It used to be that if you wanted to get featured in a national magazine or on TV, you had to spend several thousands of dollars on a public relations firm.  Since the vast majority of small businesses don’t have that kind of marketing budget, it seems like the only way to connect with journalists is to bump into them in line at the grocery store.

That’s where Help a Reporter Out comes in. Help a Reporter out (HARO for short) connects you with journalists writing on your area of expertise. In my last blog post, I described how HARO works. In this blog post, I will show you some of the other ways to use HARO.

1. Forward HARO Requests to Clients and Colleagues

I’m a natural born Connector. I love to put people in touch with other people and resources I think they’d like to know about. So, when I come across a query I think a client or colleague would be a good fit for, I send it to them.  Forwarding HARO queries shows existing people that you are thinking about them and are looking out for their best interest.

2.  Get More Work without Asking for It

Sending HARO requests to non-active client’s has gotten me more work because often their reply is something like “Thanks for sending this. By the way, I meant to contact you about a new project I’ve been thinking about.”

3.  Connect with Experts Who Don’t Have Time for You

I’m a big fan of Jill Konrath and her book “Selling to Big Companies.”  In it she shows you how to sell to people who are so busy they are looking for a reason to blow you off. I don’t know Jill but I recently came across a couple of HARO queries on that topic and forwarded them to her. I got a nice note back from Jill thanking me for them and encouraging me to keep sending them.  You bet I will! And one of these days, I’m going to screw up my nerve and ask her if she would feature my SEO ebook on her blog.

4. Learn Who’s Looking for Content

A marketing strategy  I often recommend to folks is to figure out what experts your customers are paying attention to, read their blog and comment on them. The hard part of that strategy is discovering new  blogs.  Many times, if a HARO source is not a well known TV program or newspaper they will list their URL in the query.  I’ve learned about several business related blogs that I’m now following.  The added benefit of using this strategy  is that you know these blogs are looking for content. Once you get a sense of the content they publish, you could approach them about writing a guest post.

Here’s a list of some of the websites and blogs I’ve recently discovered via HARO:

http://insidesocialmedia.tv/

http://www.shoestringventure.com/

http://www.theladders.com/

http://businessbewareradioshow.com/

http://entreprenette.com/

http://www.writingthatworks.com/

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/

One in particular I think you ought to make note of is Blog Talk Radio which is a website that aggregates hundreds of internet radio shows. I recommend that you search the site for internet radio shows about your areas of expertise and start following them.

5. Hey You’re a journalist too!

Content makes the internet go ’round. But it’s hard to think of something new to say on a regular basis. Interviewing experts or having a guest blogger are a couple of ways to get fresh content and build new relationships. So go ahead a post a query. When you do this, you’ll get a bunch of new visitors to your website so make sure it’s spiffed up before company comes over!

Have you got another use for HARO or a HARO success story? We’d love to hear about it!

Help a Reporter Out, commonly known as HARO, is referral service that puts journalists in touch with sources. HARO was started as a Facebook Group by PR guru Peter Shankman in November, 2007. It has since grown to its own website with almost 30,000 journalists and writers submitting over 200 queries a day to over 100,000 sources. HARO was recently purchased by software company Vocus. On his blog, Peter Shankman assures us that HARO will remain a free service and that “We’ll have a kick-ass infrastructure, which will allow us to grow HARO better than ever before. Different countries. More lists. Breaking news queries! You name it. It’s gonna be an AMAZING ride.”

HARO is free but it does require a time commitment. When you sign up as a news source, you get 3 emails a day with a couple of dozen queries in each one. Although the subject line of each HARO email starts with [HARO] which is designed to make them easy to filter into a separate folder, many of the requests are time sensitive so it’s best read them as soon as possible.

How can HARO afford to be free? Each HARO email starts with a paid advertisement about a product or service. Advertising in the masthead of HARO costs $1500. So at 3 emails a day, $4500 a day for a service that is largely automated is a pretty nice passive income stream.

After the masthead, there is a list of the latest queries by industry including:
Biotech and Healthcare
Business and Finance
Education
General
High Tech
Lifestyle and Fitness
Public Policy and Government
Travel

The title of each query contains a one line description and the media outlet. Media outlets can include major print publications, well known websites and blogs, book authors and lesser known websites, blogs and social networks. If the source says “Anonymous” you’re probably dealing with a major news outlet like the Wall Street Journal or Good Morning America.

When you click on a item in the list, you are taken to the expanded description of the query which includes the journalist’s name (unless anonymous), the publication, the due date and a brief description (50 – 100) words of what they are looking for. The description also included an anonymized email address where you can send your reply.

When you come across a query you think you’d be a good source for (and I’m confident you eventually will), keep in mind they are probably getting dozens of not hundreds of responses. If they don’t get back to you don’t take it personally. Also, keep your replies short and to the point. DO NOT promote your products or services. Focus on what you know and how you can help them. This is definitely one of those situations where self-promotion will blow up in your face.

