Howdy folks!  Okay, I’ll get back on track with my series on social media.  Lot’s of great potential media coming!  I have a chapter in a booking coming out by Sherry Sexton.  The book is called “And the T-Shirt to Prove it!”.  As soon as I get a release date, I’ll let you know.  Also, thanks to HARO, I heard back from Self Magazine and am in the running for an article they are doing on women inventors, so keep your fingers crossed for that.  Below are a few “things” from last week.

http://www.theworkathomewoman.com/2010/03/interview-with-shark-tank-contestant-leslie-haywood-of-grill-charms/

http://sharpsburg.wordpress.com/2010/03/24/grill-charms/

http://basilmagazine.com/cms2/view.htm/2/58/914/1769/Eat+Grill%20Charms 

 And next week I’m doing an interview at www.toginet.com  Tuesday, April 13 from 12:30-1:00 pm EST.  The name of the show is “Believe in Your Fairytale and Your Zing will come True!”  After the show airs, it will be available to download for free onwww.itunes.com/podcasts .

Before I go into more about this social media thing, just a quick update about my sega with Frontgate.  EVERY THING IS FINE!  J  The ship date wasn’t until the 4^th, so I knew I’d be okay with that, and there wasn’t even a slap on the wrist.  YEAH!!!  I feel so much better !!  Today I received an acceptance letter from the catalog Femail Creations for their holiday catalog and it was just the vendor manual with contract, so I signed it and faxed it back.  Now it too says all PO’s need to be confirmed within 48 hours, so don’t you know, I’ll be SOOOO looking out for it!!  I’m not going to make THAT mistake again!! 

Okay, onto a little bit more about social media and PR.  Last time we left off, we were talking about becoming an “expert” (or being perceived as an expert) 

This is where my blog came into play but if you are still intimidated by starting and maintaining your own blog, get involved and active and basically ride of the coat tails of your target market or others in your field whom already have established Social Media street cred. 

Use other people’s social media savvy to spread the word about your product or service.  Regardless of the fact that I have my own blog, I still write articles, contribute and “guest post” on other people’s blogs.  (Of course, always linking back to mine as well as add to my “news” page.)  Bloggers are always looking for well written content.

Get reviews on your business, product or service from bloggers in your industry.  I would search out the higher ranking blogs of my target market foodies, grillers and believe it or not, mom’s / women. (because Grill Charms are such a great gift item and we all know who buys the gifts in the house!)   I would get active and comment on their blogs and follow them on twitter and make it a point to RT some of their tweets.  (RTing is one of the highest forms of flattery)  and eventually reach out, introduce myself and ask for a review.  Once I get a review, the first thing I do is post on FB Grill Charms page which is linked to my twitter and then put it up on my news page with a link to the story.  Then I would blog about all the links I had for that week.  (as you all know)

Oh, social media success story from this week:  The article above with Basil Magazine… Here’s how that went down.  I followed her on twitter, she followed me back, I asked if I could email her some product info, she DM’d me back with her email, I shot off my “schpeel” and she CALLED ME 5 minutes later saying she loved the product and wanted to feature it!  This stuff WORKS people!!

You want to be an expert?  Have your own radio show.  With blogtalkradio all you need is a decent microphone and you can have your own show.  If you don’t want to devote the time, simply ask to be a guest on an already existing radio show.  I’ve done about a dozen online radio interviews.  Once again, those “in the know” of social media and “content marketing” already have radio shows you can contribute to.  Just go to  www.blogtalkradio.com  and search for your industry or topic, then reach out to the host (if they are on blogtalkradio, GUARETEED they are on FB, Twitter, LinkedIN and have a blog you can comment on to break the ice) I know I sound like a broken record, but it needs to be done…once the podcast goes up, I tweet, FB, and Blog about the link then post it with an icon and link to my “news” page.

Establish yourself as an expert by posting a video on Youtube and embed into your website or blog.  You can buy a flip camera for $30.00 and in 10 minutes have it up for the world to see.

Don’t like being ON video? Use animoto.com and make a very professional video with content you create and photos you have, all set to music for $3.00.  It’s sooooo easy, even I did it!  Animoto will post to Youtube for you, than you can embed it in your blog or on your website.  Here’s what mine looks like: http://www.grillcharms.com/demovideo.html

That’s about it for today.  I’ve still got so much more to talk about, but we will wait for next week.  Happy Friday!!

Leslie Haywood, Founder and President of Charmed Life Products, Inventor of Grill Charms™www.grillcharms.com