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.
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I was never a fan of the cocktail party-variety networking scene. I will never be one to dart around a room shoving business cards into people’s hands. I prefer meaningful conversations with people, getting to know them and vice versa.
But social media networking? That’s something different altogether. Done right, it’s never a hit-and-run. Rather, it consists of building relationships over months and even years by sharing information – both professional and personal – through posts, comments and responding to questions in various online communities.
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What It Does and Who Gets It
Judging from the questions I’m asked by people from every walk of life, misconceptions about publicity – what it can do and who can get it – abound.
By definition, publicity is media coverage you get because you’re deemed to be of interest to an audience. If a journalist or talk show host thinks you have something valuable to share, something that will keep their audiences reading, watching or listening, they may interview you for an article, ask you to write something for their publication, or invite you to be a guest on a radio or TV show. (Important note: None of the above should be considered an invitation to hawk a product, company or book.)
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December is National Write a Business Plan Month – so designated to encourage unhappy employees to become their own satisfied bosses. Whether your goal is to own your own business, become a consultant, a speaker or an author, you’ll need to start with a business plan.
Even if you launched your business years ago, it’s important to revisit and refresh your plan. In recent years, the economy, technology and consumer habits have changed rapidly and dramatically, affecting every aspect of your business. That makes it absolutely vital to re-evaluate your short- and long-term strategies.
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Article at a glance:
I hear it almost every day from all sorts of prospective clients, including some very savvy business professionals:
“I’ve written my book (or developed my product) and I need your help with marketing it.”
So, I ask, “What’s your plan? How much have you budgeted for it?”
Plan? Budget? They’ve been so immersed in pouring heart and soul into their dream, they’ve given no thought to how they’ll share it with the world when it’s done. The best time to start thinking about marketing is long before the book is written or the “fibbajiwijit” is built.
Article at a glance
Making your first television appearance as a guest on a news or talk show can be one of the most thrilling, and nerve-wracking, events in your publicity campaign.
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.) Read more →
Last week we lost a legend, boxing coach and trainer Angelo Dundee. As most of you know, he was the cornerman for world heavyweight champ Muhammad Ali.
Although I still don’t understand this about myself, I’m a huge fan of world championship boxing — and boxing doesn’t get huger than Ali! Read more →
Getting media exposure means putting yourself out there. It might be chatting live on the air with a radio talk show host, taping an appearance for TV, coming up with posts for social media, or being interviewed by a print journalist.
The first couple times can make you apprehensive, but trust me, that disappears quickly. You realize the interviewers tend to ask the same questions, so there are few surprises. You figure out your best sound bites and the responses that get a nice chuckle, and you polish those up.
Article highlights:
If you sat down at your desk the first workday of the New Year, and vowed to do something bigger and better to market yourself or your business in 2012, you certainly were in good company. There’s nothing like the fresh start of a New Year for motivating us to tackle what seemed to be an overwhelming task last year. But, unfortunately, the odds may be stacked against your well-intentioned plan.
Story at a glance:
Back in October, I was a beneficiary of the sadness sweeping newspapers across the country — more than 20,000 layoffs since 2008 (and that’s a conservative estimate).
Here in Tampa-St. Petersburg, one of our two major dailies, The Tampa Tribune, laid off about 30 veteran reporters and editors in June, in a desperate effort to balance its books. It didn’t work. The paper laid off 165 more employees just last week.
