Mainstream Media

Are You An Ideal Candidate For Publicity? Let’s See What Marsha From “News & Experts” Thinks.

Catherine Lyon - Literary Marketing Expert A Writer's Thoughts, Featured Guest, Marketing and More, News Around The Web, Posts, Updates and More , , , , , ,


Authors and Writers are an extraordinary breed…

We work feverishly at the craft of writing and when we chose to publish our works, unless you make the “Big Time” it is difficult to work our way into “Main Stream Media.” Of course, we want our books to be found by readers all over the world who may enjoy our “style” of writing, be it fiction, a memoir, or mystery suspense reads. That is where an amazing PR Firm can help. And luckily I have a friend in the BIZZ.

 ~ CEO of News & Experts PR Firm knows not all authors can afford a public relations company. So she is kind enough to share many tips and advice with us from her sites and why I enjoy having her as a guest frequently here on my book promotions blog. She has been doing what she does for over 28 years now, and is passionate and caring about what she does and about helping authors gain the spotlight. So here is a new Guest Article she has shared in hopes of you gaining some knowledge on how to make you and your books shine through media!

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MSI Public Relations ~ Marsha Friedman

From the beginning, Marsha set out to make her company different. Today, Marsha is considered a national pioneer in pay for performance PR, a model other firms have since tried to replicate…

Author of ‘Celebritize Yourself’ ~ Now on

Celebritize Yourself

 

 

Guest Article ~ Ready For The Media?

Here’s a question you might have asked yourself as you decide whether to take the plunge and embark on a PR campaign: How do I know if I qualify for the media spotlight?

If you aren’t someone the media is already beating down the doors to interview, you can get them to look your way if you have the right qualities and characteristics that will give them the assurance that you’re someone worth their time.

But just what are those qualities and characteristics? Let me share a few that I think make someone the ideal candidate to have a successful publicity campaign:

  • A book. One of the best ways to build your authority is to write a book. This can give you a leg up on others in your field because not only can you talk about the same things as your competitors, but you literally wrote the book on the subject! Some people try to beg off this one, saying they struggle to write a short essay, so an entire book is out of the question. Relax. That’s where topnotch ghostwriters come into the picture and can do the job for you. Do you absolutely need a book to have a successful PR campaign? No, but it immediately communicates your authority which helps immeasurably with gaining entry to the media.
  • Credentials. When we choose to take on a client, what we look for is that your credentials are in line with your message. The media must be able to trust that you know your subject and credentials are the primary qualifiers they use. They will be skeptical of anyone who strays too far outside their area of expertise. For example, a medical doctor who wants to talk about heart disease is a good fit. A medical doctor who had success with his own investments, and writes an investment book is not such a good fit. Why would the media interview the doctor when they could find a highly credentialed financial professional?
  • Experience and knowledge. When you’ve personally undergone, encountered or lived through something, then yours is a voice the media is more likely to listen to. For example, if a teacher who spent 25 years in the classroom says he has ideas about how to improve student learning, that will carry more weight than if it comes from someone who hasn’t stepped inside a classroom since their high school graduation three decades ago. Your experience can give you anecdotal stories to share with the media, and your knowledge helps put that experience in perspective for the media.
  • Passion. We always try to tap into a client’s passion because we know that if we set up an interview with the media it is more likely to go well if our client is talking from where their heart is. While we can present you to the media as an authority, once the interview begins it’s your passion that will engage them and their audience.

So do you think you have what it takes? Do you have the credentials, experience, knowledge, and passion – and perhaps also a book? That makes you the ideal person to launch a great publicity campaign.

Remember, you don’t have to be a household name to get started. But with dedication, tenacity, persistence, and commitment to this business-growth journey, you might become one before it’s over.

Ideally yours,

Marsha

P.S. If you’d like professional help getting coverage in the press, and being interviewed on radio and TV, give us a call. We’ve been providing this service to clients for 27 years. We also offer a comprehensive social media marketing program for select clients, where we do it all for you. If you’re interested in our help, please call us at 727-443-7115 Ext. 231. We’d love to hear from you! 

 

New Year Advice From My Dear Friend Marsha and WHY Video is ‘HOT’ in Marketing Yourself & Your Books…

Catherine Lyon - Literary Marketing Expert A Writer's Thoughts, Book Promotion Tips For Authors, Featured Guest, Marketing and More, News Around The Web, Posts, Updates and More , , , , , , , , , ,

Since we are starting a fresh New Year, I came across TWO exceptional articles from my friend and PR Expert, Marsha Friedman that shares two vital parts to marketing you, your books, and Brand! We can never have too much advice from a Public Relations firm that Marsha runs and is the founder of. Let’s make 2018 our “Year To Shine!”



