HARO was created in 2008 by Peter Shankman, a Public Relations Expert and Entrepreneur. Shankman thought of the idea when journalists asked him regularly if he knew of any sources for an upcoming story.

To date, HARO brings nearly 30,000 reporters and bloggers, over 100,000 news sources and thousands of small businesses together to tell their stories, promote their brands and sell their products and services.

Once you subscribe to the newsletter, it is easy to scan the table of contents to see if there is anything relevant to your business or industry. If there is a request for an expert that applies to you, be sure to pitch on topic.

Answer promptly and include the query in the subject line with HARO listed. There are Five Rules of HARO that Shankman points out to always follow.

Other tips? Keep your pitch short and sweet. Offer contact information and links to more details if necessary, but no attachments. PR Web wrote How to Pitch HARO Successfully and it is chock full of tips from PR experts.

We have shared tips on pitching, building a media list, and follow up which are all elements, when done correctly, of a successful PR campaign.  Hopefully Help A Reporter Out can enhance your PR campaign and help your business reach the right journalists at the right moment.

Image via Help A Reporter Out 

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The hardest part of blogging — for me, anyway — is coming up with topics to write about. I’ve been an editor at a variety of sites, and we always had some sort of calendar to track what was assigned to the writers, when it was due, and when it would be published. For obvious reasons, this made life easier, particularly when there were three or four editors and a dozen writers creating the site’s content. But for my own site — and for the other sites where I am a contributor, required to develop my own topics — I’ve never done this, and recently, I’ve been scrambling to come up with ideas, always at the last minute, it seems. (In fact, in a deeply ironic twist, I am writing this post past deadline, on the fly — clearly my editorial calendar needs some work.)

Creating an editorial calendar for The Working Closet will, I think, let me do two things: it will enable me to write and schedule posts well ahead of when I want them to be live on the site, allowing me to have a consistent body of new content, and it will enable to me add some bigger projects to the site, like photo editorials and video, things that have to be planned and executed well in advance of publication.

In other words, an editorial calendar lets me act more like a professional writer — which is precisely what I am.

I’ve organized my calendar around eight different types of posts, each of which appears on the schedule in two-week rotations. Having a carefully selected set of posts will enable me both to focus my writing and to work more successfully with sponsors and advertisers. I think it will also change the feel of my site — in a good way.

More and more bloggers are relying on an editorial calendar to focus and organize their sites, and this, in turn, makes their work more professional and better suited for partnerships with sponsors and advertisers. I’m excited about the upcoming content at The Working Closet — and I’m hopeful that planning ahead will keep me excited and end my last-minute scrambling forever.

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Photo: Susan Wagner

Pinterest Do’s:

• Make sure your website (full of images you hope site visitors will pin to their Pinterest boards) features plenty of high-quality photos. Technically speaking, photos should be sized for web use (JPG files, 30-50kb) and conform to good SEO practices (file name and alt tag relating to the keywords your brand targets). On the composition front, only the most visually interesting photos rule Pinterest. Color, contrast, texture, lighting, and dramatic effect all weigh in. Take care of these things, and you’re taking care of the home front. While showing off (pinning) your own stuff should make up no more than one-third of your total pins, a website ripe for others to pin from is just plain smart.

• If your brand believes Pinterest is a strong strategic platform (uh, that’s why you secured a user name, right?), then you can’t sit back all Field-Of-Dreams like. Use Pinterest’s handy sharing buttons on your website (just the way you include the Twitter and Facebook ones now) to let visitors know they can find your brand. Write a blog post explaining the choice and ways you hope it’s useful for customers. Sprinkle in a few tweets announcing “We’re now on Pinterest – find us at XYZ handle.” Spread the word in low-key ways and let your good pins speak for themselves.

• Consumers today long for multi-dimensional experiences with the products and services they buy. So increase customer intimacy by showing them more about what makes your brand unique and worthwhile. Part of the buying process involves personal alignment with what the brand stands for. How it treats people (employees, customers, communities it operates in). So show another dimension to your brand by using Pinterest to highlight the personal lives of employees, the quirky, morale-building internal event, or your product in use in real customer situations.

Pinterest Don’ts:

• As with any social platform, participation should not be centered wholly around your brand. This is especially true on Pinterest (the company even has a code of conduct). Instead, create boards with pins that relate to the needs your customers may have. For example, a specialty foods store might include a board with pinned photos of recipies, another about interesting, niche, or vintage utensils and cookware, or a board centered around creating gift food baskets.

• Repeating myself – as with any social platform, Pinterest isn’t magic pixie dust. Your brand will not suddenly gain huge share overnight. The Facebook fan page won’t spontaneously combust by all the many new people anxious to “connect” with your brand in every platform imaginable.

