Dmitry Dragilev is the marketing lead at ZURB, the interaction design firm behind ZURBapps, a suite of apps that helps people quickly design great products through rapid prototyping, iteration and user feedback.
It’s a week before launch and you’re hoping to score some awesome traffic from a well-known publication. Here is what usually happens: You send a PR release to a bunch of publications, you pay big bucks for PR agency representation, you tweet the day of the launch, and you hope your story gets picked up.
Be honest — how well did this approach work for you the last time you tried it? Lots of effort, but my guess is you were probably disappointed with the return.
Instead, approach reporter interactions as you would an actual relationship.
1. Date Before You Pitch
Most of us decide to pitch journalists right before a product launch launch or announcement, shooting out a press release and hoping to score great articles. This is the worst thing you can do. Don’t expect to pitch someone who doesn’t know you or your product, in the hopes that person will understand the story and details just right — all in a few days.
Instead, build a strong relationship that benefits both of you — it’s the only way you can ensure great news coverage of your product launch.
After all, you don’t pitch a VC or angel investor cold, expecting to earn funding, right? These days, you don’t apply to a job cold and expect to get hired. As you know, relationships are everything when you are trying to build a company. A strong relationship with the press is just as important as maintaining relationships with your investors. Before you can even pitch to a reporter, you’ll have to spend months of hard work, maybe even years, building a strong relationship.
Here are some specific tips on how to build genuine relationships with journalists.
2. Courting
First, you need to have a good idea of who your paying customers might be, where they tend to gather on the web. Which news publications/blogs do they read? Look at the comments on articles and figure out which publications you want to target.
Once you determine the correct reporters/publications, build a relationship with reporters almost exactly like you would build a relationship with a potential spouse. Research what catches the reporter’s eye, both personally and professionally. Have at least three points you want to genuinely talk about, none of which relate to your product. Reach out and give the reporter something first (e.g. send in a story tip, for instance) before asking him for anything. Remember, you aren’t looking for a “one night stand;” you are courting for a long-term relationship.
3. Dating

This isn’t an “adult” friend finder service; this is eHarmony. Develop your reporter relationship over months: Help him out and show your interest in his beat. Show how the reporter can benefit from your help: Bump a reporter’s stories to the top of Techmeme, tip him off about breaking news, talk to him about his articles, respond to his questions in articles and via social media.
4. Getting Serious
You’ve already built a solid and genuine relationship with your reporter. By the time you ask for coverage, you should have helped him out a number of times. You’ve initiated multiple discussions that cover a variety of topics. You’d be comfortable meeting up and grabbing a drink with your reporter.
From here on out, you need to be extra careful. Around the time you’re attempting to seal the deal, your actions are critical to achieving awesome results.
5. The Actual Pitch
By now, you can determine your reporter’s interests and beats. Your pitch should be connected with at least two articles the reporter has written. If it doesn’t, you’re pitching the wrong person.
Your story must have a hook; in other words, it must relate to current trends or events. Most bloggers and news sites won’t be interested in a product that’s off-trend.
Stay super simple. Practice your pitch and wording before you talk to people. Think of it this way: Would your grandmother be able to understand what you’re taking about? Remember, you’re competing with a million other things that might grab a reporter’s attention. If you aren’t crystal clear, a reporter can get distracted or bored with what you are saying. Connect your product to trends and show how it stands out from others in this area.
You should be able to pause after the first sentence of your pitch, confident that the reporter already partly understands what you’re talking about. It’s good if the reporter asks a question back. If you receive a confused response (or none at all), you probably need to make it simpler.
Here are a few sample pitch sentences we used when launching our app.
- App X helps you see if ads are getting in the way or if content isn’t getting read.
- App X is a another tool to supplement surveys, feedback forms and chat.
- App X can help you test landing page performance — it’s a guerrilla marketing tool.
- App X helps you determine if your brand is headed in the right direction.
6. Ongoing Relationship
Your relationship with a reporter or blogger doesn’t end after the pitch. You want it to be in it long-term, like a marriage. Like a real spouse, you’ll have to invest in the marriage, maintaining it over time. After all, you’ve spent months and months courting this reporter — you don’t want to toss him aside once the story is published. Keep the lines of communication open, and you won’t be without a date the next time you launch a product.
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, wellphoto, Flickr, thinkpanama
More About: contributor, features, How-To, Marketing, Media, pr For more Business coverage: 
from Mashable! http://mashable.com/2012/02/27/how-to-pitch-media/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_...
