Are We Connected? Tin Shingle's Communities for Members

Are We Connected?

If you're a super-hooked in Member of Tin Shingle, starting at the Community Level 1 all the way up to All Access Level 4, there are 2 ways we stay connected online to share ideas and open minds to new ways of doing outreach for your business:

COMMUNITY BOARDS
The Community Boards are Tin Shingle's online forums. It's for people who like the Internet 1.0 (like those girls at The What). We've had it for years (before Facebook Groups existed!), and it's a safe, quieter place to ask questions, get feedback, write a lot if you need to, and easily find older conversations and recommendations. Available to our Community Members and up.
How It Works: Just log into your Tin Shingle account, and click on the tab "Community Boards." If you want to ask a new question or start a new conversation, you just click into one of the specialized forum places, like "Pitch Whisperer" or "SEO" or "Social Media" or "PR (Public Relations)" and click "Start a New Post" at the top of the page.

FACEBOOK GROUP
For those who like the feel of instantly connecting and tagging one another, Tin Shingle does have a closed Facebook Group. Only Community Members and above are approved into it. You can ask questions and give and get support here too, or just shout "Hooray!" if something exciting happened that you want to tell us about.
How It Works: You need to request permission to come into the group. We'll see it, and grant it (if you're a member - go activate your membership here)! If you're a Community Member and above, click right here to reach our Facebook Group and knock!

The "Pitch Whisperer" Forum

Arguably one of our most powerful areas in our online forum in the Community Boards at Tin Shingle's website: The Pitch Whisperer. This is where you get to copy and paste your email pitch to a writer, editor or producer, and you'll get support from Tin Shingle's owner Katie, who is also a publisher of an online newspaper/blog that reaches 21,500 views per month.

She sees a lot of pitches from people in the world (regular people and PR agents), and can identify what's working and not working. She also thinks up article ideas that work for a large audience. So she knows a good angle when she sees one.

But this is just one person weighing in. Any member of Tin Shingle who wants to help out can give their feedback also. Helping others feels good.

If you're a Community Member and above, click here to get to the Pitch Whisperer.

We've Got A Live One!

Last week, a member wanted feedback on an email she was going to send to the media about the app she created to help people get their deliveries (versus having them be stolen off porches).
After a little tweaking, the email pitch changed dramatically, and she even developed a second pitch for a totally new angle!

You can see the transformation of that pitch here.

Today's TuneUp: Private Member-Only Jam Session

We're changing it up here at Tin Shingle!

The most important, game-changing thing we can do sometimes is to connect and talk - out loud. Not just typing. Therefore, we are alternating this TuneUp space to be one week the regular public TuneUp (stream all of the past TuneUps here), and the next week will be a Members Only TuneUp, where people who have activated a level of membership can come onto this call for a Group Strategy Session.

How This Works:

Moderated by Tin Shingle's Katie Hellmuth Martin, you can bring 1 Challenge you are experiencing, or are challenging yourself to do. Usually this is a small group of people, and it is always a safe, supportive space.

• Each person brings 1 goal or challenge they want to unpack.

• Each person will get to present their challenge, and get feedback from others on the call on how to get there.

• Homework will be assigned to each person. You'll have your own homework assignment created just for you to get you closer to reaching your goal.

This Group TuneUp is Great For:

• PR: People who are trying to get featured in the media.

• PR: People who didn't realize that they could get featured in the media, and need an outlook adjustment!

• PR: People who are pitching the media but getting nowhere.

• SOCIAL MEDIA: People who are shy in social media and need a plan to put their business or brand out there.

• SOCIAL MEDIA: People who need to fine tune what they are doing in social media to get better results (i.e. sales, bookings, etc.)

• WEBSITE DESIGN: People who need feedback on their websites.

• SEO: People who want to elevate their SEO to a new level.

Vogue Knitting 2019 Editorial Calendar Added To Tin Shingle's Magazine Pitching Resources

Vogue Knitting's 2019 Editorial Calendar has been updated to Tin Shingle's Magazine Deadline Database for Tin Shingle’s All Access Pass Members. The biggest takeaway: The Holiday Gift issue is produced in July. So mark your calendar for next July to remind yourself not to check out too often by the pool if you want to try to get mentioned in this magazine. Also, listen to Tin Shingle’s monthly Training TuneUps, specifically the “PR Planning: What To Pitch This Month” ones where we give you hot tips like this!

