60 Minutes Called: How to Attract Media & Major Publishers to Your Podcast, Vlog or Blog

On Friday afternoon, I was checking out some of my favorite film blogs and read on Agnes Varnum’s blog that she’d be speaking about Fair Use at a podcasting seminar called PodCampNYC, so I went over to PodCampNYC’s website and saw that they were offering several really interesting talks about podcasts & blogs. I registered for the event, which was free, and headed over to the New Yorker Hotel where I sat in on some of these panels, including Agnes’. Thanks, Agnes, for the heads up! Below are my notes from the talk I went to that was about attracting media and major publishers to your podcast or blog. While the talk did not deal specifically with film blogs, the suggestions and resources provided can be utilized towards all blogs.

60 Minutes Called:
How to Attract Media & Major Publishers to Your Podcast, Vlog or Blog
With Suzanne Falter-Barns of GetKnownNow.com


Suzanne Falter-Barns is a brand consulting and media packing expert. Suzanne talked to an audience of podcasters and bloggers about how to attract major media. The first thing she said was that you have approximately 1/20 of a second for people to decide if they want to interact with your podcast or blog.

Approximately 79% of all major media find sources from blogs. They spend about two to three hours a day reading blog feeds and watching or listening to podcasts. The media cares if you have a branded web presence that exudes credibility.

Suzanne listed several mistakes people make, and how to avoid them:

1. NO Blog – You can’t just have a website anymore. You really only need a blog, or
   if you do have a website, you need a blog to complement it. Blogs are the
   currency of the web now.
2. NO Fast Brand – A “fast brand” immediately
   communicates the brand. You need to have a fast brand and a targeted signature
   visual/logo.
3. NO Sense of Audience – Will 60 Minutes go to a generic blog for
   sources or a specific niche blog? You want to match your audience to their
   audience, if that’s who you’re trying to pitch to. An example of a good audience
   may be 90% women and 10% men in the health & healing profession. An example
   of a bad audience may be everybody over the age 35. Needs to be very
   specific.
4. NO Niche – Emphasize your niche by giving your audience what they
   crave and showing them what’s different about you.
5. TOO Vanilla – Your blog is
   either too bland or too chaotic. Too many services being offered. No new or
   original content. Too much re-blogging or re-purposing.
6. NOT Emotionally Compelling
   

Suzanne made some more suggestions to help market your blog/podcast:

• Create a Survey or Exit Poll – SurveyMonkey is a service that creates
  surveys for you, but it’s not free. Make sure your survey asks specific
  questions.
• Give People a Bonus – If you ask your visitors to take a survey,
  then give them something in return. Know what your audience “craves.” Example: AbsoluteWrite, which gives its
  subscribers a current list of literary agents actively looking for
  authors.
• Have a Media Room – A stand-alone page that has your 24/7 contact
  info at the top. Your bio. Downloadable headshots (B&W, Color, hi-res,
  low-res). FYI, print publications will only accept hi-res photos. Story angles.
  Press clips. Video clips. Make your media room as helpful as possible to
  journalists. Give other sources, if necessary, and they will come back to
  you.
• Article Banks – PRLeads.com. This costs about $100/month. You register keywords and get sent leads looking for experts. Also SubmitYourArticle.com.

Suzanne sited some successful blogs and podcasts that have attracted major media attention:

• Escape from Cubicle Nation
  – Pamela’s Slim’s blog that gets about 20,000 visitor’s a month. Written up in
  USA Today. She didn’t have to pitch to the press. They called her.
• AndyWibbels.com – His brand is his name.
  He has a Unique Selling Proposition (USP), that is that he’s “the ORIGINAL
  blogging evangelist.” His bonus to visitors is that he offers them a free
  downloadable chapter of his book.

Suzanne opened up the talk to audience members who asked some questions:

Q: What does she think of free press release distribution websites such as PRWeb.com?
A: Not necessarily good for
generating press calls, but may bring a lot of hits to your blog/podcast. Press
release must be written well and be useful with the right
keywords.

Q: Should you look at your competition?
A: Absolutely.
Make up a SWOT analysis. Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities & Threats.

Q: How can you blast your blog?
A: Write about current events. Example: Sanjaya from American Idol. But primarily, your blog should have a 4 to 1 ratio. 4 (business) and 1 (junky fun). Make blog friends. Hang out on other blogs. Add GoogleAdWords to your blog. Set up an autoresponder series, which collects forms and blasts out newsletters to subscribers every 7-10 days. Examples: 1shoppingcart.com and aweber.com.