THINKing

Quick Hits

A couple of quick PR-related items in which you may be interested:

MediaKitty is an online source for connecting with travel journalists. Sign up and follow them on Twitter.

Bill Stoller, who writes the Publicity Insider Newsletter, is on Twitter as well. Follow Bill onTwitter and sign up for his newsletter.

Finally, here’s the PR Channel Dashboard, an online PR resource for articles, white papers, templates and tools.

NOTE: I’m speaking at the NC Main Street Conference 1/29/2009 on media relations. So, I’m dropping a few other links below for the benefit of my audience.

- Pitchengine

- Press Release Grader

- Instant Press Release

- PRWeb

- PRNewswire

- 20 Online Media Relations Links

- Top 17 Media Relations Links

- Twittering Journalist Wiki

- Six Tips For Perfect Email Pitches

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Content Marketing On Steroids

Content marketers often equate public relations techniques purely with media relations. They think distributing news releases is only to promote a product, make an executive announcement or discuss company financial matters. They forget that they can use PR to get their information about their content out to the most important audiences: the media and their own customers. Let’s review.

Content is a treasure chest for marketers. So, let’s share it everywhere and in every way possible. But do it from the inside out. In other words, tell those audiences closest to you first, and then go wider from there.

First, write an educational or informational white paper on your area of expertise.

Use your customer and prospect email list to tell key constituents about the white paper’s availability.

Issue a brief news release about the availability on your website of the white paper. Send the release to your targeted media list using Pitchengine, which also gets your release picked up by Google News.

Consider spending a little extra to broaden your reach by distributing your release on PRNewswire or PRWeb.

Use the content in your blog.

Develop a seminar from the white paper.

Use email to offer this seminar to your key constituents.

Issue a brief release about the availability of the seminar, and repeat the above sequence.

Hammer this one content message in all communication channels and reap the rewards. How are you marketing your content?

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Thankful For PR 2.0

You know that THINKing loves the technology that has made the PR pro’s job so much easier and more effective. I wanted to take the opportunity to summarize some of the good things happening in PR on this holiday eve. Here are a few PR tech tools, for which I am thankful:

There is the Twittering Journalist wiki that My Creative Team started. We began it as a means to help PR people keep up with journalists and media outlets utilizing the social media microblogging application Twitter. I can’t add anymore users to the wiki due to cost issues, but if you have additions or updates, send them to: harry at my-creativeteam dot com.

MicroPR, the brainchild of Brian Solis and Stowe Boyd, is a free service on Twitter, along with a backend resource wiki that helps journalists and bloggers find qualified, targeted PR professionals who can help with their current stories.

Then, there is Help A Reporter Out (HARO), a service begun by Peter Shankman. PR pros and reporters sign up with Shankman’s site. Reporters send in requests for information, and then Shankman sends PR pros an email three times a day with the journalists’ requests.

Pitchengine, Jason Kintzler’s social media release platform, is one of my favorites. Here’s how PitchEngine describes itself:

PitchEngine shakes up the PR industry making it possible for PR pros, brands, and agencies to build and share digital, social media releases with their contacts for free. Our PitchEngine SMR takes the press release to the next level, eliminating the need for antiquated email attachments, word documents, image CDs, and more.

Do you have any other PR 2.0 tools for which you are thankful?

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100 Reporters Were Sitting At A Bar…

We’ve talked here often about the use of digital tools like Twitter for PR and media relations purposes. Digital colleague Joan Stewart alerted me about a post on PR and Social Media at Ronn Torossian’s blog,

Someone made a very wise comment about using Twitter and the value of passively reading comments and thoughts of reporters and writers. He said, “If you had the chance to sit at a bar and silently listen to 100 Reporters talking, would you? That’s Twitter.”

He is dead on. You get to find out what is on their minds and what kinds of stories they work on without having to bother them with an unneccessary phone call or email. Why should you worry about that, you’re asking? Reporters - like everyone else - hate spam and they consider this a form of it. As the Media Relations Blog points out in 11 Tips For Pitching Reporters,

Reporters STILL hate PR spam and irrelevant pitches. Such tactics are unlikely to generate coverage, it turns out. Shocking, I know.

Are you using social media like Twitter or tools like PitchEngine in your media relations efforts? Do tell.

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PitchEngine: A PR Tool For Savvy Practitioners

Editor’s Note: Today’s post comes from guest blogger, Jason Kintzler of PitchEngine. This is a terrific service that every PR practitioner should be using. So, get over there and sign up.

