Public Relations Tips: September 2006

Say you’re in the midst of writing a book, and would like to include quotes from other people, like from other authors, or maybe just other well-known people, at the beginning of each chapter to present the theme of the chapter. From one author to another, it’s a courtesy to ask for their permission to quote them. They usually welcome the quoting as long as it’s only a line or two, and will usually ask for a copy of your book when you’re finished.

And what if they’re dead?

The copyright is owned by the copyright holder plus 75 years, so the fact that they’re dead doesn’t mean it’s a fair use. Where did you draw the quote from? Did you get it from listening to them in an audience, or did you get it from a publication that they had? If they had a publication, see if that publication can give you permission. If it’s really only a sentence or two, consider it fair use.

For more quotable quotes about copyright and how to deal with citiations, check out Legal Issues You Must Know When Writing Articles For Fee or For Free.

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Disciplined follow-up. If your interview process is slower than you had hoped, and they don’t hear from you for a week or two, do they follow up with you to see where the project stands—and do so without being a pest? When working with the media, follow-up is critical.

Outgoing, energetic and determined. These should be given more points than “a big name.” Even well-known public relations people can look tired and listless, as though they wish they were working in any job other than P.R. Maybe they had a bad day. Or maybe they’re always like this.

So, regardless of whether you’re a budding publicist or looking to hire, check out a more in depth list of what to look for in How to Hire the Perfect Publicist.

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Letters of agreement are common occurrences when ironing out negotiations between you and a journal that wants to publish your article. It’s often better for someone who’s not in the law department to right the letter of understanding. Simply because the law department will put all the legalese in it most of the time, because that’s their job—to protect their organization. It’s better for you to memorialize what you think the agreement is and send it to them, and if they agree with it, great! If they say, “Well, that’s not exactly our understanding,” that’s always better than being in the middle of a business transaction of any sort and finding that you did not have effective communication and meeting of the minds up front.

All other things being equal, even though it takes a little bit of time, it’s worth the writer’s while. It’s worth your effort to do a letter of understanding. Most publishers don’t do anything more formal than a letter of understanding.

For more tips on letters of understanding, or agreement letters, check out Legal Issues You Must Know When Writing Articles For Fee or For Free.

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This is a little different from what most people are taught in terms of effective public relations. When submitting an article to a portal, you should never follow up. You should always follow up with the print media, after you submit an article. However, online portals are dramatically different.

Imagine you send in your article to an online portal. Several hundred other people every day are submitting an article to the same portal. Think about the editor on the other end of that. Imagine if everybody said, “Did you get my article? Are you going to use it? Do you like it?”

The fact is, that’s too much, and you overwhelm the editor. Most of the time, the editors actually write in the form, where you’re actually depositing your article, “Please do not follow up.” Eight times out of 10, the moment you deposit your article and submit it, it uploads and you can go back within the minute and actually see your article displayed online, because it’s all automated.

For a more in depth look at online portal editors’, and how they differ from print editors, check out How to Submit Online Articles That Pull Traffic to Your Website.

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If you like what you hear after the initial phone call, and you ask the candidate publicist to submit a written proposal, be ready to respond to this question which every smart publicist should ask:
“Who, other than you, will be responsible for deciding which publicist to hire?”

If your boss must make the final decision based on your recommendation, be honest and say so. The candidate might want to meet with the boss before spending time writing a proposal.

Why? To make sure that the boss’s goals are your goals. To make sure that the boss’s measures of success are your measures of success. To give the publicist a chance to impress the person who holds the ultimate power to hire them. Besides, you shouldn’t be responsible for selling the publicist to your boss. That’s the publicist’s job. So put your ego aside and give the candidate a chance.

If you lie and say the final decision is up to you, you’ll look foolish later if your boss vetoes your decision. For more tips on how to not look foolish while hiring a publicist, check out How to Hire the Perfect Publicist.

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If you reprint, or you link, to something where infringement is taking place, and you have contributed to it down the line in some way, this is copyright infringement. It can be dangerous and devastating to your credibility as an expert in your field.

How do you find out contributing? If it’s an organization or a website that you’re posting or linking to that has not been in business for very long, check their website to see if they have any copyright notices or a legal rights page. You have to use some level of judgment. It’s just a question of getting a personal feeling yourself that this is a business decision you want to make at this point given what you know.

For a better look at copyright infringement and how to avoid it, check out Legal Issues You Must Know When Writing Articles For Fee or For Free.

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And smiling reporters pick up your stories more often.

When you find that you do get a really good hit from a reporter, send them a thank you note. Make it handwritten. This is not only good manners, but does two more things. First, it makes your reporter feel loved and happy. They work in a high-stress environment and don’t always feel appreciated. Secondly, it builds your relationship. If that reporter feels that your company is benefiting from his or her writing and that you are genuine and deserving of coverage, they’ll pick up your story more often.

So, a handwritten thank-you note every single time. If it’s really good, a note to their editor saying what a terrific story they did. Editors also like to hear that their reporters are making a difference in the world, no matter how big or small.