“2018 Is Your Time To Shine!”

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 by | Jan 3, 2018.| General Marketing, PR Education

 

The start of a New Year is always a great time to focus on creating a “new you” – or at least an improved version of the old you.

Sometimes we do that through resolutions about dieting and exercise that, sadly, we don’t always keep. Sometimes we enter January vowing that in the next 12 months we will travel more, read more or spend more time with the family.

As you look ahead to all the possibilities that a New Year brings, let me suggest that if you’ve been letting your personal brand languish, 2018 can be your time to shine! It can be the year you rise from obscurity to fame – or at least to recognition as a voice of authority and go-to expert in your field. You just need to be willing and determined to make it happen!

You can bet that if you don’t, someone else – possibly a direct competitor – is going to step into the limelight that you neglected. They will be the ones polishing up their personal brands and, as a result, speaking with journalists, chatting with radio and TV show hosts, and linking to their media success stories on their websites.

Several years ago when I wrote my book Celebritize Yourself, personal branding hadn’t become quite as widespread as it is today. Certainly, some people – Zig Ziglar, Suze Orman and Bob Greene, just to name a few – had become extraordinarily successful at it, but at that time there weren’t always as many ways for people to promote themselves as there are now.

Most of the social media platforms that we have come to take for granted were either in their formative years or were dismissed as being irrelevant or unimportant. How quickly that changed! Now it’s so easy for anyone to create a Facebook, Twitter or other social media account and introduce themselves to the world.

Meanwhile, the old-school ways of promoting yourself via earned media in print, on radio and TV are still around, too. With so many opportunities out there, let me suggest just a few things you can do in 2018 to make this the year you take your personal brand to a new level:

  • Maintain a digital presence. Over just the last few years, I’ve seen more and more people who seem to – finally – get this. They understand the need for a website. They know the value of being featured in online publications and showing up in Google searches. They realize they need to be on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram or other social media sites, spreading their message in the places where millions of people check in daily. Still, on occasion, I encounter people who have no digital presence or haven’t posted anything on their social media platforms in months or even years. But in this day and age, an active digital presence is a must!
  • Continue to build your credibility. You want to be viewed as someone who provides insight on what’s happening in your field, and who offers helpful tips and interesting observations to people who follow you on social media. You can do that through a blog and through your regular social media posts, as well as through any interviews you can land with the media. By building your credibility you will come to be seen as an authority on your topic.
  • Make sure you deliver your best work. If you promote your personal brand, but don’t deliver an excellent service or product, eventually it will catch up with you and all the work you put into creating your personal brand will be meaningless. On the other hand, when your work shows the caring you have for your clients, it reinforces that shine you worked so hard to achieve.

So make a vow that 2018 will be your year! Although it may seem a daunting task, this really can be the year you create a truly authentic personal brand that will positively sparkle by the time 2019 arrives.

That’s a resolution definitely worth keeping…Shine on!

 

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Yes, this is me shining on!! Now to our next article!

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Make Video An Integral Part of Your 2018 Marketing Plan!

“As many of you know, I love brainstorming with my team to distill ideas and tips that not only can be useful in working on behalf of our clients, but also to share with you in the PR Insider.”

 

This week my creative team and I were in the middle of just such a session when Jay York, our senior social media strategist, intrigued me with his thoughts about current trends in video marketing.

Let’s face it. With today’s technology, combined with the vast reach of social media, it’s easier than ever to create your own video segments that can become an integral part of your overall marketing strategy. You don’t even need a studio worthy of “Good Morning, America” or special effects that would make you the envy of George Lucas. In fact, the less formal the production is the better.

And once you arrive at your finished product, you can put your video on Youtube, share it on other social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, and post a link to it from your website.

Frankly, you can get a lot of marketing mileage out of just one video – but you shouldn’t stop there because there are so many approaches you can take. You might create a series of short messages filled with insights into your area of expertise.

You might want to show your company culture with glimpses of team-building outings for example. It can show you’re a fun company to work with, or that you’re philosophically aligned and share commonalities with potential clients. These can be deciding factors when choosing a company to work with. At EMSI, we often use videos for those peeks inside the company, sharing them on Instagram!

