First, let’s review what this thing is. You can read more about the original product here, but I’ll summarize it now:

So what is an online press kit, anyway? Sometimes called a media kit, it is really just an expanded “About Me” section that includes things like images and graphics (like headshots of yourself or images of your ebook cover), and lots of in-depth information about yourself that journalists could use when either writing about you, or quoting you. The more information you give reporters and bloggers in a simple, easy-to-get format, the better. The key is that you want to make it EASY for a reporter to choose you when they are looking for comments and quotes from an expert in whatever topic they are writing about today. Reporters have tight deadlines. They want answers and they want them fast.

Journalists are trained to look for press kits. They’ve been relying on company media kits for decades. Just by having your own online press kit, you let them know that you respect them, and you are willing and ready to work with them. You let them know that you are available as a source. That gives you an edge over all the other “gurus” who don’t have an online press kit.

I can hear you asking already…how do I set up an online press kit? You can simply add a section to your current web site that gives all the pertinent information on its pages. Keep it simple and clean, with navigation that makes it impossible for a hurried journalist to get lost. Include quotes, testimonials, syndicated articles, suggested questions, podcasts and videos, images and graphics, and lots of bio information.

Ok, so if you want to check it out, and see the demo of it, just click here (opens in new tab). If you want to download it, just click here. Yeah, it’s that easy. Enjoy. (Oh, and I forgot to mention that it comes with several color schemes, so you can just choose which color stylesheet to use).

I’d like to really encourage everyone to think about how a press kit can be used. Many of us are hurting from the bad economy. Everywhere I turn around, people are either out of work, working less, or have family members who lost their jobs. Unemployed people still have incredible work experience and knowledge to share. If you, or someone you know, needs to build up their personal brand, please make use of this template, or use it as inspiration, to start making it happen. I believe we can all help dig each other out of the economic hole we find ourselves in. This is my small contribution to that effort.

Note: If you think this is useful, I’d appreciate it if you’d link to it or share it on your fave social networks.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2011. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: media kit, online press kit
This feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this in your news aggregator/reader or on DazzlinDonna, then the site you are looking at is probably infringing upon my copyright.

Anyone can slap up a web page that says, “I am an expert in …”, but saying it doesn’t make it so. And even if it is the truth, the mere fact of stating it won’t make others believe it. Belief is the key component of credibility. Let’s take a look at the definition of credible:

1. capable of being believed; believable: a credible statement.
2. worthy of belief or confidence; trustworthy: a credible witness.

Your assertion that you are an expert or authority in a subject matter should be believable. You can establish much of this trustworthiness by sharing your knowledge on your site. The articles you write on your web site should back up your statement that you are expert in your field. The very act of conveying your knowledge through informative articles, tutorials, and FAQs is often enough to convince others that you are indeed an expert.

In addition to conveying your knowledge, you should be prepared to back up the assertions that you make in the articles you write. Your expertise is deemed more credible when you show proof of what you state. Don’t hesitate to link out to other sites or other experts that help demonstrate that proof. Even something as simple as a link to the definition of a word (as shown above, when I referenced the definition of the word ‘credible’) can help make your case.

In some situations, however, even sharing your knowledge extensively, and backing it up with reference links, isn’t enough to establish your credibility. You may need to have others agree that you are credble. If you are a relative newcomer to the field (and newcomer doesn’t imply that you aren’t an expert), your name may not be well-known amongst the other experts in the field. If they don’t know you, they aren’t likely to acknowledge you publicly as an expert. However, if one expert acknowledges you, your credibility achieves a tremendous boost, so one of your goals should center around establishing name recognition within that circle of expertise, and then to become recognized as a peer of those experts.

Some ideas for achieving that goal include:

• Find the communities in which the experts hang out and hang out there as well
• Participate in discussions with the experts
• Don’t always be a yes-man. Debate the experts, but do so without coming across as a troll or adversary.
• Give the experts knowledge they didn’t already have.

Even the most expert of experts is missing knowledge. Perhaps you’ve run some tests or ran a poll that generated some interesting statistics about either your topic, or the people who are interested in your topic. There’s a good chance that other experts in the field did not run similar tests, and would likely be interested in the statistics you’ve gathered. Or perhaps there is a standard, tried-and-true way of doing something in your field, but you’ve found an alternative way of doing it that has some additional benefits of doing it that way. Sharing that information with other experts, as long as it isn’t detrimental to your business, is another way of being recognized with the community as a member of the “experts class”.

Obviously, you don’t want to give away all your secrets to other experts. Your business may rely upon keeping some of your knowledge to yourself. But there is much that can be mutually gained by leaders sharing knowledge with leaders.

Once you’ve achieved the goal of being recognized by other leaders in the field as someone with expertise as well, you can use that to help establish your credibility within your own site. Reference remarks made by other leaders about yourself. Link to pages on other sites in which you’ve held an intelligent, interesting debate with another expert. Include quotes from recognized authorities that mention you in a positive way. These types of references should also be included in your online press kit as well.

