In This Issue:

1. Grab Attention on LinkedIn

2. What’s Your #1 Free PR Tool?

3. How Other Twitterers Perceive You

4. For Authors Only

5. Read Your Customers’ Minds

6. Publicity Summit Deadline

7. Hound Joke of the Week

8. And at My Blogs and Mobile Site…

1. Grab Attention on LinkedIn

With more than 70 million people on LinkedIn, it’s often difficult to attract attention to your profile, particularly if you’re in a crowded industry.

But Paul Furiga, owner of WordWrite Communications in Pittsburgh, Pa., has found an unusual way to do just that.

In his LinkedIn profile, rather than stating his job title, he includes a pithy one-sentence elevator pitch that quickly summarizes what he does at his PR firm:

“I use every tool in the public relations toolbox to make our clients the heroes in their own stories,” it says.

It’s easy enough to do. When creating your profile, you simply include your elevator pitch where your job title would be.

I discovered this last week as I was posting a question to LinkedIn about what PR people think is their Number One free PR tool. I liked Paul’s idea so much that I wrote about it for SocialMediaToday.com.

You can even see how I illustrated it with screen shots to show how his profile really stands out.

That’s one tiny way to promote on LinkedIn. Social media expert Scott Allen shared more tips that involve well-thought-out strategies, not just tactics, during the two-part teleseminar I conducted on “How to Use LinkedIn to Promote Anything–Ethically & Powerfully.”

2. What’s Your #1 Free PR Tool?

I’m compiling a list of free tools that Publicity Hounds use in their PR and publicity campaigns, and I’d like to hear about your favorite, not including this newsletter.

Examples:

–Any of the free media leads services like PitchRate, Reporter Connection, HARO or the new service called NewsBasis.

–The free social media press release template from Shift Communications.

–My free ecourse on how to write and distribute online press releases.

–A blog or ezine.

Let’s hear it. What’s the one free PR tool you absolutely cannot live without? Email me and explain where other Publicity Hounds can find it.

3. How Others Twitters Perceive You

The two best ways to put yourself in front of influential people on Twitter are to:

–Retweet them. Your tweets will show up in their Mentions column, and if you retweet them often enough, they’ll know who you are.

–Reply to their tweets. Many people, even big-wigs, will be more than happy to carry on a conversation with you.

How do you find the most influential people in Twitter? One way that really saves time is to check out other people’s Twitter lists and see who they’ve identified as the best (fill in the blank) within an industry. When you subscribe to THEIR lists, you’ll see a list of all the tweets from people they’ve mentioned.

Publicity Hounds have flooded my email inbox with Help This Hound questions about how to use Twitter lists, a topic that isn’t answered easily in a blog post. So I’m hosting a teleseminar at 3 p.m. Eastern Time on Thursday, Aug. 26, called “How to Use Twitter Lists & Directories to Generate Publicity and Build Your Brand.” I’ll even show you a nifty tool that you can use to find out, within seconds, the Number One keyword or keyword phrase that people on Twitter use to describe you.

If the time is inconvenient for you, sign up anyway because I’m recording it. You’ll get a link where you can watch the streaming video, or download the video.

4. For Authors Only

The moment you decide to write a book, you can begin to leverage that fact to attract new clients and revenue.

John Eggen, a publishing and marketing mentor, says one way to do that is to include this one-liner in your email signature: “Author of the forthcoming book, (insert your title and subtitle here).”

Independent professional Jeanna Pool tried it. She reported, “I got two new clients and $25,000.00 in income, all within 30 days of starting my book. It took just three minutes to use John Eggen’s simple technique.”

John has two more incredibly easy ideas that I’ll email you later this week, along with information on how to join me when I interview him during a teleseminar at 8 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday, Aug. 18. Don’t miss this one if you’re writing a book, or thinking of writing one.

You can sign up now or wait to see the email.

5. Read Your Customers’ Minds

One of the worst mistakes I made when I started creating information products was guessing what Publicity Hounds were willing to buy.

A handful of the more than 100 products I’ve created turned out to be stink bombs that, to this day, have fewer than five buyers.