For more ways to keep your media contacts smiling, check out Transcript—How To Write a Pitch Letter.

Posted by DK at 10:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Selling information online is a tricky business. You have to offer the information in as many different mediums as possible because you don’t know what resources your customers have access to or what they are willing to buy into. However, when a customer comes in first contact with you, you need to pick one thing and stick with it.

The reality is, when people are finding you in the Internet, they need more information about you. Your number one goal from submitting articles online is to simply lure that reader back to your website. It’s at that point where you try to get them to give you personal information. You add them to your database, and you start talking to them on a regular basis.

You first have to let them get to know you. Most people won't buy from people online unless they’ve seen you and heard from you repetitively. The first thing is to lure them back, and then once you do, once you hook them in—once they get to know you, and once you’ve formed a relationship—then you sell them or up-sell them to the variety of products you have.

For more tips on how to format your products for online sales and individual pitching, see How to Submit Online Articles That Pull Traffic to Your Website.

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Ask them to send you their standard marketing materials and any price sheets on retainer or contract relationships. Publicists who charge strictly by the project won’t have price sheets, however. Find out if they have experience with placements in media you want to get into, or if they have worked with clients in your industry. Authors should hire book publicists. High-tech companies should hire publicists familiar with high-tech publications and online media. Bankers should hire publicists familiar with the financial services and business media, and so on.

Ask for background on their company. Ask if the publicist has a website. Ask if there’s a fee for the initial meeting. If so, can the fee be applied against the cost of an eventual contract? Ask what they need from you to prepare for the meeting.

Now see how long it takes for the materials to arrive. Perfect publicists mail materials the same day. If it takes a long time to receive them, this is a bad sign. If they’re this slow working with you—a potential new client—imagine how slow they’ll be if a reporter requests your media kit.

For more tips on how to pick out a perfect publicist, check out How to Hire the Perfect Publicist.
http://101publicrelations.com/hireapublicist.html?s=prideas&c=perfect_publicist

Posted by DK at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

If you are an expert in your field and you want to reprint an article that you’re quoted in, or an article written about you, it’s natural to want copies of them. Those are wonderful credibility enhancing mechanisms. But you must be careful when reprinting articles not to lose your credibility.

This is an issue beyond the law. Are you competing with the publication, and are they losing profits? Do they have actual damages? They probably are not going to bother to sue some small fry person. But even if they don’t sue you, when you have a publication, or a copy, that doesn’t look like it’s an official reprint, or doesn’t say, “reprinted with the permission of” you lose credibility among those people in the consuming public who understand something about copyright law. So even when it’s an article that you’re quoted in, or the article is about you, you need to get reprints.

These are “reprint services,” and many newspapers, business journals and magazines offer this service to people like you. They will give you slick-looking reprints with their nameplate. Sometimes, if the article is about you and four other people, they will highlight the parts of the article in yellow that pertain to you.

For more ways to enhance your credibility rather than detract from it, check out Legal Issues You Must Know When Writing Articles For Fee or For Free.

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Pitch letters must be short, snappy, and to the point. A big mistake is making your pitch letter too long. Of course, you’re dealing with a lot of information in a very small space—the headline and the first four lines. Start by writing 500 words. Then make 250 words your limit and cut out every single unnecessary word. Mark Twain said, “If I had more time, I would have written less.” You just keep rewriting until it’s 250 or less. Everybody tends to start out with too much, and you just have to keep cutting it and cutting it. It’s about rewriting.

For even more tips to writing successful and attention-grabbing pitch letters, check out Transcript—How To Write a Pitch Letter.

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1. Assess whether you have anything of value to say – if you don’t really have anything to add to your industry or your customers, it’s probably not too wise to go out and create another blog.

2. Decide whether you are truly committed to building and maintaining an active blog – you certainly don’t want to start one without a commitment to continue building it.

3. Decide who will write your blog postings – it may be one person, or several, but if you don’t put someone in charge of actually writing the postings and coordinating the posting process, you’re probably going to fail. Put it in their job description, make it part of their performance review, maybe even create an incentive based on the blog’s performance.

4. Choose a blogging software program.

5. Create your blog

More details can be found at Blogging for Business

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You want to make sure you’re not burning or yelling at your reader when your’re writing online articles. You have to be careful. There is nothing wrong if you wanted to capitalize your subhead, but as most of you know, if you’re writing in a lot of caps online, it means that you’re screaming.

So instead of using all caps in your subheadings, use initial caps—the first word is capped, the rest of the word is lower case. In between your subheads, on one end, put “—,” and other end of it, at the end of your subhead, put “—”

Now you never have to worry about losing your formatting, and you’re being nice to your reader who is quickly going through and easily following your change in thought.

For a more in depth look at how online headlines and subheads differ from standard print, check out How to Submit Online Articles That Pull Traffic to Your Website.

Posted by DK at 11:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Reprint rights are the non-exclusive rights that you give to a print publication—a newspaper or a magazine—to publish your manuscript after it’s already appeared in another publication. First rights, sometimes called first North American serial rights, are offered to the very first publication that prints that piece. After that, if you have maintained your copyright, you can offer reprint rights to other publications.

