Buffalo Bills Safety Bryan Scott Follows Passion for Music, Engages NFL Friends in Release of Debut Single, Dedicated

Buffalo Bills Safety Bryan Scott Follows Passion for Music, Engages NFL Friends in Release of Debut Single, Dedicated

Buffalo Bills Safety Bryan Scott Follows Passion for Music, Engages NFL Friends in Release of Debut Single, Dedicated

The athlete and self-taught musician launches music single along with the “Show Your Dedication” Video Contest to give others a chance to win a free trip to Super Bowl XLVI plus $5,000 to pursue their passion

ATLANTA, GA (PRWEB) October 26, 2011

When the NFL lockout paused Buffalo Bills Safety Bryan Scott’s passion for football, he dedicated the extra time toward his other great love—music. Scott collaborated with his music producer brother Brandon Scott to record a debut single, Dedicated—a hit that showcases his vocal, instrumental and songwriting capabilities.

For the Dedicated music video, Scott engaged some of his NFL friends and competitors who also share a love for music—including Atlanta Falcons Fullback and Pro Bowler Ovie Mughelli, Buffalo Bills Linebacker Arthur Moats, Atlanta Falcons Linebacker Stephen Nicholas, and Jacksonville Jaguars Pro Bowl Running Back Montell Owens. The inspirational pop song encourages people to “aim for the moon” and stay dedicated to their passions. The project came naturally for Scott, whose passion for music dates back to age eight when he taught himself to play piano, drums and saxophone.

As part of the Dedicated single launch, Scott is also launching the “Show Your Dedication” Video Contest—encouraging people to produce and submit their own advertisement or promotional video that showcases their personal passion and their dedication. The contest winner will receive a Big Game Prize Package, including two tickets and an all-expense paid trip for two to Super Bowl 2012 in Indianapolis. The winner will also receive up to $5,000 to directly support the continued pursuit of their passion and a feature in the compilation music video for the single Dedicated.

“I am blessed to have passions that keep me focused and motivated even during challenging times; but I know too many people never get a chance to live in their own passion” said Bryan Scott, Buffalo Bills Safety and musician. “I wanted to make Dedicated more than an expression of my own passion—more than a single people can jam to—but also a vehicle for bringing people closer to living out their own passions and fulfilling their dreams.”

ABOUT THE "SHOW YOUR DEDICATION" CONTEST
The "Show Your Dedication" Video Contest is an open call for people to create their own video that showcases their personal passion—for music, sports, theater, fashion, cooking, family, a career, community service, or any other hobby or interest that is the subject of their dedication.

Here’s how the contest works:
1. Produce your own ad or promotional video. Create an advertisement or promotional video (up to one minute) that showcases photos, video footage and/or natural audio of you experiencing your passion.

2. Upload your video on ShowYourDedication.com. Visit and join ShowYourDedication.com by December 5, 2011 to upload your video and complete an entry form explaining your passion and what you would do with the $5,000 donation to support your passion.

3. Promote your video during General Submission voting. All video submissions will be screened and, upon approval, posted on ShowYourDedication.com for the general public to view and vote for their favorites. Invite your friends and family to view and vote for your video during this time. The general public will have unlimited votes during this General Submission voting period before December 5, 2011. The TeamBScott review panel will select ten finalists based on the video’s creativity, dedication to the passion and total number of votes. Ten finalists will be announced and posted on ShowYourDedication.com on December 20, 2011.

4. Promote your video during Finalist voting. The final winner will be selected out of ten finalists based solely on votes. So, if you make the final 10, you will need to promote, promote, promote. Ten votes will be allotted per person during this Finalist voting period. Encourage as many of your friends and family, as well as their friends and family, to view and vote for your video.

Video submissions for the contest will be accepted on October 27, and voting for videos will begin November 4. The finalist who receives the most votes by January 3, 2012 will be selected as the Show Your Dedication Video Contest Grand Prize winner. The winner will receive a Big Game Prize Package, including two tickets to the Super Bowl 2012 in Indianapolis, plus round-trip airfare and hotel accommodations. The winner will also receive a donation up to $5,000 to directly support the pursuit of his/her passion and a feature in the compilation music video for the single Dedicated.

“I’ve seen firsthand just how much Bryan has inspired others through his enthusiastic pursuit of his passions, and we’re hoping the Dedicated single and the Show Your Dedication contest will do the same,” said Brandon Scott, executive producer, Dedicated. “We are hoping to get all kinds of videos representing a wide variety of passions—from the arts to community service.”

To hear the Dedicated music single and learn more about the Show Your Dedication Video Contest, visithttp://www.showyourdedication.com.

ABOUT BRYAN SCOTT
A nine-year veteran in the NFL and Safety with the Buffalo Bills, Bryan Scott was the first pick of the Atlanta Falcons in the second round of the 2003 NFL Draft (55th overall). After three seasons in Atlanta and one season with the New Orleans Saints, Scott signed with the Bills in 2007 and has had an impressive and consistent career. Scott grew up in Warrington, Pennsylvania and showed early excellence in sports. Scott is a self-taught musician and plays the piano, drums, saxophone and guitar. Scott’s passion for music led him to create the Bryan Scott “Pick Your Passion” Foundation for the Arts, which encourages participation in music, visual and performing arts. Coinciding with that interest, Scott is an active member of the NFL Gospel Choir and participated in the 2003 “Monday Night at the Mic” with Grammy Award winning artist, Michelle Branch. Recently, Scott has also become an avid cyclist and has participated in several bike tours around Atlanta.