 Have you ever kept a journal or diary? For writers, it's almost a given that you're going to keep a personal log of what you do during each day, how you feel, or interesting things that might create that prize-winning book some day. For others, it's a way to keep track of health issues, emotions, relationships, the growth of a child or the decline of an aged parent. Day One (US$9.99 for Mac, $1.99 for iOS) is a well-designed and implemented journal app for Mac OS X and iOS. Day One for Mac First, let me describe the Mac app. It's available through the Mac App Store and loads quickly. When launched, Day One recognizes whether or not you have Dropbox installed, and asks if you wish to use that service for syncing with the iOS app. Day One also supports iCloud for syncing -- it's easily enabled through the app preferences. The next thing the app asks is whether or not you want to enable reminders and quick entry in the menu bar. Reminders will prompt you daily to update your journal, while quick entry makes writing an entry as easy as clicking an icon in the menu bar and typing your words. The user interface of Day One for Mac is spare and functional. On the left side of the app window are five buttons -- one to add a new entry, one to show your entries in a list format, one to show your entries on a calendar, another to display "starred" or favorite entries, and a final button for setting reminders. Clicking the add entry button opens a blank page. Since this app is Lion-friendly (it runs on OS X 10.6 and later), it can go full screen, although that simply puts the fixed-width app window into the center of your screen. That works great on an 11" MacBook Air; it looks absurd on a 27" iMac. I found that once I got the general idea of how the app worked, I just used the quick entry button on the menu bar to write my entries. All entries are time and date stamped, of course, making Day One useful for situations where you might want to keep track of what you're working on -- a contemporaneous work log. Day One supports both Markdown and MultiMarkdown in the edit and read modes, so if you're familiar with Markdown it's simple to add emphasis and links to an entry while typing away. Any entry can be emailed, exported as text or Markdown, or printed. There's a gem of a feature built into the Info button on each post -- a word and character count. That's great if you're trying to write Twitter-length entries, so let's hope that developer Paul Mayne adds Twitter support to the next version of Day One. At the present time, Day One doesn't support the addition of images to journal entries. However, that is on the to-do list for the app along with tags and categories, encryption of entries, and location data if desired. I think the last would be incredibly powerful for doing a trip log, as travelers would be able to write entries marked with their current location, and embed photos. One other handy addition would be the capability to store multiple journals -- for instance, one for work, one for personal, one for a vacation, etc... My biggest love of this app is the simple and clean interface. Anyone can be up and running in minutes, and Day One makes keeping a journal a pleasure instead of a chore. Now let's take a quick look at the iOS version. Day One for iOS The iOS version of Day One is universal, so you only need to purchase the app for iPhone or iPad to have it run on both devices. Paul Mayne has done an awesome job of optimizing the user interface for each device. On the iPhone, the entry method is simplistic and similar to the quick entry mode on the Mac. On iPad, there's the luxury of more room, especially in landscape mode. Remember that Info button I talked about in the Mac version? On the iOS version, you just pull down a journal entry to reveal the current word and character count. And remember my comment about wanting to be able to send a short journal entry as a tweet? It's possible with the iOS version. Syncs through Dropbox are almost instantaneous. I didn't try syncing through iCloud, although it should work in a very similar manner. Mayne does note that there are some performance issues with current versions of the app doing first-time syncs over iCloud with large journal libraries. Conclusion For keeping a private journal, I can think of no better solution at this time than Day One. Being able to make journal entries anywhere, anytime is a powerful way to keep the log of your life up to date. The similarity in the UI between the apps makes it easy to switch platforms at the drop of a hat, and the support for Markdown / MultiMarkdown provides a decent level of formatting. While the app currently doesn't have the power of Mariner Software's single-platform MacJournal ($39.95), Day One is ultimately a much more user-oriented app that makes keeping a journal a pleasure. With the changes that developer Paul Mayne has planned for Day One, a great app will only get better. Day One: A beautiful and functional cross-platform journaling app originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 27 Feb 2012 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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from TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog http://www.tuaw.com/2012/02/27/day-one-a-beautiful-and-functional-cross-platf...
It was only a matter of time, right? The Wall Street Journal reports that Comcast is rolling out a VOD competitor for Amazon, Netflix and Hulu so it can grab a slice of the streaming video pie. Called Xfinity Streampix, it brings shows from NBC and ABC, along with movies from Sony Pictures and Warner Bros. Scheduled to launch this Thursday, the service will be rolled in for free with some existing cable packages and available on its own for $4.99 a month. For your five bucks, you get access to a back catalog of shows and movies on any internet-capable device, though, naturally we don't know exactly how much content will be available when it goes live. What we do know is that price point puts Streampix well beneath the $7.99 asking price of its competition, so here's hoping a VOD price war ensues. Update: Check out the official PR after the break for more details, including a list of the content coming to Streampix and Comcast's plans to bring VOD to the Xbox 360 and Android. Continue reading Comcast to launch Xfinity Streampix streaming video service, challenge Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon (update) Comcast to launch Xfinity Streampix streaming video service, challenge Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon (update) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 21 Feb 2012 13:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink Wall Street Journal | Comcast Voices | Email this | Comments
from Engadget http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/21/comcast-reveals-xfinity-streampix-streamin...
