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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Find out when your Twitter handle is mentioned in a news article

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"Twitter reacts" is an entire genre of news articles. If you're active on Twitter you've probably been featured in one, whether you realize it or not.

A recently-viral tweet pointed out that you can use Google News to find out. It's fun! My co-worker Andrew discovered he was quoted in a Hollywood Reporter article about Left Shark back in 2015.

Just search for your Twitter handle in Google News

I, meanwhile, was mentioned in a 2016 Dutch language Business Insider language article about the Mac battery indicator, which is extremely on-brand for me.

It's neat, but it would be more fun to find out about these mentions when they happen, if only so you could tweet incredulously about it. Happily, Google also makes it easy to get realtime notifications—just head to Google Alerts and search for your Twitter username.

Search for your Twitter handle in Google Alerts

By default you'll get an email anytime your Twitter handle shows up in a news article. If you don't want these notifications in your inbox, you can opt to use an RSS feed instead.

You can get an RSS feed instead of email notifications, if you want

You can follow this feed using an RSS reader, of course. Or you can use it to send notifications to other applications using automated workflows we call Zaps.

I'm including some pre-made workflows to get you started. Just click on the Use this Zap button, and we'll guide you through customizing it. It only takes a few minutes. You can read more about setting up Zaps here.

For example, you can share new mentions to a channel in Slack.

You can also compile these mentions in a spreadsheet.

Or, if you want to make sure you actually read every article you're mentioned in, you can save them to a bookmarking app like Pocket or Instapaper.

These are just a few possibilities. Check out our RSS integrations to learn about more.

Related reading:



from The Zapier Blog https://ift.tt/2L1DYuC

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