Just yesterday, Better Homes and Gardens interviewed one of our clients after learning about her from our invitation to review her new book. We were pleased – the 91-year-old magazine is an American institution with 7.6 million readers!

That wasn’t the first great media placement for this client, a psychologist specializing in the emotional health of cancer patients and their loved ones. Less than four weeks into her print campaign, she had more than 35 placements, including five with circulations or views per month in the millions – that doesn’t include Better Homes and Gardens, which hasn’t yet published. It also includes a dozen publications with circulations of more than 100,000.
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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 offers a number of benefits over other forms of promotion. First, it lets people really get to know who you are and what you’re about. Second, it gives you the implied third-party endorsement of media professionals – valuable! And, finally, if you’re providing valuable content, audiences are more likely to buy from you than from your competition.
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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 great vehicle for sharing news about events related to your product, industry, book or message; your observations, insights, commentary, and even personal anecdotes.
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Article at a glance:

• Local media can position you as a celebrity and expert.
• A hometown fan base can help you grow.
• Look for shows, publications that are a good fit.

I admit, I’d be on the first red-eye to New York City if I thought I’d land in the chair next to Matt Lauer on the Today show. Imagine! An audience of millions and Matt Lauer’s hand on my arm!

But while national TV exposure is great, you won’t hear me sobbing if he never invites me to his set. (Well, maybe a sniffle or two – hey, he is Matt Lauer.)  I know that local TV and radio shows, newspapers and magazines can also position me as an expert and a celebrity. They can help me build a solid fan base that will help carry me to national prominence, if that’s what I want. And they’ll give me a chance to polish my message, so when the big time’s ready for me, I’ll be ready for it.

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While Your Competitors Guzzle the Eggnog, You Can Be Getting the Media

And now, the season begins.

In the office, everyone is hanging around the coffee machine longer and enjoying holiday deserts.  Outside the office, people are caught up in the holiday parties, shopping, food, family gatherings, and enough reruns of holiday programs that they are replaying the Grinch song in their head. They spend a little more time online surfing eBay for gifts and writing emails to associates hoping to put any real work off until January 2.

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Presenting the NEW Face of Public Relations

After 21 years in the PR business, it has become increasingly apparent to me that it’s time to drive a new milepost into the ground.

While the media has been specializing in reinventing itself every few business quarters, the business of marketing has been slowly evolving, trying to keep up with the changes. Regular readers of this column have seen some phrases making repeat appearances, such as social media, email blasts, online news outlets and other terms that refer to some of the technological advances that have hit modern marketing communications. As each of these new areas of outreach emerges, our tactics as PR strategists are changing with the times.

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It’s a More Complex Question Than You Think

Irony has a way of sneaking up on you when you least expect it.

One of our clients was at a convention this week, and among his activities, he was hosting a panel on the digital revolution in the entertainment industry. While his credentials in the entertainment business are solid, he has yet to figure out how to operate his new Droid smartphone.

So one of my staff emailed him, pointing out the irony and the client emailed back, “I thought ‘digital’ meant they were going to talk about fingers!”

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Having just gotten through Labor Day, I’m reminded that we’ll soon be closing in on the BIG holiday season.  It’s a time when many businesses are closed for several days and business slows to a crawl in most of the country from Thanksgiving right on through New Year’s Day.

However, there is one industry that doesn’t close down. It’s the media and here are some statistics to back that up:

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How To Measure The Results of Your PR Campaign

I tend to use this space as a “how to” venue. I like to share my insights on how to get the media excited about you, your message, your products, your services and books. My hope is that the information I offer will enable you to generate media placements for yourself to further your public relations efforts.

However, I’m frequently asked about the value of PR in relation to the business goals it’s designed to enhance. People wonder what will happen if they’re able to achieve a picture-perfect PR campaign and get the media to notice them and generate coverage for them. They wonder if the upside is increased sales, or if it’s in the branding or maybe it’s just the increased exposure for their company or projects or their book.

The short answer is yes, but the long answer is a bit more complicated than that. First thing’s first. When we do a print campaign, for instance, we rate it based on the reach of the publications in traditional print outlets and online outlets. We use two key terms – circulation and visitors per month (VPM) – and while one of those terms is old and the other is new, they are based on the same principle. Read more →

I had the privilege to interview Michael Levin, New York Times bestselling author and CEO of Business Ghost (www.BusinessGhost.com) about why corporate executives and professionals should write a book. Having written novels, business books and co-written with or ghost written for many high profiled professionals, such as Baseball Hall of Famer Dave Winfield, football broadcasting legend Pat Summerall, FBI undercover agent Joaquin Garcia and E-Myth creator Michael Gerber, he offers a unique insight that is a wealth of information.

Michael has also written for the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, CBS News, the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times and many other top outlets. Plus he is an eight-time national best-selling author and his books have received outstanding reviews in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the New Yorker, People Magazine, the Washington Post, the San Francisco Examiner, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, the Boston Globe, Esquire, Booklist and other leading publications. Read more →