bet many of those resolutions were already tossed away with yesterday’s garbage. Is January a bad time to make resolutions with Christmas bills piling up, pounds piling on from all those Christmas cookies, and everyone exhausted from the holidays?

Do you have a product or service that will help people lose weight, quit smoking or be less stressed out?

2. Economic Predictions

Now that the fiscal cliff drama is over, at least temporarily, stock brokers and financial analysts can make predictions about the economic impact of the new legislation that President Obama is signing. How about pitching your expert commentary on how it will affect your state? Your community? Your industry?

Accountants, are your small-business clients confused about the higher FICA taxes? If so, what are you doing to help them?

3. Super Bowl Sunday

The media LOVE stories about wacky and over-the-top Super Bowl parties. Pitch or write about things people can do if they don’t care about football.

And don’t forget those TV commercials! Invite a local TV crew into your home to gauge the reaction of your family and friends who can “rate” the commercials.

4. National Book Week

The third full week in January is National Book Week—a perfect time for authors and publishers to offer themselves as expert sources on the red-hot topic of ebooks. Discuss trends you’re seeing in your industry such as print-on-demand, Amazon marketing and audio books.

Non-profits and libraries, this is the perfect time to encourage people to donate old books for a good cause.

Go over to Goodreads, the giant book review and recommendation site, and start a discussion about an interesting aspect of publishing. Or ask your followers to discuss their favorite book.

Start a Pinterest board and pin covers of your favorite books. Let your followers pin, too.

5. Inauguration Day

President Obama will be sworn in on Sunday, Jan. 20. What are the implications of another four-year Obama presidency for your company, business, nonprofit, city, state or town?

6. The Winter Blues

What are the best ways to shake off the winter blues? What kinds of special lights can help? How often should you be exposed to light to feel less cranky?

Stores are slashing prices. But does shopping really cure the blues, or can it create even more problems?

7. Travel Bargains

There’s nothing like shaking the winter blues than visions of white beaches and blue seas. Can consumers find travel bargains this month? What travel scams are lurking out there?

8. The Best Credit Cards

Our mailboxes are stuffed with offers of cash-back programs. Points. Double-points. Bonuses. Hotel loyalty programs. Gas cards. Student credit cards.

The average consumer’s eyes glaze over just thinking about getting a new credit card. If you’re an expert in this area, enlighten the masses about the best credit cards, hidden fees, interest rates, and other facts tucked away in the fine print.

9. Winter Driving Safety

Car safety experts, truck drivers and driving school instructors can share tips on how to drive in deep snow, on ice, and in sleet storms. When offering advice, remember all the different types of vehicles, from the biggest SUVs to tiny little boxes on wheels. This category provides potential galore for YouTube videos.

10. Diets and Weight Loss Programs

This is one of the hottest topics for the cold month of January, especially for TV, which relies on people, color and motion for a good story. If you work at a company, see if your employees want to be part of these stories. Invite TV crews to follow them on a weight loss campaign.

Other topics in this category include diet and age, diet drugs, the best exercises, how the elderly and those with disabilities can stay fit, fad diets, and the healthiest fast food. More potential for videos by demonstrating exercises. More opportunities for YouTube videos. How about demonstrating those exercises? Or how to make a low-fat recipe?

That’s my list. What can you add to it?

That’s easy to do if you’ve interviewed several candidates in-depth, you’ve chosen your top candidate and want to get started, but you miss the critical step of checking references before you sign on the dotted line. Don’t let yourself become so giddy with excitement over an exceptional candidate that you skip this step!

Many people, especially authors, have. And thousands of wasted dollars later, they’re sharing all the ugly details in online discussion groups and at the corner cafe.

Check References for Your Top Candidate

If you interview four or five publicists, don’t spend time checking references for each. Only ask for references from your top candidate, or the top two candidates if everything else is equal and it’s a toss-up.

Ask if you can have the names, phone numbers and email addresses of three current or former clients.

Email first to arrange a good time to call. But don’t interview them via email. You can learn far more in a phone conversation. Here are questions to ask the publicist’s clients, excerpted from my ebook, How to Hire the Perfect Publicist:

• What kind of job did the publicist do for you?
• How many media placements did you get?
• Of those mentioned, which were the most valuable and why?
• What did those placements do for you? (A CEO might like the cover story he got in Business Week because it stroked his ego. But ask about the VALUE of the cover story. What, specifically, did it accomplish?)
• Was the publicist knowledgeable about online publicity and social media?
• How were the publicist’s efforts in those areas measured, and what was the result?
• Overall, what measurable results did you see from the publicity campaign?
• Did the publicity build on itself long after the publicist was gone? If so, how?
• What kinds of additional value did the publicist bring to your project?
• What did you like best about the publicist?
• What did you like least?
• Did the publicist need improvement in any areas? If so, which ones?
• What’s your best piece of advice on how I should work with him or her?
• Would you work with the publicist again?
• What other advice do you have for me if I hire him or her?

Another Sensitive Question

When you ask your top candidate or candidates for references, also ask for the contact information for any client that ended a project before it was completed. The publicist might not want to give you this information, but it never hurts to ask.

