Hashtag Homework: #MemorialDay in Tin Shingle's Hashtag Cheat Sheet

Memorial Day is a day that is both heavy and light, where we in the United States are honoring the fallen, as well as kicking off the unofficial start of summer. These two concepts are total opposites, but as a culture, we have merged to do both! At Tin Shingle, we have collected hashtags people are using now to gain exposure to their brand, and we want you to have them at your fingertips as you are out and about today, snapping photos for Instagram and Twitter, and circulating those social media updates in the best hashtags for wider exposure.

Memorial Day Hashtags in Tin Shingle's Cheat Sheet Include:

•     Hashtags to Honor the Fallen
•     Hashtags to promote Sales and Start Summer

Community Level 1 Members of Tin Shingle have instant access to all of these hashtags in our Hashtag Cheat Sheet section of "The Boards" (which are Tin Shingle's private forums). If you love your Tin Shingle, you should consider stepping it up a notch to hook into our Community for richer tools like this one!

GET THIS LIST: If you are a Community Member and up, log in and access the hashtag list right here.

QUICK-DRAW TIP: Look at this hashtag list in our Member Center, and copy and paste those that will work for you today onto your phone, like in Notepad for iPhones, Evernote or a Google Doc. Then you'll have them at the ready when you post that picture of a flag, parade, monument, or just a watermelon at a BBQ.
             

Digital Content Strategy Tip

No matter what your business is, think about how it can participate in the day.

• If your website is all about women and aging, consider an article focusing on military women.
• If you yourself are in the military, highlight an experience from your life today. How does it impact your business and your family? If you're overcome with gratefulness or if you go to a ceremony, highlight that.
• If you sell a product, take a picture of it in red, white and blue and share it as a salute.

Begin Brainstorming

Begin brainstorming now by tapping into Tin Shingle's Community Membership Level 1 for immediate access.

Here's a sneak peek of what the Hashtag Cheat Sheets look like, and how easy they are to search:

So About Those Privacy Policy and GDPR Emails...

What Is This GDPR All About?

As a regular person, you are probably getting lots of email from companies you know - or don't know - telling you they updated their Privacy Policy, or are asking you to opt-in to continue following their newsletters.

As a business owner, you are probably getting email alerts from companies you pay services for or use to run your business, such as MailChimp, Squarespace, Typepad, Google Analytics, Recurly, PayPal, MindBody, and many others.

A huge law was created in the EU back in 2016 that demands major protections for people from companies who collect their personal information on the Internet and use it in some way. That law gave everyone 2 years to comply, and the Big Day of Compliance starts tomorrow, Friday, May 25, 2018. Even though it was created for people in the EU, it applies to businesses everywhere who may have clients or readers in the EU. Plus, laws like this tend to be mimicked later on by other countries years later, like the US.

Where Should You Start?

Maybe you have started complying already. If you work at a large company with a legal department and IT team, you have probably been at this for two years. If you're an attorney, you're probably well versed in what different companies need to do to be in compliance.

If you're neither of those, you're going to need to start reading, and we have a few recommendations for you. Businesses who need to pay close attention to this are those who do things like:

• Accept money over the internet.
• Collect email addresses into a list or lists and then email those lists.
• Move an email list from one place to another, like from a shopping cart to a newsletter program.
• Target people by using a 3rd party Internet program that "profiles" people by watching their behavior on your website or newsletters, and reporting back on what readers or customers did or didn't do, and how you can market to them in a most exact way.
• Use marketing tools like "pixels" from other websites like Facebook or Google Analytics to better understand what people are doing on your website, or to re-market to them.
• And lots of other things. These are only a few.

Start at the Very Beginning

We like to start at the very beginning. With the actual law. You can find that here (thanks goes to my cousin Will Hellmuth who is an attorney with Davis Write and Tremaine LLP who sent this link:
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex%3A32016R0679

That firm wrote a great guide that gives a helpful overview of GDPR prep:
"Time To Update Your Privacy Policy for GDPR"

MailChimp, who many of you use for sending newsletters, has also provided helpful information from their legal counsel:
"New MailChimp Tools to Help With GDPR"

Listen to the Articles!

