Hey 19: Things to do when promoting a cause or company, product or person, band or brand

This is a quick attempt to put into one place various bits of advice that I've been giving out to various people over the past few months with respect to raising the profile of a person, place, or thing.

The idea is that you have something you want to publicize. It could be a band, a brand, a product, a company, or an indie film; or it could be you.

Before you go out and hire a PR agency or pay for a press release, you might want to try these things. They are free, except for your time and an Internet connection. In the old days they would have been called guerilla marketing. Now it's called Web 2.0 marketing or New Rules marketing. The strategy is to create interest--in whatever you are promoting--by being interesting. You want to draw people to the object of attention rather than subject them to a message. I will try to post something later on how to be interesting. The following are 19 things to get started with. I've broken them down into 3 phases:

Sosa Sucks! The social cost of selfish sport star substance abuse

As yet another big name in baseball gets attached to substance abuse [this time it's some pumped up cheater by the name of Sammy Sosa] I remain stunned by the narrow-minded focus of the media. Sure, some of the better sports writers wrestle with what all this means but most coverage is confined to:

1. The fans (how will they cope with the fall of their idols?)


2. The sport (will people still respect baseball and pay to watch games?)


3. The team (can they win games without the suspended player?)


4. The player (how will it affect his Hall of Fame chances)

I'm tempted to say screw them all, or at least numbers 2 through 4. I'm appalled that nobody seems to care a toss about what this continued abuse of "substances"  means to the people who actually need these substances to stay alive (yes, you can die from adult growth hormone deficiency--see this blog post).

Why doesn't anyone write about how selfish abuse by obscenely overpaid sports-jerks has made Human Growth Hormone (HGH) harder to get for people with medical conditions who legitimately need it to function? How about...