But be careful here. A client’s expectations are sometimes far beyond the publicist’s abilities. I know an excellent publicist whose client stopped working with her after only a few months, after she got him excellent media placements. He was disappointed that the publicity didn’t reflect on his bottom line. I think that’s an unrealistic expectation. She did, too. A three-month publicity campaign barely has time to build traction.

In asking for the name of a client whose project ended abruptly, you’re looking for information that might raise a red flag. Examples include disagreements over time billed on invoices, or the failure by the publicist to return phone calls within a day or two, or the inability of the client and publicist to work together harmoniously.

Rely on Your Social Media Connections

Special-interest groups on sites LinkedIn can be excellent places to ask for feedback about a particular publicist. You can throw out the question there, but ask that anyone with information to share contact you privately.

If your top candidate passes these tests, chances are pretty good you’ve got a winner.

If you’ve worked with a publicist, what other questions would you add to my list? If you work as a publicist, what other ways can clients make sure they’re getting the very best candidate? The Comments section awaits.

The annoying reality on Faceboook is that only about 17 percent of your Facebook fans, if you’re lucky, actually see your status updates in their feed.

Facebook wants you to pay, either by buying a Facebook ad or a Sponsored Post, so that more people can see your updates. When Facebook page owners finally realized that, they started complaining loudly.

Maybe that’s why Facebook has finally rolled out the “Get Notifications” feature for Pages. You’ve been able to use this feature on user profiles for quite some time, but Facebook recently enabled it for Pages.

It’s a way to flag your fans to your content, without paying, so they don’t miss anything.

Tell them to subscribe to all your status updates by checking the “Get Notifications” option under the “Liked” button. “Get Notifications” is automatically turned off when they Like your page, so they must take this step. Here is the three-step procedure:

1. Tell them Like your page.

2. Then tell them to hover their cursor over the blue “Liked” button until “Get Notifications” appears.

3. Click on “Get Notifications” and they’ll see a checkmark appear.

Every time you send an update, Facebook notifies them in the “Notifications” section of their Admin panel. I “Liked” Target’s page about 15 minutes ago. Three minutes later, they added a new photo as a status update. It showed up in Notifications in my Admin Panel on my profile page:

You can subscribe to updates on my Publicity Hound page here. Go through the same process. Click on “Liked,” and then hover your cursor over the blue “Liked” button and click on “Get Notifications.”

If you like my updates, please Like, Comment or Share. What other tips do you have on how to pull more fans to your page, or encourage them to Like, Comment or Share?

I’ve been hosting webinars for several years as a way to train the people who follow me, and to create products very quickly.

You can, too. Here are nine ways to use webinar education for PR, to make money and to save time:

For PR

1. Host a free webinar and invite journalists and bloggers.

Identify an emerging trend in your industry that they need to know about. Host a free webinar and train them on the topic. Offer statistics, resources and story ideas that tie into the trend.

Promote the webinar within LinkedIn Groups, on Twitter, in discussion forums for journalists, and in industry-specific discussion groups. This training elevates you as a thought leader and expert.

2. Demonstrate how to use a new product or service.

Host a webinar for anyone who needs a solution to the problem that your product solves. Demonstrate how to use your new software. Or give step-by-step directions on how to remove different types of stains—wine, blood, ink—with your new miracle stain remover. Let people ask questions.

Authors, host a free webinar just before a book launch to build anticipation for the book, or after the launch to give readers a chance to discuss it. These webinars can be promoted on sites like Goodreads.com.

3. Host a free Q&A webinar for your customers, ezine subscribers, blog readers or anyone who needs help in your area of expertise.

You don’t have to prepare any content. Just let people ask questions for the entire hour, and answer them.

What do you use as visuals? You can take people to specific websites that would be good resources, depending on their problem. One or more of those websites, of course, can be yours. Show them specific blog posts you’ve written that provide more solutions.

You can ask attendees to submit questions when they register. This gives you a chance to do a little research and have the answers at your fingertips before the webinar begins. If giving step-by-step directions on how to do something, create a quick PowerPoint slideshow.

To Make Money

4. Host a paid webinar on a specific problem that is challenging your target audience.

Pay attention to questions that people ask you in your email.

Speakers, what questions are audience members asking during your presentations? My audience, for example, frequently asks me how to get more “Likes” for their Facebook pages. I hosted a webinar recently on 35 Ways to Promote Your Facebook Page.

5. Record the webinar and sell it afterward as a product.

This is a very quick way for me to create products, even if only a few people pay to attend. Because you can create these webinars, promote them and present them in a week or two, you can teach timely topics that your audience is just starting to hear about.

One of my most popular webinars has been for authors: Where to Find Millions of Readers Online to Review, Recommend & Buy Your Books. I got the idea for that topic after I spoke at an authors conference and heard them asking questions about online book review sites. When I returned home, I immediately started researching these sites and hosted the webinar within several weeks. To this day, that video replay is one of my top-selling products.

6. Use webinars as a part of your coaching and mentoring programs.

People who join The Publicity Hound Mentor Program can participate in two private webinars with me every month. I encourage them to suggest topics. If they don’t, I pick a topic they need, based on problems I see while working with them. I record every webinar, and they can watch the replay if they can’t attend.