This is all a lot to read. So we recommend listening! Have your Firefox browser read it to you. Install this new plug-in from Firefox, and with the click of a button, a lady will read a web page to you. Wash dishes. Fold laundry. Go fishing. Knit something. So helpful!

Bring your membership beyond this article, and subscribe to our Community Membership Level 1. You'll be able to connect with other Tin Shingle Members in our Private Facebook Group and forums we call "The Boards."

You can upgrade or downgrade at any time, so if you're ramping up your PR efforts and want Media Contacts, or if you want to stream all of the TuneUps for free, you can do these things - on your terms.

Packaging Will Be Important When Pitching Magazines for Holiday Gift Guides

While perusing Instagram one evening, I saw this beautiful photo of white roses arranged neatly in a stark black box. I’d already slated in Tin Shingle’s Content Planner to write about Packaging as upcoming prep work for your Holiday Gift Guide Pitching to Magazines, and doing it via a re-gram from a Tin Shingle Member seemed cherry-on-top-awesome.

A Tin Shingle member who runs the PR agency, Great Her Good enforced to her following that packaging is everything. See her full message below.

Tin Shingle has started alerting you to the upcoming Holiday Gift Guide Pitching Season - where you email magazine editors with a carefully worded email planting the idea that they might include your product in their Holiday Gift Guide this winter.

Sending samples will be an important component to this. Don’t skimp on the packaging. The investment will be worth it for getting ink (coverage in print media like magazines and newspapers), and customer purchases who buy from you at markets and retail stores.

 

Message from Jackie of Great Her Good:

#Repost @greathergood with @repostapp 

My clients can hear me now, it's all about the packaging and presentation! How you put yourself, your biz and your passion out there.

🚫Bad Packaging? No PR.

✅Great Packaging? Great PR.

Have you ever seen a beautiful package for something on the shelf and it catches your eye? I bet you've even purchased it if the messaging had enough pull. This is a set of 16 beautiful roses, but they cost 10X more than a dozen roses from the grocery store. (Plus, they last for a year, so it's totally worth it!) It's all about how you present your offerings to your customer.

How would you rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 on the packaging and presentation scale?

Image via @venusetfleur

What To Do Next

1. Join Tin Shingle’s Community Level of Membership to talk more about this in our private Facebook Group or Forums aka The Boards.

2. List your business in Tin Shingle’s Business Directory for a chance to be re-grammed like this by joining our Directory Listing Level.

3. Join Tin Shingle’s membership at the All Access Media List Level 4 that includes instant access to over 3,000 Media Contacts and over 80 Editorial Calendars to help you plan your media outreach and execute it. Browse through our lists to get on-point ideas of editors and writers to pitch.

Training TuneUp Road Trip to East Fishkill Library

Tonight, Tin Shingle’s owner, Katie Hellmuth Martin, delivers a Digital Marketing Presentation in partnership with SCORE Mentors Dutchess County at the East Fishkill Public Library District. It's the Tin Shingle Training TuneUp on the road. Road Trip! She will reveal: “8 Things I Learned About Marketing After Deleting the Facebook App From My Phone.” Come! Pre-register, as space is extremely limited.

When: Tuesday May 22 at 6:30 to 8:00 PM
Where: East Fishkill Library - 348 NY-376, Hopewell Junction, NY 12533
How Much: Free

New Gift Guide Class Category in Training TuneUps

Tin Shingle has over 115 Training TuneUps that focus on different areas of creating buzz around your business for you to stream at any time. We have been training businesses like yours for so many years, that we have amassed quite a collection of classes in niche topics that dig deep into important PR and marketing strategies. This calls for a Spring Cleaning! We are organizing these in a more finite way for you, with our first new category:

Gift Guides

Our Public Relations classes category is so extensive, that we are dividing it up so that you can go deep on important issues that will make a big difference in your business right away.

As we inch closer to Summer, we want you to be prepared for pitching those Holiday Gift Guides. Because yeah - that starts in summer! Charge your laptop, because you’ve got some work to do poolside.

All of Tin Shingle's online classes are available to stream free with the Level 3 TuneUp Membership or higher. All others can purchase their favorite classes and keep them forever.

