By Shelly Cone

Do you remember those days when you were just a kid coming home from school full of stories to tell and your mom would offer you a freshly-made cookie, sit down and ask about your day?

Yeah, I don’t know what I’m talking about, I didn’t have that mom either. But I do remember anxiously trying to wrestle her attention away from Phil Donahue’s talk show to tell her all about the nuances of my day. I’m talking EVERY SINGLE DETAIL. I would tell her what we had for lunch, I’d tell her about how Lisa stole my turn at the tetherball court just because I turned around to talk to that boy she likes. I’d talk about the joke Mr. Mitchell told and how it was so funny that Michael laughed until he turned blue and had to be taken to the nurse’s office, and geez that teacher is so great he really deserves a raise. I told my mom all the news I had to share. Now that I have kids, I realize I wasn’t the only chatty child.

Kids love to share their news with you. So it makes me think that naturally we all like to share our stories. That’s wonderful if you are an entrepreneur. However, the funny thing is, most entrepreneurs start a business and then clam up. They tell everybody about their plans to start a business, then when it’s off the ground it’s like it’s some big secret. So if it’s natural to share news and tell your stories why don’t businesses do it more often?

Because a lot of business owners assume they have no news. (That didn’t stop me when I was a kid. I thought EVERYTHING about my day was news.) Really what most businesses need is someone to help them discover what they need to share and how to do it. And believe me, you’ve got more news to share then you think.

Start with press release services

A simple press release will help you share your news. And a press release writer can help you discover what news you should be sharing. Sure you can probably write a press release yourself, but be honest, is that what you really do best? A press release writer knows what information will tickle a reporter’s fancy and what format online press release distribution sites require. Sure you’ve got skills but a press release writer has mad skills in the area of press release services.

Pitch your press release to reporters

If you are pitching reporters yourself make sure you distribute your press release to the right places. Start local. No, getting your press release published in your hometown newspaper isn’t the same as getting a feature in Entreprenuer magazine, but it’s still publicity and you’ve got to start somewhere. If nothing else it gives you a clip to add to your portfolio.

After including your local media work outward. Hit up the next largest media outlets in your metro area. Then go broader than that. Then hit up the major leagues. Don’t be afraid to pitch your press release to the major magazines in your niche.

Then tell EVERYONE else about your news

Seriously, tell everyone. At the barbershop or salon, at the grocery store check out line or at the sandwich shop waiting for your tuna on rye you have the opportunity to tell people about your business. You never know who may be interested in your business. I know of which I speak.

Once upon a time I left journalism and public relations to spend seven years in real estate. I kicked ass. One of the reasons was my website. The other reason however, was I took a common prospecting technique and gave it a little twist. Instead of door knocking and telling residents about my real estate services I decided to go to businesses where I had a build-in audience. Then I told them about my services whether they liked it or not. Everyday I came back with about five leads from either someone at the business, a friend of someone at the business or a patron of the business that overheard my pitch.

So it really does make sense to tell everyone about your business.  And if you still can’t bring yourself to tell everyone, consider enlisting the help of your children.

Shelly Cone is a journalist, public relations professional, and press release writer. She is also the owner of Beach Betty Public Relations, a California lifestyle design company offering press release services, media relations and collaborative marketing events to help you design your life by growing your business.

By Shelly Cone

I get lots of inquiries on a daily basis from potential clients looking for press release services. Of those I close a few deals but some decide to go elsewhere for various reasons. Sometimes it’s because of price, other times it’s because they aren’t sure what they want. But the reason that gets me the most is they want “another writitng style.”

I think this is funny because, though I have a very particular voice, my press releases generally follow the proper format and don’t have all the snark and snarl that my blog posts and other writing has. Then I finally figured out what they mean when they say they don’t like my writing style.

My press releases are pretty straightforward. However, some people want a whiz bang press release. Something that is splashy and sexy and jumps out at you and makes people want to read it. Those people are confused. I mean who are you trying to target? That’s the first question you’ve got to ask.

Let me back up a bit. There are two types of content and most people get them mixed up. There is the press release, which is targeted at reporters and announces something newsworthy. Reporters read the news you are giving them in this press release and they decide whether or not they are interested enough to do a story or investigate further into your news.

The other piece of writing is an article. Whether you write it, a publicist writes it, a blogger writes it or a reporter writes it, you are writing for readers or customers. An article should grab attention and should have a splashy and fun headline.

However, the two are not the same. Most of the time businesses hire me as a press release writer to write a press release announcing their news in the hopes that news reporters will get wind of the news and give them some publicity. However, when they see the press release they are disappointed that it isn’t splashy and shiny.

