My HARO publications

[DennisD]

I had subscribed to HARO (Help A Reporter Out) about 5 months ago, and didn't realize until this month it's been going straight into my SPAM folder. I've unblocked it and now I've decided that every-time I see an opportunity for me to respond, I will. I'll post any successes I see here.

Some natural traffic to my blog, as well as high-PR backlinks should result. So far I've responded to about 7 inquiries, and I've gotten 'published' once.

This first success was in response to a reporter looking for people who were 'working through Christmas'. The story is published a few minutes ago here:
[h=1]‘I’m Working On Christmas Day’: 7 True Stories[/h]

It’s Christmas Day, and no matter your own religion or lack thereof, you almost certainly have the day off work. The post office is closed, the stock market is closed, the mall is closed. But that doesn’t mean everyone is off work today. Many McDonald’s restaurants will be open, for one. And plenty of white-collar workers will be using the day to get a leg up on the competition while you and I sit around in pajamas with family. Here are 7 real-life Bob Cratchits who are toiling away today, accompanied by photos of the Christmas movies they’re missing out on watching.

I'm the 3rd person mentioned. This is my quote:

While I won’t be communicating directly with my clients, and I’ve given my employees time off, this is the perfect opportunity to get a leg up on the competition. The way I see it: while everybody is off boozing, schmoozing, overeating, and oversleeping, I am CRUSHING it by getting a week ahead of them. While they look for any excuse they can get to relax, I work extra hard during this time to get ahead.
This Christmas I will be creating personalized pitch videos to send out to clients. While my competition complains that they “can’t find the time†to do such an activity, I’ll know they didn’t get the clients because they were busy drinking eggnog.

— Dennis Duty, marketing consultant

So that's one blacklink for me. These guys get 2K visits/day normally. Because it's Christmas, they're posting new stories regularly, and the format of the post is multipaged, I'll be surprised if I get a single visit to my website from this particular post.

However, I am grateful to have been chosen by the reporter for the story. I love getting my name out there in ANY form, and I'm happy that she included a nice backlink to my site.

I'd like to keep this thread updated with any other HARO PR I can get.

 

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[Epictetus]

HARO is amazing. I hadn't thought about using it to push traffic, that's pretty cool.

I've been using it as a reporter to contact superstars in industries I'm interested in. Find a blog/news site relevant to your industry with an Alexa rank below 1,000,000. Contact the person running it and ask if they accept freelance articles. Post your job on HARO asking about what kind of problems are faced by the industry. The people who respond are very often the A-players in an industry, as they're the ones looking for opportunities to promote themselves and their business.

The hardest part about this hack is once you're on the phone with them you have to balance the fact you're writing an article as well as looking to develop software for them. I found the best way was to be upfront and honest, they didn't really care but were happy to talk software and let me dig into the fine details of their business. Of course, they're looking to promote themselves in your article so even if you've told them what you're doing, they'll spend a heap of time just selling themselves and you won't get anywhere until you break them out of that.

I had a call with a business broker in New York, spent 1 and a half hours on the phone and got nowhere, he was way too much of a salesman xD

 

[DeletedUser2]

have you seen how I use haro in a process?

https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/ge...-processes-how-tos-post182817.html#post182817

I posted here how we have used it, and automated it.

Z

 

[LightHouse]

When I was subscribed I found it very time consuming to root through. I know a lot of people hire VA's for this purpose but I am really surprised no one has built some sort of easy app for it to manage it better. Maybe I have just missed it this whole time.

 

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[Likwid24]

I've been subscribed to Haro for about a month now. I guess I'm being too picky looking for a topic. I've been looking for anything that has to do with tools, DIY, or painting. I actually found one today on Green Gadgets that I'm going to respond to.

For now on, I'm going to follow Zen's advice and start responding to anything even remotely related to my business. Start-ups, Online, Marketing, Bootstrapping, etc....

Thanks!

 

[mayana]

I actually found one today on Green Gadgets that I'm going to respond to.

Haha I saw that one and thought of your product!

For now on, I'm going to follow Zen's advice and start responding to anything even remotely related to my business. Start-ups, Online, Marketing, Bootstrapping, etc....

That's what I do. I've been quoted in about a dozen articles, but most of the time (especially if it isn't very related to my business), I don't get a backlink. I even did a print interview for Redbook Magazine in July.