###

Real Women of Atlanta on Hotlanta Buzz Online

Latest Twitter Applications

I wanted the Latest Twitter Application updates to be weekly, but this may turn into a daily thing because I am always finding new things about Twitter.

Here are more new Twitter applications, this should keep you busy for a while.

Celebrity Tweet | Stalk Celebrities on Twitter (as if I wasn't already, I kid)
Hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons' Web site GlobalGrind has just acquired CelebrityTweet, a site that aggregates the tweets of famous people, both on the Web and via mobile applications.

Klout | Measuring Influence Across the Social Web
If you work in social media marketing, you already know that measurement-at the end of the day- is KING. Hooray for Klout.

Klout allows you to track the impact of your opinions, links and recommendations across your social graph. We collect data about the content you create, how people interact with that content and the size and composition of your network. From there, we analyze the data to find indicators of influence and then provide you with innovative tools to interact with and interpret the data.

Listorious | Discover the Best Twitter Lists
Twitter's new Lists feature allows anyone to curate the real time web. Listorious makes it easy to find the best lists of Twitter users on any given topic, and for list creator to publicize their lists.

Brizzly | A Better Way to Experience the Social Web
Brizzly is a reader that works with Twitter and Facebook. It simplifies your browsing and updating experience, while adding a few nifty extras. We'll take some of the work out of keeping up to date with the people, trends and news you want to know about.

Flickr2Twitter | Flickr Your Twitter
You can now link your Flickr and Twitter accounts! With Flickr2Twitter you can:

* Tweet any photo you email from your mobile device
* Tweet photos or video from Flickr
* Tweet via the Flickr API

Renowned Art Collector Shares His Personal Collection With Studio Clout Fine Art Gallery

ATLANTA, GA--(Marketwire - December 7, 2009) - Studio Clout Fine Art Gallery will exhibit a segment of The Paul R. Jones Collection of American Art, which, in its entirety, is one of the largest and most comprehensive art collections of 20th century African-American visual art in the world. Studio Clout will host a private reception to welcome Paul R. Jones' personal art collection on December 12, 2009. This visual art exhibit will be opened to the public starting December 16, 2009.

"We are very proud, excited and humbled to house one of the most historic art collections in the country at our gallery," said Linda Lima, owner and art curator at Studio Clout Fine Art Gallery located in the Castleberry Hill Arts District of Atlanta. The art collection was amassed throughout the last four decades by Jones, who has been described by Art & Antiques magazine as "one of the top art collectors in the country."

The art collection originated from Jones' discovery that many art museums he had visited held few works by African-American artists. Throughout the years, Jones' home in Atlanta became too small to hold all his collected art work and after much consideration, Jones decided to donate major portions of his massive art collection to The University of Delaware and The University of Alabama.

"The Jones Collection is remarkable not only for the breadth and quality of African-American artists represented in it, but also because it brings together a body of artists who worked at a time in recent American history when African-American artists were not widely collected," said Dr. Amalia Amaki, author and professor of art and art history.

Jones hopes that his collection will preserve the legacy of artists -- especially African-American artists, spark the interest of future art collectors, and help elevate African-American art in the eyes of the art world. "I want to ensure that this genre of art, which is an intrinsic part of the history and totality of American art, is never lost or forgotten by the art world," says Jones.

Latest Twitter Applications

Do you ever notice those little Twitter applications with the explanation listed on the right side of your Twitter profile?

If not, you should pay attention to those little apps because there could be something that would be useful for your industry, business and marketing needs.

Here is a brief collection and summary of new Twitter applications. Weekly, I will continue to provide the five latest applications that Twitter has to offer.


Tweet Bookz | Where Can I Put All My Tweets
TweetBookz allows you to create and order high quality books of your tweets. Soft and hard cover versions are available in four unique designs. The books have full color covers and inside pages of black and white. Each one stands 5.5 inches high and 8.5 inches wide and features up to 200 of your tweets, one per page, starting from the most recent. You can chose to remove any tweets you don’t want included. All our products are printed in America on 100% recycled paper.

Blip.FM | What are you listening to?
A blip is a combination of 1) a song and 2) a short message that accompanies it. The way you create a blip is to first search for a song that you want to hear (or a song that you want your listeners to hear), then add a short message (under 150 characters), finally you submit it. Submitting a blip is also referred to as “blipping”, so from here on out, when you read “he blipped my favorite track” it means “he submitted a blip that had my favorite song attached”.

Fledging Wine | How Can I Help?
The Fledgling Initiative aims to make awesome wine for the benefit of Room to Read, a non-profit organization extending literacy and educational opportunities to children worldwide. Every case sold will provide approximately 60 local language children’s books and promote education in the world’s poorest regions.

Trends map | Real-time local Twitter trends
Trendsmap.com is a real-time mapping of Twitter trends across the world. See what the global, collective mass of humanity are discussing right now.