The reason you can’t do that with press releases is because of the intended audience. In the case of a press release the intended audience is reporters. They want easy access to the facts. They don’t want fluff. If they have to wade through fluff and splash trust me, they won’t. They will toss it aside or pass it on to the advertising department. That’s not to say your press release shouldn’t be intriguing or interesting, because it should be but it just shouldn’t be too over the top.

The other reason that a press release should be written in a toned down style is because many online press release submission sites will reject press releases that appear too promotional.

Whether you are writing your own press release or hiring a press release writer don’t worry too much about exciting writing. The main thing you should look for is that the press release writer has gotten the appropriate news in the press release, it’s an interesting read and it’s in the proper format. Keep it simple and you’ll do fine when it comes to grabbing a reporter’s attention.

Shelly Cone is a journalist, public relations professional, and press release writer. She is also the owner of Beach Betty Public Relations, a California lifestyle design company offering press release services, media relations and collaborative marketing events to help you design your life by growing your business.

Image: Michelle Meiklejohn / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I remember seeing an ad somewhere. It featured a father pushing a swing. In the swing, instead of a child was a laptop and his child was actually standing behind him hands on hips, wondering what was up. The message asked “Are you spending too much time with your computer?” Is that like a total wake up call or what? Well I guess it is if you have kids or a spouse. I feel that way sometimes. Actually, I feel that way often.

On the one hand, it’s a good thing because that means I’ve got plenty of work. On the other hand it means I’m missing out on family time, personal time and enjoying all the things that living in Southern California has to offer.

It’s hard not to spend that time on the computer–everything I do is on the computer. I arrange my music there, I pay my bills, I take notes, I look up phone numbers, I edit photos, I store and file information, and I keep in touch with people–all on the computer. Breaking away sometimes feels impossible.

In order to achieve that life/work balance I had to put my foot down and stick to a schedule. Creating a schedule of some sort is the best way to make sure you keep things in perspective. It sounds terrible doesn’t it? You know, “penciling in” your family or personal time, but it makes a lot of sense. What it does is it forces you to set aside time in the pursuit of all that is enjoyable in life.

Your schedule doesn’t have to be anything too ultra-organized. The one key is this:

CREATE SOMETHING THAT YOU WILL STICK TO

You can enter it into your smart phone’s note app or even write it on the back of an envelope. Whatever you do keep some sort of calendar that allows you to set blocks of time in which you shut off the computer and devote time to your family. Soon, you won’t have to look at your schedule it will be built in and you’ll be on your way to a better life/work balance.

That’s it for this post I need to get up early and spend time with my family. My goal right now is to start getting up early and spending those brilliant early morning starts with my family rather than checking in with my cyber life first thing. What’s going to be your goal for a better balance?

Image: Filomena Scalise / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Not that resolutions are a bad thing. I just think we should be making resolutions all year long, not just because the calendar changed and magically wiped the slate clean. In all seriousness, I know that the significance of the calendar change serves as a symbolic way to take stock of our lives and so on. However, people should always be doing that.

Needless to say I don’t make resolutions. I do remind myself on a weekly, monthly and quarterly basis of my one real goal in life. My resolution I guess; to live without fear. Though I have regular business goals, the one that trumps them all is to Live Without Fear. It’s something I’ve strived to do for many, many years since adopting that as my ongoing resolution.

How do you live? A slave to a schedule? Afraid of failure? Even worse, afraid of success? If you can apply this one principle across your life you can see it’s relevant in many ways. It’s about taking chances. It’s about not being scared to talk to a room full of people, to ask that cute co-worker out for a drink, to  make that cold call, to put yourself out there, to take your business to the next level.

Fear stops us from doing so much. Most of all it stops us from having success in our businesses. If you make resolutions, consider adopting mine. But don’t limit it to one time a year. Think about it throughout the year and find out where a courageous new you can take your business.

elan form etch iPhone hard-shell

Recently Griffin Technology sent me an iPhone hard-shell case to review. I don’t often do reviews, but I had just bought the Griffin Woogie for iPhone, and I absolutely loved it. Griffin has some other interesting products so before I ordered anything else I thought this would be a great way to test out a product before I declared my love for the Griffin genius. (When I like a product I tend to fall in love with the company, head over heels).

Disclaimer: Griffin did send me the iPhone hard-shell case to review for free. However, I have no objection to honestly reviewing a product. It just so happens this one totally did not suck.

I admit it did take some getting used to, primarily because I use a soft case. But just as soon as I put the Griffin case on my phone I had a run in with the corner of a wall. Well, more specifically, my iPhone had a run in with the corner of the wall. It was a knock I doubt my soft case would’ve protected my phone from so it was nice to know that the Griffin case was able to hold up to a hit like that.