HARO is really great, and after a month or so, it gets really easy to scroll through and find relevant items. I didn't like it at first, but now I find it pretty easy to use.

 

[DennisD]

My second HARO publication:

Social Media Marketing Strategy in 2013: What works and what does not.

Here's my quote from within:

Using tumblr to promote giveaways

Worked: Most tumblr users reblog, rather than create original content. When there’s something in it for the end-user (product giveaway, etc.) the reblogs flow like crazy. Notifying prominent tumblr blogs and telling them “I think your followers would enjoy this giveaway” is a great way to create a viral storm of traffic to your brand. Just make sure to use an image as the post (tumblr is very visual)

Strategy tip submitted by Dennis Duty, Full Service Internet Marketing Consultant of DennisDuty.com

Again, with this one I wrote out my entire response within the email (I had more that didn't get published). I didn't write a "contact me for an interview" I actually responded in full to the original query. I thought they weren't interested, because I didn't hear back from them at first. She sent me an email this morning saying thanks and gave me the link.

I tried using HARO to get marketing questions submitted for a podcast I want to put together, but I guess there's a minimum alexa ranking you need. Hopefully these HARO backlinks will help me to that end so I can submit!

 

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[AllenCrawley]

You've piqued my interest here. I guess I need to familiarize myself with tumlr. We've been considering offering some giveaways for a couple of our sites. Any other insight you could offer here?

 

[DennisD]

You've piqued my interest here. I guess I need to familiarize myself with tumlr. We've been considering offering some giveaways for a couple of our sites. Any other insight you could offer here?

Sure! I used tumblr as part of a multistep process to launch my first ebook. I'll list the whole process here, you can just take tumblr part if that's what interests you. I used this to go from LITERALLY 'unknown' with no website, mailing list, etc... to 2K/month in sales of my ebook.

Tumblr

1) Get as many followers as you can. I did this by reblogging popular content in my niche, forming connections with others, and creating some great OC. This part isn't necessary but it can help give you a headstart. I did this regularly for around a month before starting the launch. Tumblr lets you autopost on a timeline, so I created like 50 original memes, and had them post 3x daily automatically.

2) Create a post with an image. your post will be ignored without the image. The more useful the prize, the more follows and reblogs you'll get. Most people are following SO MANY PEOPLE they'll forget to unfollow you afterwards unless you post something incredibly offensive. This was my image and the exact text I used:

The launch of my ebook is approaching and I’m holding few CONTESTS that start today.

The first contest one takes place right here on TUMBLR, and here’s the deal:

REBLOG this message, and FOLLOW ME. I will use a random number generator to choose a SINGLE person to receive my ebook ABSOLUTELY FREE.

Next will be my TWITTER contest, so keep your ears open for the deets on that, or you can get ahead on the game and follow me on twitter here: URL

3)Do a search for the top keywords in your niche. Look for the content that has the most 'notes' (notes= follows/likes/reblogs). Click through to find the original tumblr blog that posted the content. Usually these guys will be fairly popular.

It's difficult to determine what's a 'popular' blog from what's dead. Unless you've already spent some time inside that space you're kinda just feeling it out. You can't see how many subscribers/followers somebody has, but you can see who THEY're following. There are usually a few prominent blogs you're likely to see repeated. I generally look through the blogs and see how many user submissions or questions there are.

4)contact these blogs! Usually in the navigation there's an 'ask' button. Some people remove it, but you can usually type /ask after the url to find the page. "username.tumblr.com/ask"

This is the exact post I used with 90% success rate:

I'm hosting a giveaway and I think your followers would be very interested! It's the most recent post on my page: (URL).

You know your followers better than I do, however. If you think it's something they'd appreciate, would you consider reblogging it to them?

Thanks a lot for the time!

I contacted 50-100 top blogs. Anything that LOOKED like it had many followers.

5) I let the contest linger for around 4 days, and then selected a winner. I pointed everybody who didn't win towards my tweet for a second chance to win.

Twitter
1) On Twitter, the contest was very similar:

RT and Follow for a chance to win my ebook (valued at $50) Funding Your Minecraft Server: SALESPAGEURL

.