Fortunately, I found Jeanne Hurlbert last year and hired her to create a customer profile survey for me. The responses showed me exactly what my customers wanted and how much they were willing to spend. Ditto for services.

Jeanne is hosting a free webinar at 4 p.m. Eastern Time on Thursday, Aug. 12. She’ll explain the four survey principles that will let you read your customers’ minds to create products to order that they will beg to buy.

She’ll show you how to leverage surveys for PR and publicity that you couldn’t buy with a million-dollar advertising budget. You’ll learn how surveys let you build a tribe that loves you, spelling the difference between falling victim to an economic downturn and running a successful business in spite of it.

Jeanne will also explain how mobile surveys can put you on the cutting edge of online marketing.

Register here.

6. Publicity Summit Deadline

Today, Aug. 10, is the last day to get the full discount on your tuition for the National Publicity Summit, October 20-23, in New York City, where you can meet more than 100 top journalists and broadcasters face to face and pitch your story ideas.

After today, the price goes up. Host Steve Harrison will begin pre-Summit training for the 53 people who already have been admitted to the summit.

To apply for one of the 47 open spots, go here now.

I promote the summit as an affiliate because many of my readers have attended, and reported great results. Watch this video Steve created, in which four people who attended past summits explain what happened to them after they did.

7. Hound Joke of the Week

A 3-year-old boy went with his dad to see a new litter of Labrador puppies.

When they returned home, the boy breathlessly informed his mother, “There were three boy Labrador puppies and four girl Labrador puppies.”

“How did you know that?” his mother asked.

“Daddy picked them up and looked underneath,” he replied. “I think it’s printed on their bottoms.”

A man wrote a letter to a small hotel in a Midwest town he planned to visit on his vacation. He wrote:

Dear Hotel,

I would very much like to bring my dog with me. He is well groomed and very well behaved. Would you be willing to permit me to keep him in my room with me at night?

An immediate reply came from the hotel owner, who said, “I’ve been operating this hotel for many years. In all that time, I’ve never had a dog steal towels, bedclothes, silverware or pictures off the walls. I’ve never had to evict a dog in the middle of the night for being drunk and disorderly. And I’ve never had a dog run out on a hotel bill. Yes, indeed, your dog is welcome at my hotel. And, if your dog will vouch for you, you’re welcome to stay here, too.”

Bumper sticker:

Wag More, Bark Less

The front door was accidentally left open and our dog was gone. After unsuccessfully whistling and calling, my husband got in the car and went looking for him.

He drove around the neighborhood for some time with no luck.

Finally, he stopped beside a couple out for a walk and asked if they had seen our dog.

“You mean the one following your car?” they asked.

“I know that dogs are pack animals, but it is difficult to imagine a pack of standard poodles…and if there was such a thing as a pack of standard poodles, where would they rove to? Bloomingdale’s?

–Yvonne Clifford, American actress

Two fleas are coming out of the movie theater and it’s raining very hard outside. One flea says to the other flea, “What are we going to do? Should we walk or wait for a dog?”

In order to keep a true perspective of your importance, you should have a dog that will worship you and a cat that will ignore you.

The front door was accidentally left open and our dog was gone. After unsuccessfully whistling and calling, my husband got in the car and went looking for him.

He drove around the neighborhood for some time with no luck. Finally he stopped beside a couple out for a walk and asked if they had seen our dog.

“You mean the one following your car?” they asked.

If a fire hydrant has H2O inside, what does it have outside?
Answer: K9P

A guy walks into a bar with a small dog. The bartender says, “Get
out of here with that dog!”

The guy says, “But this isn’t just any dog…this dog can play
the piano!”

The bartender replies, “Well, if he can play that piano, you both
can stay…and have a drink on the house!”

So the guy sits the dog at the piano, and the dog starts playing
ragtime, a little swing, some Gershwin. The bartender is amazed
and patrons are enjoying the music.

Suddenly a bigger dog runs in, grabs the small dog by the scruff
of the neck, and drags him out. The bartender asks the guy, “What
was that all about?”

The guy replies, “Oh, that was his mother. She wants him to be a
doctor.”