I’ve spent the last couple of weeks trying this case out. And that’s really the test with my iPhone because I carry my iPhone everywhere. It’s in my pocket, the very bottom of my purse, my office desk drawer, and often in the sometimes clumsy little hands of my toddler. So it was nice to have that little extra feeling of security that my phone was well-protected.

Most of the complaints I had about this case has more to do with the fact that it is a hard-shell case. For instance I like that my soft case covers all the buttons, whereas you can’t do that with the hard case. But then again, you can’t drop it as hard and feel confident that a soft case with hold up against some good knocks either. The other thing was I was afraid that the two pieces wouldn’t hold together. I kept thinking the bottom of the case would fall off because a tiny gap would form between the two pieces and I was continually squeezing them back together. I soon realized that both pieces fit snugly and would completely protect my phone and I got over it.

The thing I like the best was the design. It really is pretty cool looking. The one I got is the Elan Form Etch iPhone hard-shell in Solstice. It’s a leather hard-shell in a cream color with a tan design burnt in. So it scored crazy points in the looks department. So what more can I say: I’m totally in with Griffin.

Stop by the Griffin Technology website to check out this iPhone hard case or other Griffin products.

Shelly Cone is a journalist, public relations professional, and press release writer. She is also the owner of Beach Betty Public Relations, a California lifestyle design company offering press release services, media relations and collaborative marketing events to help you design your life by growing your business.

Image: Michelle Meiklejohn / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

In all of those years that I sat at a news desk and read through thousands of press releases there were always those that made me wonder: Was the goal of this press release to make it into  the trash as quickly as possible? There are several things that are common in press releases that hit the trash rather than the newsstands. Mistakes pop up in both press releases written by public relations professionals  as well as by business owners running a do-it-yourself public relations campaign.

So if you are intent on taking the time to write a press release only to have it become a waste of time, here are five ways to get your press release trashed:

1. Use different colored fonts, wacky graphics or alternating upper and lower case letters.

Not that reporters don’t like the creative flair found in an email with flying hearts and winking happy faces, it’s just that when you get as many emails as a newsroom reporter does you really want to receive information in a straight forward manner.

Image: Francesco Marino / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Imagine reading dozens of emails a day and some written in all caps, some in upper  and lower case, some have flashing colored text and others have funny graphics. A straight forward clean- looking press release would be a refreshing welcome.

2. Forget vital info

The next technique you want to remember if you are looking to get your press release trashed is to forget vital information. It’s surprising but many times reporters get press releases that are missing vital information like the date and time an event is taking place, or even more common is leaving out the contact information so that if a reporter has a question they have no one to contact.

3. Threaten to take your press release to the competition

There is so much that crosses a reporter’s desk that there is usually something that can replace whatever is contained in your press release. By bringing up the competition, it tells a reporter that you really don’t care about their media source. Like anyone would be, reporters are going to feel loyal to their readers or viewers first and by showing that you only care about getting publicity, so much so that you would pit media outlet against media outlet, then you may find the response you get is “Go right ahead.”

4. Call continually to see if the press release has been published

Several calls a day until you get some answers may seem like a good idea. After all, persistence pays off right? But persistence quickly turns into pestering. You’ll wind up with a newsroom on alert for your calls and it will be harder and harder to find someone not “out on assignment.”

5. Don’t submit your press release in a timely manner

If you really want your press release to fly straight into the trash then wait a couple of months after the event to submit it. Otherwise you can submit it two days before the event not allowing the reporter enough time to schedule coverage.

Seriously, this happens often. Newspapers work on a time factor. The very nature of news is that it is, well, new. If something happened three months ago, it’s no longer new and that press release will likely be ignored.

Conversely, if you submit a press release and pitch a story the day before the event, the time element is at play again. Reporters often schedule the stories they run unless it’s breaking news. So by submitting a press release to close to the event you may have a great story idea but if the news budget is full already the media outlet may not be able to fit you in.

So there you have it, five ways to make sure your press release gets trashed. On the other hand if getting your news published is your goal, totally don’t do the top five things mentioned above and you’ll be alright.

Shelly Cone is a journalist, public relations professional, and press release writer. She is also the owner of Beach Betty Public Relations, a California lifestyle design company offering press release services, media relations and collaborative marketing events to help you design your life by growing your business.

Image: Damian Brandon / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Have you ever tried submitting your press release to an online press release submission site only to have it rejected for some unknown reason? Or maybe you’ve sent out press releases to the media only to hear nothing back. It could be that your press release was actually an advertisement.

There are a variety of reasons that media won’t immediately pick up your news. It could be they already have a full schedule of stories or your news doesn’t apply to their readership or maybe it just went to the wrong reporter. On the other hand online press release submissions sites really have one main reason they will reject a press release and that is that it is really an advertisement.

