Bilingual In The Boonies » Media Whore

Diva of Dulce de Leche

Carrie — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 16:23:37 +0000

So, the path to pro-blogging is through mucho advertising, paid blogging on somebody else’s site, becoming a consultant or the most popular among the mom bloggers, paid spokesmommying for a product or service. Of course, there’s always porn, but let’s pretend there isn’t.

How to go pro is a popular topic at blogging conferences. It’s money and validation, afterall, and not just sitting alone in a room shouting into the cybernets for free. (Kind of like what I am doing now…ahem.)

I have had a couple of blogging/spokesmommy offers from companies, and while tempted by riches, I walked away. The products were good, the companies lovely, but my gut told me they just weren’t the right fit for me.

So, because I too want to get in on the game, I put my brain to work to discover just whom I could go all blog-whorey for, just whom I would gladly bore the heck out of you over…and absolutely not care.

Tiffany, Apple, Honda, Canon and Bustelo all popped right into my brain. I’m no fool.

But then the real answer came to me in a big, giant, sugar-high flash: Dulce de Leche!

I’m all about the caramel sweet stuff. It’s always in the house, I put it on everything from bread to flan and I even carried back a giant glass jar from Buenos Aires once. How’s that for a testimonial?

So, because I believe in things like vision boards and putting it all out there for the Universe: I want to be the Diva of Dulce Leche, the Carrie of Cajeta, the Mami of Manjar!

Now, I just need someone to pay for my devotion.

How to Be a Story or, at least, Part of the Story.

Carrie — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 14:03:38 +0000

I didn't usually kiss my sources...

Newsrooms have been sacked. Cubicles are empty. Journalists are worried. The digital age and those damned bloggers are changing the way journalists do their jobs, and the way they see their future.

For the small business owner, or the newsworthy person, these changes mean it is harder to get into the paper, magazine, or on TV. But, it also presents possibilities.

You can suggest great stories to reporters, many of whom are spending their days feeding the story monster and who would appreciate your good tip.

I’ve tweeked the talk I gave at a Blissdom Workshop a couple of weeks ago and am presenting it here as a How to Be A Story PDF and a slide presentation. (My workshop, by the way, was with the very fabulous and smart: Wendy Piersall, Lindsay Maines, Jenn Fowler and Renee J. Ross.)

It is intended for the small business with little, or no, PR budget; for the blogger with an awesome site; for the person with the interesting story/hobby/craft/lifestyle etc; for the expert who would make a great source, offer a great quote in a trend story, whether it be in the news,business, features or sports section.

You get the idea, right?

Now, the mistake people make when they go after media is thinking only of the gigantic story. But, there are briefs, and trend stories and quickie quotes that offer great exposure too.

I encouraged the bloggers I spoke with at Blissdom to become experts, to become go-to people for the reporters in their area. Sometimes, this will land you a story, sometimes you’ll be part of the story, but once you become a go-to person, you get what others don’t: Connection.

And, calls returned.

Lucky You.

(Now, that picture above. A couple was raising alpacas and llamas in the middle of a fancy neighborhood in Nashville. The guy called me. I did a feature in the winter of 2003. All it took was one telephone call.)

Good luck.

Are you a Jersey blogger mama?

Carrie — Thu, 22 May 2008 12:27:00 +0000

Consider this a public service announcement:

A media friend in Jersey is looking for Jersey blogger moms willing to write for a state-wide publication. Pass the word.

E-mail me and I’ll forward the contact.

Fame awaits you.

Free tips: How to send a celebrity a gift basket

Carrie — Tue, 13 May 2008 18:23:00 +0000

When Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt introduced their youngest daughter to the world wearing a Kingsley t-shirt, the garment went into immediate back order.

Celebrities are mighty powerful, we all know that. Their wearing, or using, an item can mean instant sales and forever cool.

A few months ago when celebrity news was full of stories about gorgeously pregnant Latina stars, Los Pollitos Dicen and three other fabulous Latina-owned businesses put together gift baskets for Salma Hayek, Christina Aguilera and Jennifer Lopez.

We participated because of their star power, of course, but also because the mom in us recognized the mom in them. All Latinas, all on adventures – business and mothering. I had resisted sending gifts to celebrities because it felt kinda funny, you know? But, with these three it just felt right. (I particularly have empathized with Hayek and Lopez who, like me, came to mothering a little later in life.)

Anyway, the point of this post is not really to tell you about our gift baskets, (which really were very cool), but to tell you, small business owner with little dinero, how to send them yourself.

If you’ve ever looked into giving “swag,’’ as they call it, through a gifting company or at a celebrity event like the Grammy’s, you know it isn’t cheap. Participation can run from $50 to hundreds or thousands of dollars. It could pay off. Or it may not.