Other magazines are releasing their 2019 plans at the end of November, so keep your eyes here for more updates!

PS: Vogue Knitting does have a Shop Local section for Yarn store listings. It’s a paid spot in the list, but seems like a great list to be in the middle of. We recommend it.

PPS: Having reviewed Vogue Knitting’s entire Media Kit, their paid advertorial features do look gorgeous. Organic PR is great for earning validation, while advertising is a great way to control your message and exposure. You know our position - advertising keeps the magazines in business! Without it, there’d be no book at all. If it’s in your budget, this ad spends seems like a great buy. In addition to any free PR you’re going to try to get!

Pitch This: The WHAT :: Added To Tin Shingle's Media Resources

Photo Credit: Screenshot of The WHAT website.

Just added to Tin Shingle’s Media Contacts Database, The WHAT. This e-newsletter has been on my radar for a while, as I’ve subscribed to it since 2016, according to my Gmail filter, and then it disappeared! I always enjoyed the emails, as they had deeply sincere recommendations. As you’ll see after you subscribe, there is no pay for play in their editorial. Thank gosh they reappeared again in my email.

Proof of The WHAT from inside my inbox…Get a feel for their content.

Described as “A clever list for curious people. Lovingly created by two BFFs on a mission to spark intellect and whet appetites.” You can read all about what The WHAT is on their official About Us page. But don’t let their cozy BFF lingo fool you - these two are powerhouses!

The Benefit Of The WHAT - It’s A Newsletter

The co-founders - Gina Pell and Amy Parker - are entrepreneurs. And they love the Internet 1.0, which is when people connected, and newsletters were heavy (they still are…it’s just not talked about in digital marketing as much at moment…but I predict a shift back to newsletters…which I think is already underway). Remember DailyCandy? You probably had - or have - other favorite newsletters that you live by. The WHAT is like that. And they have a Summit.

Having been involved in several ventures, one of them their own successful website, Splendora, was a huge success and was purchased by Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, a former Google president and former Polyvore CEO. According to this article at SF Gate: Splendora was an online style and culture website that provided women with high style purchasing recommendations, as well as produced city guides, blogged, had its own social network, and even developed an iPhone app early on. But that was then…

Pitching The WHAT

Back to The WHAT, because that’s what matters now. We’re talking very special, personal, recommendations. This will be quite a pitch you make. Subscribe to their newsletter for sure, and read the emails you’ll receive. Get to know their style. What makes them happy? What makes them feel useful to their readers? What books do they value?

Their editorial style is very buddy buddy BFF. It will be easy to feel like you are their BFF, and spill your guts to them. So be sure that you are very clear in what you are telling them about. Make no assumptions that they will click on anything to learn more, and they don’t need to hear your life story. They need to know why your thing is a must-know-about and should be in their list of 5 special things they recommend on Wednesdays. Their recommendations are only about 2 sentances long. Be punchy, up beat, authentic, and go for it!

“I Can’t Help It! I’m Spilling My Guts To Them!”

I know. I do this too. How do you control yourself from writing too much in your email pitch? Don’t worry - Tin Shingle has a forum for that called The Pitch Whisperer. Yeah that’s right - we have a forum, and it’s so Internet 1.0. It’s a place where you can go to connect with other like-minded Tin Shingle Members and copy/paste your email pitch, and we’ll give you feedback. It’s group-editing. We do have a private FB group, but this is for people who 1. prefer to not be at FB all the time, 2. need longer form writing and 3. can easily find what they conversed about last year. The Pitch Whisperer forum is part of our Community package of membership, so it’s real entry level.

Contact Information

You can get their contact information and recommended way to contact here, but you can also get it from within Tin Shingle’s Media Contact Database if you are a All Access Member of Tin Shingle, where you can get other ideas like this one when searching for the best, most perfect fits of media outlets who may want to tell their readers about how you are making the world a better place. Like, what if you didn’t know about The WHAT in the first place? If you were searching in our database for “Women’s Interest” or “Books” or “Wellness” or a few other areas of interest, you’d discover it.

Time Shingle’s New Media Contacts Team Are Artisan, Knitting, Excel Nerds!

Meet the Media Contact Research Team, Nerd Division. We just had our first training session. These artisans are game! Was not expecting two people from my crafting/handmade art world to be such Excel nerds, but I am so happy to discover this through their applications!

