By now we’ve all heard that Oprah is going off the air to found her own Oprah-dom on cable which we know will be amazingly successful.
The announcement has filled me with glee, when I consider that all those Oprah-esque PR insiders who provide you tons of tips, insider secrets, oprah-show advice etc. will also hopefully be cleaned out as well.
If it’s time for Oprah to have a new start, it’s also time for everyone who has ever paid thousands of dollars to consultants just “hoping” they’d get the right Oprah teleseminar-guru-recipe for being on the show to have a new start too.
For those folks, I hope Oprah’s announcement will serve as a wakeup call that you don’t need to rely on PR gurus, or media gurus to get you on the Oprah show. I’ll tell you a secret, the best way to get on the Oprah show is by using your own initiative, being creative and having a unique and interesting story.
I’ll tell you another secret! People have actually been booked as a guest on her show by pitching the show directly through the website form on Oprah.com. People have actually been booked on her show by tweeting out interesting ideas that Oprah’s producers (who are also on Twitter) find and then build a show around.
If you don’t think they’re on Twitter, do a Google search for “Oprah Producer Twitter” and find them yourself. I could give them to you, but it’s time you start doing your own walking! Come on! You can be your own PR guru if you believe in yourself enough.
You too can go back home to Oprah when she starts her new show. The first step is to tap your shoes together three times and say, “There’s no place like Oprah, there’s no place like Oprah, there’s no place like Oprah. ” (Oops, wait, I was channeling a PR guru and what they might tell you.)
Ok, start again. The first step is to come up with what makes you unique and then research Oprah’s website and see if there is already a show they are booking around that topic. Every week they post new calls for guests to pitch themselves.
The second step is to be persistent without stalking! The third step is to be creative about how you want to get on the show. Don’t believe there’s room for creativity? Peeshaw, as my great Aunt Susan would say.) Still not feeling it?
Read this story of how one person got on Oprah by selling tickets to his own show on the sidewalk.
Or how about using a billboard to get on Oprah?
Still not convinced? Read this story about how one woman used the online submission form and kicked ass on Oprah.
Don’t give up. Who knows you might even be featured on the show twice!
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=924e9bbe-af47-4b7e-a3b1-23e4620c2e12)
7 Signs Your Social Media “Expert” is Not So Social:
1. You ask them about measuring metrics and they say, “Metrics, metrics, we don’t need no ‘steenking’ metrics.”
Helpful Tip: Measurement of social media activities should be happening using tools like Radian6, HubSpot Grading tools, and some from Mashable’s list here.
2. Early on, you ask the expert how often you should tweet and they say, “As much as you like, just keep in mind never to do it in mixed company.”
Helpful Tip: See Guy Kawasaki’s post on Twitter Cluelessleness.
3. You search for the profile they were tasked to set up on LinkedIn.com and when you can’t find it, they say, “LinkedIn.com isn’t cool anymore. We set up your profile on Hookedup.com but you’ll need to lower your browser security to ‘hit that.’
Helpful Tip: Keep up with the actual LinkedIn.com blog for great insight on how to empower your profile.
4. You find the Flickr.com account they created for your company, but to your surprise it is populated with photos of horses named Flicka.
Helpful Tip: Use Flickr to build your brand online – see tips here.
5. You ask for strategic insight on what you should add to your blogroll and their answer is, “I don’t know, I’ve never tried that sandwich.”
Helpful Tip: See Dave Taylor’s timeless piece on blog rolls here.
6. They send you a large box of organic pea pods the week before the debut of 1st company podcast, with a note that says, “Only the freshest peas possible will do for your first cast.”
Helpful Tip: Read “Podcasting for Dummies” and Evo Terra’s blog to keep up with everything you need to know about podcasting and how it does not involve casting peas.
7. The expert says the best way for you to build online buzz and loyalty is to give away free pairs of shoes like that Zappos.com guy because everyone loves him and shoes always make people happy.
Helpful Tip: See Tony’s presentation on building real customer loyalty offline and online here.
Bonus: They rent a dog to do tricks in the background of all the company YouTube videos they’re producing for you. When you question their judgment they exclaim, “The better the tricks, the more the clicks.”