John Manoogian III is the founder and CTO of 140 Proof, the leading social ad platform for Twitter and Facebook. John created the 140 Proof brand and co-led development of its API and ad-targeting architecture.
Every election year breaks records for ad spending. The total spend leading up to the 2008 election in TV alone was over $450 million. But in 2012, where does social advertising fit in to the political advertising landscape?
Political advertising hasn’t fully embraced digital, but the tide is turning. Much like government agencies, political marketing teams are lagging behind brand advertisers in adopting digital and social initiatives. Political agencies are only now beginning to hire “new media directors” to manage online outreach channels like Twitter and Facebook.
However, the online momentum of the 2004 and the 2008 presidential elections shows the growing value of digital advertising in general and the massive potential of social advertising in particular. With the triumph of Barack Obama in 2008 and, before that, the unexpected fundraising success of Howard Dean in 2004, more advertisers are paying attention to social as a channel, both for earned and paid media programs. MediaVest, in a report to its clients, stated that political activity in social campaigns has increased “exponentially.”
Will the race of 2012 ultimately be decided in social? It’s too soon to tell, but for candidates who want to get a jump on their opponents, here are five tips for using paid media to reach voters in the social stream.
1. For a Great Campaign, Start With Polls
Campaign managers identify challenges and opportunities through polls. Polls don’t just predict winners, but they also show the demographics of who loves a candidate, who hates one, and who’s still on the fence. A candidate may enjoy broad support from working-class New Englanders, but if Latinos in the Southwest have yet to join the bandwagon, polls can help identify those voters’ core concerns.
By using polls to identify audiences, you can then address these audiences with targeted campaigns. Don’t just stick to the tried-and-true categories such as “soccer moms.” With social and interest graph data now available to campaigns, you can target audiences of all stripes, from Moderates to Green Traditionals to Tea Party Teens.
2. Be Quick on the Draw
After Joe Wilson, U.S. Representative for South Carolina’s 2nd district shouted “You lie!” during the September 2009 presidential address, both Wilson and his opponent Rob Miller enjoyed a boost in fundraising efforts. In the week following the incident, Wilson had raised $1.8 million and Miller had raised $1.6 million (3 times his 2008 campaign budget). For events like Wilson’s outburst, moving quickly right afterward yields the biggest benefit.
In social advertising, we’ve seen the advantage of acting fast. And while media buyers don’t usually need to create campaigns on the spot, be ready to launch big initiatives on the same day you realized they’re needed. To get the word out and tip public opinion regarding an incident like Wilson’s outburst, I recommend extending the current broadcast strategy: Use the candidate’s Twitter account as the mouthpiece and social stream ads as the megaphone, extending the candidate’s reach beyond his followers for the duration of the desired social campaign.
3. Power Your Campaign with Influencers and Crowds
Political campaign managers know the value of influence and crowds. If a medium can reach influencers who sway the opinions of others, or if it can reach large groups, or community organizers — like the church group grandma who may pledge only $5 per cycle but is active in the community and can bring 25 volunteers to the local rally – then it’s valuable for the political campaign manager.
With two-thirds of online U.S. adults using social feeds, campaign managers can use paid social advertising to reach large numbers of voters. And they can also zero in on influencers by targeting people with a high number of followers or users who demonstrate thought leadership on key issues.
4. Find the Marketable Message in Every News Story
Campaign managers create messages tailored for their key audiences. And smart players will even capitalize on blunders. For example, the recent fracas between Arizona Governor Jan Brewer and President Barack Obama made headlines nationwide. Jan Brewer’s supporters in Arizona will be sure to spin the incident during her reelection bid. (To reach this audience, Brewer’s PAC should target Arizona residents following GOP accounts like @SenJohnMcCain and @JeffFlake.)
And, on the flip side, Obama’s team could use the story to craft a message alleging Republicans are refusing to reach across the aisle. To reach audiences of moderates and independent voters with this message, I’d recommend reaching beyond the already-outsized and committed following of @BarackObama, instead focusing on the audiences of more independent influencers like @fivethirtyeight and The Washington Post’s @mentionmachine.