Trazzler | Where Should I Go?
Trazzler is a website that helps you answer the question, "Where should I go?" by recommending hand-picked trips unique to your location and Travel Personality. The Trazzler Buzz list is created from the volumes of information being transmitted to Twitter every second about 10,000 spots in 50 cities, plus festivals and outdoor destinations all over the world. We rank the list according to a formula that measures volume and recent activity on Twitter. The buzz list is the ultimate source of research on where people are going (or want to go) right now. Trazzler.com goes beyond the buzz and transports you to these places—and makes savvy recommendations based on your preferences—so you can find out where you should go on your next trip.

Hollywood budgets are tight, so they call on PR

Ad Budget Tight? Call the P.R. Machine
By BROOKS BARNES

LOS ANGELES

Hobbled by a depressed DVD market and drooping sales of movies to foreign television networks, Hollywood studios are finally reining in runaway marketing budgets. Lionsgate, already one of the leaner operations, boasted that it cut marketing expenses by 66 percent in the second quarter from a year ago, while Disney dismissed about a dozen marketing executives early this month in an effort to shrink spending.

But don’t think that Hollywood believes it can get by with less promotion. This, after all, is the place that perfected the hard sell. As studios cut “paid media” (newspaper ads, television spots and billboards) they are leaning more heavily on armies of publicists generating what they call “earned media,” free coverage in magazines, newspapers, TV outlets and blogs.

The biggest movies are still backed by megawatt ad buys. On the other hand, Paramount Pictures did not buy a single billboard to promote “Paranormal Activity,” its recent horror film. The studio also saved tens of millions of dollars by forgoing a national television campaign. Instead, Paramount depended on its publicity arm to fan interest on blogs and in traditional media. The flack attack worked: the film, made for just $10,000, has sold $104 million in tickets.

Over at Disney, publicity executives are coordinating their efforts more closely with those of their advertising counterparts: If the P.R. team for the company’s ABC unit can land an article about “Dancing With the Stars” on the cover of TV Guide, for instance, the network will make certain not to also buy advertising space in that issue to push the show.

Disney recently went so far as to develop a computer program to help it determine how much monetary value was coming from such publicity efforts. It can quickly plug in data — “Access Hollywood” had a 30-second interview with a star of “The Middle,” a new ABC comedy — and the program spits out what that same 30 seconds would cost to buy.

There is another advantage to a publicity machine on overdrive. “At least with publicity — placed stories — there is a feeling that the message has gone through a filter,” said Paul Pflug, the co-owner of Principal Communications, a public relations firm that specializes in entertainment. “Journalists and their editors had to consider the pitch worthy of space. The message has been vetted in some way.” He said an article was more valuable to the studios because it is more credible to viewers than an ad.

Social networks like Facebook and Twitter have also changed the publicity game in Hollywood. The P.R. apparatus has largely assumed the responsibility of monitoring, shaping and creating attention on that part of the Web. Movie characters now have Twitter profiles and Facebook pages, for instance. Guess who updates the accounts?

The Web has also given studios a way to bring consumers into the movie-making process long before the first ads roll out. Casting announcements are one example. Five years ago, nobody but the trade newspapers cared who was cast as the third lead of “Inglourious Basterds.” Now teams of digital publicists convey every little pip and squeak of the early process to hundreds of bloggers.

And because one errant blog post can start an online brush fire, publicists do reconnaissance on bloggers — What is their audience reach? Is their writing snarky? Which other blogs pick up their links? — and manage accordingly.

Universal Pictures, looking for a way to bolster coverage of “Couples Retreat,” a comedy starring Vince Vaughn about an island vacation, decided to stage a lavish junket, one of those all-expenses-paid promotion-a-thons for writers and TV reporters. Instead of hosting the event at a Los Angeles or New York hotel, as is standard practice, Universal flew the participants to Bora Bora.

It cost about twice as much as a standard junket, but generated at least four times as much media coverage, the studio estimated. (The New York Times and many other media outlets ban the acceptance of these freebies on ethical grounds, because there could be an appearance of buying favorable coverage.)

“You’ve got to remain responsible with your resources while continually finding new ways for your campaigns to stand out,” said Michael Moses, Universal’s executive vice president of publicity.

Standing out on the cheap often means staging silly stunts that entertainment news outlets are happy to consume. The divisions responsible for pushing DVDs, particularly desperate for attention now that sales are declining, are big fans of this tactic.

Trying to drum up publicity for the DVD of “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs,” 20th Century Fox invited reporters to witness the construction of a 48-foot-tall ice sculpture resembling the star of the movie, Scrat the squirrel. To promote the DVD release of “Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure,” Disney publicists went so far as to get the United Nations to name the character an “honorary ambassador of green” to help promote environmental awareness among children.

AT a time of supposedly stark cuts, studios still send loads of giveaway items to the news media in the hope that it will prompt coverage. Disney just shipped jars filled with 90 toy soldiers to promote “Toy Story 3,” which doesn’t open until June. (“Attention troops!”) The studio, which has lost money in the last two quarters, also found the cash to send one-pound boxes of beignet mix to promote its animated musical “The Princess and the Frog,” which is set in New Orleans.

And to support “The Informant!” earlier this year, Warner Brothers shipped, at four pounds each, gallon-paint canisters filled with popcorn kernels. We guessed that the tie-in was that Matt Damon’s character in the film works for a company involved with corn syrup, but we still aren’t sure.