7. Speakers, offer webinars to fill seats at an upcoming event, or as follow-up training for audiences that already have heard you.

When meeting planners hire you to speak, offer to host a webinar for their group a few months before the event, discussing tips you’ll be presenting live. This is a powerful value-added because it will help market the event.

If you do corporate training, you can host follow-up webinars to answer questions and deal with issues that arise while your audience is implementing what you taught. Another value-added for your clients!

To Save Time

8. Use webinars to train your staff.

This is particularly helpful if they’re in different cities. Record the presentation and offer it to new employees.

9. Use a webinar to train yourself!

In my office, I keep a three-ring binder of systems that include step-by-step directions on how to do a specific task. If I haven’t done a certain task for awhile, it’s sometimes actually easier to see how something is done than to read about it. And creating a two-minute webinar recording is sometimes quicker than writing the procedure.

If you want to learn more about webinars, join me on Wednesday, Nov. 28, and Thursday, Nov. 29, from 4 to 5:30 p.m. Eastern Time both days, for a two-part webinar program on How to Host Webinars and Sell Them as Profitable Products.

In Part 1, I’ll explain how I create the webinar using PowerPoint slides and MarketersChoice, also known as 1ShoppingCart (you can use your own brand of cart). And I’ll review how I market the live program and then do webinar marketing after it’s been created. Part 2 will show you how to use GotoWebinar.

Register here. Hope you can join us!

There are so many webinar benefits, that I’d love to hear yours. How do you use webinars in your business? The Comments section awaits.

It’s wedged between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, a day set aside by American Express to encourage people to shop locally.

If you own a bricks and mortar business, you have opportunities galore to promote Small Business Saturday for free. This year it’s celebrated on Nov. 24.

Here are eight of my favorite ideas:

1. Create a “husband only” or “wife only” shopping day on Nov. 24. Email each spouse a list of what the other one wants.

Thanks to Mariah Smith of Mississippi State University for this idea. She says: “When it comes to shopping for the men in my life, I know it should come with shotgun shells or be electronic or camouflage. If I got an email from the local sporting goods store with a list of their desired items, I would be thrilled.” She has more tips on how to use technology to promote Small Business Saturday.

2. Contact your local editor at Patch.com and offer to be part of a story.

Local news is Patch’s bread and butter, and this story is perfect for your Patch site. Contact the editor with news, photos or videos about what you’ll be doing at your store, and any special promotions. Take lots of photos and video and offer those, too, after the event. Patch has sites in 22 states in the U.S. and the District of Columbus. I’ve written about these other ways you can get publicity at Patch.com.

3. Let the National Federation of Independent Business help you promote.

Small business owners can submit information about their special promotions, and why people should visit, using this form the NFIB website. The federation will promote the submissions on NFIB.com and in front of NFIB’s 150,000 Facebook fans and 30,000 Twitter followers.

4. Get free signs from FedEx Office.

Take advantage of personalized in-store signage. You can get it professionally printed for free, compliments of FedEx Office.

5. Publicize a special event at your business, and let the local TV stations know.

Cooking classes, dog obedience training, art lessons for the kids, and fashion shows are the kinds of events TV loves because they include three critical elements: people, color and motion. (For pitching tips, see How to Get on the Local TV News Tomorrow.)

6. Ask your customers to help you promote.

Encourage them to spread the word to their friends and followers on Facebook and Twitter.

7. Announce your special sales to your email list.

AWeber, the company I use to send my ezine, “The Publicity Hound’s Tips of the Week,” suggests that idea, and many more, in this very helpful Action Plan for Small Business Saturday.

8. Take advantage of all the promotional materials and tips from American Express.

You’ll find posters, banners and other materials, in addition to ready-made messages to share on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn.

BONUS TIP: American Express is offering a $25 credit to any American Express cardholder who registers their card and then spends $25 at a participating small business on November 24, 2012. The credit is available to each card holder on an account, so if your account has multiple card holders you can get multiple credits. A full list of participating merchants can be found on American Express’s Facebook Page.

You know the importance of giving before you get. You’ve followed her on Twitterand retweeted several of her tips.

You want to do more research online and learn all you can about her. You also need her email address. But her Twitter profile doesn’t mention anything about email. How do you find this nugget of information? Here are seven of the best ways, which also work for anyone whose email address you can’t find:

1. Do a Google search.

This is often your quickest and best trick. Fictional example: Mary Edwards + Forbes columnist + email.

Sometimes you’ll see the email address peeking out from the description, just under the headline, in the organic search results. Other times, you’ll have to click on everything that Google returns to you.

2. At the media outlet’s website.

Websites for some of the bigger media outlets are a treasure trove of information, but I’m astonished at how many people never think to look here. USA Today’s Reporter Index has a lengthy list of reporters, some with links to profiles and contact information. Emily Bazar, who covers immigration, for example, invites “ideas” in the Comments section, so that’s a green light to pitch her. Read the excellent pitch in the Comments section from Lew Weinberg.