In my next post about HARO, I will show you some other ways I use HARO to find resources and build relationships online.

The hardest part of building an online audience is getting in front of new people.  Tapping the existing audiences of websites, bloggers and experts is probably the easiest way to get in front of new people. That’s why I’m constantly telling prospects and clients “You need to figure out where your target markets hang out online and be there.”  People quickly see the wisdom of this approach.  But, the hard part is figuring out exactly where people are hanging out online.

A few weeks ago, I did a seminar about the basics of internet marketing.  In it, I asked the attendees to define their target markets.  One target market that emerged was stay at home Moms and it was news to most of the group that “Mommy Bloggers” are a serious force to be reckoned with online.  Just a week later, the New York Times had an article “Honey, Don’t Bother Mommy. I’m Too Busy Building My Brand” about a Mommy Blogger boot camp.

Frankly, if I were trying to reach stay at home moms and new moms, I could build a marketing campaign off this article alone.  By doing some data mining, I was able to collect a couple of good statistics, a bunch of blogs and some marketing ideas.

What Should You Look For?

Before I tell you what I learned, I’ll start with a list of questions I keep in mind as I do data mining for a client.

Questions to ask as you mine blogs for data:

-         Can I follow them on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube?

-         Who follows them? Should I follow their followers?

-         Are the ads on their blog a good source of info?

-         Could I advertise on their site?

-         What products do they review?

-         Would they let me interview them for my blog?

-         What do I have to offer or share that might make them want to interview me?

-         Are there any individual blog posts I should comment on?

This particular article was a gold mine.  It’s rare to come across a single article this helpful but it does happen.  Here’s what I gathered and why it’s helpful.

Juicy Statistics:

One of the hardest parts of writing memorable copy is gathering statistics.  I keep an eye out for them when I’m reading the paper, watching the news or toodling around on the internet. I keep them in a Word doc for future use.  Here are a couple I pulled form this article.

“According to a 2009 study by BlogHer, iVillage and Compass Partners, 23 million women read, write or comment on blogs weekly.”

“According to eMarketer, advertising on blogs will top $746 million by 2012, more than twice the figure for 2007.”

Blogs with Readers:

It’s not hard to find blogs. The hard part is finding blogs your customers actually read.  That’s where an article like this is helpful. You know the writer did some research and in some cases includes helpful facts about the blogs.  The following is a list of the blogs I culled from the article and some helpful tidbits about them.

hipasiwannabe.com

Written by Jill Smokler whose blog helped her get a full time job with Nickelodeon’s ParentsConnect.com social-networking site.  Her blog gets about 36,000 page views a month. When you go the blog you see that it accepts advertising and the ads are a good source of info too.

dialmforminky.com

Her About page has a list of blogs she follows which is a good source of other blogs.

mommyologist.com/

She sank some serious change into her blog template! This tells me she’s no amateur. She has 326 Friend Connect followers. Could be worthwhile to check them out.

mayhemandmoxie.com/

This blog and a few others link to the site www.thesitsgirls.com/ which has over 1500 Friend Connect Followers. The number of Friend Connect Followers and the content tells me it’s a hub site that will be another good source of information.

momfluential.net

This blog looks like a news hub and could be a good source of ideas for topics stay at home moms are interested in beyond the usual.

resourcefulmommy.com

Run by Amy Lupold who spoke a the Boot Camp. If you can find a resourceful angle to what you’re offering, you could have an “in” on this site.

Now What Do You Do?

Before you get all excited and start firing off emails to blog owners about what a great opportunity you have for them, just stop.  Doing so could quite possibly be fatal to your marketing efforts. Bloggers with a good readership GET PITCHED ALL THE TIME and just about all of them have horror stories.  If you are tempted to ignore this advice and email them any way, spend a few minutes reading The Bad Pitch blog.  If professional screw up this badly and often, imagine how easy it is for newbies to do.

Plenty has been written about how to pitch to bloggers. I won’t go into detail about it here but PRoBlogger has some helpful advice here:
How to Pitch to Bloggers – 21 Tips.

But, before you’re even ready to contact bloggers you have homework to do.

• Read the blog for a while. Get a sense of the tone and the comments.
• Make a list of the topics they write about and “angles” they take.
• Take an inventory of your existing content (articles, white papers, videos, etc.) that might be of interest to them.
• Make a list of existing content you could tweak or new content you could create that would be of interest to their audience.
• Then, make or teak that content. You’ve got to have your ducks lined up before you contact bloggers.

I know this sounds like a lot of work and it is but it gets easier once you’ve got a solid toolkit of content to pull from.  Keep in mind that it only takes a few well placed mentions of your business or product to become the next overnight sensation.