A PR Perspective on the Tiger Woods Debacle

Playing a bad lie: How Tiger botched a PR opportunity
By Ari B. Adler

By not addressing his infidelity right away, Woods let rumors aggravate a bad situation

Sexing, texting and vexing—it’s a perfect storm of reputation destruction, and its latest victim is Tiger Woods. To make matters worse, instead of facing the publicity storm head on and getting control of the story as quickly as possible, he went into hiding. That left the story angles to those less concerned about his best interests.

It’s probably a sad testament to the times, but when Woods’ SUV ran over a fire hydrant and into a tree around 2:30 a.m. one night last week, there were plenty of people who immediately thought, “drunken driving.” When it became clear that wasn’t the case, the rumors started to expand to include painkillers, speeding and his wife chasing him out of the house with a golf club.

While the rumors and the news reports about them began to grow, Woods stayed mum. He would not talk to the press. He would not talk to police. Therefore, instead of having a bad-news story last a couple of days, he has instead been faced with a nonstop, daily thrashing of his reputation. Breaking news alerts and breathless anchors eager to share any update have now given way to the online posting of a voicemail to and “sexts” from an alleged mistress.

This type of rumor, innuendo and celebrity smackdown news has always been a possibility, but it was generally dealt with by PR pros with a shrug and, “Well, it’s the National Enquirer—no one really believes that stuff, anyway.” Now, what used to be considered salacious material best left to the tabloids is finding its way to online powerhouses like the Huffington Post and to mainstream juggernauts like CNN and ESPN.

The tagline from that 1990s cult-classic television show “The X-Files” has never been more relevant. “The truth is out there,” we were told, week after week. These days, however, PR pros need to remember that not only is the truth out there, it’s now available in electronic formats that are easily reproduced and distributed.

That means they need to be even more aggressive—both with their clients and with the media. They need to get clients to be 100 percent upfront with them about every potential PR attack. Then, they need to go on the offensive and get control of the story immediately.

In Woods’ case, the story became the story, which is the last thing he needed. In the statement he finally issued, Woods said, “Personal sins should not require press releases.” He should stick to golf and stop trying to dabble in public relations. Often, in media cases like this, a coverup becomes a bigger story than the initial indiscretion. Though it may be another sad testament to the times, a famous man cheating on his wife is a one- or two-day story. The ones drawn out in the headlines for weeks at a time are those in which only a few details are revealed at first and the rest trickle out.

Consider what would have happened if Tiger Woods had held a press conference upon being released from the hospital. It’s quite likely the basic story would have been:

“Tiger Woods announced today that his car accident occurred after he left his home following an argument with his wife over an extra-marital affair. The golf pro allegedly had a long-term relationship with a woman he met just months before his wife gave birth to their daughter. Woods said he is working through the matter with his wife and asked for privacy for all parties involved to assist in his family’s healing process.”

Anyone going on the offensive after that would have been seen as opportunistic and risked their reputations. By confessing and repenting publicly with the whole story, Woods would have positioned himself as a potential victim.

Going on the offensive isn’t going to change the facts, but it will make them less captivating and, therefore, less newsworthy. Besides, with today’s incredible-story-of-the-minute news industry and their attention-deficient audiences, it never takes long for the spotlight to shift.


----
Ari B. Adler is a media relations professional with experience as a newspaper reporter and editor as well as a government and corporate spokesperson. You can follow him on Twitter at @aribadler.

Real Women of Atlanta on Blog Talk Radio

Listen to the Real Women of Atlanta discuss their all-new reality show.

Where does your Facebook Fan Page Rank?

From Mediabistro:





Ever since Facebook upgraded its fan pages so that brands, celebrities and organizations became equivalent to human beings in the social network -- i.e. content from fan pages is displayed in one's feed, just like with friends -- we've received a barrage of requests to fan just about anything you can imagine, including about 20 PR agencies.

One social media analytics company, Sysomos, took a look at nearly 600,000 Facebook fan pages and found only 297 -- or 0.05% -- have more than one million fans. Other interesting findings:

Michael Jackson is the most popular page on Facebook, with 10 million fans; he is followed by actor Vin Diesel (7 million) and U.S. president Barack Obama (6.9 million).

On average, a Facebook Page has 4,596 fans.

Four percent of pages have more than 10,000 fans, 0.76% of pages have more than 100,000 fans, and 0.05% of pages (or 297 in total) have more than a million fans.

95% of pages have more than 10 fans

65% of pages have more than 100 fans

23% of pages have more than 1,000 fans

4% of pages have more than 10,000 fans

0.76% of pages have more than 100,000 fans

0.047% of pages have more than one million fans (297 in total).

Melyssa Ford + Derek Blanks: Thick Skin versus Thin Skin

If there is anything I've learned from working with Melyssa Ford is that you have to have Thick Skin while working in this business. Here is her Derek Blanks Alter Ego photo Thick Skin versus Thin Skin.

Here is the press coverage secured:

Necole Bitchie.com gets approx 351,300 site visitors per month*

Miss Jia.com gets more than 42,900 visitors per month*

Madd Fashion

Honey Magazine 13,700

* according to Quantcast

Social Media Checklist for Marketers

By Kathy Cabrera

Planning your B2B social media program is only the first step in a long process. Once you have clearly defined your social media objectives, there are a few other steps that can put you on the right footing for success.