So, with an assist from Jay, let me offer a few tips on what you should do to get started and get the most out of your video marketing this year:

  • Round up the equipment. This shouldn’t take long. After all, you won’t need the 124 cameras that ESPN reportedly used for the college national championship football game. One lone cell phone should serve your needs, although a tripod would be nice in case the person who does the taping lacks a steady hand. You’ll also want to decide on an appropriate setting. This simply could be your office or a backdrop of bookshelves. On occasion, you might even opt for an outdoors shot. Some of this will depend on the type of message you’re sending and just how serious – or light-hearted – your approach is.
  • Prepare your message. You don’t want to wing it, so know what you want to say and how you want to say it. In terms of length, although succinct is often better, Jay tells me the game has changed a little on that count. The typical recommendation used to be one to two minutes, but if you’re offering valuable information and are engaging, you can keep an audience interested longer than that, up to perhaps 12 minutes. And if you are making a speech or presentation before a group, don’t be reluctant to tape the whole thing – even if that means 30 minutes to an hour.
  • Keep it conversational. It’s best to look into the camera and speak as if you are having a conversation with a friend. The last thing you want to do is keep your head down and read in a monotone from a prepared text.
  • Consider going live. Now that you’re no longer jittery about a video (I’m going ahead and taking that leap here!) the next step is to consider going live. How? One opportunity is on Facebook, where there are advantages to a live video presentation. For one thing, Facebook gives precedence to live video so you will pop up at the top of your followers’ feeds. In addition, the live video will be interactive, so viewers can send you questions that you will see on your screen. You can respond immediately or use some of the questions as ideas for future video presentations.

A video is going to be more relevant in marketing in 2018 than ever before, which means you need to give serious consideration to incorporating it into your overall strategy.

Granted, not everyone enjoys going in front of a camera. I get that! But I also know the importance of video, so I’m going to suggest you overcome any camera fright and, if you haven’t already done so, take the video plunge! And yours in high definition!

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About Marsha Friedman
Marsha Friedman launched EMS Incorporated in 1990. Her firm represents corporations and experts in a wide array of fields such as business, health, food, lifestyle, politics, finance, law, sports, and entertainment. She consults individuals and businesses on a daily basis and is frequently asked to speak at conferences about how to harness the power of publicity.

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My Guest Today is PR Expert Marsha Friedman.

Catherine Lyon - Literary Marketing Expert Book Promotion Tips For Authors, Featured Guest, Marketing and More, Posts , , , , , , ,

I am excited and honored to have my good friend back, PR Expert Marsha Friedman from “The PR Insider.”  Marsha is CEO of http://emsincorporated.com/about-emsi/, an award-winning, top national public relations agency; EMSI has been delivering highly specialized publicity campaigns for over two decades. “Our specialty is creating angles we know the media will want to cover and will obtain quality media exposure for our clients.”  Marsha is a lot like me, as she enjoys helping others by sharing many Social Media tips and advice through her awesome newsletter which I get each week, and highly suggest all authors do on when you visit her website.

She happened to share a couple of articles this past week that I felt needed to be shared as it stress’ the importance of media and social media as part of your book promoting platform or brand. Since I book promote throughout social media, because as we all know, many authors can not afford to hire a PR Firm. So let’s see what advice Marsha has for us today  …

Marsha Friedman


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* When Media Opportunities Knock, Swing Your Door Wide Open! *

One piece of PR advice that I have shared with clients over the years is that they need to take advantage of every media opportunity they possibly can no matter how big or small.

Why? Because the media follow the media – or in more generic terms, one thing leads to another!

Here’s what I mean: Members of the media routinely check what topics other members of the media are reporting about and who they are using as sources. If they see that some other media outlet has made use of your expertise, they are more likely to view you as credible and someone they might want to turn to as an authority on your subject.

Just within the last week we experienced a terrific example of this phenomenon when one of our EMSI clients wrote an opinion piece we got published in the New York Daily News.

After the piece appeared, our client was sitting down to dinner with his wife when his cell phone rang.

On the line was someone from MSNBC, calling to check on whether he might be available to be interviewed for the network’s “Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell” show.

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The reason he made their list of potential guests: Someone at MSNBC had seen that New York Daily News article. One thing had led to another!