I’ve been very surprised to see detailed profiles, with juicy personal nuggets, even at websites for local TV stations. Here’s what I found when I looked for the News Team at WISN-TV, Channel 12, in Milwaukee, Wis., where I live. Most include email addresses. Important Note: Pay attention to personal details that might tie into your story idea and that you can weave into your pitch. See How to find the name of a journalist’s dog, cat or kid in 60 seconds.

3. In one of the big media directories.

The expensive media directories published by companies like Cision and Bacons usually have this information. But what if you don’t have $1,000 to spend on a directory? If you live near a big library, call the reference desk.

If you know somebody who works at a PR agency, call them and ask for a favor. Most agencies use these directories. You can also reach out to PR people who you follow on the social media sites. But contact them privately, through the site’s email or through their own private email address.

4. Call someone who the journalist interviewed.

When you do your Google search, you can find sources within their stories and call them. If you find someone who’s willing to give you the reporter’s email address, it never hurts to ask, “I’m curious. What kind of interviewer is Mary? Did she ask you any questions you didn’t expect?” Pay attention to what you hear, and remember this if Mary eventually interviews you.

5. At the journalist’s blog.

Finding the blog of a journalist who you want to pitch is like striking gold. Their email address might be included in their profile. Also look for whether the journalist responds to comments on the off chance you might find the email address there. See Journalists’ blogs offer valuable clues about how to pitch them.

6. At the Society of Professional Journalist’s Freelance Directory.

You’ll find names, and usually contact information, for more than 1,300 journalists. Journalists who work for newspapers and magazines might freelance on the side.

7. Use more difficult advanced strategies that most people don’t know about.

Go to How to Find the Unfindable: 12 Ways to Find Anyone’s Personal Email Addreess. Some of these are much more time-consuming than the ones I’ve mentioned, but they work. It sounds as though writer Ken Lyons can find just about anybody.

Be ready for this question from a reporter: “That’s a private email address. How did you find it?” Tell her exactly what you did. Also tell her that if she’s trying to track down the email address for someone she wants to interview, she can use the same techniques you used. Share the valuable link in #7 above. This positions YOU as a valuable source for HER.

Am I wrong? What would you tell her? What other things have you done to find journalists’ email addresses? The Comments section awaits.

He says you can, too.

And he says there are nine things that major sponsors can help you promote to millions of people, while also paying for your PR campaign (PR people and publicists, share these with your clients):

1. Live events.

This is perfect for professional speakers and trainers. And the event doesn’t have to be big. Burchard knows a corporate sponsor who came through with $300,000 to promote an event that pulled only 14 people, and was a success.

2. Educational programs.

Let’s say you’re an expert in finance, and you want to to each children and teens how to save money and be smart shoppers. The best way to do that is to get into schools. And the easiest way to do that is to partner with a company or nonprofit that already has contacts within lots of schools.

3. Corporate programs.

You’ve created an innovative program that’s perfect for CEOs and others in the executive suite. Let’s say it’s on the topic of ethics. Major companies and nonprofits would LOVE to partner with you and spread the word to their audiences because it shows they’re good corporate citizens. They already have the connections, the database and the inside track on other organizations and audiences that would welcome you. And when it comes to marketing, they’ll do all the heavy lifting for you!

4. Product launches.

You might have a new book or video series that’s perfect for staff members at nonprofits all over the world. And a big nonprofit might love let their branches and field offices know about it. You have the how-to info, and they have a huge, ready audience.

5. Contests and sweepstakes.

For a really successful contest, you need big prizes. And who better to give them to you for free than companies like hotels that offer free rooms, and airlines that can supply free tickets? Burchard arranged a deal like that and gave the winner of one of his sweepstakes a trip around the world.

6. A website launch.

If you’re going to build an online community, big partners can help you drive traffic, give you products that you can give away, and provide “borrowed credibility” that will make you look more reputable when visitors see their logos on your website.

7. Services.

This is perfect for life coaches, or anyone who provides services for those in need. During Hurricane Katrina, a major corporation paid the tab to send life coaches to New Orleans to work with hurricane victims and help them get their lives back on track. The “Doctors Without Borders” program is another example of a successful program made possible through corporate partners.

8. Causes.

If you can help worthy causes like disadvantaged youth, battered women or cancer survivors, there’s probably a Fortune 500 company or global nonprofit that would love to give you its stamp of approval, a budget to help, and their logo to use in your PR campaign, particularly if they care deeply about social responsibility.

9. Tours.

You might be a rock band that wants to do a major tour but can’t afford it. Or an author who wants to tour the country to promote your new book. Burchard recruited enough sponsors to pay for a 41-city tour to promote his book, Life’s Golden Ticket.

Now that you know just some of the possibilities, learn other techniques for recruiting sponsors and partners. Attend a free teleseminar at 2 and 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 7, and listen as Steve Harrison interviews Burchard about other things you can do to follow in his footsteps. Register here. Even though the teleseminar is free, I’m a compensated affiliate and I’m promoting this because it offers opportunities galore for Publicity Hounds who have a message to share.

Like these tips? Your Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter followers will, too! Thanks for sharing the link.

When I clicked on it, there he was, smiling, in the cockpit of a plane. I couldn’t help but look out the front window and imagine that I was sitting there next to him and that we were ready to take off.