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=7f7b427e-81b5-4c96-b486-83ab533ef320)
- Image via CrunchBase
Excerpt from release - Nashville, Tenn., November 18th, 2009 – FiledBy (www.filedby.com), the leading online directory of authors, writers, illustrators, photographers and other book contributors, today announced the integration of the Scribd Reader technology into the online toolset provided to its fast growing community of authors and other creators. Scribd (www.scribd.com) the largest social publishing company in the world, facilitates the creation and distribution of web documents that allow anyone to share written materials easily over the Internet. As a result of the agreement, all authors and other book contributors who register and claim their FiledBy site can utilize Scribd’s document reader to publish documents on FiledBy and Scribd simultaneously.
“We integrated Scribd’s technology on FiledBy sites to provide a more powerful, extensible and integrated document viewing platform that can support many file types, improve discoverability and broaden exposure for authors and others on FiledBy,” said Peter Clifton, CEO and co-founder, FiledBy. “This integration also establishes a framework for our authors to engage in social publishing and empowers them with another state of the art way to promote themselves and their work. For authors looking to expand their reach and build their marketing platform online, document posting and sharing on FiledBy and Scribd is a very powerful connection.”
To upload documents, videos, podcasts or other media, authors must be registered and verified on FiledBy. One of the advantages to the new integrated model with Scribd is that only the author themselves or their publisher can publish documents through FiledBy. This provides a level of verification and authority that helps protect copyrighted material. Click here to view a sample document on FiledBy and Scribd.
*If you’ve not yet created an author profile at FiledBy – you absolutely should do it now!
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=a4b9ded3-dffa-47c7-897a-5db58af7473d)
1. Build your personalized Google profile today so you are visible in search.
2. Add Twitter to your LinkedIn.com account – you can do this now and it will help folks see your “mindshare” on LinkedIn.com too.
3. Be committed to sharing your actionable insight on your blog and then go DIGG it as well.
4. Claim a Twitter account if you’ve not yet done so. Twitter is not going away and it will continue to be refined for better usage and accessiblity.
5. Add your URL to Google. I recommend people submit them at least twice a year just to make sure that Google-bot is stopping by your site.
6. Believe in the impossible. Stop thinking that you don’t count on the Web, that you’re not tech-savvy enough to figure all this Web 2.0 stuff out! Use resources like Mashable.com and DailyBlogTips.com to get you on your way.
7. Be yourself on all your platforms and truly be committed to being open and authentic in your content delivery. Don’t think of the bottom line, think of empowering a community.
* Bonus Tips from October’s BlogWorldExpo Blogged by Fast Company’s Gregory Ferenstein
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=5f7f1e5a-58aa-458c-be43-be744c98e2fd)
As a former (decade long) technology journalist I think it’s very important for people to understand that it is important to not put all your social media eggs in one basket.
Always be aware that social media tools are ever-evolving. This is one of the reasons I don’t ever like being called a “social media expert.” No one can really be a social media expert, because even if you live this stuff 24/7 (which sometimes it feels like I do) you’ll still not be ahead of the developers of these tools and the new options or frameworks they are building with them.
While you don’t have to be an expert to benefit from social media, a key thing to remember is, “Your content is not a fad, however, the tool you use to deliver it might at some point be one.”
If you look at MySpace and how its usage has evolved and then significantly dropped – you will also find folks who put all their efforts only into MySpace and are now left holding the proverbial empty MySpace bag. They are trapped by MySpace because they put all of their efforts into that one “next greatest thing since sliced bread” tool.
As Dr. Seuss says, “Step with care and great tact and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act. Just never forget to be dexterous and deft.” (from – “Oh! The Places You’ll Go)
With social media, it’s doubly important to incorporate a good balancing act at this time when all the major players, Facebook.com, LinkedIn.com and Twitter.com are at their highest competitive market and hope to differentiate themselves. This will prevent you from getting trapped holding a less than useful social media basket.
Take things one step at a time. Don’t put all your social media eggs (efforts) into one tool. Don’t push all your fans, partners, customers to one platform and whatever you do, don’t throw out the traditional tools for communication that you use as well.
Don’t shut down your website, if you have a thriving e-newsletter keep it going. The greatest thing you can do for yourself long-term is to consistently produce good content and then use it to empower community both offline and online.
And remember, “Out there things can happen and frequently do to people as brainy and footsy as you.” (excerpt fromOh! The Places You’ll Go!)
Great thanks to Jennifer Robenalt too – as we talked about this today and she and I will be talking more about it next week at our panel for the Texas Governor’s Conference For Women. (Follow them on Twitter @TexasWomen) We are very humbled to be a part of such a stellar event.
Go to Bigthink.com and see Sherman Alexie’s take on ebooks, publishing and more. Really must see if you’re an author or in publishing.