Now we are going to knit the Internet.........and do our best to keep up with the exciting world of the changing media in all of its forms. Tin Shingle’s Media Contacts Database is created for regular people like you and me who want to get the word out about their business, and realize that they can if they pitch the right idea to the right person at the right time.

Searching through a database like this is like cozying up with a lightening bolt of ideas you didn’t realize people specialized in. Really helpful to someone doing research for buzz building outreach.

Excited!

Next Live Broadcast of TuneUp: SEO + Social

We’re in the middle of a “social migration,” as we’re calling it here at Tin Shingle. Behavior at social platforms like Facebook and Instagram are changing. Usage activity at Facebook is still high, but it’s an increasingly questionable place, both with data privacy, and being over-designed and over-stuffed with information, causing users to miss a message.

As reported by CNBC in March 2018: “Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg broke his silence Wednesday on the Cambridge Analytica data scandal that's plagued the social media giant in recent days and slashed stock value. ‘We have a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can't then we don't deserve to serve you,’ Zuckerberg said in a statement posted to his Facebook page.”

Instagram’s co-founders abruptly resigned from Facebook two weeks ago, just one week before Facebook announced another data breach. They had worked there for six years after the merger, which apparently is a long time in the world of acquisitions. Would Facebook ever pull the plug on their-self if they were too weighed down with data issues? It's a very unlikely scenario, but is implied by Mark's statement. Plus, Facebook has deleted websites they have purchased in the past (like that data storage website Drop.io that was pre-Dropbox and we stored lots of stuff there!).

So social is on shaky ground. We all want to connect, and we will, but what do you have in your own tool belt (hopefully) all of the time that you can control?

Your website.

And how are people finding it?

Googling stuff.

What are they going to find there?

Amazing content you’re going to put there, and lots of pictures.

What do people do after they Google things? They buy things and subscribe to newsletters. Your newsletters and your products and services.

That’s right. Good old fashioned SEO.

The three most important things you can be doing right now for your business is what we will be covering in this TuneUp - so go register for it right now:

• Making your website pretty and alive

• Sending newsletters to the people who subscribed and really do want to hear from you - frequently (they really do!!!)

• Posting to Instagram (yeah, do it, we’ll be watching to see if and how the user experience at Instagram changes, but so far, keep posting)

Join Katie live at 3pm EST to hear refreshing SEO Tips, Newsletter Tips, and how to be treating your social.

Yahoo! Health - Should You Pitch It For A Product or Expert Feature?

Recently, a member of Tin Shingle requested Media Contacts for Yahoo! Health. We do this research for our members, and add them to our Media Contacts Database that All Access Members of Tin Shingle can search through 24/7. Finding these contacts was not an easy job. The website of Yahoo itself is filled with articles published at other websites. Most of the links from the main pages of Yahoo!'s sections take you out of Yahoo! and into another website.  So is Yahoo! a Zombie Website? It just links people out? Is anyone home?

Who Owns Yahoo!?

Poor Yahoo!, they once had such a shot at being a strong source of good reporting (see Forbes' "Yahoo! Sells to Verizon in the Saddest $5 Billion Deal in Tech History"), but that ginormous company merger (Verizon also owned AOL) may have derailed original content plans.
PS: Media trivia for you: the version of Verizon that owns Yahoo! and AOL is called Oath Inc..

Yahoo! Is Largely A Syndicate Website

At first blush, Yahoo! is simply aggregating articles on most of its web pages. Take a look at the homepage for Yahoo! Lifestyle, and you'll see Marie Claire, Elise Sole, People, and others. Some is sponsored content, meaning a company paid for an article to be written about them.

Yahoo! Pays To Have Content Published Elsewhere

We checked in with writer friends in the industry to get the real scoop on how Yahoo! works. Content production is quite active, but not much is coming from Yahoo!, unless it's Yahoo! Finance, News, or in their new section, Yahoo! Originals. Yahoo! Originals seems to (at moment) feature politics, severe weather, highly trending topics, and sponsored content.

"For everything else," says an editor who works for one of Yahoo!'s partner sites: "Yahoo! develops partnership deals with other sites through which they secure syndication rights for other companies' content. However, this is where it gets a little weird..."

Turns out, Yahoo! editors do ask for something specific around a general theme, like “fall recipes using pumpkins” from these partner websites, and get sent in a lot of pitches (aka story article ideas) from the writers who are on staff or permalance or in contract with those other publications. Yahoo! selects which pitches it wants written, and then those articles get published - get this - at the other websites (depending on the partner…not all of their partnerships work this way). However, an article that does work this way would also be displayed at Yahoo! as syndicated content with a link back to where that content was published.