So with that in mind, what are some steps you can take to improve the chances of getting the media to follow the media that’s following you? Here are a few:

  • Be prepared to say “Yes!” to interview requests. You’re right! I’m back to the advice I opened this piece with, but it’s an important bit of advice. The first step for a good publicity campaign is to get on the playing field. If you aren’t in the game, then nothing is going to happen. In my experience, the people who have some of the best publicity campaigns are those willing to snatch every opportunity that arises, from the local weekly newspaper to major broadcast operations. Momentum can’t build if you don’t get the ball rolling and keep it rolling.
  • Be willing to step outside your core message. Often, much to our frustration, clients turn down media interview requests because they don’t see the reporter’s angle as the right fit for them. These clients have specific messages they want to push, and though they are qualified to discuss the topic the reporter is calling about, they view doing so as getting “off message” or being outside their comfort zone. So they pass. I think that’s a mistake. Not only do they miss out on another opportunity to get their name out there, but with a little skill they can steer the interview toward what it is they really want to say.
  • Link your topic to current events. This one might be the most important of all! At EMSI, we regularly follow what’s happening in the news to see if we can tie a client’s message to something that’s trending. Is there a change in Social Security that a financial planner could discuss? Is there new medical research that a doctor could weigh in on? You can do this too by following Google Trends or other online resources that will keep you abreast of what everyone is talking about. Then you can pitch yourself to the media using a breaking news angle. One major reason our client drew the attention of MSNBC is because his New York Daily News article connected his message about branding to the current presidential election.


Another thing worth keeping in mind is you need to stay persistent in your efforts and not expect quick results. Unless you happen to be incredibly lucky, one article is unlikely to do the trick. The more you take advantage of opportunities, the more your name is out there and the better the odds that the larger media operations will take notice.

Of course, when that happens, you better be ready! Media opportunities don’t knock every day  ….


“Now here is the other article I feel is very important to all authors when out promoting your books. Social Media is a great place to be and Marsha tells us WHY.”

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* The Key Ingredients To Developing A Social Media Strategy *

It’s hardly a secret that, if you’re promoting a brand like let’s say books, a great tool at your disposal is all the social media sites that have sprung up over the last several years and continue to flourish, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and others.

But, as I hope everyone also knows by now, it’s easy – much too easy – to make brand-damaging mistakes on social media if you’re not careful. Big mistakes!

In fact, if your aim is to promote your brand successfully, you shouldn’t even attempt social media without a carefully planned strategy. The willy-nilly approach won’t do it, and you even could end up in worse shape than before you started.

So how does someone go about developing a social media strategy that works?

Glad you asked!

To answer the question, as I often do in such circumstances, I turned to one of the team members here at EMSI for assistance. In this case, it was Jay York, our senior social media strategist, who understands the nuances of social media and how to make the best use of social media’s advantages while avoiding the disadvantages.

Jay says these four steps are critical as you develop your social media strategy:

  • Identify your target audience. It’s important to decide just who it is you are trying to reach because that will affect the subsequent steps in your strategy. For example, knowing the likes and needs of your target audience will help determine the type of content you share on social media. If you sell a pricey item for teenagers, for instance, your target audience might actually be their parents who have the money and the final say on purchasing decisions.
  • Choose the social media platforms you’ll use. Each social media platform appeals to a difference type of audience, though there definitely is overlap. Each attracts niche audiences that may or may not be useful to your brand. For example, Instagram might not be the right choice for you unless you’re promoting a lifestyle product to Millennials and Generation Xers. If you are in search of Baby Boomers, Facebook would be a good place to look because that’s far and away their favorite social media platform.

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  • Solidify your content strategy. Once you know your target audience and the platforms you will use to reach them, it’s time to focus on your content. You want to develop a stream of content that will be relevant and valuable to the right individuals through the right channels. Here’s where it’s important to remember that each social media platform has different ways of handling and displaying content. It’s not a one-size-fits-all approach. Twitter puts a limit on the number of characters you can use, yet there are still ways to get across a timely, interesting and valuable message. Facebook allows room for more detailed messages. Regardless of the platform, variety is important. Don’t just post links, for example. Your content should be a mixture of links, images, videos, and articles.
  • Define how you’ll network. Once your social media strategy is in place, you’ll want to attract and increase your following. Determining how and when you’ll do that is important. Will you follow like-minded people in an effort to get them to follow you back, or will you let your content do the talking to attract new followers? With Facebook, perhaps you would want to consider purchasing social media advertisements to help keep your momentum going.

    Finally, Jay emphasizes that consistency is incredibly important. You can’t post on social media once a week or once every two weeks and expect followers to start multiplying as if by magic.

    It simply won’t happen!

    Your social media platforms need tender, daily care, because once you’ve grabbed your audience’s attention, you don’t want to lose it. That doesn’t mean cluttering their news feed with an avalanche of posts, but it does mean checking in regularly to remind your followers of what you have to offer and that you’ll be there when they need you.

    Strategically yours!

    Marsha!

    You can connect with Marsha on Social Media to stay up to date on more PR Insider Tips and Advice below:

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