Reporters and professional bloggers submit their questions, ask for quotes from experts and look for story sources.  YOU as the topic expert, submit your answers, quotes or information and connect with the reporter.

This is a fabulous way for the reporters to get fast answers to their inquiries, and a great way for you to position yourself as an expert.

There are over 29,000 reporters registered with HARO  … and they ask over 200 questions a day.

Here is a quote that pretty well says it all!

“HARO has helped put us on the map! From responding to journalist’s inquiries, we have gotten articles posted, radio interviews, and an opportunity to drive members to our knowledge network. HARO is a real resource and a door opener for business.”

Amy Kopelan
The Guru Nation

If you want to appear in the media more often, do check it out.  There is a free option as well as several paid options.

One simple trick to writing more popular tweets.

Previously a visitor had to LIKE your page before they could make a comment or post on your fan page wall.  Now visitors can share comments and posts without having to LIKE your fan page first.

Though we all love to have our number of LIKES increasing, this change gives users more flexibility.  I know that on occasion I have found a fan page but have hesitated to LIKE it.  Basically, I want to kick around the content a bit more before giving it my endorsement.

This change means that instead of putting all your focus  on getting more likes, you need to focus on increasing the number of times each piece of content is shared (liked or commented on).

Each of your updates needs to inspire your visitors and fans to share your content with their Facebook networks.

How do you do increase shares?   By posting content that is interesting and/or valuable to your visitors.

Lou includes tip on:

• how to add or mention people
• how to edit
• how to send private messages
• how to turn off circle sharing (so other people can’t see who is in your circles
• how to get a more attractive Google+ URL
• How to format posts

If you don’t have any existing google accounts, sign up for your Googe+ account here: https://plus.google.com/

The video below is a great introduction into how many of the Google+ features work.

1. Be sure to fully fill out your profile first
2. Invite your friends to join your circles

If you have a business, you really need to consider joining Google+ with a Business Profile.

Take 2.5 minutes to watch this and see why!

The other day I was re-reading a book by Nido Qubein in which he talks about risk management.

In order to manage risk  he suggests asking three questions:

1.  What’s the best thing that could happen?

2.  What’s  the worst thing that could happen?

3. What’s the most likely thing to happen?

Once you answer the three questions, making your decision is  faster and easier. 

What’s the best thing that could happen is probably why you came up with the idea in the first place. This is the “dream.”

Now look at the worst thing.  If  you are not able to survive or live with the worst thing, then don’t do it.  Decision made! If you CAN survive or live with the worst thing that could happen,  then your decision should be based on …

The most likely thing to happen.  Is it worth the effort, the money, the investment? Does it bring you closer to your goals?  If it is worth it … then go for it.

In some cases, the most likely thing isn’t worth the effort … but the best thing IS!   In some cases you will just decide to go for it anyway, because you have nothing to lose!

Over the years, I have found that if I use this decision making model, I pretty well always make well thought out and wise decisions.

Use this model in your marketing:

You’ve undoubtedly seen the 100% guarantee, 30 day money back guarantees.   The guarantees are  there to remove your concern about the  “worst thing happening” … which is that you hate the product and are wasting your money.  The marketers have taken the “worst thing” out of the equation and they are sell you on the “best thing.”

How do I send a press kit to a news paper?
Should I send my press kit to the Media?
Should I attach my press kit to my media release?

Basically, you should never SEND your press kit to any member of the media without having first been asked. You will get labeled as a spammer and your attached documents will never be opened.

When someone requests your press kit, ask them what format they want the information in. Most reporters will ask for electronic files sent via email (PDF files, photo files, Word.doc files or even a zip file).

A few reporters may actually ask for a “real paper” press kit. If you send them something in the mail, address the envelope directly to the reporter and write “requested information” somewhere on the envelope. If you are sending a book or CD for review, be sure to also include your paper Press Kit so that everything is together in one package.

The absolute BEST solution is to have the various components of your Press Kit available on your website. You should have several resolutions of your photo available for download, your information sheets should be available in PDF and .DOC versions and if you really want to get elegant, you can bundle everything up in one ZIP file.