How to Pick a Domain Name - And Protect It Long Term

Photo Credit: Tin Shingle

Isn't picking a domain name easy? You just go to Dotster or GoDaddy (skip GoDaddy...we don't recommend), and type in a domain name and presto - you have a business!

Wrong. So wrong. There's a lot of thought that goes into picking your business name and domain name. Ideally, they should match. The process to pick a domain name is written about here in Tin Shingle's Tip section. Find 3 major pieces of domain naming advice in that article that you can use now, or the next time you think of a name for your domain and business.

New Vanity Fair Editor, Radhika Jones, Opens Up in Her Editor’s Letter

Loved the Editors Letter from Vanity Fair’s new editor, Radhika Jones, as she presents the April issue after taking the reins from Graydon Carter. She stated she intends to strive to follow the pulse set by former V.F. editor in chief Tina Brown. April’s issue is all female, without maybe intending to be so. Just refreshing spotlights and story angles.

Looking forward to this #mediamonitoring! 

Cooking Light Media Contacts Updated in Tin Shingle's Collection

New Media Contacts for Cooking Light Magazine have been updated to Tin Shingle's Member Center. Easily search for an editor or writer at this magazine who may be a great fit for your pitch idea.

Want immediate access...Subscribe or login to Tin Shingle's Membership Level 4 Media Lists All Access Pass to unlock now. Looking for a different magazine or writer? Email your requests and Tin Shingle's team will research them and add them to our collection. 

Sneak Peek:

Keep Going: A PR Placement Will Happen For You If You Keep Trying

Scrolling through Instagram one afternoon, this mega artist, Ashley Longshore, was in the feed, holding up a full page feature on her art in the New York Times. She's a pretty hilarious, intense artist who makes bold and empowering statements in her art. If you need a serious pick-me-up to keep going in your artist or entrepreneurial career, do follow her Instagram feed.

She captured her joy at getting the full page feature in the New York Times here in this post, and her message is one you need to see and remember on your PR journey:

Republished from @ashleylongshoreart Instagram:

ashleylongshoreart I just woke up to a PAGE in the New York TIMES!!!! Im sobbing... absolutely sobbing....... just please know.... above all things.... to keep hope and be optimistic.... believe in yourself..... i am a self taught artist from montgomery alabama. I was an insecure nerd. I grew to love myself when the world felt cold and scary.... please.... do the same for yourself.... love yourself and work hard..... believe in the magic of life... i love you..... i love you so much. This moment is absolutely indescribable... #ashleylongshore #popart #fuckyeah

Take a look at how Ashley is making more out of this PR placements, and all of her recent placements. Once you get that press, lift the best parts of it and call it out to your people. To make a graphic like this, you could use the DIY design tool, PicMonkey to doing some fancy flyer work on your phone, or you could hire your graphic designer to do it for you. Either way, it's a good time and/or money investment as you leverage that press to do more for your brand.

More PR Tips & Tools on Tin Shingle

READ
"I Got Into PeopleStyleWatch, How Can I Leverage This Opportunity? (a strategy that an be applied to many other fashion magazines!)"
- by Kelly Kepner of Kelly Kepner PR

WATCH
PR Training TuneUp: Spring Training for Your PR Campaign
(a Tin Shingle Training TuneUp online class)

CONNECT
Thinking bigger and getting outside of your brain is always possible with friends. Get ideas and feedback from other Tin Shinglers in our Community by activating a Community Membership.

PITCH
Pitch a media outlet like this. Tin Shingle's easy to use Media Contact Database can help you find names quickly, and help you get access to different writers and editors you hadn't thought of pitching before. Get the Media Lists All Access Pass for membership with Tin Shingle.

Real Simple Media Contacts Updated in Tin Shingle's Collection

New Media Contacts for Real Simple Magazine have been updated to Tin Shingle's Member Center. Easily search for an editor or writer at this magazine who may be a great fit for your pitch idea. A benefit to scrolling through our simple and easily list of over 3,000 names is that you'll think of people in departments you hadn't considered before!

Begin brainstorming now...Subscribe or login to Tin Shingle's Membership Level 4 Media Lists All Access Pass for immediate access.

Here's a sneak peek of what the Media Contact Lists look like, and how easy they are to search: