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PR, Press
Releases and Promotion!
by Mike Banks Valentine
This week WebSite101.com and OnlineWorkshops.com officially
announced our partnership to the press via an electronic
press release distributed online via multiple sources and
sent by email to specific local media sources. I can't yet
say what results that announcement will have as it just
went to the inbox of hundreds of journalists across the
country.
Our first press
release was picked up in some incredible
places and got WebSite101 noticed by national media. The
effectiveness of press releases can be entirely dependent
on
whether or not there are any major national scandals brewing
before that news release is sent. I don't know if there
will
be any major earthquakes, tornadoes or presidential sex
scandals this week, but I'm very excited that television's
60 Minutes news magazine covered online education tonight!
What the media pays attention to is often determined by
what
the media pays attention to. Every news outlet looks at
what
the competition is running on the front page or what tops
the
hourly news reports. If 60 Minutes is paying attention to
online
education, then WebSite101 has got great chance of
being a major news story tomorrow. If my local paper, the
Santa Rosa Press Democrat gets interested, their parent
publication, the New York Times may pick up the story too!
All we can do now is to wait and see if the San Jose Mercury
News or the San Francisco Chronicle notice a small business
internet tutorial teaming up with a distance
education portal.
The 60 Minutes piece was specifically discussing major online
distance education initiatives launched by Duke University
and the well known internet education site, University of
Phoenix. Talk was centered around whether it was an effective
and useful way to learn. I already believe that it is.
Now we'll see whether the media agrees with that perspective.
And as long as George W. Bush is faithful to his loving
wife,
and makes no malaprops during the performance of his duties
tomorrow, maybe the Philadelphia Enquirer will take notice
of a quiet little web site that is seeking to change the
face
of ebusiness by training a few thousand independent entrepre-
neurs in ecommerce for the little guy.
I'm excited and hopeful of the potential for distance
education and the small part WebSite101 can play in helping
small business gain an edge in ecommerce.
Our first press release was used by Entrepreneur Magazine,
the Sacramento Bee and Oracle Magazine and we can only hope
for more of that kind of attention will follow with the
latest announcement. Ted Koppel, what do you think? David
Letterman, do you care to comment? Howard Stern, care to
weigh in on this one?
Take a look at our press release by visiting it online at:
http://website101.com/press.html
And keep your fingers crossed for us that no movie stars
get
arrested for soliciting prostitution or some such nonsense.
Maybe Martha Stewart’ll say something nice about WebSite101.
Oprah, would you like to add my ebook to your recommended
reading list?
Postscript December 27, 2001: This
story was written months before
the events of September
11, 2001 and clearly illustrates the importance
of news and its effects on press releases being considered
newsworthy.
Although many businesses attempted to capitalize on those
events to
promote themselves and profit inappropriately, we hope you
will not
exploit the news at the expense of grieving family members
of victims
of such tragic events.
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By week's end you're ready expand your business to the web!
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