2) I DMed, and Tweeted at major players in the space and told them about the giveaway in similar wording to the message I sent via tumblr. It's not about you or them, it's about their followers.

3) I selected a winner after 2 days (twitter activity 'expires' faster than tumblr activity). I announced it on both tumblr and twitter, and then let everybody on both Twitter and TUMBLR know about my facebook 2nd chance to win.

Facebook
Same stuff, different platform. Once again here I used an image. People must share AND follow to win.

At the end, I reached out to everybody from all three platforms and told them that the final chance to win was at the sales page:

Sales Page
The deal is this: I asked all my followers from all social media networks that I will now choose 3 winners. To enter, they had to go to my sales page, and tell me why they want the book, why it's useful to them, and what they'd do with it. they also had to enter a valid email address. I ended the giveaway within 2 days to prepare for my next step

Affiliate Partners
Now that I had so many comments with people saying how GREAT the product was and how much they wanted something like this... I contacted affiliates and told them "wow! I just had 500 comments to my product launch in under 24 hours! This product is really hot right now. Do you want to promote this on your site for 40% commission?".

and that's the untold story of my product launch. I started with tumblr because it was the smallest. Facebook>Twitter>Tumblr. Most tumblr users also have a twitter/facebook, so it makes sense to continue the contest on for those users. If I did it the other way around, I'd have people signing up for tumblr JUST to enter the contest. These people wouldn't have any followers, wouldn't reach any new people, and their posts would mean nothing.

this entire process is something I've thought about turning into a step-by-step kindle book, similar the my other: Remote Client Generation System... but I haven't found the time yet.

I'd want to add pintrest into this... and consider using video for the facebook portion of the contest.

 

[DennisD]

The more time put into a submission, the more attention I get.

I spent the past week responding with a short intriguing message, followed by contact information. No results.
Yesterday I switched back to writing complete, full answers. Something a journalist can copy+paste into a story. Immediate results!

I'll soon be quoted in Website Magazine. The reporter seemed very happy with me. Here are highlights of their response:

"Your insights were super useful and helped shape the outline of the final product"
"If it’s cool with you, I’d like to keep you as a future contact for any SEO or online marketing-related articles or newsletters that may come up in the future"
"It’s likely that I could use your expertise in the future. Let me know if you’re interested."
"I hope you know how much I appreciate you taking the time to write back."

I'll post the article once they submit it.

 

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[LightHouse]

How's this gone since? I am getting a VA and this will be a daily task. Do you think time is of essence between getting the haro email and responding to it as it relates to getting published?

 

[DennisD]

How's this gone since? I am getting a VA and this will be a daily task. Do you think time is of essence between getting the haro email and responding to it as it relates to getting published?

I've been ignoring my HARO emails. Anny traffic I was getting wasn't STICKING because I didn't have a lot of content on the site, I felt like I was wasting my time until I had some sort of destination.

I'm beefing up my web content before I do any more PR.

 

[DennisD]

Alright, so I've been checking HARO again now that I've built a landing page to take advantage of it. Haven't seen many golden opportunities. 2 days ago I responded to an anonymous request that turns out belongs to inc.com. They didn't inform me that they used me... I found out through analytics (Only got two visits. One bounced immediately and one stayed for almost 10 minutes, which means they probably listened to an entire podcast or watched at least one entire video.

At the very least, I got a dofollow backlink from inc which is great. Here's the quote:

Know What You're Getting Into

YouTube hasn't yet spelled out the details of the revenue split, but you can count on one thing: You may make money, but YouTube will make more.

Dennis Duty, who runs the video marketing company CastleForge Media, described the new paid channels are another form of content curation for the video site.

"By allowing [its] audience and customers to create the content, [YouTube] can profit massively by hosting the venue," says Duty. "Youtube allows others to create content and they get to make money off of it. Privatizing your membership/paid subscription is a better practice than relying on a massive third party to jump in and take a cut."

YouTube Subscriptions: New Revenue Stream for Your Brand? | Inc.com

The story was about youtube adding paid video subscriptions to its list of services. I said a lot, and what was quotes was probably the least important part about what I said. Oh well. Still got the link!

 

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[LightHouse]

I started responding about a month ago, not sure if any have gone through but i also think my responses really suck. I have a VA filtering them out but i am responding, I am thinking I need to craft responses that are generic and have her send them.