The headline caught my eye, and I kept reading. Here’s how Dan’s email message promotes the ebook:

• He explains what makes this book different from the typical fiction ebook.

“Books, especially fiction, have been straight text for hundreds of years. In the early days of books, if there was an illustration, it was a drawing or photograph in the frontispiece. Offset printing made it easy to add illustrations but fiction didn’t change. The Internet made it easy to add videos but fiction didn’t change. Maps anchor the text. Pictures show the locations. Videos bring life to the text. References verify the scenes, and so on. Fiction is growing up.

• And then he explains what’s required to read it.

“To take advantage of the illustrative improvements, enhanced ebooks must be read on a device connected to the Internet. With so many people buying Kindles, iPads, Nooks, and other ereading devices, more and more readers will be able to enjoy the improvements in fiction.

• Then, he summarizes the book.

“Tailwinds: Adventures of a Young Aviator,” takes place in the late 30s and early 40s. It is illustrated with black-and-white photos that were taken at that time. There are maps depicting all the places the young hero visits. Fascinating videos back up materials and almost all were from the 1940s era. See the ebook’s description at Tailwinds Website.

• He promotes his expertise by mentioning that he has pioneered a new type of reading—again.

• He offers a coupon code, valid until Dec. 31, where you can get a free pre-publication review copy and “permission” to share it with friends and mention it in your blog or ezine.
• He gives step-by-step instructions on how to get the ebook free.
  –Go to Tailwinds at Smashwords.

  –In the area labeled “Available book reading formats,” look in the “Full Book” column and buy the version to fit your ereader. Click.

  –Log into your shopping cart. Click

  –In the Coupon code box, enter this code :XY52B

  –Then click Update and the cost will revert to 0.00.

  –Click on “checkout”

• He explains why the book is free for the next two months.“Making the book free, initially, is part of our promotion plan,” the email says. “To make a work of fiction go, it has to get read (enjoyed and reviewed).”

• At the end of the email, he even suggests where you can review it.
  “I hope you like the book and will review it at Amazon, Smashwords, B&N, and other sites.”

I haven’t downloaded or read the ebook yet, but I thought this email was enticing and his promotion very clever. If you’re promoting your own ebook, even if the book isn’t multimedia, consider borrowing a few of these ideas from Dan.

What kind of compelling photo can you offer at the beginning of your email message to really pull in readers?

Have you downloaded Dan’s ebook and read it? Your thoughts? What other ideas do you have on how to promote ebooks? What’s worked for you and what hasn’t?

When I speak to audiences about the importance of being an expert, I see people start to cringe. They’re paranoid about calling themselves experts and then being “found out” or “uncovered as a fraud.” That’s because they mistakenly think that being an expert means being the one person who knows the most about a certain topic.

Expertise isn’t only about what you know. Expertise is also about what you do.

Here’s a three-minute video of me explaining why they are worrying needlessly, and what you can do to gain expertise in your field. It’s from my presentation last month at the Career Directors International conference in San Diego.

If you want to learn more what it takes to be a subject matter expert, read The Expertise Imperative, a fabulous White Paper written by Alan Parisse, Rita Risser, Bob Treadway, Robert Tucker and Alan Weiss, some of the very best speakers in the National Speakers Association. They wrote it more than a decade ago, specifically for speakers. But I recommend it to all my audiences because it’s still timely for people in any occupation.

The National Speakers Association includes thousands of people from a wide variety of industries and backgrounds. We have hypnotists, management consultants, business coaches and mentors, mountain climbers, magicians, labor experts, psychologists, college professors, and on and on.

Today, expertise also includes having a presence in social media and doing things such blogging, creating how-to videos, answering questions on Quora.com, creating your own LinkedIn group, and sharing business advice and tips on Twitter (follow me here for publicity and social media tips).

The White Paper will give you dozens of ideas on other things you can do to become an expert in your field, or become more of an expert than you are now.

What have you done to enhance or promote your own expertise? The Comments section awaits…

And if you like this video and these tips, please share them with your social media friends and followers. Sharing valuable resources enhances your own expertise!

1. Let people brag on your Page.

Tell your Twitter followers, LinkedIn group members or blog readers to go over to your Facebook Page and share the link to their Facebook profile or Page where they have a cover photo they’re really proud of.

—A graphic designer might suggest that her followers go to her Facebook pages and share links to a profile or Page that has a creative cover photo at the top.

—An expert on blogging might suggest that people share a link to their most popular blog post.

—A book coach can encourage authors to link to their great books reviews on Amazon, or testimonials from readers who loved the book.

After I shared this tip, art business coach Alyson Stanfield used it and simply asked her fans to explain what one accomplishment they are proudest of from last week. As of this morning, more than 65 people have commented!

Note: The more people who Comment, Like and Share your content, the more “credit” you get from Facebook. If Facebook knows that those people are responding to your content, it is more likely to “push” your future status updates into those people’s news feeds.

2. Let your blog readers know.

If you blog, let readers know about your Facebook page at the end of your posts. Explain what kinds of information you share on your page, link to it, and tell them to Like it. Don’t assume your blog fans know you’re on Facebook!

