Media training 101 for small businesses

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Great news: you just scored a big press interview to promote your business. The story will expose your brand to the perfect new audience and drive meaningful traffic to your website. So…don't blow it. Yes, just as quickly as the excitement for the opportunity arrived, the realization that you now have to do an interview sets in. I get it—press interviews can absolutely be intimidating. The resulting coverage represents a significant opportunity to acquire new customers, drive sales, or raise awareness, and you want to be sure to represent your brand well and really compel the audience to check out your company. On top of that, you have to contend with adrenaline and nerves in the moment. You may be thinking, "So many other business owners are so polished and articulate in their interviews. How am I going to pull that off?" Deep breath. A successful interview is usually the result of good media training: preparation and practice in advance of an interview. I've tr
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Google Is Killing Their URL Shortener, Here's What You Need to Know

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Google's URL shortener, goo.gl, is shutting down. The change was announced one year ago, in March 2018, when Google shut down the service for new users—on March 30 of 2019 even longtime users will not be able to shorten URLs using the service.

Goo.gl screenshot

What does this mean?

First of all don't panic: any URLs you made previously will keep working. Google has made this clear:

While most features of goo.gl will eventually sunset, all existing links will continue to redirect to the intended destination.

Second, longtime goo.gl users will need to find a new URL shortener. There's a lot to consider here: goo.gl made it quick to shorten any URL, yes, but it also offered really great analytics features, allowing you to see how many people clicked a given URL.

If you're not sure which service to use we've got you covered: We outlined the 8 best URL shorteners last year. Check that out if you don't know where to start. Google, for their part, recommends Bitly (which is somewhat ironic given that some journalists thought goo.gl would kill Bitly back in 2009.)

We also think Bitly is a solid choice. By the way: you can automate Bitly using Zapier, allowing you to integrate the URL shortener with 1,000+ apps. This lets you do things like automatically create shortened URLs for every post on your Wordpress site.

You could also automatically post all new Bitly links to Facebook and Twitter.

This is just the beginning; find more Bitly integrations or get to work designing your own. Or, if you don't want to sign up for another service, you can use Zapier's built-in URL shortener and generate shortened links automatically that way. Learn more about how to use URL Shortener by Zapier.



from The Zapier Blog https://ift.tt/2F0cTEF

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