Tips for Getting a Journalist Interested in Your Story

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I still remember the first time I got press coverage for a client. I worked at a boutique marketing firm in what can only be described as "a closet with a window." Only an imaginative landlord could describe the space as an office. The creative director sat with his back to me. Talk about pressure to perform!

After days of pitching various media outlets for a new client with no luck, I abandoned my usual cold-call approach and tried something different. Here's what worked for me...

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Youtube Celebrity: And How You Can Make the Most of the Culture

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Twenty-four hours after YouTube celebrity, Casey Neistat posted his vlog “That Time in Afghanistan” about his trip imbedded with U.S. Forces, it was viewed 1,045,048 times.

Felix Kjellberg, a gamer better known as PewDiePie, has over 10 billion views and 40 million subscribers on his YouTube channel. Felix’s 10 Billion Montage video is nearing 20 million views. Compare these stats to Game of Thrones and you start to get the picture. The first season of the HBO series averaged an audience of a mere 2.5 million viewers or 9.3 million viewers per episode when repeats and on-demand viewings are factored in. This is clearly the age of the YouTube celebrity.

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Why Are Politicians So Good At PR?

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Many business owners think of PR as one-off opportunities to draw attention to what they are doing. When the business happens to do something worth promoting, they send a press release out or post on their blog and go back to running business.

That approach does little to create the momentum needed to make a real difference to your business’ bottom line. A better way to approach PR is to think of it like a political campaign.

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The One Question You Have to Answer to Improve Your Reputation

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I’ve recently been reading “The Ultimate Question” – a book about how to identify strategies that lead to long-term sustained profit. In the book, the authors argue that the number one question businesses should pay attention to is “would you recommend us to a friend?” That one question determines whether a business is set up for the long haul.

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Building a Movement: What I Learned from One NYC Councilman

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One of the first public relations campaigns I worked on was promoting the environmental argument against this new form of oil and gas drilling called hydraulic fracturing. I was working for Councilman James F. Gennaro, a local elected official in the New York City Council. Though “fracking” has since become a national debate, in 2009 it was still a relatively new process and the environmental concerns were even more nascent.

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Read This to Learn About the Next Biggest Social Media App

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Have you heard of Meerkat? It’s the latest and greatest social media platform. Actually, Meerkat is over – long live Periscope!

If you’re a business owner, this is exactly what it feels like to keep up with the current trends in social media. During South by Southwest (SXSW), just last March, Meerkat, an app that allows users to live-stream video to other users, was heralded as the next big thing. Tech journalists emoted about how the app was catching fire at the event and would have tens of millions of users in no time. This media frenzy led brands to scramble to start using the app and be part of the next wave of social media.

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What Jeff Bezos and Steve Jobs Can Teach You About Presenting

On Sunday morning, I caught an interview with Fareed Zakaria talking about his new book “In Defense of a Liberal Education,” where he mentioned an intriguing quirk about Amazon headquarters.

Zakaria said Bezos forces his executives to write out initiatives and plans in narrative form rather than in the standard PowerPoint because narratives show the obvious gaps in logic. Steve Jobs of Apple also hated PowerPoints and banned them from meeting rooms because he believed presenters should know their content well enough not to need projected cue cards.

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Why Knowing Too Much Is Hurting Your Business

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In several meetings recently, I've talked a lot about the benefits of getting an outsider's perspective on your business. Partly because I want you to hire me for the perspective but also because I believe it can be a real eye-opener.

In “Made to Stick,” my favorite book about effective communication, authors Chip and Dan Heath tell a story about what they call “the curse of knowledge.”

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The Best PR Campaign Any Company Can Replicate

Working in public relations, people often ask how they can create buzz for their company. They dream of some extravagant campaign video that goes viral or a profile in The New York Times that catapults them to the top echelon of their industry. Sure, it could happen but it’s not a good long-term strategy.

So what is a good strategy? How do you get people talking about your company in an organic way that builds your reputation and separates you from the competition?

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What One Brewer Can Teach You About Good Communication Strategy

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Tröegs is a friendly brand, one that literally invites the community into their brewery to taste their product, tour their facility and hang out in their tasting room. On my first visit one Saturday in February, it was easy to see why so many people were interested in spending a part of their day there. 

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