In short, you can establish credibility as an expert by:

1. conveying your knowledge through informative articles, tutorials, and FAQs
2. backing up your knowledge with proof, including links to outside references
3. becoming a peer of other topic authorities, and then referencing that relationship on site

Establishing credibility should be a constant theme running throughout your presence as an online entrepreneur. Whether adding content to your site, participating in social networks, or interacting with users and clients, you should strive to maintain your status as an expert by proving yourself credible.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2008. | Permalink | 11 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: credibility, online entrepreneur, online press kit, social networks
This feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this in your news aggregator/reader or on DazzlinDonna, then the site you are looking at is probably infringing upon my copyright.

You need a press kit.

In the “old days”, that meant spending a LOT of money to have fancy-schmancy folders and papers printed that you would mail to newspaper and magazine editors. Because it is so costly to create those glossy kits, you and I would be doing without. Luckily, those days are long gone, and the Internet is here to save us. (Yes, you can still get hard copy press kits, and some may opt to do so, but it’s no longer the necessity that it once was).

So what is an online press kit, anyway? Sometimes called a media kit, it is really just an expanded “About Me” section that includes things like images and graphics (like headshots of yourself or images of your ebook cover), and lots of in-depth information about yourself that journalists could use when either writing about you, or quoting you. The more information you give reporters and bloggers in a simple, easy-to-get format, the better. The key is that you want to make it EASY for a reporter to choose you when they are looking for comments and quotes from an expert in whatever topic they are writing about today. Reporters have tight deadlines. They want answers and they want them fast.

If you accomplished all that we discussed in the last few posts, then it’s very likely that a journalist would find your site when he searched for “his current topic expert” or “whatever he is writing about guru”. Once he gets to your site, he’s going to want to:

1. Know more about you.
2. Find quick info that summarizes your expertise
3. Contact information so he can get in touch with you

An online press kit, then, would incorporate all of those elements and more. Journalists are trained to look for press kits. They’ve been relying on company media kits for decades. Just by having your own online press kit, you let them know that you respect them, and you are willing and ready to work with them. You let them know that you are available as a source. That gives you an edge over all the other “gurus” who don’t have an online press kit.

Once you have your online press kit created, you’ll want to be proactive. Let people know about it. Contact editors of relevant newspapers and magazines, or your local news editors, and let them know that you are available in the future as an expert source on the topics of “blah, blah and blah” (your niche expertise). Don’t hound them. Just let them know, give them all of your contact information, and be sure to include the URL to your spiffy, new online press kit. If any are interested, they’ll keep your information at hand in case they need it in the future.

You can also register as an expert source at either ProfNet (a service of PRWeb) or ExpertClick. These services connect journalists with expert sources (such as yourself), so they are great places to network, but the services are somewhat expensive. I would recommend doing everything you can in the first few months to build up your name recognition and have everything in place to position yourself as an authority before registering for this type of pricey service.

I can hear you asking already…how do I set up an online press kit? You can simply add a section to your current web site that gives all the pertinent information on its pages. Keep it simple and clean, with navigation that makes it impossible for a hurried journalist to get lost. Include quotes, testimonials, syndicated articles, suggested questions, podcasts and videos, images and graphics, and lots of bio information. If you want professional help, there are services that you can hire to create online press kits for you. From what I’ve seen, they seem to average around $500, so if that’s in your budget, it may be easiest to let someone else create it for you. Keep in mind, however, that you’ll still need to give them the actual content. You’ll need to spend a fair amount of time telling them about yourself, your achievements, your products, or whatever else would need to be included. After all, they don’t know those things about you – you do.

I looked around, hoping to be able to find a link to some free press kit templates, but didn’t find what I was looking for, so I decided to just go ahead and create some from scratch. I’ve created a new product called Online Press Kit Templates (no longer available as a paid product – see here to get it for free.). It’s not free, so let me tell you that right up front. But I priced it at a “reasonable” amount, so that it would be the right choice for anyone who wants help, but doesn’t want to spend hundreds of dollars. Many of you are old hands at setting up web sites, so you’ll be able to set your own up without any help at all. But if you would rather follow a template, without the actual service of someone creating it for you, then you are the right person to consider purchasing the templates I created. Keep in mind though, that you can absolutely do this yourself for free. I don’t want to mislead anyone into thinking that my product is the only solution, because that would certainly not be true. My templates simply make it a lot easier to get an online press kit up and running with minimal effort.

So that’s it. By the time you’ve covered all the steps in this Authority series, you should be well on your way to being called “the world’s foremost authority on ….”. Good luck!

P.S. If you are planning on hiring me as your ebusiness coach, don’t order my templates, because all my coaching clients get the package for free.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2008. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: An Authority, authority, company media kits, e - business, ebusiness coach, expert, guru, hurried journalist, journalist, media kit, online press kit, Online Press Kit Over, Online Press Kit Templates, online press kits, reporter, search results, templates
This feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this in your news aggregator/reader or on DazzlinDonna, then the site you are looking at is probably infringing upon my copyright.