PART 3: Promote Your Business Inexpensivly

Stop the pressssssssss...

Sending out press releases is another great way to get some free business promotion.

The caveat to using press releases as a business promotion tool, is that your press release has to actually contain information that is newsworthy, and be engaging enough to get people's interest. Try and have a human angle to the story.

When you read the press release ask yourself:
- Has your business recently expanded?
- Do you have a new product?
- Have you been involved in some promotional activity such as sponsoring a charity event?
- Have you or your company recently won an award?

All of these are examples of "news" that you can capitalize on to get some free promotion for your business. While many business people send press releases to newspapers as a matter of course, don't forget about the Internet.

Formating of the document
Always put Press Release in big letters on top of the release.
Then the statement "For immediate release"
Try and keep it to one page if possible

Then the information in the release should include the following:
- Key players names and how they are involved
- Date that this event happened or will happen
- Relevant quote from upper management
- If possible, a quote form industry expert
- Contact information so they know who to contact to get more quotes and info
- A high resolution image in color or links to a selection of images
- At the bottom of the page your businesses positioning statement

See this link for more details.

Drink Away The Art

I love this art... glug glug glug

Hannes Broecker's
Cool Art Show
Originaly reported by Andrew J Wiener from the thecoolhunter website
Original post can be found here

Forget about wandering through an art gallery and wondering if you’re the only one who has no idea what anything means. Hannes Broecker has brilliantly invited the cultural elite to grab a glass at an exhibition in Dresden, Germany, and drink away the art.

Regardless of what we do or do not understand about art, we can all agree, it stimulates our senses. Broecker has aroused our sense of taste (not to mention eliminated the need of elbowing our way to the bar) by hanging flat, glass containers with a variety of cocktails in the exhibition space. As the night progressed, the levels of the multi-coloured infusions diminished. By the end of the event, the art, itself, ran dry, and empty drinking glasses were returned to where they were originally placed.

PART 2: Promote Your Business Inexpensivly

Scratch scratch the pens makes the paper speak...

Writing articles on topics related to your business expertise is an excellent business promotion technique.

Articles can provide free advertising and build positive word-of-mouth. If you're a realtor, for instance, you could write a piece on preparing your home to be shown. If you're a Web site designer, you might write a piece about assessing Web site usability. The more specific your topic, the better.

Write a short biographical note, or "blurb" about you and your business to go with the article. As the goal is to promote your business. Realistically, you may have to send it to a publication that accepts unsolicited work from unknown authors Magazines generally have a long lead time, so I would focus my first efforts on the 'Net.

There are an astronomical number of e-zines and sites with newsletters that are hungry for content. One place to look for e-zines to send articles to is The Internet's Best E-Zine Directories. E-zines also provide excellent advertising value; the trick is to find the right e-zine for your target audience.

Freelance writing sites also provide a great deal of information on all kinds of publications that might publish your efforts. Make your research easier by starting with a great site that provides all kinds of lists and information on markets such as About Freelance Writers, or FreelanceWriting.com.

Newspapers are also excellent places to place your business promotion article, as they too have a much shorter lead-time than magazines, and are always looking for material. Try contacting the Business editor of your local paper and pitching your article.

Then again you could always start a Blog to get your thoughts out to the world that way. The "important part" is to be consistent and get a new post out at least once a week if not more. Your blog is an important tool and there are lots of was to leverage the content.

One of the best ways is to use it at a knowledge archive. This way when people ask you questions in an e-mail or even in a networking situation you can say you will e-mail them back saying that you have written about it in your blog couple of month ago and here is the link. This is also a great excuse to ask for there business card and have a good reason to contact them the next day.

Remember to enjoy the writing and research for writing proses and soon it will become part of your weekly Fun-things-to-do-list.

Twisty Cool Things

This guy has a bent sense of hummer.

Check out his talk on this blog

Terry Border - Artist of Bent Objects

Everyday objects take on surprising and often hilarious roles in Terry Border's hard-to-describe project. For years now, this unassuming photographer-sculptor-bargain-bin-shopper has worked with snack foods, office supplies, toys, and other items to create evocative and bizarre scenes. Making something great out of "throwaway" objects is a recurring Gel theme, and Terry's work is a perfect match.

To really get it, just watch the presentation.

A New Way to Learn

Learning is about to change forever

Now this is way cool and has a lot of implications for many new ways to interact with data.

About this talk
MIT grad student David Merrill demos Siftables -- cookie-sized, computerized tiles you can stack and shuffle in your hands. These future-toys can do math, play music, and talk to their friends, too. Is this the next thing in hands-on learning?

About David Merrill
David Merrill works on Siftables, tiny computer blocks that interact with each other to make networks (and music).