A couple weeks from now, I’ll begin a crazy – but loads of fun – schedule of speaking engagements. I’m traveling to Charlotte, N.C., then Charleston, S.C. In July, I head to Dallas for a tech summit and Las Vegas for a business summit. In September, I’m back in Tampa to talk with the Working [...]

Recently, a colleague asked me, “What was the most rewarding mistake you ever made in business?” It’s a great question, and I quickly had an answer for him because it was an incredibly painful mistake. However, it proved to be an invaluable lesson that has served me well in the years since. I’m sharing so [...]

I often talk to people who know they need publicity and want professional help to get it, but find hiring a PR firm to be a confusing and daunting task. That’s understandable. Public relations companies differ in a thousand ways, it seems. For one, they use different business models – some charge monthly retainer fees [...]

If there’s a season for reading, it’s summer — a time for family vacations, for afternoons at the beach, for weekends in the backyard hammock. We Americans love to get outside in the summer, and many of us grab a book as we head out the door. In fact, 50 percent of book lovers change [...]

Take My Quiz to Find Out In my book, Celebritize Yourself, I write about my three-step method for increasing your visibility in order to promote your business, product, professional practice or book. It’s all about becoming an expert “celebrity” – someone journalists and talk show hosts turn to for informative and/or entertaining content. Celebritizing yourself [...]

Publishing a Business Book? Make Sure It Looks as Smart as You I’ve said it before and I’ve done it myself: If you’re a professional or business person, writing a book that shows off your expertise is a wonderful way to market your service or product. It sets you apart from your competition and readers [...]

Article at a glance: Even the pros occasionally stumble on live TV If it happens to you, smile and keep talking. Be conscious of your body movements. It’s bad enough when you stick your foot in your mouth at a dinner party or walk out of the office bathroom with the back of your dress [...]

Let’s face it – we think TV, we think celebrity. It’s exciting. Ever spot the anchor from your local TV newscast dining in the same restaurant as you? Did you grab your companion’s arm, point, and say, sotto voce, “Look!” (Yes, I’m guilty, too.)

Just last week, I showed you an interview I did with Lisa Hess, our TV campaign manager, about a typical day in her life here at EMSI. In it, we learned a lot of the different things she does in order to get our clients booked. Although I can always count on Lisa to arrange good TV bookings each week, last week she outdid herself with 4 national TV appearances and 5 local TV appearances on network affiliate stations. So I thought it might be helpful as a follow-up to share with you how she got these bookings.

3 Tips to Wow Your Talk Radio Audience I have a favorite new talk show to tune into on weekday evenings, and I’m not saying that simply because the host is EMSI’s own Alex Hinojosa. (Although that certainly doesn’t hurt!) Alex, our vice president of media operations, has an extensive background in radio. He worked [...]

I’ve gotten back into hosting a talk radio show and giving interviews, and the experience takes me back – way back! – to how I started EMSI Public Relations in the first place. I was, and still am, a huge talk radio listener. It’s educational, entertaining, and the most open of the mainstream media to [...]

Last week, one of our talk radio clients sent us a “beautiful link” (his words) to a blog post he’d found. The blogger, who writes for a broadcast engineering magazine, had posted, in part: “I was minding my own business the other morning, listening with one ear to local AM talk radio, when something hit [...]

And How It Can Get Your Story in Print By all accounts, traditional print publications such as newspapers and magazines are on their way out. You could have fooled me! As the recent story about Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o illustrates, they’re powerful!

Why You Should be Following Newsweek’s Example I was floored last week when I learned Newsweek magazine, that 79-year-old American icon, would stop publishing its glossy print version at the end of the year and move entirely online. My print-specialist colleagues here at EMSI – who’ve experienced firsthand the long, slow decline of newspapers – [...]

I’m a good do-bee when it comes to subscribing to magazines and newsletters designed to keep me abreast of public relations industry trends. I have a nice stack on the corner of my desk to prove it! But the stack only grows taller – never shorter – until I finally sweep it into the trash [...]

Sometimes it seems as though social media changes every day. That can be great, for instance, when a networking site makes access easier. Heck, you don’t even need a computer anymore to check your friends’ news on Google+, or to see the trending topics on Twitter. But others are downright aggravating. Just a year ago, [...]

A client came to us recently for help building her social media connections. She already had a few thousand followers – a nice number! – that she’d gotten with the help of another firm. But she’d become suspicious of their strategies and canceled her contract. Two weeks after she came to us, more than 1,600 [...]

If you’re using social media for marketing, what should you say following a tragedy like the deadly blasts at the Boston Marathon on Monday? The horrific elementary school shootings in Newtown, Conn.? The October storm that took lives and devastated communities across the Northeast? Sometimes, nothing at all.

Most people realize, whether they’re running a business, a professional practice, selling their product or book, or building their brand, they need to have a website. Having a spot on some other person’s or business’s site, whether it’s a profile on LinkedIn or a book on Amazon, isn’t the same – and it isn’t enough. [...]

If you want your website to show up in Google searches (and you do!) you need to post fresh, engaging content on a regular basis. That also gives visitors a reason to keep returning to your site and to linger there awhile. Many people do this by featuring a blog on their site. It’s a [...]

What is it that your customers, clients or readers find special about you? Or, if you’re a new entrepreneur, professional or author, what do you think makes you different and special? The answer to that question should be the foundation for your online marketing and, believe me, if you’re not promoting yourself online, you’re not [...]