5. Write for the Stream
Finally, don’t forget to write for the medium you’re advertising in. Here are some best practices for writing for the social stream:
- Be brief, keep it light, and fit your tone to the context. More people pass along upbeat, personal, or humorous messages.
- Social stream ads allow you to refresh early and often, so change creative every two weeks to satisfy the fast-paced, real-time audience you’re targeting in the social stream.
- Focus your call to action. Separate the invitations to learn more from each one, and optimize for what works best.
- Spark conversation. For example, a successful social stream campaign for Best Buy asked: “Do you know anyone who’s ashamed of their old phone?” Thousands of people named their friends, passing along Best Buy’s link to the “Phone Shame Eliminator.”
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, gunnar3000
More About: election, Facebook, Marketing, Politics, Social Media, social media marketing, Twitter, voting 
from Mashable! http://mashable.com/2012/02/21/election-social-media-tips/?utm_source=feedbur...
Finding the right mentor can be the difference between success and failure for a startup. But a truly committed mentor isn’t easy. Enter Founder Mentors, a program to match entrepreneurs with mentors who have direct experience on specific challenges that the entrepreneurs are facing.
It’s been just over a year since Viximo cofounder Sean Lindsay created Founder Mentors, and since then the program has helped 80 founders, several of whom transitioned from part-time to full-time thanks to the help of mentors.
During the first cycle Founder Mentors matched 30 young entrepreneurs with successful mentors. The entrepreneurs were coached at the beginning and end of their cycles to get the most of our the mentor relationship. “Founder Mentors literally changed my life. Within a week of my first meeting I decided to give my notice and go full time on decktOut,” said Liza Adams founder of decktOut.
The program is getting ready for its next match cycle, and the application deadline for founders is this Friday, February 24th. Click here to apply.
Since its last session Founder Mentors has added the following mentors:
- Chris Aronis, co-founder of Dataware Solutions
- Jay Batson, co-founder of Acquia
- Bob Mason, co-founder of Brightcove
- Scott Weller, co-founder of SessionM
“Our mentors give of their time and expertise because they care about their fellow founders and want to give back the startup ecosystem,” Lindsay said by email. “Despite the growing list of resources and programs available to startups, interest in our program continues to grow, which is a sign we’re doing something right.”
The program also runs periodic events, like one in November focused on customer acquisition. Don’t hesitate to sign up and remember to pay it forward.
from BostInno http://bostinno.com/2012/02/21/founder-mentors-is-here-to-solve-your-problems...
Every four years politicians vie for media attention, travel country-wide for votes and charm those on the fence. But what sets this election cycle apart?
Veteran political strategist Joe Trippi chimed in with the answer, “It’s the network, stupid” at a Social Media Week event addressing social media, elections and the battle for Internet dominance, along with Washington Post political reporters and bloggers.
Trippi was riffing off James Carville’s old quote, but he has a point. Social media presence in political campaigns increased by 78% since the 2008 election, according to Cristina Bell, senior analyst at Experian Hitwise.
Washington Post political correspondent Karen Tumulty addressed the rapid pace of news flow with social media in the mix. “The bubble doesn’t exist anymore,” she said. Tumulty said she realized it burst after a four-day bus trip following Republican candidate Mitt Romney’s campaign.
Trippi spoke to a similar loss — the spin room, where reporters used to meet with candidates before or after debates. The spin room has gone the way of the dinosaur, he says; all the debate and conjecture happens in real time on Twitter.
As the fight for the Internet continues, how do you think the budding social media relationship between politicians and their audience will affect a political reporter’s job?
To view the livestream of the session, click here or view the Twitter feed of the event here.
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More About: Politics, Twitter 
from Mashable! http://mashable.com/2012/02/20/its-the-network-stupid-how-social-media-is-rep...
Hamburger meat could be grown in a test tube as soon October. In a bid to protect the environment, Dutch scientists are exploring lab-grown meat options.
Fake meat might sound gross, but scientists say an alternative meat is essential. Raising cattle takes an enormous amount of water, feed and energy. All in all, about 100 pounds of resources is required to obtain 15 pounds of usable meat. Artificial meat could improve that efficiency by at least 35 percent.
Mark Post, chairman of physiology at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, is conducting the $330,000 experiment, funded by an anonymous donor. He has begun transforming stem cells from a herd of cattle into inch-long strips of muscle tissue. The meat strips can be mashed together to create a hamburger patty. The color of the meat is wavers between whitish pink or pinkish yellow.
The research has support from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), which is also urging scientists to create stem-cell chicken by the end of June for a $1 million prize. PETA’s competition started four years ago. Like the red meat, the chicken would edible. PETA says it supports eating meat as long as the animal isn’t killed or inhumanely treated.