“We run, not because we think it is doing us good, but because we enjoy it and cannot help ourselves…The more restricted our society and work become, the more necessary it will be to find some outlet for this craving for freedom. No one can say, ‘You must not run faster than this, or jump higher than that.’ The human spirit is indomitable.”
-Sir Roger Bannister, first runner to run a sub-4 minute mile
Here are 7 questions to ask yourself about how you are running your blog marathon and how well you are utilizing this long blog-race to get your message out.
Answer them to see if you really are blogging purposefully and at the best possible level of empowering a community with your insight.
1. Do I wait until the last possible moment to blog about something or do I treat my blog as if it really can change the world and make certain I blog the change I want to see in the world?
2. Do I blog with envy or do I blog with abundance? Do I understand it’s a marathon not a sprint and I’m not a viral marketer of ideas, I’m an idea-marathoner?
3. Do I celebrate other bloggers’ successes and insights by featuring links to them on my site and my blog?
4. Do I encourage my community to run the marathon with me by blogging questions openly and know that each commenter can contribute to a greater discussion?
5. Is my blog a “have to” or a “can’t but not” blog? Do I view it as a terrible task to get through or do I see it as an immense conduit for expression and empowerment of my community?
6. Do I have a mission statement for my blog? Do I know what I want to engender with my blog content?
7. Do I understand that I’m not blogging just to gain attention, but rather to educate, inform and elevate?
Often when I work with authors, one of the first things I will ask them is how many awards they’ve submitted their book to. It’s always surprising how many people have not done one thing in terms of trying to garner an award or two. What’s most surprising is that this is definitely a no-brainer! For the small amount of investment it takes for an author or a publisher to enter contests like the IPPY, Benjamin Franklin, The Ethan Awards, USABooknews.com or the Axiom Awards, it’s well worth doing so in the long run.
Even if your book garners only a finalist mention, that helps it stand out amongst a crowded field of books that don’t have any finalist mentions or any award wins. In bookstores when I shopped with my kids, I was always drawn to the children’s books with the bright shiny Newberry Award sticker on them. Why? Because I knew they had been vetted by an objective and savvy group of book enthusiasts and voted tops for kids.
The same holds true in terms of the awards I’ve listed above. The awards are serious business, and the people who run the contests make sure they have a stellar panel of folks reviewing and scoring each book as the “best” in its category.
And don’t forget there are many awards available through local community and regional clubs, for instance, the San Diego Book Awards. If you’re feeling that twinge of “poor me! my book isn’t in published form yet, so I can’t enter” — don’t be silly! You can enter for Best Unpublished Novel awards or Best Creative Non-Fiction awards, to get a good list of those you can simply keep abreast of the ones noted by Writer’s Digest and other leading writing magazines.
This is a good list too for creative book awards available – http://www.bookspot.com/awards/ .
I just had two clients garner nods in the USABookNews awards – Melody Chatelle was a finalist for her book, “Journeys of Heartache and Grace,” and Bill Scheft won Best Humor award for his book, “Everything Hurts.”
Just finished reading David Henderson’s “Making News in the Digital Era” and I wanted to post the five reasons to read his book!
Five Reasons to Read: Making News in the Digital Era
1. Chapter Seven: Twitter Dispatches in 140 Characters
2. Chapter Twenty-Five: Be Clever and Be Bold – love this chapter!
3. Chapter Twenty-Three: The Price of a Forgettable Slogan
4. Chapter Twenty-Two: Mission Statements Are Useless – this is a key chapter filled with ton of good insight.
5. Chapter Sixteen: A Good Story Has Great Legs – quote “A great story has legs that in today’s world can travel many miles per hour.”
1. Loved Michael Scott and his talk because he was so accessible to the audience, walking among them without a mike and answering their questions directly.
2. It is not ever polite, if you’re an author to ever, ever, ever, belch as loud as you can on purpose in the mike at the start of your session. (Never funny, and no, I will not say who did this.)
3. Will Clarke is an amazing interviewer/moderator, and author. Wonderfully witty and generous on stage.
4. The best way to reach new readers is to describe your book(s) briefly and not assume that everyone in the audience has read them. (Bill Scheft did a great job of this.)
5. Po Bronson did a fantastic job of talking with his audience, not just too his audience.
Friends (or Faux Foes)
Abundantly
Captivatingly
Expressing
Buoyant
Opinions
Online
Keenly
Recent Comments