Of course there are other reasons, like maybe it wasn’t formatted correctly or you capitalized every word in the headline, but more likely than not what you submitted was an advertisement. Sometimes there’s a fine line between what’s considered news and advertising.

News is anything new to you that you want to announce to the world. For instance, you just added an eco friendly line of products to your offerings, or you hired a new employee, or you just hit the $1 million mark in revenues or whatever. It’s announcing something that is about to happen or just happened, without trying to do any selling.

Advertising is telling about your product and trying to sell it. Anything that talks about how great your product is, is advertising. For example, “Beach Betty Public Relations offers great press release services” is a headline that is advertising services. It’s not news.

Then again, sometimes your press release will be newsworthy yet it still gets rejected from the online press release submission services. Here’s the secret: You need to use words like “just launched” “announces” “forms partnership” “Gets a new” and similar phrases that relates that something just happened or is about to happen. That makes it news.

Remember, as a journalist myself, I’m not advocating puffing advertising into something that slightly resembles news just to get your message out there, but if you have a truly newsworthy press release these are just a few tips to make sure you get the word out.

How great would it be, if instead of you having to hound reporters to get your name in the paper, they were calling you? This is not an impossible feat my friend. Although, like every other great thing, it takes work and dedication.

The secret is to become a super reliable repository of information. Say what?

You need to position yourself as someone reporters rely on for information–even if it isn’t necessarily in your industry. In other words: be their friend. When you go through journalism school you are taught to be unbiased. However, you are also taught that everyone is human and bias has a way of creeping in. Reporters are supposed to recognize that and be wary. Most good journalists do. Although, it’s human nature that if you can help a friend out you will.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that just because you are their friend that a reporter will give you news space. More likely the dynamic is that they will try a little harder to find a new angle in the story you are pitching. In essence you have a warm audience not the cold audience that you would have with that reporter if you weren’t already acquainted.

That still doesn’t explain how being friends will make reporters call you.

Here it is. You need to submit story ideas often. Not just about your specific business either. You know your industry inside and out. If you come across a change in the industry or something else newsworthy in your industry, you probably will know before your reporter friend. So give them a heads up, tell them why that piece of news is important for your industry and then offer to answer any questions or be available if they need to “localize” the story.

Do this often without expecting to get news coverage yourself and soon that reporter will see you as someone who is on top of things in that industry. You will become their “go to” person and whenever anyone in the newsroom needs a contact for something that pertains to your field, your reporter friend will gladly recommend they talk to you.

Now take it one step further. Keep your ear to the street. If you hear of anything else that might be newsworthy–but has nothing to do with your industry–give your reporter friend a heads up. You can’t abuse this or they will see right through it. It takes some finesse. But if you hear something newsworthy, interesting or exciting that isn’t common knowledge, send an email or make a quick call and just tell your reporter “I thought you might find this interesting.” Suddenly, you are not only a person in the know in your industry you are someone who knows people, has contacts and genuinely wants to help out.

You may not directly benefit from passing on information that has nothing to do with your business but it keeps you top of mind. And if you’re top of mind you will likely be called whenever the reporter has a story on the economy, the internet, business in general, marketing, or any other story that has something to do with business — and not just yours. It’s an easy way to get news coverage even when there is nothing particularly newsworthy going on in your own business.

If you are visiting this site today it may seem a little wonky. I installed an updated Headway theme that brought down my site late last night. It should be up and running by late this afternoon. Thanks for your patience and understanding!

Shelly

No matter where you submit your press release, no one is going to publish what you say unless it is newsworthy. Before I explain what it means to be newsworthy or how you can become newsworthy, let me explain what is not newsworthy.

If your press release talks about a sale, that is not newsworthy. It is advertising. If your press release talks about how great your products or services are, that is not newsworthy. That is advertising. If your press release talks about the fact that you, your products or your services exist, that is not newsworthy either.

So what is newsworthy? The short answer is: Anything new to you or your business. The long answer is it depends on whose perspective you are considering. News editors and features editors will have a different view of what is newsworthy than a business editor will.

So how do you find the right angle to pitch in your press release? Well first consider your audience. If you are trying to get across how successful your company is by releasing your quarterly earnings report, then you are trying to reach maybe investors. You will likely submit your press release to business editors and so therefore, a press release announcing all the money you made in the last quarter is the right angle.

Your company isn’t limited to that angle however. Often times your company has more than one newsworthy angle. Now say that your company has made all of this money in the last quarter largely because of the popularity of a new product line that has moms everywhere clamouring to get their hands on one. Well now you’ve got a feature story about a hot new product trend.

So often the question becomes not really what is the right angle, but where to pitch that angle. Most businesses have several reasons why they are newsworthy. Write a press release for each angle you can think of and submit it to various outlets. Test your results.