• And don’t repeat yourself. Meaning, do not (can I emphasize that?) auto-post your pins to your brand’s Facebook stream. “But won’t that steer our Facebook fans to our Pinterest page? Wouldn’t that be good?” you might ask. Quite the opposite, in fact. Auto-pinning is akin to spam. And while cross-promoting content across online networks (along with reformulating the content to appeal to varied consumption preferences) is generally a good idea, it works best when the user (your brand) modifies the message (be it tweet, status update, etc.) to fit the platform. It’s much more acceptable on Twitter, for instance, to abbreviate and condense text due to the character limitation. The style/tone of Facebook messages is generally casual. I think Pinterest comments call for even greater intimacy because pin-worthy items evoke more emotion from users.

Is your brand on Pinterest? What’s been your experience? Have you seen good examples of brands using it in superb ways?

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We are so excited to announce that we have expanded into the Netherlands.  Why the Netherlands?  And what does expansion mean?  Ok, one thing at a time so let’s first get to why we chose the Netherlands.

Nicoline Maes, Director of Business Services (and most recently Director of Business Development/Netherlands as well), moved with her family from the Netherlands to the U.S. in 2006 and in 2007 came on board to Creative Concepts.  At this time, Nicoline began working on developing our client reporting tools and then added working with David Borzo to the mix where the two became a very effective content management team.  Together David and Nicoline have managed our writer assignments and schedules as well as having developed content topics while editing drafts of blog entries, Facebook updates and more.  While Nicoline was helping to bring success to our clients she became a true believer in the power of social media as well as our other services: public relations, design and branding, events and video production.  When the opportunity came for Nicoline and her family to go back to her homeland in the Netherlands, she happily made the move and took with her the goal of expanding Creative Concepts internationally.

We have so much to celebrate here on the Creative Concepts blog!  In 2011 we shifted gears by welcoming numerous voices instead of one….great writers and strategists who have shared their research and/or life experiences with our readers which has made all of us much wealthier with knowledge.  Today we are reviewing the best of the best from 2011:

One of our amazing strategists Stephanie Schwab always seems to hit home with her instructive and interesting social media blog entries but “How To Create an Editorial Calendar,” “How Brands Can Use Instagram,” and “Use Social Media to Rock Your Next In Person Event”  especially clicked with our readers.  Stephanie, while still a strategist for Creative Concepts, is no longer contributing to our blog and we will miss her…thanks Stephanie for your contribution!!

Next up we have Heather Rast who has done us all the favor of writing about social media and mobile marketing.  She began by asking “Where Does Mobile Fit Into Your Multi-Channel Strategy” which then lead us to learning about “Geo Location Apps For Business” and then back to the very enjoyable and festive “7+ Holiday Gifts To Make Your Social Media Marketing Bright.”  We are looking forward to a new year of entries focused on social media for business…can’t wait Heather!

And who hasn’t enjoyed Susan Wagner‘s posts?  Her writing is both entertaining and educational as seen with “Partnering With Bloggers Will Help Build Your Brand,”Strategies For Finding The Best Blogger For Your Brand, and “Sponsoring A Blogger Is Good For Your Brand.”  Businesses hunger for this kind of information so we are grateful for Susan and look forward to learning more from her in 2012!

If you are in marketing, then you probably have seen countless studies on what teens think and what they are doing online.  We are lucky to have our own teen who is an expert on being a teen of course.  Jerelyn Luther has shared great thoughts on “Using Facebook To Connect To Her Favorite TV Shows,” “Insights On Teens and Texting,” and she answers the question about the new report by Pew Research Institute that says “Facebook Makes Teens Antisocial.”   Jerelyn will be attending Yale University in the Fall of 2012 but there is lots more to come from her both before and after the big move!

Last but not least is Robin Phillips who is our resident Public Relations expert.  She has shared tips on pitching, building a media list, and follow up which are all elements, when done correctly, of a successful PR campaign.  We can’t wait to hear more in 2012 from our very own PR maven!

This is the end of our 2011 review.  We are looking forward to a new year filled with delightful surprises that only social media and public relations can bring.  Have a wonderful 2012 and please keep joining us every week as our writers continue to inspire us to learn more while teaching us the basics.

That’s a lot of influence.

So how influential are the women on Babble’s list? Very influential. “There are now 3.9 million mom blogs in North America alone, according to eMarketer.com,” ABC News reports. “Of those, about 500 have considerable power and reach, [Babble Co-founder Rufus] Griscom said. Another 4,500 take blogging seriously enough that they might fly to a blogger conference.”

That Is amazing.

The world of mom bloggers is a pretty small community; of the 100 names on Babble’s list, half are women I have met in real life over the past few years, at conferences and retreats and PR events. Another quarter are blogs I read regularly. Many of these women are my friends, people I exchange holiday cards and emails with. But they are also women I work with on panel presentations and various projects; as an editor, they are my go-to people when I need writers or spokespeople.

These are the influencers.

What does it mean to say that a blogger is an “influencer?” It means that she has readers — hundreds or thousands or, in some cases, hundreds of thousands — who are listening to what she has to say and basing their own behavior on her opinions and recommendations. My personal web site is a style blog; I write about products and brands as part of my daily posting. I hear from readers and Twitter followers and Facebook fans that they take my recommendations seriously. They trust me, and they buy the products I write about. That’s influence.