I could easily spend another 10 or 20 hours mining the sites in this article but why deny you the fun?

It is now March and lil-bro has been incommunicado for over 2 months. I’ve emailed him twice and all I got back was the sound of crickets.⁽¹⁾ Considering he has over 5k worth of my music collection, I felt it necessary to bring in the big guns – aka his Mom.

Fortunately for me, lil-bro lives with his mother who is easily the most responsible person on the planet. Normally I would eschew parental involvement but like I said, he’s been incommunicado and has over 5k worth of my music.

Yay Mom. She put a fire under his butt and as of today assures me lil-bro is burning CD’s like crazy. ⁽³⁾ The whole kit-and-caboodle should be in the mail within a few days.  But, I still haven’t heard from lil-bro and I’m kind of bummed.  If only to tell him I’m not mad; I just wanted a status update.

TAKE AWAY: Even if you think a client is pissed, COMMUNICATE!

How hard is it to send an email that essentially says “I’m working on it”?  Chances are your customer isn’t as mad as you imagine. And for sure they’re less pissed off today than they will be next week.

Granted “my dog ate my homework” only works once and if you’re a terminal excuse maker you will fail at being a business owner but if I’ve learned anything from working with clients virtually, email updates go a LONG way to making customers happy; especially when projects take longer than you think. A little information goes a long way to preventing clients from filling in the blanks with the worst case scenario.

So. When you screw up and blow a deadline, admit it. Admit it as soon as possible, as accurately as possible and tell them how you will make it right. In the long run you could quite possibly wind up with a happy client.

Foot Notes:

(1) I didn’t call him because I don’t have his cell # and no one ever answers the house line. Why they keep it? I don’t know.

(2) I’m no newbie to project management. I offered him a bonus to complete the job by the end of January.

(3) Sorry Dude. Really didn’t want to bring your Mom into it but hey, you’ve got all my tunes!

Source code is a valuable source of information in competition research. This quick guide shows you how to view the source code of a web page. How to view source code is the one topic that comes up over and over again. So I finally got a clue and created easy to follow directions for finding source code. (Jeez! Only took 2 years!)

Great for: Getting started in blogging especially if you plan to set up a WordPress blog
http://sitefever.com/website-traffic-tactics/95-blog-traffic-made-easy/

This is one lean, mean ebook! Excuse me, “article.” The author, John Robinson doesn’t like the word “ebook.” In 22 pages he touches on the essential WordPress plugins you will need, explains all the lingo and good ideas for driving traffic to your blog. John’s personal trick for driving traffic is a great idea I never would have thought of on my own.

Blog Profits Blue Print

Great for: People who want to make money blogging (and the rest of us)
http://www.blogmastermind.com/
This 54 page ebook focuses on how to make money by writing and promoting your blog. Blogging as a source of income is a pretty lofty goal but there is still plenty of good advice for the blogger looking to build and existing business.

Killer Flagship Content

Great for: Understanding how to write content people want and remember
http://www.chrisg.com/killer-flagship-content-free-ebook-to-download/

Who’s tired of hearing “…and then you write great content and wait for the money to roll in”? Meee! Writing content people remember, save, share and link to is hard work most internet marketers brush over on their path to promising riches.  It’s also the KEY to getting clients online. The information in this ebook transcends blogging and applies to overall marketing strategy. Read it. Internalize it. Do it!

People expect that in a 60 minute teleclass you’re going to talk for 45 – 50 minutes then take questions.  This is important for two reasons.

Problem #1: Asking Questions Throughout the Teleclass vs. Questions at the End

When people are in listening mode, they aren’t thinking of questions to ask you in the next 30 – 90 seconds. Asking if there are any questions every 3 – 5 minutes is annoying and leave a lot of uncomfortable dead air.   Solution: If you’re going to ask questions through out have some plants (people on the call ready to ask pre-determined questions). Also, in your promotional copy tell people you’re going to take questions throughout the call so they have time to think of stuff.

Problem #2: Listening Mode vs. Discussion Mode

Taking questions throughout a teleclass requires Discussion Mode which means we all get to hear what’s going on in the background of each attendees life. It’s surprising how noisy many people’s lives are. One is bad. Imagine how much worse it is when there are 6 attendees with serious background noise.  Unfortunately, they are usually the last to realize they’re the problem so it pretty much ruins the call for everyone.  Solution: Don’t do discussion mode unless people know up front that it will be discussion mode and people will need to mute themselves. Also, tell them how to mute themselves in the call in directions.

P.S. If you’re going to charge $67 A MONTH for a press release template, be sure to communicate the value other than it shows you where to put your business name, address, website and email.  I can get that info for free with a simple web search.