So, while you grow your business and ponder whether to pay mucho to send gifts via a swag company, I’m going to tell you how we did it. It will cost you more than $50, but not much more than that and some time. So…

HOW TO SEND A CELEBRITY A GIFT BASKET:
THE CRIB SHEET

Head over to Who Represents and search the Celebrity of Choice.
I like to start with the publicist. (You can register for the service if you need to).
If no publicist is listed, look for manager or management company.
Then, Google the name of the publicist and the star to see if that spokesman or spokeswoman has been speaking for the Celebrity of Choice lately. (Databases can be out of date.)
If you can’t find free information, Google your Celebrity of Choice and words like “publicist’’ and “spokesman’’ and “spokeswoman.’’ Make sure any results are current. You also can hang out over at Perez Hilton or any celebrity site of choice – People, TMZ, etc. and keep track of whose talking for whom. And sometimes, celebrities have contact information on their personal web pages.
So, once you’ve pretty much got it that this particular publicist still indeed does speak for Celebrity of Choice, Google the publicist to find his, or her, address and company name.
Call the company and ask for the publicist’s office. Don’t bother asking to speak to the publicist herself. Tell the receptionist – which we all know, knows everything – you would like to send a gift basket to the Celebrity and need the best address. Speak kindly and confidently. (You can puke from nerves later.)
Now, the PR person’s office might refer you to the agent’s office or the star’s personal office. Call, don’t e-mail.
Say “Thank You Very Much” and head to the post office.

We sent baskets to three celebrities. I got addresses very quickly for two. For the third, the receptionist gave me a publicist’s e-mail address. Of course, she never answered. So, I called back and got the management office name and address. After a quick call and an address, off the basket went in all its colorful glory.

The baskets arrived at their destinations and they were not sent back, which always is a possibility. Then, we posted this press release on PRWeb. (See the release to read about my partners.)

Cost to upload release: $80, split by four. Because I wrote it, there was no additional release-writing cost, but if you need someone to write it, you’ll be looking at $100 to $300.

What did our businesses get out of it? I can’t speak for the other vendors, but the Pollitos got exposure and sales. The Web pages and message boards that featured us will hang around for a long time, so we’ll continue to get some exposure.

And I know you want to know: Did we get a Gracias?
No. Not yet. I am not sure one was expected.

However, can’t say we’re not all hoping for a photo in People or US Weekly or on Perez, our favorite bad boy cubanito.

Personally, I am keeping fingers crossed Jennifer’s twins show up on her upcoming TLC reality show dressed in their “Gordito’’ and “Gordita’’ onesies.

Any questions?

I said "Los Pollitos Dicen" on Nashville television, y'all

Carrie — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 16:22:00 +0000

Meryll Rose, lovely hostess and reporter, Talk of the Town, Channel 5

Want to hear my Miami/Jersey/Nashville accent?

Click over to the Talk of the Town site to see the segment on Mamamade, the amazing show we are participating in on Saturday and the event for which I have done the PR.

Look for the icon with the Pollitos and the headline: “Artistically Juggling the Demands of Motherhood and Jobs.”

This one is for the small business owner. Tips.

Carrie — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 15:03:00 +0000

As a small business with limited marketing and advertising dollars, I look regularly for ways to partner with people tarketing similar markets — Latinos, new mothers, grandmothers, lovers of all things Spanish.

For the holidays of 2006, Los Pollitos partnered with two other businesses and pitched stories on bilingualism and bilingual goods to the media. A few bit. We’ve also joined hands with a couple of companies who sell Latin-themed goods and uploaded a press release to PR Web –hits, exposure, sales. It was through a Google search that led to a PR Web release that got one of the companies invited to insert goods into Latin Grammy gift bags. We at Los Pollitos got sales and public relations companies looking to represent us. (I do all my own PR. Thank goodness, for it isn’t cheap.)

If you google around PR Web, you’ll see what else we’ve done recently and with whom. I don’t want to write too much about it right now, but I will. It’s exciting stuff.

The cost is minimal. It costs as little as $80 to upload a press release to PR Web. (Now, you have to write a release, or pay someone to do it, which is around $300 to start.)

The benefit is unlimited though, as those releases stay up there forever and you can post them on your own web site and blog. Reporters and people in industries you target receive e-mailed copies. RSS feeds pick them up. My releases have gotten thousands of reads.

For three years, I’ve been part of a group called Mamamade. It started in my mom’s group when several of us were making things and starting businesses and decided to group together to sell to each other and our friends and family. We set up in a private home two years and had amazing sales. We did it all through word of mouth. This past November, we rented a church basement and got some write-ups in the paper. This month we are having our first Spring Market.

I’ve been doing the public relations for it and today one of our members was on a popular morning TV program. Our group will be on another morning show the week of the sale and in a couple of local newspapers, not to mention community calendar listings.

This translates to thousands of dollars in free advertising. Thousands. If you’re on camera, you can stream that video on your site for the next hundred years. It’s the kind of advertising most small businesses cannot afford. All free.

The point: Sometimes, you sell better as part of a group. A good group. The media likes trends (any three things is a trend, they say) and they want some ready-made stories. Mamamade is a great story. It sells itself. I found good partners and will get great press. Good press often means excellent sales.

Who can you partner with?

Happy Weekend.