How does a blogger become an influencer? Two things are key: she has to write with an authentic voice, and she has to create excellent content. The bloggers on the Babble list are doing both of those things, both in their personal writing and in any work they do with brands. In fact, that’s why brands want to work with these women — because they are willing to lend their authentic voice and incredible writing to the conversation about ideas and issues and items that they think are worthwhile.

But influencers are also picky; we’re not the mom bloggers who will create free content in exchange for samples of a product we could pick up ourselves at CVS. We’re looking for brands that are a match for our beliefs and our values and our lifestyles, because those are the brands we can speak about in an organic, trustworthy way. We are also looking for brands that will compensate us fairly for our work and our influence. We’re not in it for free stuff; we know our voice is valuable and powerful.

I’m thrilled to be included in Babble’s list; I love what I do, and I work hard at it, and it is nice to be recognized for that. It’s also nice to realize that people really are listening to what I say, even if I spend most of my time talking about shoes.

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While we don’t have any bright paper packages to send your way, we do have a few tips, tools, and tricks sure to delight any online marketer this season.

Project Management

Get It Done and Asana are two project management applications I like. They’re both great for small businesses and consultants because they’re both easy-to-adopt with clean interfaces, drag-and-drop functionality, and Delicious-like tagging for easy search. Both allow task delegation, email reminders, appointment setting, and native mobile apps to keep you up-to-date and on task throughout the day.

I’ve worked in Basecamp, Zoho Projects, Desk Away, and other programs but could never actually commit to sticking with any of them. I don’t find the Basecamp organizational structure to be particularly intuitive, and Zoho feels very fragmented between tasks, projects, and client-level components.

Content Planning and Publishing

So part of your job involves curating and publishing content? Scoop.it, Tumb.lr, Pinterest, and other niche sharing sites are a great way to distribute interesting branded content to your audiences. Sure, you can share photos on Twitter from y.frog and Twitpic. But the occasional post with a photo attachment doesn’t create the same kind of branded experience that a Pinterest board does for surrounding customers with creative visual stimuli to furthers your brand’s interests.

Multimedia Production

Have you ever done an impromptu hallway interview after discovering someone whose work you love is at the same conference as you? Audacity is a handy, free application that allows you to edit an audio file. Trim off excessive seconds, minimize background noise, add intro music and voiceover, you name it – Audacity can help you produce great media-rich content.

Camtasia Studio and Jing are two software products that make creating informational “how-to” video demonstration a snap.  With Camtasia, you can mix screencast content with video footage plus add really impressive effects. Jing is a way to capture screen shots that can be shared with others (like a customer or Help Desk attendant).

Twitter Conversation Tracking

If you moderate a Twitter chat or otherwise evaluate conversation around a hashtag, then Hashtracking may be for you. The application pulls tweets containing the hash tag you specify so you can see participants and conversation flow. Use that information to create chat transcripts for your audience (pro tip: collections of Twitter chat transcripts used to create blog posts can be used to create great  sneeze pages that drive website traffic!).

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I believe that follow-up (well-done, targeted, slightly aggressive follow-up) is crucial to turn a well-planned public relations campaign into a success story. I have seen many a promotion bomb because the team did not:

Do Any follow-up calls (Do not be afraid to call! The Media are people too)
or
Do Enough follow- up calls (It takes several tries – do not give up!)
or
Do Effective follow-up calls (Be a clever and quick communicator and don’t give up until you speak to a human being)

Many public relations professionals are expert writers and creative thinkers, yet they are afraid to follow-up out of fear of bothering, angering or upsetting a member of the media. Forget the worry and charge ahead because the truth is PR people and the media can have a mutually beneficial relationship and often do need to rely on each other.

Here are four tips for following up on your perfectly crafted press release or pitch email:

1. Reporters receive thousands of emails and phone calls per day so remember that they may not have seen your press release. Always present yourself as if your call is the first time they’re hearing about you and your company or product.
2. Make it snappy: write down the three points you must get across to them and refer to it so you do not get flustered or lose your focus.
3. Be respectful of their time and know when their newscast is or deadline, and do not call at that time. If you aren’t sure, ask “Is this a good time?”
4. Even if you find yourself speaking with a grumpy person, just stay positive and give a big “thank you so much” before signing off.

We all hear a lot of “nos” on the road to a golden “yes” but note that rarely does a reporter become irate and slam the phone down simply for following up on a release. So go ahead and follow the tips above and let us know how much more successful your next campaign is because you found the courage to follow up and connect with the media.

According to AllFacebook—the unofficial guide to Facebook—teenage behavior on Facebook has become increasingly, and disturbingly, more antisocial.  New studies by the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project report concerning effects of Facebook usage by young teenagers such as friendships ending, face to face confrontations at school, problems with parents, physical fights and bullying.  Possibly the most disturbing of all is how nine out of ten teenagers have observed cruelty on social networks, or treated others that way themselves.  Regardless of the age limit for a Facebook account, it has also been noticed that children thirteen and younger have been creating accounts with reported ages much, much older than their actual ages.  This is to get past the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act and the age limit that Facebook has set in accordance with the Act…with or without their parents’ permission.