I'm holding a free seminar on communications strategies for startups at TechLoft in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, February 15th at 18:00.  TechLoft is located at 14 Nachmani St, just off Rothchild.

This is NOT a seminar on getting PR.  

The intent here is to help your startup think about messaging, your voice, content strategy, following and engaging with journalists, analysts and bloggers in advance of your even thinking of media relations.

If you would like to attend, please register here on Eventbrite, so you will be you are added to the list.

A special thanks to Gilad Tuffias, Founder and Managing Director at TechLoft for making this happen.

Before you pitch...

Be strong.  Show your strength with great writing and insights that will make you a source for the media.  Photo by me - shot at the Mermaid Parade at Coney Island, NY.  

1.   Make sure your company's blog is current and has helpful information that users (and journalists / bloggers / analysts) can benefit from.

2.   When you populate content, make it original content, and not a reciting of an article from Mashable, The Read Write Web, etc.

If you are going to recite these types of cites, then expand the content and add some insight.  Why this matters, why this is important, and what to do next.

3.  When you write, show some deep, original thinking.  If someone is going to write about you, make a good impression - before you pitch.

If they are going to find you, you want to illustrate that you'd be a great source for them and have something compelling to say.

4. More than just getting your product or platform covered, you should aim to become a source to the media that will pay off in other ways beyond the launch or a new tweak to what you think may be next.

Do the work. 

This really works.  

Time and again.

I recently met with Jonathan “Jonny” Saacks, General Partner with Genesis Partners, who is acting as one of the guiding forces and sponsors of  The Junction, a new type of startup accelerator / co-working space for entrepreneurs in Tel Aviv.

Traditional venture capital firms like Genesis Partners historically (and continue) to invest the build-out of the Internet.  

In a perfect world, the company is funded, grows, does the right thing, and has an exit.  Having personally served Genesis Partners portfolio companies, AudioCodes and Allot Communications who’ve both had exits, I have a personal high regard for its management team and approach to building new companies.

Sometimes, a startup may not fit the traditional model of a VC-funded company.  Capital requirements are generally much lower, as are the barriers to market entry and the potential to disrupt.  Yet, VCs like Genesis Partners need to stay abreast of emerging trends and waves to come. 

The Junction serves not only the startup community, but Genesis Partners itself, who can keep emerging trends on their radar, and possibly bring the right startup into an ecosystem of deal flow and new opportunities.

I’d like to see more VC firms follow this model. 

Kudos to Genesis Partners and their forward thinking.

Assaf Kindler is the co-founder of a software development house, Yazam, that enables the collaboration between Israeli and Palestinian coders.  Born from the Peres Center for Peace, he turned what was an NGO into a for-profit enterprise that is focused on business and not politics, yet still achieve some nothing less than short of an amazing venture with social good.  

See releated story from Bloomberg.

Spend a few minutes of your day watching, listening and discovering some of Israel's best and brightest entreprenuers that are building scalable, global and distruptive web-based enterprises. When you attend a Jeff Pulver breakfast event in Israel you never know who you'll meet and connect with.

Spend a few minutes watching this video to learn about people who live in Israel, have moved to Israel or, like Jeff  and me, come back and forth to Israel to be inspired and connect with people that are disrupting every part of the traditional business ecosystem.

I work for journalists, analysts, and bloggers.  

Photo by me shot somewhere in West Virginia (c) 2011

My goal is to bring them really great stories, that come from companies with great technology, platforms and products.  

Behind those companies are great people who are passionate and really give a shit about delivering something disruptive, significantly better, possibly (but not not always) less expensive, that in all cases delievery a superb experience.

Yes, I work for journalists, analysts and bloggers.

My clients pay me (and the team I build) to do this.  

I think like a journalist, and provide content, information, data, case studies, end user profiles, access to the client and more.  

I work to help to increase the journalist, analyst, and bloggers of coverage because I've done my homework and prepared them for the best story they can cover.

When you work to serve the journalist, analyst, and blogger you get an inverse rate of success.  

It goes way up.

Time for A Re-Set

Re-set your thinking to not being about you or your company, but how you can help make the journalist, analyst or blogger more successful in their work, not yours.

