Internet Marketing Tips and Freebies

Free publicity? Write a press release.  How many times have you seen that advice? Press releases are a great way to get publicity if they get published and that is a big if.  Many never do. How can you make sure that your press release does get published?

Here are 10 things to consider when writing your press release.

1. Make sure your press release is newsworthy. Have you released a new product, opened a new market, started a new office or team?  That's great but ask yourself why does anyone care?  Can you relate it to something else in the recent news?  Don't release age old news

2.  People hate being marketed to. Reporters will only publish things that are of interest to their readers so don't make it a marketing peice.  They don't care it you have a new product and are not interested in promoting your business they are interested in one thing and one thing only, publishing things of interest to their readers.

3.  Remove your ego from the process. Put your sales self on the shelf. Create something interesting to read not something that strokes your ego.  Make sure that the release is written so that it can later be developed into a story by a reporter if they like it.

4.  Always write your press release from a journalists perspective remove the I from it and don't we all over your copy. No one cares what I do or that we have a new website. They only care about how this relates them.

5.  Read a lot of human interest stuff before you write your press release.  Pick up the local paper and read it.  Read the lifetime sections and really look at the headlines.  Research other press releases and see how they are written and get a good guide to follow.

6.  Keep it short.  In this age of computers we all have short attention spans.

7.  Use an announcement type style.  Not a chatty and friendly as a blog post.

8. Make sure to include the date, city, compnay name in your press release and contact information. Include your website and blog if you have a separate URL for that and any supporting links.

9. Make sure to address the  Who, What, Where, When, Why and How of your topic.  This should be pretty common sense advice but not always followed so I had to point it out.

10.  Use  journalistic standard such as in the words of How to Write a Press Release Wiki, "indicating  If the press release is for immediate release, write "IMMEDIATE RELEASE" in all caps on the left margin, above the headline".  And signaling the end of the release by adding three ###symbols directly under the last line of your press release.

For more information and really good how to advice read How to Write a Press Release Wiki

Once your Press Release is written and ready for publication run it through HubSpot's Press Release Grader. This FREE tool will help you evaluate you press release a provide you with an effectiveness score.

Writing a great press release is hard work and you need help to make sure you are writing it so that it will get published.

Sources for this post: How to Write a Press Release Wiki, Hub Spot Press Release Grader and Publicity Insider

Watermarking your still images, audio, animations or video is a great way to keep others from just taking them. There are lots of ways to accomplish this.  Today we talk about still images (photos).

Watermarking still images using an image editor:

Most photo creation programs come with a watermark embed feature. However, if they don’t and you want to create a watermark you certainly can. Here is how you do it.

First of all you need to understand what a watermark is. A watermark is a transparent image (.gif or .png) that appears over top of the image you are using. You flatten or merge the image layers to create the embedded watermark. A Watermark can be text or graphics.

The way you choose to watermark your image is up to you. For example, in Photoshop®, you create a new transparent layer over top of the image. Then add your text or logo in the top layer and drop the opacity to the desired level (I like to use 45%). Flatten or merge the layers and save the image for the web and your watermark will be embedded. Here is an example of a watermarked image using this technique.

FREE watermarking programs.

There are two types of watermarking programs. On line services and software programs you download to your desktop.

On-line programs:

Watermark Tool – upload your image, add your watermarking text, choose the color, hit generate and you’re done.

PicMarkR – Upload your image(s) – apply your watermark and get your watermarked image(s). You can upload images from your computer, Flicker or your blog.

WaterMarkMagic enables you to impress, overlay and link images, pictures, photos, calendars, reports, maps, charts, patterns, designs, logos and icons. Results can be printed, saved and shared in PDF format. You can upload images from Flicker or your computer.

FREE Watermarking Software:

UMarkLite – Freeware - Adds a watermark, does batch watermarking, and saves your settings for later use.

VXEI picture uploader - This free program does a lot of things. Batch watermarks, uploads and resizes your photos before uploading.

WaterMark is an open source image-watermarking tool.

Protect your Images by disabling right click:

Now if watermarking does not work for you, you can protect your images is by disabling the right click. That way no one can right click and save your image. If you want to do that you can use a bit of java script, which you would place right after the head tag.

Here is the script:

From Java Script Source.

I hope you enjoy these freebies. If you have other watermarking software or online tools you use let me know! I am always looking for great software and services.