"For instance," the editor explained, "a story on the 'Top 10 Fitness Moves for Flat Abs' may have originally been published on a partner site, but Yahoo! asked for that particular piece of content to be pitched, assigned, and written in the first place.”

What Does This Mean For Business Owners?

Yahoo! is a mirror website - reflecting content (often times) it commissioned to other publications to write. It's a win-win for everyone, has a handful of original content published at its website. Because it features links to other websites, there is lots more exposure for articles at other publications, however. What is our takeaway as business owners, artists and makers wanting to be featured in an article (or the headline of an article) at Yahoo!?

Study the publications that Yahoo! republishes, and the writers who wrote those articles.

Pitch the writers about your business or expertise, to get on their radar. Tin Shingle's recommendation has always been to stay in good graces - and on the radar - with writers. When a writer gets assigned a story to write, they are quick out of the gate to find the source to quote, or place or product to recommend.

Contributing Writers Are Gold Nuggets

Tin Shingle has a new section in our Media Contacts Database that is specific to Contributing Writers. We are building it out, but it lists writers as themselves - which doesn't really change as they move from job to job.

Writers continue to write for multiple publications - some never listed in their bios because they forget to update their websites, or other databases.

Get fresh ideas for who these writers are, and keep track in your own PR Planning & Media Tracking Sheet that you can download from Tin Shingle. Download it, plus Media Contacts, at Tin Shingle’s website.

To learn more about how to pitch Yahoo!, visit this article in Tin Shingle’s “Ask the Experts” section.

Tin Shingle Is Hiring: Research Assistant for Editorial Calendars + Media Contacts (Part Time)

It is with a heavy but excited heart that I let you know that Tin Shingle Team Member Ashley Cox is letting the wind blow her abroad to Warwick in order to volunteer to help build structures to help people. Little did you know that Ashley is actually trained in construction things, and can drive a bulldozer.

Ashley is like a Mary Poppins to me. She blew into my life when my first child was born, and has blown in and out of it ever since. Part of her working for Tin Shingle includes knowing that she can be accepted into a volunteer program at any time, and we are fully supportive of that. Ashley is a Super Sleuther, so we will miss her time away!

The move gets me into a discomfort zone, but it means I get to meet someone - or someones - else - which grows Tin Shingle all around. Don’t worry - Ashley hasn’t completely left Tin Shingle. We are all remote workers around here. She will be on top secret missions for Tin Shingle from time to time.

Please see below for the job information if it is a fit for you or someone you know.

ABOUT TIN SHINGLE

Tin Shingle is a training center and community for business owners, artists and makers who are promoting their brands. Tin Shingle puts the power of PR, Social Media, SEO, eNewsletter and Design theory directly into the hands of creators with resources they can tap into any time. Crafted by business owners for business owners, Tin Shingle's programming trains people in how to get publicity, how to have sha-zam social media streams, and how to master newsletter marketing. Tin Shingle offers a subscription membership where people can access different resources to improve their outreach. You can learn about that here.

JOB DESCRIPTION:

The person who is the right fit for this assignment loves to dig online, research who‘s writing what in the media, and can’t help but get sparked with article ideas from the research. If you don’t know what an Editorial Calendar is, but you want to learn, that is great.

This Research Assistant position will be hunting and gathering for two of Tin Shingle’s resource databases made available to our business and artists members who are pitching the media with article and story ideas: Editorial Calendars and Media Contacts.

Editorial Calendars: These are PDFs put out by magazines that present what a magazine will be generally about for each month. It’s a great way to know when a magazine will be doing their Back to School issue, or the big Gear Guide, or The Innovator Issue. The Research Assistant Googles and finds these PDFs online (usually found in Media Kits), or emails sales reps in the advertising department of a magazine to ask for the latest plans. Monthly themes are then typed up by the Research Assistant and imported into Tin Shingle’s database.

Media Contacts: Basic contact information for people who work in magazines, TV, podcasts, radio and blogs are available for Tin Shingle’s members to search through in our Media Contacts database. We start our research in a bigger media database called Meltwater, and then whittle down that list by our own cross-checking research to make sure a person still works there, or works in a different capacity (maybe a top editor moved from a full time position to a part time contributing writer at a publication). Job assignments will be to take a deep dive into a media outlet (Vogue) or a subject (Spirituality) to gather or update fresh information.

