Check out the slides from Event Marketer’s July 28 Webinar: Tying Events to Twitter.

Find out how to use hashtags to promote your event, connect with influencers before your event, manage your hashtag during the event, use Twitter and other tools to stream your event live, and how to reward active hashtag users after the event.

Name and News Organization: Kate Michael, KStreetKate.net and The District Dish
Beat: DC topics (People, places, events, charities, businesses)
Job Title: New Media Personality
Length of Time in this Role: 3 years
Web Site and/or Blog: K Street Kate/ The District Dish
Twitter Handle: @kstreetkate

Mopwater: What kind of stories/people/companies are you most interested in covering, and in what context?  KM: Both the online magazine and talk show feature the best of DC, lifestyle stories that highlight the real District of Columbia and its eclectic neighborhoods.

Mopwater: What’s the best pitch you’ve gotten recently and why?  KM: A unique and interesting business (trapeze school) moved into the area and featured lessons with the instructor who taught “Carrie” on the trapeze episode of Sex and the City.  We booked him immediately to tell people about the trapeze school on The District Dish!

Mopwater: What’s the worst pitch you’ve gotten recently and why? KM: The sister of a local woman asked me to do a feature on her because she was “so nice” and “people should know about her”… I’m not sure why.

Mopwater: What’s the easiest way to get ignored by you when pitching?  KM: Forget to take out the name of the other publication you were pitching when you were cutting and pasting your pitch.

Mopwater: What’s your preferred method of contact? Phone, email, your web site, your twitter account, your Facebook? KM: Email and twitter, equally.  My actual e-mail is listed on my facebook page, so why use a facebook message?? Read the full story

These days, everyone is trying to get more for less. And when you’re a public relations practitioner, that especially includes your clients.  We’re in a recession, so smart business owners are out to get more than their money’s worth. Clients want to see the impact of each dollar spent.

But what can you do to add value to an existing public relations contract without investing too many precious hours that you don’t plan to bill? Here are a few ways to easily add components to your contract and enhance the public relations work you’re already doing. Tip: Assign these tasks to a PR intern who is eager to learn.

Set Up a Facebook Fan Page

The new Facebook Fan Pages are much better than the old Facebook groups because they allow you create a profile for a business much like you would create a profile for yourself.  Fan pages allow businesses to list standard business info like hours of operation, web address and phone numbers, as well as update the status bar to answer the “What are you doing?” question much like you would do on Twitter.  I like the fan page because it allows business to combine the lightweight functionality of Twitter with a photo gallery, video, and more. The client can update their fan page to quickly reflect changes in hours, menu, prices, sales, promotions, etc. The client can also upload photos to show potential customers the interior of the establishment, etc.

Offer to Set Up a Blog 

I happen to love setting up blogs for clients because I’m a writer and content is my middle name.  If you’re a writer, researcher, or creative type (which you are if you’re in PR) suggest helping your client set up a blog focusing on their industry. But be sure to make the blog industry and solutions-focused, not company service-specific. Readers don’t want to feel like they’re getting sold; they want to feel like you’re helping them solve a problem.

Your client may want to build out a blog section as a part of their custom site. If not, there are tons of free blog publishing platforms out there, so the investment will be nominal. My personal preference is WordPress, but there are a few other blog services that offer powerful publishing capabilities for little or no cost.

Setting up a blog can be time consuming though, because you want to get the colors, design, fonts, headings, and taglines just right. If you need some help on this, subcontract some of the content development  out to a professional writer.  Be sure to suggest topics for your client to blog about, or be prepared to provide the first few posts to get the ball rolling.

Set Up a YouTube Channel

Another easy, free way to get your client maximum exposure is a YouTube channel.  Take the blog beyond mere words by embedding video. Bonus: Once you upload your video on  YouTube, you can tag it with keywords to make it instantly searchable.  This, of course will aid in SEO-one of those ROI factors clients love. Videos are also a great way to incorporate “how to” messages, product demonstrations, on-site facility tours, employee interviews and more. There really is no limit to where you could go with video. And again, since YouTube is a free service, the investment is only your time.

What have you done to add value for your clients?

There is absolutely nothing that upsets me more than to see savvy entrepreneurs,  PR pros and marketers send messages from their handheld devices and use the default e-mail signature. You know the ones. “Sent from my iPhone.” or ”Sent from my AT&T blackberry wireless.” I always think, why on earth would you give all of that free advertising to Apple,  AT&T or Blackberry? Are you getting your residuals? 

Unless you just want people to know that you have an iPhone, or Blackberry (which most people have these days anyway) why not use your e-mail signature to promote yourself or your business? If you think about it, you probably send dozens of e-mails a day if not more. So dozens of people could potentially see the name of your business and the link to your Web site in your e-mail signature. But if you’re sending messages via your handheld device and only have that factory signature, you’re missing a tremendous opportunity to market yourself, your business, your Web site and any other projects you want people to know about.  [To change your e-mail signature on your handheld, simply go into your e-mail settings and alter the existing text of the current signature] Read the full story