Here is a simple social media checklist for B2B marketers you can use to get things started in the right direction:

* Gain internal support from the top-down. Social media must be embraced at all levels of your orga­nization. This is important for approving an on-going budget and to ensure long-term sustainability of social media programs. In addition, executive participation is often a key requirement for many social media activities.

* View social media participation as an extension of your brand. Many of the same considerations given to content on your company website should be extended to content you publish via social media chan­nels.

* Know your audience. Before deciding on a specific social media program, learn about what types of social media sites your target audiences already frequent, or what social media tools they use.

* Become an active contributor. Social media engagement is based on user-generated content and regular communication with audiences. Establishing schedules for publishing or producing content can help you stay consistent.

* Get help. External help is available to support a range of social media initiatives, from strategic planning and consulting to professional content production. Many PR and marketing agencies offer social media expertise. Businesses new to social media may require the assistance of these resources to strategically plan and execute initiatives.

* Create an honest, welcome dialog. Time and again, successful adopters use social media to estab­lish a two-way exchange of information and perspectives. Avoid the temptation to use social media as an advertising channel, and work to ensure your communications are never considered spam. Social media must be thought of as a shift from autocratic thinking and one-to-many communications to a participatory environment. Social media is not about selling and talking at your audience. It is about sharing and engaging with them.

Social media is where the future of PR and marketing is headed. By exploring now, you can be a step ahead of the crowd and gain a tremendous competitive advantage. Have fun, be creative and participate!

Use Social Media for Petitions

Whether it is for a grassroots campaign or a presidential campaign, social media networking can help you get the point across while gathering support. With online sharing, it makes it even easier to reach larger demographics and markets. Online petitions are easy and convenient.

In the first hour of this petition, there were 60 signatures with very little promotion. That means one signature per minute. WOW, that's fast.

Ella Bee PR's First Red Carpet Event is a Success! Plus, Melyssa Ford takes Atlanta by storm.

New client Melyssa Ford is making quite an impression on the Atlanta social scene. She came to Atlanta to shoot with celebrity photographer, Derek Blanks, for his Alter Ego photo campaign. Although she is in the making of her all-new reality show scheduled to appear on VH1, she came to Atlanta with a clear focus of making an impression on the city. I can truly say that the Atlanta press LOVES her. Here are a few clips from the top media outlets in the city from bloggers, broadcast and print:



Links to Melyssa Ford's appearances in HOTLANTA!

Exclusive behind-the-scenes of the Derek Blanks' Alter Ego Photo Shoot

Rolling Out Magazine

Shoot with Derek Blanks

Hollywood Atl

Black Atlanta: Doing Good in the Hood

On FreddyO.com

The Lost Art of the Media Alert

by Jeremy Porter

You hear a lot of talk about press releases as a PR tactic, but what about the media alert (also commonly known as a media advisory)? Before the days or email and Twitter, media alerts were the short form way to alert news organizations about something timely you wanted them to cover. I’m sure newsrooms still get a ton of media alerts, but I’ve seen few posts on the subject. I think the building blocks of a good media alert translate well to email and social media, so here are some brief tips for you.

First, What’s a Media Alert?

There’s a good chance many of you don’t know what a media alert is. A media alert is an alernative format for PR writing used to communicate an event to the media in advance. Think of a media alert as a quick, at-a-glance summary of your event, which gives reporters, editors and producers all the information they need to decide whether or not to cover your story. Media alerts are typically one page (or less) and focus on the following information:

* An attention-grabbing first paragraph that summarizes your event
* Clear identification of all your event details (the who, what, where, when and why)
* Some value-add that makes it worth the time

Why Media Alerts Work

Now first of all, this event probably wouldn’t be much of a media draw, unless the attendees were true celebrities and the event was in a market like NYC, where there might be a large number of journalists covering marketing and social media topics. That said, the format works well for more newsworthy events, such as press conferences, grand openings, fundraiser events, public product launches, etc.

Media alerts work well because they take a “just the facts” approach to communicating the news. They work best when you have recognized individuals or organizations participating in the event. As media professionals are getting more and more comfortable with the 140 character Twitter pitch, it’s of increased importance to be brief, get to the point, and take as little of their time as possible.

If you post your media alert to the Web, you could easily tweet about your event with a link to more details. This approach is being used by smart publicists all the time. Rather than forcing a journalist to read through a news release to find what’s most important, boil your news down to its root details with a media alert.

Do you use media alerts or media advisories to communicate your news? Do media alerts work better for securing news coverage than traditional press releases? Please share your thoughts – or better yet, links to your media alerts.

Art and Social Media Marketing

Even contemporary fine art galleries can use social media for various marketing and public relations purposes. Whether it is sharing images on Flickr or videos on YouTube, there are a variety ways you can use social media.

Where and How To Sell Celebrity Photos

Anyone can join the paparazzi with a camera and a little ingenuity. Have you caught a celebrity in an embarrassing situation? If you have a camera you may be able to sell the pictures for hundreds of thousands of dollars, and even mundane celebrity photos can often be sold. Whether you're a professional paparazzo or you just happen to be in the right place at the right time, follow these steps to take valuable celebrity snapshots and sell them.




Avoid crowds. Pictures of celebrities at events, such as the Oscars or movie premiers, where all the paparazzi are present, will generally be worthless because so many people have the same pictures. The really valuable pictures are the ones that no one else has--pictures of the celebrity in casual or intimate settings--and you'll need to get away from the crowds to get those.