Most reporters will prefer coming to your Media page to download whatever they need. If you are asked for your Press Kit be sure to let the reporter know that everything is available on your website, in case they have trouble opening your email attachments.

My business is SEO Consulting … and I’m going to share one of the tools I use to consistently get my clients in the top three rankings in Google.

Getting ranked is a process. It is knowing what to do, when to do it and then … doing it. There are dozens of steps I take for my clients, but THE most important starting point is:

1. Great Content
2. Utilizing the content to optimize every single page of a website, and every single blog post.

Great reader-focused content comes first. Your content is meant for a human audience. You must provide your visitors with relevant, interesting and well written material.

Then you optimize the material for the search engines (aka Google).

1. Do your keyword research.
2. Utilize the keywords and arrange your content so that it is “attractive” to Google.
3. Build links to your site.

That’s basically it. Effectively and consistently do those three tasks, and you’ll achieve higher rankings and more targeted traffic.

You do not have to be a SEO genius to utilize these steps. Many of my regular clients are too busy to do this work for themselves … so I do it for them. If you have the time, and are persistent, YOU can do the same thing for your own website or blog by using the same tool I use on a daily basis.

Scribe SEO software.

Users of Scribe SEO rave about increased search traffic, higher rankings, increased efficiency, and easy content optimization. Now you can join them in stepping up your traffic and search rankings.

The reason I am telling you about this now is because up to November 5, 2010, you can get an amazing deal on Scribe.

Subscribe at one level and you will automatically be bumped up to the next subscription level. That means you get a higher value Scribe plan for the price of the plan below it. This represents amazing savings off the regular Scribe pricing.

Before I send you over to the site to learn more about Scribe, you need to remember STEPUP.

That’s the code you’ll enter on the Plans and Pricing page to get the next higher plan for the lower price. Simply look for the yellow box below the plan option boxes, enter STEPUP in the promo code field, and push the “Get” button to see your new “step up” choices.

Ready? Discover how Scribe steps up your traffic and rankings here:

Scribe for WordPress Demo Video

Click here to grab your Free SEO Report

Scribe Plans and Prices

Remember, the code STEPUP is the key to the deal, so don’t forget to enter it. This offer ends at 5:00 PM Central time, November 5, 2010 (that’s this Friday!), so . . .

Get started as a Scribe subscriber today:

Melanie

Ever the skeptic, I didn’t really believe it, but given the 60 day money-back guarantee, I decided to give it a go.

Since I already had a pop-up subscribe panel installed, I thought I was doing pretty good. To be honest I thought I’d be asking for my money back.

In the past 30 days, the new Subscribers Magnet plug-in has increased the number of my subscribers by a factor of three. Yup, three times the number of subscribers with no increase in the amount of traffic to my Proofpositive.com Blog.

The Subscribers Magnet plug-in has a number of different features. So far, I have only used half of them … a few of them seemed just a bit too aggressive for me, but given the results I just might give them a try.

Here is what the Subscribers Magnet plug-in can do:

1. Create a pop-up panel. You can program the timing. For example you might want the pop-up to only show once … or you can program it to pop up every new page, which is sure to drive your visitors crazy!
2. Create a sign-up panel for your side bar. You may already have one of these, but if it is too subtle it is probably not doing the job.
3. Create a panel that slides up from the bottom of the screen. Again, you can program this for varying time frequencies.
4. Create panels that show up in each blog post.
5. Add in an email autoresponder that welcomes first time commenters to your blog
6. Create panel in the comments section of your blog posts.
7. Works with Constant Contact, Aweber, GetResponse and other major email program.
8. There is a really nifty feature that auto-fills the sign up panel fields, with the visitors name and email address. This works ONLY if the visitor has made a comment in one of your posts.

In my 30 day test, I kept my original pop-up panel, and used Subscribers Magnet to generate:

1. A bottom slide up panel

2. A sidebar subscribe panel

3. A subscribe panel at the bottom of every post

4. A thank you for commenting email that is sent to all new commenters.

With those 4 additions, my sign-up rate has tripled.

Give it a try, you have nothing to lose with the 60 day money-back guarantee. You have everything to gain, if your subscriber rate doubles or even triples!

Subscribers Magnet