3. Tag your Facebook Page(s) from your Personal Profile.

Friends and relatives who are interested in your personal life might also be interested in your work life but have no idea where to find your Page. To tag your page from a status update on your Profile page, simply write a note and type the name of your Facebook Page using the symbol “@” before it, like I’ve done below. When you see the page pop up in the window at the bottom, click on the Page.

It will look like this in your status update (I have two pages, and I tagged them both):

4. In your Facebook status updates, tag other pages similar to yours that have a lot of traffic.

Your update will appear on their walls, in front of their thousands of fans.

5. Include your URL on your Twitter profile background.

It won’t be clickable, but it will at least tell your Twitter followers where they can find your Page on Facebook.

Register for the webinar, at 4 p.m. Eastern Time, even if the time inconvenient because I’m recording it, and I’ll send you the link where you can download the video replay, PowerPoint slides I used for the video, and the MP3 audio.

Everyone who registers also will get my handy checklist, “12 Types of Content Facebook Fans Love” after the call.

See you Thursday!

What have you done to promote your Facebook page? Mention it below, and link to the page. And, yes, feel free to brag!

That nasty review of your hotel isn’t as bad as the one above, but they still gave you only one star because they found mold on the walls in the bathroom.

Or the drunks in the next room carried on all night.

Or the surly waitress in your restaurant smelled like cigarette smoke.

When you get a bad review online, like at TripAdvisor or Yelp, that’s bad publicity, period. You must take the time to respond. Here’s why:

1. It shows you care and that you take complaints seriously. Not responding is akin to saying “no comment.”

2. It gives you a chance to apologize and fix the problem.

3. In certain cases, you can offer unhappy customers something to make up for the less-than-stellar service, like a free dessert with their next meal.

4. It gives you a chance to correct the record if the complaint includes inaccuracies. But don’t argue, and don’t sound defensive.

5. Your comment might discourage other unhappy guests, some who just like to complain, from piling on.

6. If a journalist or blogger wants to write about you, and their research includes checking you out at these sites, you want to be there and put your best foot forward because it could affect what they write.

7. Your comments might be read not only by the person who wrote the bad review, but by thousands of other potential guests. Remember, bad reviews sometimes live online forever.

How to Respond to Bad Reviews

Read this very helpful article on Top tips for hotels when responding to reviews on TripAdvisor. It was written by Brian Payea, head of industry relations at TripAdvisor, and much of it is equally helpful for any business that gets a bad review online and has a chance to respond.

I’d add one thing to Payea’s list. Don’t comment on bad reviews when you’re angry. Cool off first. You need to be rational, level-headed and empathetic.

You can also watch these videos of how two businesses respond to to bad reviews on Yelp and hear how one business owner actually can sometimes turn a bad review into a good one.

Have you responded to reviews, good or bad, at these consumer review sites? What was the result?

You can have the most interesting story idea on the planet.

But unless you do your homework first and get to know everything you possibly can about the journalist you’re pitching it to, you could be blowing a golden opportunity for publicity.

Let’s say you want to pitch a story about tweens to Caren Oppeneheim, an assistant editor at Family Circle magazine. You find her email address, write the pitch, send it off, and hear nothing.

You wait several days, follow up with a phone call, leave a message, but still hear nothing.

It could be that she’s busy tweeting about her love for the Yankees, her cravings for sweet and salty snacks like chocolate covered potato chips, or the recipes she’s busy planning for her next Emmys party. Or maybe she’s reading the final few chapters of Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand.

Research Doesn’t Have to be Time-Consuming

I don’t know Caren Oppenheim.

But it took me less than five minutes to find out all those details about her simply by Googling her name. I also learned that even though she welcomes email pitches, she does not like follow-up phone calls.

If I were sending her a sample of a product, and an accompanying press release, guess what I’d slip into the box? A bag of chocolate covered potato chips, and a personalized note thanking her for recommending Unbroken.

What do you think Caren is most likely to do? Return your phone call that she didn’t want in the first place? Or give a second look at my product sample while she’s munching on her chips?

That’s why pitching quickly, without doing your research, is a waste.

How to Get into Magazines

I spent most of last Thursday’s webinar on “How to Find Your Way into Glossy Magazines” discussing the many ways to research magazine journalists, connect with them and build the relationship, long before you pitch.

If you missed the webinar, you can still register here for the replay and miss nothing. If you have questions while reviewing the material, email me and I’ll be happy to answer them.

Smart PR people and self-promoters know October is the month when magazines start releasing their editorial calendars for the following year.

Editorial calendars help advertisers know which topics will be featured in which editions. They also give Publicity Hounds a leg up on the competition because you can see instantly where your story might be a good fit. And you can pitch long before the deadline.

Advertisers, by the way, typically have earlier deadlines than editorial. So make sure you know which deadlines the editorial calendar is referring to. Look for editorial calendars on the magazine’s website, under an “Advertise with Us” link or in the magazine’s Media Kit.