Do some research. Find out where celebrities hang out, what their daily routine is, and where they stay while on vacation. Reading the tabloids or entertainment news is a good start, but to get the rare shots, you'll need to do some extra investigation. Ask taxi drivers, nightclub personnel, and others who might have valuable information. Stake out the celebrity but keep a low profile.

Make your pictures tell a unique story. If you catch a celebrity in a compromising situation (cheating on a spouse, doing drugs, shoplifting, etc.), you've got pure gold. Photos of less damning activities can also be valuable. Getting the first picture of a celebrity baby, or simply catching a celebrity behaving in a way that is out of the ordinary, could earn you some big bucks when selling the photos.

Connect with someone who will buy your photos. If your photos are big news, sell them directly to tabloids and entertainment publications. Look up their contact information on the Internet or inside a copy of the publication. If your photos are rare, but not necessarily earthshaking, you may not have much luck going directly to the publications, so try going through one of many agencies that act as middlemen between photographers and magazines. These agencies can also be found with an Internet search. Keep in mind that they will take a commission for finding a buyer.

Sell your photos as quickly as possible. The longer you sit on a photograph the less valuable it becomes, because either others will have taken similar photos or it becomes "old news." Develop the photos immediately and get them onto the market immediately. In many cases, you are better off working with a professional photo marketplace that specializes in marking of celebrity images, e.g. Snoopd.com.

Establish ownership of your photos before sending them out. It's a tough business out there, and unscrupulous agencies and publications may attempt to steal your photos. Develop your photos and add a highly visible watermark or use a knife to score them obviously down the middle. Then scan them into your computer and e-mail them to the buyer. Once you've signed a contract, give the publisher the original photos without the watermark or score marks.

Negotiate a sale. If you sell your photos through an agency, the agents will attempt to sell them to several different publications in order to get the best price. If you want to sell the photos directly to a publication, you should follow the same approach and contact several publications to start a bidding war.

Make sure you understand the sale contract. What rights of publication are you selling to the publisher, and what rights do you retain? Will you be paid royalties and an advance, or just a flat fee? Read the fine print and make sure you know how much you'll be paid, when you'll be paid, and how your photos will be used. You may want to hire an attorney to get clarification, especially if you are selling very valuable photos or if you sell a lot of them.

Verify that your photos are being used only as agreed to in the contract. Don't let the publisher or agent cheat you out of money by reselling your photos. Check the tabloids and other such publications to make sure your photos aren't being used where they shouldn't be.

Article Source: http://www.wikihow.com/Take-and-Sell-Celebrity-Photos

Where are all the good publicists? Please protect our Black athletes and entertainers.

I am not mad at Larry Johnson, former RB for the Kansas City Chiefs. He tweeted what he wanted and how he felt-as ignorant as it may be. However, I am upset that his publicist let him get away with this social media faux pas. There have been red flags waving that he was on the path to image-destruction. Why wasn't it anyone out there protecting this star athlete who was on his way to breaking records with the Kansas City Chiefs? When your personal image gets in the way of making money-why even have a publicist who can't protect and control your brand? Isn't that what they are paid to do? If he was a "good guy" at least in the public eye, there would not have been a petition from thousands of fans to keep him from breaking a franchise record by removing him from the team.

I am just sick and tired of hearing about these star athletes and talented entertainers doing stupid things that are keeping them from making money-especially when the incident could have been avoided. Publicists what are you doing-or not doing- to protect our black athletes? I am a true sports fan and I love exceptional athletes, but you don't hear about Peyton Manning shooting himself at a club, Brett Favre owning a dog-fighting club in his home, Tony Romo sharing details of his arrest, suspension, and his incarceration on Facebook, or Matt Ryan in a heated exchange with someone on Twitter. I am sure they all have their troubles that are covered up immediately, so why can't our superstar Black athletes?

If Twitter is changing the PR industry, why aren't publicists monitoring what their clients are saying? There are several Twitter applications that help monitor brands and what people are saying. Use them! While the NFL has set up a new rule saying that players, coaches, as well as league officials are forbidden from posting tweets or Facebook updates 90 minutes before the game, the media and fans are still pay attention all of the time. Don't let something as simple as social media or bad judgment on or off the field prevent your clients from being successful. If you truly care, do everything in your power to protect them from making mistakes today that could effect their family, fame, fortune and future.

HuffPo Says the Press Release is Becoming Obsolete

Arianna Huffington To PR Pros: 'The Press Release Is Becoming Obsolete'
By Joe Ciarallo, MediaBistro

Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington addressed the PRSA International Conference in San Diego yesterday. Speaking to a variety of topics, Huffington took the time to call out PRSA for not having wi-fi on site. "Make sure people can interact next time," she said. (HAHA, I love it!)

Delving into PR tactics, Huffington made a bit of a contradiction in regards to press releases.

She stated, "The press release is becoming obsolete...even though we still do it at the Huffington Post." However, Huffington, in comparison to other media moguls such as Rupert Murdoch, is a firm believer in free and open content. "It's no longer about proprietary content anymore, ubiquity is what matters," she said.