I am a believer in contributed stories.  Publications need them and it sets you apart from just pitching your news.  It helps establish your thought leadership, and you can re-purpose these contributions for your business development and sales teams.

Here's an example of a piece that just published yesterday in CSO Online from my client, John Dickson, CISSP, at Denim Group, and here's some simple rules to follow so you can pitch, and place your contributed story.

1.  Match your expertise to the right media.  This is a security angle, so it was pitched to a security related publication.

2.  Make sure there is an appropriate section (even if it's an industry specific site) to your content.  In this case, the focus being Data Protection.

3.  Identify the right journalist who handles these sections, or the particular subject.  

4.  Read previous contributions and see what is written, the style, the length, the subject matter, the vision.

5.  Send a brief (repeat - brief) pitch.  Something like:  Hi John, my client, (or my company) would like to contribute a piece to XYZ Magazine on the subject of XXXX.  The story would be written by XXX, who is the XXXX at our company.  We have 3 subjects in mind which include - (list the subjects).  Would you consider our submitting an abstract on one or all three for your consideration?  Anything we contribute would be original to your publication and in the context of your editorial themes.

6.  Send you pitch and wait five working days.  If you don't hear back, send it again.  The realities are that journalists are pitched to death and have very full inboxes with lots of other things to do.

7.  Assuming you get a yes, it's your task to then submit an abstract - generally a paragraph or two on the subject matter.  Make sure your content and proposed story is unique, does not overstate the obvious and is useful.  Don't make it a sales pitch.

8.  Send the abstract and wait another five days.  If you don't hear back, make another inquiry.  This can take time, but it's worth the wait. The cycle on this article that I pointed to took 90 days. 

9.  If the abstract is accepted, then get going on the article.  Make sure your article length is in accord with what the journalist want you to adhere to.

10. Once the article is live, share your content.  And rejoice!

So... how about you?  

Have you pitched contributed stories before?  

Share your experiences in how you did this.

I am returning to Israel from March 27 through April 8 and I would love to connect in several ways:

1.  Speaking:  

If you have a tech related group and would like a guest speaker on the subject of strategic PR, the social web, and branded content.  You can see some of my presentations here.  Last month, when I was in Israel I spoke at the MEGAComm Writer's Conference and the Israel Startup Network event at the IBM Innovation Center.

2.  Texas Israel Chamber of Commerce:

Ok... I am biased.  But just so you know, Texas was really God's way of saying he needed another, very special place in the world, after he created Israel.  So, he created Texas.

If you are thinking of expanding your Israel-based business, or thinking of opening your U.S. operations, I hope you will consider Texas.  

Through the Texas Israel Chamber of Commerce, I can help you learn more about out great state and all the amazing things going on here.  We're really nice people, easy to do business with, and you are simply not going to find better Bar-B-Que or Mexican food in other places like Silicon Valley, New York, Boston, etc.

3.  Working with me and my amazing team:

I've re-tooled the way I operate and now running a virtual agency.  I have mashed up an amazing team of communications, design, development, writing and analytics professionals.  My focus remains on message, communications strategy, traditional PR and blending it with B2B social media and branded content.  

If you would like to learn more and meet, email me:  alan@weinkrantz.com so we can connect.  Click here to get an idea of the roster of clients I have served.

4.  One day / on site consultation.

Maybe you know you need to do something about your PR and Social Media initiatives, but not sure what to do.  Maybe you have internal staff that does some type of Marcom.  Or, maybe... just maybe, you have no budget, but a great story and maybe a great CTO who would not mind publishing content about what you are doing and why your technology is so important.

I have a one day on-site service offering, for Israeli companies only, which runs $1,500.00.  It's an on-site workshop aimed at helping you deep dive into what your communications strategy should be, what it could look like, and what intellectual assets you have that could become the foundation for doing some of this on your own - without the need of a traditional agency. 

Without the need of an agency?  

Yes.  

No agency.  

You may not need one.  At least, not yet.  

You may just need to do a better job of story telling.  You may just need access to a couple of journalists that might be candidates to learn about your story.  Your CTO may be the better story teller, rather than having an agency person doing this for you.  