Ebony Magazine’s 2013 editorial calendar, for example, gives you a bird’s-eye view of the entire year. Let’s say you want publicity for your company’s tech gadget for a guy. You can see instantly that November’s edition, devoted to men, would probably be the best fit because it will feature a special section on “Tech Toys and Gadgets.” You’ll want to pitch about six months before publication date.

Other Ways to Use Editorial Calendars

When I hosted the webinar on “How to Find Your Way into Glossy Magazines” last week, I explained how editorial calendars are road maps to publicity in so many other ways:

• Some calendars include valuable information on the magazine’s demographics such as the percentage of male vs. female subscribers, and the total household income. The photo above shows that that’s exactly what you’ll find in the editorial calendar for Jacksonville magazine.
• Some calendars, like the one for Jacksonville, will even tell you the types of vacations readers prefer, or the most popular models of cars they bought. Why is this important? Because if your story idea ties into vacations or cars, you can use the information in your pitch.
• Meg Weaver, who publishes the terrific ezine “Your Wooden Horse Magazine,” which features news for the magazine industry, and an inexpensive magazines database, says even old editorial calendars are valuable. “Savvy writers can get a lot of mileage even from this ‘outdated’ information,” she says. “First of all, reading the calendar gives you great insight into the kind of topics a magazine publishes.”
• Use last year’s calendars, Weaver says, to brainstorm ideas for competitive magazines, which you can often find listed in her company’s database.

The video replay of last week’s webinar is ready, and you can access it here, along with the bonus tip sheet, “11 Ways to Prepare for a Magazine Interview.”

You find the editor’s name and email address in one of those expensive media directories. You write a pitch and email it to her.

Not so fast!

You’re probably pitching the wrong person. If it’s a big magazine, pitch one of the section editors. They decide what goes into their sections, and they might even write it themselves.

Products like the Kindle and the iPhone get the really big stories. But your product probably won’t.

3 Ways to Pitch New Products

• Send the product to the appropriate section editor and ask for a review.
• Suggest a staff member test your product against several other similar products made by your competitors.
• Submit a press release and high-resolution digital photo to the New Products editor.

These days, getting into magazines is increasingly difficult because they’re saddled with lower advertising revenues, and too few staff members reading too many pitches.

But here’s the good news. These journalists are leaving clues, online and off, about exactly what they need. And if you know where to look, you’ll have a leg up on all the other people who are pitching.

Join me at 4 p.m. Eastern Time on Thursday, Oct. 4, for the webinar “How to Find Your Way into Glossy Magazines.” If the time is inconvenient, sign up anyway because I’m recording it and you’ll get the replay link and all the bonuses.

Register here.

What have you done to get your story into big or small magazines? Join the conversation below.

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This is the 22rd in a series of “50 Tips for Free Publicity” on Pinterest. If you like it, repin it by clicking on the “Pin It” button above. And share it with your friends and followers on the other social media sites.

Each time you have a speaking engagement, offer to write the promotional copy that advertises the event for the group’s flyer. Include a sentence letting people know they can sign up for your free ezine or email tip of the week, or whatever.

Your speaker PR accomplishes four things:

1. It helps build your email list.

2. It encourages people who can’t attend the presentation to visit your website and buy your products.

3. It builds excitement for your presentation which results in higher attendance.

4. And it makes meeting planners very happy when you do some of their work for them.

If you don’t have an ezine, let people know they can find valuable articles at your website, or posts at your blog. Or tell them where you share great content on sites like Twitter and Pinterest. The idea is to start building the relationship with audience members long before you appear on the platform.

Other Places to Promote Your Gigs

• On your Facebook page.
• On Twitter.
• On LinkedIn where you can create an event and share it with your Groups.
• On your LinkedIn Company Page.
• At your blog.
• On your website.
• In your ezine.

What to do After You Speak

After your speaking engagement, offer the group’s newsletter editor a 10-point summary of your presentation, along with your photo. This gets you in front of the same audience again. It also lets you get your website URL in front of the people who missed you the first time around. And it makes the newsletter editor very happy, too.

Resources to Help You:

• 50+ Places Online to Promote Your Live & Virtual Events to Reach Your Target Market & Pull Sell-out Crowds

• 60+ Places Offline to Promote Your Product, Service, Cause, Issue or Event to Build the Buzz & Encourage Others to Promote for You

Your book should be a calling card that brings people into your funnel and encourages them to buy related products and services. It’s called “milking the cow that’s already in the barn.”

That’s what rich authors do. Steve Harrison will talk about some of those spin-off products when he hosts the free webinar, “How to Achieve a Lot More Success as an Author by Discovering the Seven Things Rich Authors Know That Poor Authors Don’t” this Thursday, Sept. 20.

Register here, and choose from the webinar at 2 p.m. Eastern Time or 7 p.m. Eastern Time. If you miss them, you won’t be able to access a replay because he doesn’t record most of his sessions.

Here are 21 spin-off products, at all pricepoints, that rich authors have created:

1. Video study course
2. Seminar
3. Downloads
4. Ebooks
5. CDs or DVDs
6. Coaching sessions
7. Paid newsletters
8. Membership site
9. Board games
10. Wall calendars
11. Teleseminars
12. Webinars
13. Speaking engagements
14. Private, one-on-one consulting
15. Group coaching programs
16. Mousepads
17. Coffee mugs
18. Niche version of a book
19. Mastermind group
20. Weekend retreat
21. Boot camp

What spin-off products and services have you created, either from your book or from a core offering like consulting services? Which ones have been the most successful?