She also had the guts to give out her email address to the entire audience, ensuring that her Inbox will be flooded with pitches for weeks to come. After her keynote, Huffington interviewed former health-care PR exec turned whistle blower Wendell Potter. "In my job, I was able to remove myself from the humanity of what I was doing," Potter told Huffington.

What the F**K is Social Media?

What The F**K is Social Media?

View more documents from Marta Kagan.

It all boils down to SEO

Today, I participated in my first speaking engagement teaching a group of real estate agents on how they can use social media for their business. My speaking engagement became more of a discussion and I quickly realized I had to start from the beginning. I called my presentation, "The Power of Social Media Networking."

Before I could begin my discussion, a few members started talking about a new movie released today titled, "Precious." One of them had never even heard of the movie. Since my presentation was more of a freestyle, I quickly pulled up YouTube and showed the trailer for the movie. Interestingly, it led right into my presentation. In just a few moments of watching the trailer, the young lady who had never even heard of the movie, was eager to go see it tonight! That's how easily, social media can translate into dollars. It was a great segue into my presentation.

Real estate, like most businesses and industries today, need a new way to market their products and/or services to new consumers or a larger demographic. While I wanted to highlight using popular social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube for marketing, search engine optimization (SEO) easily became the highlight of the discussion. I was able to connect the PC to a larger screen and I showed the audience real-time conversations about home buying on Twitter, quick searches on Google, home tours on YouTube and even found groups and relevant profiles on Facebook.

I am coming to realize that everything boils down to SEO. Whether it is Bing search, Search.Twitter or using a search engine on a blog or website, are you using the proper keywords and phrases to help others find you? Are you using highly searched keywords on your LinkedIn profile or tagging the necessary keywords on your professional or personal blog so your target audience will be able to view your posts?

Yours Truly, Ella Bee Social Media & PR, on Ragan.com

I was just featured in an article from Ragan.com-one of my favorite PR news resources. I've learned how to be a better communicator thanks to Ragan.com. Once again, thanks to HARO I was able to help my favorite writer from the company build a news story.

Dressing for excess: Is your Halloween persona the real you, communicators?

By Jessica Levco @ragan.com

MyRaganites divulge their planned transmogrifications for Allhallows Eve. This weekend, your co-worker might turn into a lion tamer. Or Cleopatra.

If you’re like me, the primary question you find yourself asking people in October is: What are you going to be for Halloween?

Besides asking friends and co-workers, it’s a good question for corporate communicators. In a MyRagan forum post, we wondered how your costume reflects your communication style and what it says about your personality.

At first, we were a little concerned.

Here’s an answer from one MyRaganite in Illinois: “I’m just gong to tape some angel wings to my ass and go as I do everything else: flying by the seat of my pants.”

But it turns out there’s a lot of you who are putting a lot of effort—and thought—into your costumes. This is a collection of our favorite answers.

And please, let’s keep the list going.

Media mavens


Extra, extra! Read all about it!
“I am dressing up as a reporter from the earliest days of journalism,” says Lila Brown, of Ella Bee Social Media & Public Relations. “I’m wearing a fedora with the paper sticking out of the top that says ‘PRESS.’ I’m carrying around a notepad with a pencil, and I have an old camera with a big flash tower at the top. What my costume says about me as a communicator is that even though I’m young, I wish I would’ve worked in a time when print media was king.”

Halloween 2.0Halloween, 2.0 style
“I’m dressing up as a social media maven,” Holly Frew, at MedShare says. “As a communicator, my iPhone is always in my hand, either tweeting, e-mailing, listening to NPR on Stitcher, watching the latest YouTube viral sensation and then communicating it. I will be wrapped in computer cables and will have Twitter birds and iPhone social media app logos stuck all over me. The premise is to say that I am bound by social media, both professionally and personally.”

You talk; I’ll listen
“One of my favorite costumes is when I dress up as a ‘Chatty Cathy’ doll,” says Carole V. Bartholomeaux, president of Bartholomeaux Public Relations LLC. “When [her string was] pulled, the doll would talk. I’d go to parties and would not speak all evening unless someone pulls my string. What does it say about me? That I try to listen to my clients rather than overwhelm them with preconceived concepts of what they should do.”

Don't Underestimate the Power of Blog Talk Radio

What is Blog Talk Radio?

BlogTalkRadio allows anyone, anywhere the ability to host a live, Internet Talk Radio show, simply by using a telephone and a computer.

BlogTalkRadio’s unique technology and seamless integration with leading social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and Ning, empowers citizen broadcasters to create and share their original content, their voices and their opinions in a public worldwide forum.

Today, BlogTalkRadio is the largest and fastest-growing social radio network on the Internet. A truly democratized medium, BlogTalkRadio has tens of thousands of hosts and millions of listeners tuning in and joining the conversation each month. Many businesses also utilize the platform as a tool to extend their brands and join the conversation on the social web.

Learn how an interview goes with Blog Talk Radio by tuning in tonight at 9PM to hear Elise 5000's interview with comedian Stevie Mack.

What in the world is a pingback and how can I use it for my company?

So, you are taking better care of your online brand. You have an SEO website and you are maintaining your blog. Great! Now what?

The point of establishing an online presence is to attract web traffic, so let's take a look at some tools to help gain attention to your site.

First, let's examine the the world of linkbacks.