 

[DennisD]

I started responding about a month ago, not sure if any have gone through but i also think my responses really suck. I have a VA filtering them out but i am responding, I am thinking I need to craft responses that are generic and have her send them.

If your replies aren't getting many responses as is, I don't think making them more generic is the way to go. Every single positive response I did was because I put so many 'sound bites' in the email.. that it was easy for the reporter to use it without needing to get back to me.

Using the above inc.com example:

This Was What I Saw In HARO
9) Summary: YouTube fees -- biz strategy?

Name: John Brandon NA
Category: Business and Finance

Email: query-31ll@helpareporter.net

Media Outlet: NA

Deadline: 7:00 PM EST - 14 May

Query:

Looking for biz strategy experts to send me comments about why
YouTube will start charging for some vids. Experts -- which some
vids will cost money to view and why those? How does this hybrid
freemium model make sense? Is YouTube trying to generate
revenue? How do they normally do that? Important: What can small
biz learn?

This Is What I Sent
Hello, I'm Dennis Duty, I teach video marketing at Castleforge Media.

Youtube will only charge for videos by bigger and more popular studios that agree to it. Youtube is looking to launch a few dozen paid channels that offer additional content from creators that already have a following. Youtube, being owned by google, has been making money off videos by selling adspace on top of them.

The need is rising for small video production companies to start charging for their content. Right now they're offering the majority of their content for free, which is great for popularity, but not great for business.

Your super-popular Youtube channel makes less than 200K/year. These channels are acting like small studios. They're buying their own equipment, building their own sets. they are lighting, shooting, editing, purchasing stock music and sound effects and obtaining licenses for copywritten material. They're doing the work that television studios are doing, for a fraction of the price.

The thing is, these content providers should have been charging for content for a long time, but through their own channels. They don't need youtube to succeed. Youtube will basically skim off the top. These people are probably better off offering their own membership sites with multimedia content.

It's a mixed bag. Content creators right now don't have a unified marketplace to sell video content on. Networks and Major Studios have Hulu Plus, Amazon Instant, Netflix, Etc. Small and Mid sized studios (Next New Networks, Vuguru, Revision Three, Nerdist, Geek and Sundry, Papertown) don't have access to sites like hulu to offer paid content. One one side of the fence it's great they're getting the opportunity to make more money. On the other side, they'd make MORE money if they privatized the process and cut YT out of the equation.

What can small business learn from this?
A few lessons:
-Content curation is a powerful thing. By allowing your audience/customers to create the content you can profit massively by hosting the venue. Youtube allows others to create content and they get to make money off of it.
-Privatizing your membership/paid subscription is a better practice than relying on a massive third party to jump in and take a cut (in most cases)

Let me know if you have any more questions!


Tips
I'm no expert in this stuff, but upon looking at my response I notice something that could have helped. Basically every single sentence I used can stand on its own, in addition to working within the bigger paragraph/response. It's very easy to take any one of the sentences from the reply and work it into a story.

Also, see how much I wrote that wasn't used? The reply is just as much to educate the reporter on how to write his story, as it is for getting used as a reference. Even though I wasn't used more heavily in the article itself, I still can see a few areas where my response influenced the outcome.

 

[WillMitchell]

HARO has been incredible for me, I go through it 3 times a day every day. I've made great media connections, and have been featured in tons of big media publications. HARO is awesome!

Dennis - Awesome information you posted about your book launch and HARO.

 

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[Darius]

Came across this website earlier. Luckily I bookmarked it, sign up time!

 

[DennisD]

I decided it's time to hop on this again.
Been like a year.
I've been doing this instead:
https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/co...aro-this-is-the-ultimate-way-to-get-pr.53645/

I'm at the point where I could use the additional external traffic again.
I looked through Haro on Monday, sent out 4 emails, got quoted in 2 articles.

Not bad!
I think my experience writing helps in submitting such pitches.
Next week I have a goal to submit to stories mon-fri.

I will be requesting that all reporters and bloggers don't link to CastleforgeMedia website, but instead to either my twitter or youtube.
I don't care about web traffic right now, it' snot what I'm looking to build.

I may change my email signature to request any links be sent to the YT/Twitter.