How it was born
I don’t claim to be a PR or social media expert, however I have had experience on both sides of the coin, as a journalist and as a PR guy. I’ve seen the disconnect between media and PR when it comes to technology, and I realized that there are better ways to close the gap and better media relations. That’s how PitchEngine came about.

Phase One
The first phase of PitchEngine is the Social Media Release Builder which gives PR firms (large and small) the ability to create and share digital content easily. It differs from what’s out there today because it’s easy, it’s free and it’s designed to be shared via social methods instead of through PR distribution services.

Jason Baer shared the need for PitchEngine in a recent blog post:

“The hang-up with social media releases has been actually getting them built. Most PR folks are not Web programmers, and the very nature of what makes a social media release useful (tags, links, multi-media) makes it tricky to execute if your definition of high tech is inserting a footer in Microsoft Word. PitchEngine is out to change all that. Their slick, exceptionally easy online social media release creation engine is by far the best I’ve seen. Literally, if I took the time to explain what a “tag” was to my 9 year-old, she could make a release (it would probably be about ice skating or the dresses on The Titanic).”

Phase Two
The second phase, which we’ll be rolling out this week, is the Social Media Newsroom. Now, users will be able to create customized newsrooms for each brand they manage within PitchEngine. These Newsrooms host and archive current and future PitchEngine SMRs and can be added via link to a brand’s website (or integrated into a frame set or iframe on their site). This will be a subscription-based service for $600/yr. We’ll have more details up on the site this week!

Phase Three
This phase is the one I’m most excited about. Typical newswires offer media access to a selection of pre-determined RSS feeds full of traditional releases. The media side of PitchEngine will give journalists and bloggers unprecedented controls over PR content. Users can create a completely custom and individualized feed for their newsbeat, industry or category - no two feeds will be alike. Once a media user has a profile, they can send all PR pitches through the PitchEngine system, where they can approve or deny each of them based on their interest level. It’s an innovative platform that I’m anxious to unveil.

The need is apparent. People like social media consultant and blogger, Chris Brogan, are already sending PR people directly to the site.

“I’m going to refer EVERYONE who pitches me to the PitchFeed part of PitchEngine, ” Brogan said in his post on chrisbrogan.com.

The experts weigh in
I’ve read posts and tweets from a few critics of PitchEngine. Without much investigation, they’re quick to jump in and tell people that it won’t work or it’s a pipedream. I’ve heard how newswires are drawing parallels to their services and comparing apples to oranges. I believe PitchEngine competes with Microsoft Word more than it does with PR distribution services, especially at this early stage. I welcome the criticism. The beauty of a start-up like this is that my intentions are genuine and I have no one to answer to except our PR and media users.

The feedback from the alpha run of PitchEngine was incredible. Practically every user I invited fired back an email or a tweet expressing their appreciation for what we’re doing. That says more than any ‘expert’ opinion out there.

Deirdre Breakenridge from PFS Marketwyse and author of PR 2.0 posted this comment within a day of our launch,

“I think that you will really help many PR professionals to learn about the social media tools that are available in such a way that they will feel comfortable and confident with these easy to use resources.”

The influences
There are lot of people doing great things out there right now. From a PR perspective, I value the insights of people like Brian Solis and Todd Defren. Peter Shankman’s HARO is great example of someone pushing the boundaries beyond tradition in PR circles as well. My views may vary slightly, but it’s that spirit of change that drives me. I want to inspire others to rediscover their passion for PR and media. When that happens, PitchEngine will succeed.

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Musings On An August Morn

A couple of quick items.

- If you PR folks haven’t signed up for PitchEngine, you need to get busy. PitchEngine says,

PR meets social media at PitchEngine, where PR pros, agencies, journalists and bloggers gather to share and discover new media.

PitchEngine has an alpha test of its Social Media Release platform currently underway. Here’s my first pass at an SMR using the new platform.

- Del.icio.us has become Delicious.com. The site has a lot of improvements, as SearchEngineLand outlines. Here is my Delicious page if you’d like to become part of my network.

- I’m blushing. Palmetto PR Divas have a profile of yours truly online this morning. Thanks, Kim.

- Hey, we had some good stuff here in the last week or so. In case you missed it, may I recommend:

What Are They Saying About Your Brand?

How Is Your Personal Brand Batting Average? 

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