Post did not offer any information about the healthy benefits from the artificial meat and we don’t know whether the meat tastes the same as regular meat. We do know that with less real meat going around, E. coli and other food borne illnesses would be reduced.
Would you consider eating artificial meat hamburgers? Tell us in the comments below.
Thumbnail photo courtesy of Flickr, Passive Income Dream.com
More About: Food, Video 
from Mashable! http://mashable.com/2012/02/20/wheres-the-beef-scientists-turn-stem-cells-int...
When most people think of tech-savvy social media users, they probably don’t picture fans of NASCAR. At this weekend’s Daytona 500, though, social media will play a central role in television coverage of the event.
Speed TV, which carries much of the Daytona 500 coverage and will broadcast Saturday’s final practice round, has imported its Social Garage to a live sporting event for the first time. The Social Garage began last year at as a digital dashboard on the network’s website to facilitate fan conversation with one another and broadcasters across Facebook and Twitter during coverage of an auto action. But for Daytona, the operation is taking physical form.
It functions as an on-site social and communications headquarters of sorts at the race, said Laura Gainor of GMR Marketing, which helps with Speed’s social strategy. Inside the space, Speed’s social media team provides live updates, works on behind-the-scenes features and guides the online fan conversation. Any time a fan tweets with the hashtag #Daytona500, the message is streamed through the Social Garage, where producers and on-air talent at Daytona respond to questions and comments and converse with fans. And as top auto racing analyst Rutledge Wood interviews drivers at Daytona, he can see a feed of fan questions he can then ask on-air with an accompanying graphic to credit the Twitter sender.
SEE ALSO: Pinsanity: How Sports Teams Are Winning on Pinterest
“This is by far our strongest effort and the biggest dedication of resources by the network of integrating social media into what our producers and reporters are doing to provide our audience with a high level of interaction,” Erik Arneson, Speed’s vice president of media relations, said in an interview.
When the network debuted the physical manifestation of its previously-virtual Social Garage at another car auction last month, viewer reaction and conversation was so positive that implementing it at Daytona wasn’t a tough decision, Arneson said.
NASCAR as a sport has had a rocky last few years on TV. Ratings increased last year by almost 5% for all coverage, but that followed three consecutive years of decline.
But Arneson said Speed didn’t see the same hits as other channels who broadcast the sport and that, while the Social Garage is a bid “make the network more sticky,” it’s also part of a natural evolution. Before social media became dominant, Speed viewers were encouraged to interact with broadcasts online — for example, by having viewers guess the final selling price of cars at auction through the Speed TV website.
Nonetheless, building a physical social headquarters at Daytona represents a significant step for the network, and one that Arneson said will definitely be considered for future live racing broadcasts.
“When you do something like this on the level that we’re doing it for Daytona, you have to step back and see what worked and didn’t work, but I don’t see it going backward,” he said. “I think we crossed a major hurdle this year, and now with viewers there’s an expectation that there will be higher level of interaction.”
Image courtesy of Speed TV
More About: Facebook, Social Media, sports, Twitter 
from Mashable! http://mashable.com/2012/02/24/can-social-media-turbocharge-nascar-on-tv/?utm...
Congrats to David Beisel, Rob Go, and Lee Hower of NextView Ventures, the Boston-based seed stage venture fund that today announced it had closed its inaugural $21 million fund. If you thought the fund was already closed, that’s because they already have a portfolio of 15 companies. (They held an initial close last March and wrapped up the remaining commitments at the end of 2011.)
NextView is focused on early-stage internet companies, both consumer and B2B, and looks to invest $250-$500k. The fund already has its first exit in Hyperpublic, which was acquired by Groupon just days ago.
Hower has a blog post up about the full story behind the fundraising, which is worth a read. Writes Hower:
As one of our mentors is fond of saying, being a VC is easy… all you have to do is raise a fund and invest it successfully. Neither are easy, but Rob, David, and I are excited to be done with the first part and can focus our energies on creating a successful first fund and building an enduring firm around our strategy and ethos.
Fortune’s Dan Primack broke the news this morning, adding:
What Boston continues to lack, however, are micro-VC firms. We’ve got plenty of established venture firms and a burgeoning angel phenomenon, but few new institutional groups focused exclusively on seed-stage companies.
We’re excited about the role of NextView – a BostInno Channel partner – in the Boston ecosystem. Back in late 2010, we went so far as to wonder whether Rob Go could be Boston’s Fred Wilson.
An exit before the first fund closes isn’t a bad start.
from BostInno http://bostinno.com/2012/02/21/nextview-ventures-closes-inaugural-21-million-...
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