Please Note: This is a not a free ride into Meltwater for a PR professional looking for contacts for their clients. This is a research position that involves cross-checking and communication with Tin Shingle’s owner Katie to make sure we are updating people correctly. If you are a PR professional who really wants this gig, you can apply, but know that there are deliverables for each assignment and you won’t be pitching the media for this.

Skillsets Needed for This Job:

• Fast Typer: You will be copying and pasting a lot, and may be re-writing in order for Tin Shingle’s members to get a better read on a person or magazine theme.

• Fluid In Social Media: While researching a media contact, you will know how to Google and search to verify where someone is working, and what they tend to write about.

• Excel Nerd: Everything we do at Tin Shingle is in Excel. Information you find is typed into Excel spreadsheets, and uploaded into Tin Shingle’s database by you (don’t worry - we have step-by-step directions!). Our systems to keep track of when a media outlet was updated is also in Excel in Google Drive so that we can stay coordinated and work together from the same document.

• Communicator: You will be working directly with the owner of Tin Shingle, Katie, with updates of what you are finding, and any questions or judgement calls you have along the way.

Location

This position is work-from-home (or wherever). You can live in Beacon or California or Colorado or Georgia. Tin Shingle does share an office with A Little Beacon Blog on Beacon’s Main Street, but our Open Hours are irregular. So it’s work-from-wherever to start.

TO APPLY:

Please send cover letter and résumé to katie@tinshingle.com addressed to Katie Hellmuth Martin. Email is best - no need to telephone in.

PAY RATE:

$20/hour, Part Time

About 10 hours per week

Thank you!

Why I Subscribe To Magazines - And Read In Print - Vogue’s Article On The First Baby In the Senate

While turning through this month’s issue of Vogue, I was so surprised to learn that Illinois Senator Ladda Tammy Duckworth lost her legs while serving in the military while piloting a Black Hawk helicopter in Iraq. As a subscriber, I also get Vogue’s daily email campaigns. Never saw this one in their emails promoting the print edition. Nor did I see digital promotion of the Karlie Kloss article on her new love of code (oh wait, this is also funny about her promoting her new code camp)and her involvement with helping girls learn to code (Internets and websites and stuff). But maybe I missed them!

Back to the senator - I am pretty sure I heard a feature on her in a NPR interview about her recent childbirth (oh I did! found the link right here), pumping in her senate office, and the ridiculous baby clothing uniform questions she got from male senators.

From that interview, I did not know she was 50 and that this baby was her second! This is why I subscribe to magazines in print! Thank you Vogue for producing this story. Written by Rebecca Johnson, photo by Annie Leibovitz.

And one more takeaway: this is why having 1 news source - local or otherwise - is not enough. One source cannot possibly tell all of the information.  

Research for 2019 Editorial Calendars Has Begun!

Photo Credit: Screenshot of a page at CondeNast.com

UPDATE 1/27/2019: Dozens of your favorite magazine editorial calendars for 2019 have been added to Tin Shingle Member-Only PR Center. You can search through them any time by Areas of Interest, or by Magazine Name. Editorial Calendars for 2019 include Allure, Cosmopolitan, Esquire, Essence, Rolling Stone, Southern Living, Town and Country, Elle, Inc. Magazine, Men’s Health, Money, and so many others. See the full 2019 Editorial Calendar list here. You can join Tin Shingle as a member to get instant access to our collection!

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October marks the time we begin hunting and gathering the editorial calendars for print magazines. All of your favorite glossies in the grocery store and nail salon. Digital magazines and blogs don’t so much publish these because their publications cycles are very fast and up to the minute. But the print publications do - in the most general sense - publish the general direction they are headed for each month in the print edition.

Editorial calendars are released starting in October, November, and sometimes not until January. Tin Shingle begins our research now, by both visiting websites of publishing houses for their media kits, as well as emailing advertising executives if we can’t find it online.

Now, sometimes what we find is very general. Like Vogue Knitting. They only publish in general when the closing date is for their Spring issue, or their Holiday issue. But for small business owners, makers and artists, this deadline is very important to know. It helps us know some very important basic information, like when the Holiday Issue is being put together. In July!!!!

Yeah. So that’s not common knowledge for you and me, but it will be now that you hang out in Tin Shingle’s Editorial Calendar database.

So, if you log in right now, the Editorial Calendar section is very sparse. The fun is just beginning as we tap the keyboard to get the themes and dates for 2019.