A linkback is a method for Web authors to obtain notifications when other authors link to one of their documents. This enables authors to keep track of who is linking to, or referring to their articles. The three methods (Refback, Trackback, and Pingback) differ in how they accomplish this task.

Any of the four terms -- Linkback, Trackback, Pingback, or (rarely) Refback -- might also refer colloquially to items within a section upon the linked page that display the received notifications, usually along with a reciprocal link; Trackback is used most often for this purpose. Also, the word Trackback is often used colloquially to mean any kind of Linkback.

Pingbacks
Drost Designs explains that the pingback system is a way for your blog to be automatically notified when other Web sites link to it. It is entirely transparent to the linking author, requiring no user intervention to work, and operates on principles of automatic discovery of everything that it needs to know.

Pingbacks allows you to automatically ping all the RSS and blog feed directories every time you make a post. This is a very powerful feature if you want your blog to get a lot of web traffic immediately. You automatically gain backlinks to your blog.

Trackbacks
Trackbacks are ways for one site to notify another about an update.

A trackback consists of a link and optionally a snippet of text. On many blogs you do not have to enable trackbacks and just like comments the trackbacks are moderated.

Chris G explains how it normally works.

1. Mary Blog writes an article on cheese
2. Joe Blogger writes about Mary Blogs new post saying it is really cool
3. Joes blog sends a trackback to Marys blog
4. Marys blog receives the trackback and Mary sees the trackback in her comments moderation

In most cases this is all automatic, you just link to a post and it is all handled for you, in others you have to send trackbacks manually. If you use the scribefire firefox plugin you can send manual trackbacks for example. This involves pasting the special URL displayed in the other blogs post.

Why bother?
Trackbacks are like a kind of commenting. You are saying “I have written about this post over on my blog”. The hope would be that the blogger would notice and also if the trackback gets published that people will click through to read what you have to say. Many trackback links are wrapped in “no-follow” condoms but in some cases you get a clean link.

So, what's the difference?
While all of this may be new to you, trackbacks are the old, manual way of doing this while pingbacks are the more modern and automatic way. The old trackback way includes:

1. Getting the trackback URL for the other person’s content
2. Putting that URL into your blogging software’s editing interface
3. Writing an excerpt for what you said about their content

Pingbacks are much easier. All you have to do with a pingback is:

1. Links to someone else’s content

Daniel Miessler further explains that since pingbacks are enabled (both incoming and outgoing) by default on most major blogging engines. Here are a few other differences:

* Trackbacks contain more content, i.e. the excerpt, where pingbacks just have the source and destination links
* Pingbacks are less prone to spam than trackbacks, as incoming software checks to see if the source link actually exists before it allows it to be posted
* Pingbacks use XML-RPC while trackbacks use a standard HTTP POST

Pinbacks are essentially the newer and less time-consuming way of doing trackbacks.

Actress Jazsmin Lewis talks Hollywood career and shouts out Ella Bee PR

New client and Hollywood Actress, Jazsmin Lewis(Barbershop 1&2, Three Can Play That Game, Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns, Grapes on a Vine), was recently on Stevie Mack's Night Radio on Blog Talk Radio. She talked about the beginning of her career as an actress, making it to Hollywood, how young actresses can protect themselves, and gave a GLOWING shout-out to yours truly, Ella Bee Social Media & Public Relations. Listen here for the full interview:

Social media for business now is life or death

As my daily PR tasks focus on social media marketing, I've realized that I participate in social media everyday. There are no 9-5 hours with availability on Mondays through Fridays. Nope. I live and breathe social media whether I like it or not. Whether it is voicing my political opinion on Twitter and Facebook while watching Sunday's Meet the Press and This Week with George Stephanopoulos or finding new ways to get my clients media coverage through an online publication or on a blog, I understand the need and inclusion of social media in both my personal and professional life.

Still, I have come to realize that most companies still don't see a need for social media and search engine marketing. Social media marketing is crucial especially when it comes to managing not only an online presence but an overall brand both online and offline.

An article in the New York Times examines managing an online reputation. Whether you like it or not, your customers are online talking about you and the whole wide world is listening. According to the article, local review sites are reshaping the world of small business by becoming the new Yellow Pages, one-stop platforms where customers can find a business — and also see independent critiques of its performance.

The article goes on to say for some business owners, this is a terrifying prospect that seems more like mob rule than the wisdom of crowds. Negative reviews can hang an albatross around your neck if they appear prominently in search results. Happily, there is a big upside: referrals from happy clients are traditionally the best source of new business — and online forums are powerful word-of-mouth. The review process has been democratized.

But managing your online reputation requires a whole new skill set, including monitoring the online conversation and engaging with customers and the tech-savvy to promote yourself in the best channels. These skills are becoming essential for mainstream businesses. According to a survey by the Opinion Research Corporation, 84 percent of Americans say online reviews influence their purchasing decisions.

Here are some quick tips to managing your online reputation:

~Set up automatic alerts to notify you when your business is mentioned in a review or blog.

~Local search sites are the new Yellow Pages -- make sure your business is listed. The more complete your listing, the more likely you are to get good search results.

~Respond to reviews to show readers that you are listening and that you care about customer service.

~Online reviews are a gold mine of business intelligence. Analyze metrics to get a better sense of your customer demographics.

~Don’t write false reviews to puff your business or trash a competitor. You can severely damage your reputation...and look really silly.