| | In This Issue:
1. Endorsements Cheapen LinkedIn
2. How to Host Webinars
3. Publicity Shortcuts
4. Hound Quote of the Week
1. Endorsements Cheapen LinkedIn
Tacky publicity tactic: Endorse lots of people on LinkedIn, even if you don't know them and aren't familiar with their work because your avatar will appear on their profile page.
Even tackier: Beg somebody to endorse you.
This past week, I've heard three friends complain that they've been endorsed by total strangers.
Then I read a fabulous blog post a few days ago by social media expert Pam Moore. She's grousing, too, and says endorsements, which are too darn easy to give and which LinkedIn practically shoves down our throats, have led to a glut of LinkedIn spam because people are begging others they don't know to endorse them.
To retaliate and put the spammers in their place, she introduced a clever "Pet the Pig" campaign.
She replies to the guilty parties who plead for endorsements, and leads them to a page that invites them to "Pet the Pig." That leads them to another page that offers a free White Paper on "15 Tips to Eliminate Spam From Your Social Media Diet."
You can read her blog post here.
On LinkedIn, when somebody invites me to connect, and I accept, I also suggest we connect on Facebook and Twitter, and I include links to my profile pages. The response has been great.
Despite the ugly endorsements mess, LinkedIn is still a fabulous place to gain traction very quickly. I used a tip from LinkedIn expert Wayne Breitbarth on how to piggyback a speaking engagement onto another event in the same city. It's worked twice! I made more contacts and even walked away with some extra money.
Read more about the video that Wayne created with me. It's called "4 Secret LinkedIn Power Tools to Connect with Journalists and Put Money in Your Pocket." You can learn how to access it, and all the bonuses here.
2. How to Host Webinars
If you're a subject matter expert and share your knowledge mostly through articles and blog posts, consider hosting live webinars, recording them, and selling the video replays.
That's what I've been doing the last several years, even though I'm a techno-idiot and struggled to get my wall calendar into my mobile phone.
During Thursday's webinar on "35 Ways to Promote Your Facebook Page," several Publicity Hounds asked for a webinar on how to host webinars.
Consider it done.
Save the dates: Nov. 28 and 29. From 4 to 5:30 Eastern Time, I'll host two sessions that will walk you through my system. The first session deals with marketing--how to find an enticing topic, how to promote it, and how to sell it afterward--and how I create the PowerPoint slides. The second session will walk you through the 90-minute call using GotoWebinar. I'll tell you what buttons to push, and how to avoid the same disasters that have plagued me.
One of the bonuses will be my tattered checklist of about 20 things I do the day of the call to keep everything running smoothly, from giving the dog a frozen Kong with peanut butter to keep her quiet, to rebooting my computer 30 minutes before the webinar begins. The checklist has saved my butt.
You'll be able to register for one or both calls next week. Start thinking about what topics you'd like to offer. And if you missed the Facebook webinar, you can grab the video replay and all the bonuses here
3. Publicity Shortcuts
One of my very best shortcuts is to outsource my video editing and other graphics stuff to a high school kid in my neighborhood. He loves the work, and I love not getting my hands dirty.
Those are the kinds of tips that Tim Ferris, author of The 4-Hour Work Week, shared during a free webinar last--Wednesday, Nov. 14. He was Steve Harrison's guest and shared his best tips on "How to Get Maximum Publicity in Minimum Time." One of them is the single most important thing you need to know to land media coverage.
Register for the webinar anyways to get the recording via my affiliate link.
4. Hound Quote of the Week
"Dachshunds are ideal dogs for small children, as they are already stretched and pulled to such a length that the child cannot do much harm one way or the other." -- Robert Benchley
Dog Jokes & Quotes Ebook: 170+ G-rated dog jokes and quotes, perfect for a dog-lover, your favorite vet, or just for a few good laughs.
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Reprinted from "The Publicity Hound's Tips of the Week," an ezine featuring tips, tricks and tools for generating free publicity. Subscribe at http://www.publicityhound.com/ and receive by email the handy cheat sheet "89 Reasons to Send a Press Release."
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Joan Stewart
The Publicity Hound | | |