This is the 21st in a series of “50 Tips for Free Publicity” on Pinterest. If you like it, repin it by clicking on the “Pin It” button above. And share it with your friends and followers on the other social media sites.

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Journalists don’t want you to know about “fact checking” because it means more work for them.

But I want you to know about it because it’s a seldom-used tool that improves the accuracy of a story in which you are named and quoted.

Don’t use this tool every time you’re interviewed. Save it for particularly sensitive stories such as longer profiles pieces, or after a reporter interviews you about a controversial topic and you must do all you can to ensure that the quotes and other facts are 100 percent accurate.

Here’s How It Works

When a reporter requests an interview, ask, “After you write your story but before it’s printed, would you agree to fact-check the information that pertains to me, and read the direct quotes back to me?”

If the reporter says no, you might decide that you don’t want to do the interview.

If the reporter says yes—any reputable reporter should—proceed with the interview. When the reporter does the fact check, either by email or over the phone, listen very carefully and correct any errors. Understand, however, that if you don’t like the way a particular quote sounds, and you know that that’s how you said it, the reporter is under no obligation to remove it or “clean it up” just because you asked.

Why Reporters Will Agree to Fact-Check

New reporters might not be familiar with fact-checking, but experienced journalists will. Bigger publications such as Time magazine, for example, have fact-check departments that call all sources to verify information.

Most reporters will agree to a fact-check because, without one, they run the risk of printing inaccurate information. They already know you’re concerned about accuracy. And they know you’ll probably raise a stink if anything in the article is wrong, or if you’re misquoted.

A fact-check helps them avoid having to write a correction. It also decreases the chance that you’ll complain to their editor if something in the story is wrong.

Don’t Bother Asking TV Reporters

Unfortunately, the fact-check works only with print reporters.

If you’re interviewed for at TV news story, don’t even think about asking the reporter to check the facts. They might use a sound bite of only three to five seconds, and if they already have a recording of you saying it, there’s no reason to check it. The production schedule in a TV news room is so fast-paced, and the time between an interview and the actual broadcast can be so small, that a fact-check is out of the question.

What If The Story is Wrong?

If a reporter won’t agree to a fact-check, but you want to proceed with the interview, you have a few options if the story is inaccurate.

First, always call the reporter and ask for a correction because you want the publication to have a permanent record of it on file. If a new reporter comes onto the beat and uses information from an old story, you don’t want it to be wrong. Besides, newspapers usually print corrections at the bottom of Page 2, where few readers look. Your more important concern is to not have another writer repeat the mistake.

Don’t jump over the reporter’s head and go to an editor. If she refuses to print a correction, ask for the name of her immediate supervisor and speak to that person.

If the publication refuses to print a correction, write a letter to the editor. If the error is grevious, and you need a lot of space to clarify your position, call the editor and ask if you can write an opinion column for the op-ed page.

But What About Bloggers?

I’m a blogger, and no one has ever asked me for a fact-check.

One thing I sometimes do that I could never do when I worked at a newspaper was to let the person I’m writing about read the post before I publish it.

If a blogger wants to interview you, go ahead and ask about the fact check. It can’t hurt.

Bloggers, do you ever agree to fact-check? Journalists, how often do you do this? If not, why not? Publicity Hounds, have you asked for a fact-check? If so, have journalists agree?

A Tool to Help You:

Don’t do another media until you’ve read my “Special Report #1: How to Keep the Media from Making a Mess of Your Story.” It’s filled with tips for anyone who’s new to publicity, as well as for experienced interviewers. I’m a former newspaper report and editor, and I know that many people don’t know about some of this.

Smart PR people and publicists encourage their clients to answer questions in their area of expertise at Quora.com, the social media site where you can ask and answer questions on any topic.

On my profile page, I’ve answered 43 questions so far and asked two. And in almost every case, I’ve picked up tips from people who have also answered the questions.

Lots of CEOs and senior managers hang out at this site because it’s perfect for flaunting their expertise and also for searching for incredibly smart people who they might want to hire. You could be one of them!

Here are other tips for using Quora:

• Quora also lets you provide three URLs to accompany each answer, and smart Publicity Hounds can make this really work for them. Use only one URL for your own website or blog, or offer a URL to drive traffic to your press releases in your online pressroom.
• Include your Quora logo on the homepage of your website, or in your online pressroom. (Read about other things to update on your website.)
• You might be tempted to spend a lot of time on Quora, but don’t forget about the other places where you can answer questions to promote your expertise.
• Remember that journalists and bloggers are on Quora, too, either to ask questions or to research topics. So answer questions thoroughly.

Quora is also a great place to ask for help, particularly with techie issues such as how to use software, how to fix a bug in your computer, and bothersome problems like what to do when your Facebook page disappears. Many companies have assigned a customer service person or techie to answer questions there.

How else have you used Quora and what do you find most valuable about the site?

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