Much depends on what your company does, it's scale and where you are headed.  On my visit to Israel in late February, I met with many possible clients, who really did not need the services of an agency.  

I am of the opinion that early in life as a startup, you might not be well served be an agency, let alone may not have a budget.  But you need to be found. You want to be discovered.  You want to connect with possible partners, investors, and new customers.  I really think if properly trained, and re-tooled in a new mind set of branded content, you can do much of this yourself. 

If you want to learn more, let me know, so we can schedule - alan@weinkrantz.com.

5.  A free seminar for  VC firms' portfolio companies

I am in the process of doing some outreach to Israel-based VCs, but hoping through this post, it might catch someone's attention that I might miss.  

So....if you are a VC in Israel and can assemble a group of 8 of your portfolio companies, I will conduct a free one hour seminar on PR / Social Media / Branded Content.

You supply the space, the coffee, WiFi and a projector with a screen, and I am yours. 

6.  Speaking to Israeli University students studying technology marketing and business development

I think every university student is a personal brand.  They've been in the Army, they are now at University and they are getting ready to leave and join an amazing tech company that is bound to disrupt and change the world.  

I have done this presentation in the U.S. which you may view here, and would like to offer it when I am visiting Israel.  If you are a Dean or Professor, reach out and let me know. 

7.  Coming to SXSW 2011 in Austin?  Come by and say Howdy!

I have some friends from Israel who are coming to SXSW which starts next week.  If you are coming over, I'd love to meet. The #140Conf is going to have it's own booth, so come by and chill out on our comfy couches we'll have for our community.

Thanks for reading this post.  If you have other suggestions or observations, leave a comment.

I’m thrilled to be joining Jeff Pulver at the upcoming MEGAComm Conference in Tel Aviv on February 20.  The event will be held at the Kfar Maccabiah and Jeff will be delivering the opening keynote.  

There will be amazing and concurrent sessions all day long, and will conclude with a keynote from Deputy Foreign Minister, Danny Ayalon.

How Can I Help You?

I’ll be conducting a seminar that will focus on the key elements needed to shape a company's message and build a successful media, blogger and industry analyst relations program.

The seminar will address subjects including message development, gaining media, blogger and analyst attention, tradeshow support, using online research tools, social media, newswire distribution strategies, content development, and much more.

With the advent of the social Internet, it’s important not to lose sight on the importance of traditional Public Relations and its role in today’s hyper connected online world.

Being in Israel can actually work to your advantage. 

If you can work around the time zones and some differences in holiday observances, you are located in a part of the world that comes with high regard and is known for a center of technology innovation. 

Listening, following, engaging and creating content takes place in Israel just as easily as it does in the U.S.

I’m finalizing my presentation and would love your input on what you’d like to learn. 

• What are some of the issues facing your company and you personally in terms of getting your job done?  
• How are you incorporating social media into your communications programs?
• What challenges do you face in reaching the media in the U.S.?
• As a marketer and / or a technical writer, what tools and platforms are you using to publish content on the social Internet?
• What cultural barriers do you face in trying to get your management to "get it?"

Leave a comment or just email me:  alan at weinkrantz dot com. 

I look forward to meeting and connecting you with in Tel Aviv!

I was fortunate to attend a talk this evening in Tel Aviv given by Twitter's Biz Stone. (Thank you Kfir Pravda for inviting me.)

(photo: my name tag in Hebrew)

While Biz gave some interesting insights and snippets of information on how the company came to be, the real message that Biz focused on, was the driving belief that Twitter is not a triumph of technology, but rather one of humanity.

Biz said that if you give people a simple tool like Twitter, they can communicate in an open manner and that great things can happen. He pointed not to the business applications so much as to the power of this platform, but how Twitter has been used in social causes, and political movements such as Iran in disrupting traditional news media, and how if we can just foster a network of open communication, good things do happen.

His message seemed timely, especially in light of the upcoming Thanksgiving Holiday. And speaking of Thanksgiving - yes, there's a Tweetsgiving in Tel Aviv tomorrow night that I will be taking part in.

I look forward to meeting the community that makes this yet another region of the world where the social web meets social good.