I believe that the overall point of the article is “When there is a mis-match between the key words you are targeting on a web page and the overall tone of the page copy, that web page won’t yield the results you expect. Here’s what you can do to fix it.”  I can only assume this was the point the author meant to make because at no point does the author tell the reader what point she is trying to make.

The Major Mistakes Made
1. The author breaks the Golden Rule of Copywriting which is “Tell the reader what you are going to tell them.  Tell them.  Then tell the reader what you told them.”

2. The other major mistake the author makes is that she doesn’t write like she would speak.  See the example below. Would you speak like this?

Bad Writing:
Considering that, it is important to first gain clarity about the issues affecting performance before prematurely changing your keywords. Otherwise, you might find yourself “throwing out the baby with the bathwater” when you toss keywords that seem to be underperforming.

Moreover, be mindful that changing keywords can greatly affect your visibility in the search results. Given that it takes a great deal of time and effort to achieve visibility on certain keywords, you need to consider whether or not any keywords changes are worthwhile

Plain English:
Changing keywords can have a big impact on your rankings and traffic.  You need to know what issues affect performance before you change the keywords you target.  Otherwise you run the risk of “throwing the baby out with the bath water.”

I could go through the article and give you more examples but I’m willing to bet at least 95% of the people reading this article bailed out before the author got around to explaining how to solve the problem.

Who’s to Blame?
I know how much guts it takes to put your work out there on the web. I don’t blame the author for this poor writing. I’m all for giving people the benefit of the doubt and I’m willing to bet that if the author set this article aside for a few days then ran it through the crucible one more time she’d be able to boil it down to the good stuff.

Who do I blame?  I blame the editors at Search Engine Land who should have read this with both eyes instead of just looking for an article to publish in this week’s column.

This could have been a really good column that generated links. Instead the author and the editors punted and missed a good opportunity. No wonder why people think social media doens’t work.

It sucks to overspend on a project and not get what you expected. It also sucks to have unhappy clients due to miscommunication. That’s why the #1 most important piece of advice I would give any one looking to hire a virtual assistant is to write down in as much detail as possible what you need them to do. You might think “Oh I just need them to do data entry” or “I just need them to update my website.” But once you starting writing down what you mean by data entry or website updates, you will be surprised at the variety of tasks involved.

Before you start looking for and interviewing possible candidates, you need to answer the following questions in as much detail as possible:

1. What exactly do you need this person to do?
The more detail the better. I explain why below.
2. How often will they do it?
Is this daily, weekly, monthly or as needed. You don’t want them assuming it’s a fulltime job if it’s not.
3. What skills are necessary to get the task done?
Don’t forget the soft skills like excellent communication or attention to detail.
4. What software programs are necessary to get the task done?
5. What is the pay range for these tasks?
What would you pay someone you have to teach versus expecting they can run with the task?
Do you want to start them at an intro rate with the ability to make more once they prove themselves?
6. Are you paying by the piece or by the hour?
I try to pay on a project basis as much as possible. That way I know what I’m spending and they know what they’re making. When project based pay is not possible, I give the person a range of how long I expect it will take with an understanding to check in at about the 30% point so we cal see how it’s going and re-evaluate the agreement.

Getting Clear on What You Need a Subcontractor to Do
A request I often hear from people is “I need someone to update my website.” That may sound clear but it actually covers a lot of ground. To decide who to hire, you need to have a clear picture of their skill level. You need to answer questions like:
 What pages will they update? Are they just copy pasting text or do they need to know HTML well enough to add images and format the page?
 Will they be adding products to a shopping cart?
 Will they adding blog posts? If so what systems do the need to know? WordPress or Blogger?
 Do they need to know how to use a online content management system or do they need to have Dreamweaver? (An expensive but often necessary program for updating websites.)

The answers to these questions will determine if you can hire someone at $20 an hour or you need someone who will likely charge you $60 an hour.

The Key To Keeping Costs Low and Quality High
Another important reason for answering these questions is that if you need a variety of tasks done, you might need more than one person. For example, if you need data entry, travel arrangements, copy editing and website updates, you probably need to hire three different people. Other wise you wind up paying too much for data entry or get poorly done copy editing and website updates.

Far too often business people try to hire one person to do it all. They interview a virtual assistant who assures them they can do it all while they’re thinking to themselves “I’ll figure it out.” You don’t want someone “figuring it out” on your dime (unless that’s part of the agreement). In the long run understanding what are logical skill sets and hiring accordingly will help you keep costs low and quality high.

If you’ve spent some time thinking about your answers to the questions above writing a job description doesn’t have to take more than about 20 minutes. If you’re looking for someone online, you’re going to need this info any way so just take the time and write it down!

Resources:
Writing Job Descriptions:
http://www.howtodothings.com/business/how-to-write-a-job-description
http://www.entrepreneur.com/humanresources/hiring/article56490.html
http://blogs.payscale.com/compensation/2009/03/how-to-write-a-job-description.html