Utah Public Relations Agency, Utah PR, Online PR, PR For Small Business, Utah Social Media Agency, Social Media Marketing

Happy New Year! (well, almost). Hope you’ve been thinking of New Year’s ideas to push to the media. If not, today is definitely the day to do something about that idea you’ve been sitting on. Don’t be shy, members of the media are always looking for ideas. It never hurts to send them a quick email and ask if they’d be interested in covering you for something.

Having said that, don’t send them something lame like “This is our sales goals for 2009″ or “People have been raving about our products.” No, no, no, no, no! This is not a sales pitch. You are not advertising here. Make your pitch newsworthy.

To do that remember WWWWWH…and W

Who
What
When
Where
Why
How
and Who Cares?

That last one, asking who cares, is very important in getting coverage.

Ask yourself why a the media outlet you are pitching to would care about what you want covered. Say, for example, you sell water bottles. Okay, maybe you have a unique New Year’s day idea you pitch to your local TV station that’s about helping all the hung-over people in your area recover. You tell the TV station producer that you are going to do this by giving out free water bottles that morning (or even the night before and you add something on the label that says “drink responsibly”). The TV station producer cares because this is something going on that is unique and helpful to the community. Plus everyone gets free water so that usually makes people perk up and pay attention. Plus your water label gets distributed all over town. A good many of you on this list are very creative people. You could probably come up with all sorts of much more clever ideas. Start thinking about why who you pitch to would care about your idea.

*One more thing before I go. Now is the time to work on your own resolution for better press in 2009. Start planning ahead for ideas to pitch. Most magazines are thinking Easter by now, other publications are looking for something mid-January and you may want to think about product pitches for Valentine’s Day.

Shocking, I know. But what I’ve been saying all along is true. The internets are by far the more popular choice - and by a huge jump (at 40%, that’s up from 24% only a year ago) for news and information. The Pew Research Center confirms this in their latest survey.

And the winner is MSNBC’s Chris Matthews for saying “I felt this thrill go up my leg” at the winning announcement of president elect Barack Obama…and then adding that it was an “objective assessment” Check this and other great media bias at Media Research Center

I had the pleasure of interviewing web design guru, SEO expert and former PR star Russ Page this morning about the best way to really boost your site and company profile in the search engines, rank higher and gain more traffic and sales.

Click here to download

Is the death of ink-on-paper newspapers imminent?

http://www.obit-mag.com/printmedia.php/prmMediaID/5196

“The Tribune Co. — publisher of five Pulitzer Prize-winning newspapers and owner of the Chicago Cubs baseball team — filed for bankruptcy protection Monday in an effort to cope with almost $13 billion in debt.” - NPR

Newspapers are getting into more and more financial trouble these days, but here’s a little well-kept media secret: most broadcast reporters have traditionally found their news story ideas from their local newspaper. When I worked at NPR it was a regular practice to search all the big papers: New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, USA Today, Christian Science Monitor. But, if you already didn’t know, The Christian Science Monitor just went paperless a mere few weeks ago. Have you started to get an idea of where broadcasters are starting to get their news instead? Just like the CST, they’re headed online for ideas. So if you are smart you’ll get online and give them something to talk about.

This is Miss Cookie, Michelle Wallace, of Miss Cookie’s Cookies. Isn’t she darling? She just opened for business and we became fast friends. So far she just has her domain name and I’m encouraging her to do something with it ASAP so I can buy her delightful cookies.

Me and Shahar Boyayan from Buzz Boosters
Shawn Nelson, CEO of Love Sac gave our presentation
Kickin’ it after with S-Nelly

The Utah Science Center, a part of the Leonardo Museum (the one currently hosting the Body Worlds 3 exhibit) has hired my company for a project with Leonardo on Wheels. So that’s pretty freakin’ cool and thought you’d all like to know about it.

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http://bigstarpublicrelations.com/components/com_mojo/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/the_leonardo_logo_small.thumbnail.gif

I was at the local Office Depot this afternoon picking up some stuff for a display table I’m putting together for Utah First Fridays (look for me, love me) when I came across something really, really awesome to use to get your name out there. Wait for it, wait for it…stamps! Huh? Yep, stamps. Well, you on a stamp. Impossible? Not in these revolutionary times, baby doll. The postal service has somehow magically collaborated with software makers to bring you stamps.com a site and program where you can put your picture, logo or latest ad campaign on a stamp. Whenever you mail something off to friends, neighbors, clients or potential customers you will be imprinted in their mind the second they pick up the mail, thus furthering your awareness, cause or recognition of your face. I bought the software myself on impulse at Office Depot (which turns out you don’t actually have to do, darn it. You can simple go to the website to do the same thing anyway). Well, anyway I’m using this to the maximum so look for me in your mailbox soon, kids.