PRactical PR BlogJust another WordPress weblog

At the September meeting of the Gold Coast P.R. Council last week, Associated Press Reporter Brian Skoloff shared tips on how to successfully pitch an AP reporter.
 
Here they are:
 

Do your research first, and offer this information to the reporter.  We are usually very time-crunched, and providing this information may save enough time that we can [...]

The second annual 2008 StartupNation Home-Based 100 will once again rank the best performing home-based businesses across America in ten distinct categories. This year’s categories are:

Best Financial Performers
Most Innovative
Boomers Back in Business
Greenest
Yummiest
Wackiest
Grungiest
Recession Busters
Most Slacker Friendly
Most Glamorous

There are also great publicity opportunities, for coverage in national [...]

If you have signed up for my e-mails and gotten publicity opportunities, you may be wondering how to best respond to reporter queries for sources. 
Here are some tips: 
1. Always follow the media contact’s specific requests. So, if you are told to put “Jane Doe Story” in the Subject Line, do that. Why? Because the reporter might [...]

One of my favorite bloggers, Guy Kawasaki, of How to Change the World, wrote a terrific column in Entrepreneur Magazine, on how to get publicity from bloggers.
You can view it here.

Since going green is so hot in the media, publicity coverage of eco-friendly products on Earth Day makes perfect sense.
Here is a quick sampling of Earth Day coverage:
USA Today did a big spread in the Life Section for Earth Day.  Beauty and fashion products were big winners, including baby clothes by Speesees and Kate Quinn [...]

The folks at SHIFT Communications have created a new kind of press release — a social media press release.  You can see the template here.
I’ve seen this before, and I wonder.  Has any business out there used this template for an actual press release?  Are there any media folks out there who have seen releases like [...]

 I sent out this press release with some important keywords, including “sell to Target” and “sell to Wal-Mart”.
I also sent it through a service that allows “anchor text,” or links in the press release, which increases the possibility of search engine pickup.
Here is an example of an SEO-optimized press release:
From:  Margie Zable [...]

Since gas prices are going up you’ve probably noticed that the media coverage about how businesses are affected has also gone up. Most of the media coverage is about how increasing gas prices negatively affects businesses.  But there are always businesses that do better when gas prices go up.  Here are some types of businesses that [...]

I work with many Inc. 500 and 5000 companies and this is one of my favorite awards to help companies gain credibility and publicity. 
To qualify, companies must have been founded and generating revenue by the first week of 2004, and therefore able to show four full calendar years of sales.
Additionally, they must be [...]

I get about 500 e-mails each day, many times from people I don’t know, or from people whose contact information I don’t have memorized. Often these e-mails don’t include telephone numbers or other contact information.  This makes it very hard for me to get back to them if I am out and about. And I know [...]