So your articles can appear in Trade Publication Number 1, and then in Trade Publication Numbers 2 through 102 in exactly the same format, with the same expression of ideas.

Second reprint rights are the rights the other publications get. (This is different from the author who owns the copyright right to reprint one of the published pieces.) You can offer your article, if you’ve maintained the copyright, to another bar association non-competing publications throughout the country, and they can reprint it in exactly that same format.

For more revelations regarding reprint rights, check out Legal Issues You Must Know When Writing Articles For Fee or For Free.

Posted by DK at 09:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Share with publicists you talk to—right up front and as soon as you meet them—what you expect to achieve from publicity. Also give them a range of how much you can afford. This will save a lot of time. Good publicists who think your expectations or price range are unrealistic will say so, and they probably won’t want to work with you.
Don’t “test the waters” by meeting with several different publicists without discussing fees, only to learn later—after they have submitted written proposals—that their fees are way out of your range. This wastes your time and theirs. Instead, be open about your budget.

Give them a range of what you can afford. Then, if they’re a top candidate, ask for a written proposal with a variety of options within your price range. Don’t use the excuse “I don’t have a budget.” If you don’t have a budget, you shouldn’t be looking for a publicist. You wouldn’t walk into a car dealer’s showroom if you didn’t have money for a new car. And please, don’t call the publicist and say, “I don’t have any money, but I’d love to talk to you about my project and pick your brain.” It’s the same as saying, “I want your advice but I’m not willing to pay for it.”

For more budget advice and hiring a quality publicist who also fits within your budget, check out How to Hire the Perfect Publicist.

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Most blogging packages come with a feature called RSS, which is a huge reason why businesses should have blogs.

The acronym RSS has two purported meanings. The one that seems most useful is “Really Simple Syndication.”

Syndication essentially means that the content of a RSS feed can be easily lifted and displayed by other sites and tools that have RSS reading capability built in.

RSS is a standard that makes that simple.

Here are some reasons why RSS feeds are useful.
RSS Feeds Can Be:
-Accessed with RSS aggregators
-Pulled into a web page for easy perusal
-Aggregated by the blog search engines
-Pulled from the aggregation engines into other people’s sites
-Pulled from multiple sites and aggregated on the fly at your site
-Used to offer items for sale from your catalog or other stores on your site
-Delivered to people in newsletter format

To learn more details about RSS feeds and syndicating your blogs, take a look at Blogging for Business.

Posted by DK at 09:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The biggest error in writing a pitch letter is not getting to the point in the first two lines. What are you writing about? You get to the point when you’re talking to people you like and know. You’ve got to get to the point with journalists. The first two lines are what people see if they’re looking at your email in a preview screen, and many people do that. Not including contact information. Not having a link to more information. Not providing names of people within the company that can cover the subject. Not providing sources of additional information is a very, very big mistake.

For more tips how to write a succinct and effective pitch letter, check out Transcript—How To Write a Pitch Letter.

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You want to write somewhere between 600-800 words, certainly no more than 900, and no less than 500 when writing for online portals. Keep in mind this is an online strategy. People like short, quick information. If it’s too short, less than 500, people question the quality of the article that you’re writing. Can you really express your expertise and provide helpful tips in an article that’s short?

If it’s too long, the article portals don’t want it because it eats up too much of their space. Secondly, people don’t have the time to read long articles.

When you’re writing articles for portals, you’re most likely cutting and pasting your articles from a Word document up to a website. Before you do that, make sure you cut it and paste it into a program such as Notepad. It removes the hard returns that Word puts into the document. Remember, when you’re posting up to the website, the formats that you’re using are very automated, but they sometimes will hold onto a hard return, and then once your article is posted, it looks terrible. If something looks terrible, it’s likely that people are not going to read it. You want your article to look attractive online.

For more tips on writing quality articles for online portals, check out How to Submit Online Articles That Pull Traffic to Your Website.

Posted by DK at 11:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

When it comes to offering an article for free to a publication, it is possible for you to maintain copyright. You own the copyright in the article. The publication owns the copyright in the completed version. Most magazines are registered with the Copyright Office as a single collective entity. So every month, for example, the July issue, the August issue and the September issue are copyrighted as a whole. In that situation, unless the individual authors of those articles have independently maintained their copyright, they’ve lost it potentially at that point. It is essentially a joint copyright in the completed monthly, or weekly, or whatever the publication is. But the author owns the right to take those same words in that same way and recast them into another piece or offer it 100% verbatim as a secondary, or second rights to another publication.

You can give away the article itself, without giving away the copyright. Many experts offer articles for precisely that purpose—for publicity, for credibility enhancement, for all sorts of reasons, business reasons, or personal reasons. You can give away the article without a fee and still maintain your copyright.

For even more details on maintaining copyright, how it works and how it can work for you, check out Legal Issues You Must Know When Writing Articles For Fee or For Free.

Posted by DK at 09:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)