Reading time: 3 – 5 minutes

If you have your own business or are working on a major project you must have a media kit. If you don’t have a media kit available to give members of the media, your business or project looks very amateur and hardly worth promoting in the news.

So what is a media kit? This is something usually put together by your PR person/firm working for you. It includes press releases, a backgrounder, a fact sheet, a bio, an image bank and more. And it’s getting to the point to where media kits are best done digitally. Make a kit and put it all on a CD, make sure you package it creatively and send it to media outlets.

I created a media kit a while ago for Leechon – and more specifically for Tufaan. The “Press Section” on Tufaan’s website is composed of a couple of things I included in the media kit, including the image bank. I plan to update the media kit and create a creative, graphically appealing digital version of it soon.

Also, it’s pretty important you get someone in public relations do to this for you. Why? Because if you want to send press releases to print media (like newspapers), then you have to write in AP style (associated press style) it was a pain to learn most of the AP Style book by heart. For example:

Wrong: Leechon gave 20% of their profits to charity.

Right: Leechon gave 20 percent of their profits to charity.

—

Wrong: She lived on Burbank Dr.

Right: She lived on Burbank Drive.

BUT

Wrong: She lived on 123 Burbank Drive

Right: She lived on 123 Burbank Dr.

There are a lot of subtle differences. If you don’t write it the correct way in your press releases, they will most likely be thrown in the garbage by the editor. Your job is to provide everything for them and make their lives easier so they willingly give you free publicity by writing about your business or project. Also, if your writing – particularly news writing- isn’t strong, make sure you hire a PR person.

If you want to know exactly what goes into a media kit, I’ll go into detail on my blog since it might get pretty lengthy. I also would like to do a series about each element in a media kit including how to write a good press release, fact sheet and backgrounder. And hopefully at the end you’ll be able to do your own PR work (well, some of it at least).

Finally, I plan in the near future to run my own PR firm for Muslims. Alhamdulillah it’s something I can do at the comfort of my own home and alhamdulillah it’s something I can do quite well, bi’fadhlillahi ta’ala. I’m currently compiling a Muslim Media Database (MMD) with the information of all media outlets and the preferred way they’d like to be reached.

If you are looking for someone to do PR for your business or project go ahead and send me an email @ media (at) leechon.com . I plan now – and in the future – to only accept a few clients at a time. And most of all, it has to be something halal and something worth promoting.

To learn more about how to make a media kit, check out my post.

~Shirien

*apparently I’m going to have to go back and talk about what exactly a press release is and why we send them out. What PR people do is still something a lot of people aren’t aware of. But until then, know that half the stuff you see on the news are things covered due to someone sending a press release. Reporters aren’t always just at the right place at the right time (or know what’s going on everywhere). PR has a lot to do with that.

Reading time: 3 – 4 minutes

“New Media” includes anything from blogs, podcasts and wikis to things such as RSS feeds and webinars (seminars on the web).

My first part of this series was about RSS feeds. If you are not familiar with RSS feeds then consider yourself behiiiind, baby- behind in technology. To catch up follow my tutorial. Subscribing to RSS feeds will save you so much time during the day and make things so much more convenient.

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Recently, I’ve stumbled upon something addictive – something that can be extremely beneficial for you in terms of marketing, but could also become an addiction that wastes your time. And I don’t want to be the one responsible on the Day of Judgment for people wasting their time and not doing beneficial things, so as a disclaimer: I waaarned you.

So what is this beneficial/non-beneficial thing, you ask? Stumble Upon, of course.

Stumble Upon is a tool that lets you “stumble upon” websites of your interest (Islamic websites, photography websites, media websites…etc). You can even submit your own website or blog as well as any other website you like to this system. People submit their pages so that other people can come across them randomly- with the hope that they will bookmark it, add it to their RSS feed or add it to their favorites and come back to it. This is a good tool for marketing, because you can reach out to (and are more accessible to) your target audiences.

So how does this baby work?A little tutorial I like to call: “Waddle Waddle Boom Bam Waa” <– that would be a little baby trying to walk…. stumbles upon a toy… and … well, you get the point. I know, therapy tomorrow inshaAllah. Sooo…

—–

Step 1: Go to www.stumbleupon.com, and create an account by clicking the “Join Stumble Upon” button.

Step 2: Download the “Stumble upon tool bar” by also clicking that button also on the front page. I have to admit I HATE extra tool bars, but this one really doesn’t bother me because I use it all the time.

Step 3: Pick the category of websites you want to “Stumble Upon.” I suggest cats, “Meow.”

Step 4: If you want to start randomly coming upon websites, click the “Stumble!” button on your tool bar. And you if you like or dislike the website, click the “I like it!” button or the thumbs down button.

Step 5: If you would like to submit your own site or another website you like, then simply press the “I like it!” button, and if it was not already submitted to Stumble Upon, a new window will pop up asking some basic info on the site you are submitting.

I don’t recommend always stumbling upon sites for a couple of reasons: some of those sites have music that automatically start playing when you come across it and some have bad advertisements or images. So It’s best to use it for your advantage without going into something haram. Wallahu ta’ala alem.

But this was by far the funniest thing I’ve ever stumbled upon: (I told you to add the cat category, )

Enjoy,

Shirien

Reading time: < 1 minute

I just recently joined a membership based video mastermind group. as part of the introduction process and breaking the ice, everyone in the group was requested to submit a short video about themselves. I figured I'll have some fun with it.

Check it out:

Reading time: 2 – 4 minutes

Remember the movie “Cast Away” with Tom Hanks? If you’ve seen the movie you may think the hero of the movie is Tom Hanks or even Helen Hunt. But oh no, what’s this…? The hero was… who?! Yup, that’s right. The hero was none other than Fed Ex. (and Wilson too <– major product placement)

A Fed Ex employee ends up stranded on an Island. The packages that were washed ashore with him save his life. In one package he even finds his best friend Wilson. And if you remember at the very end of the movie when he gets rescued and flown home, you have the Fed Ex headquarters throw him a welcome home party and there is confetti and you feel all happy and warm inside.

Fed Ex might as well have paid for the whole movie, because the whole movie was basically an advertisement for them.

For product placement to be really successful,  it has to be seamless. If it’s not seamless, it’s no good. Or is it? We had a big discussion about this in one of my Mass Comm classes. We sat there watching clips trying to count how many times we could see product placement. We looked for everything from people picking up a Coke to drink in the middle of their conversation to basically whole plots of episodes revolving around one product.

CAN YOU FIND THE PRODUCT PLACEMENT? This is a clip from the movie “The Mummy.” Watch verrrrrrrrry closely:

ok.. but seriously, the next time you sit down to watch something (clean) see how much product placement you can find.

Why are most people now switching to product placement in shows and movies? One word: TiVo. Tivo is an advertiser’s worst nightmare. People can zap past commericials and the number of households that are switching to TiVo is growing at a rapid rate . Oh yeah, and advertisers HATE you. Why? Because you’re a channel switcher. When commercials come on, you switch the channels until they’re over. That’s why they have to put their product in the show itself.

The question posed to you is, “Do YOU mind when you see product placement?” What if it’s obvious? Do you get mad? Or is it so long as the plot is good(and halal), you don’t care? Part of the argument is the fact that we are subconsciously being bombarded with all this advertisement and we don’t even realize.

Watch this clip of Darren Brown (subliminal Advertising) and see the genius (and scariness) of advertisements and their impact on our subconscious minds:

Again, I don’t advocate or support watching TV or anything that might have haram content.What other Movies or Shows, (or examples) can you find with obvious (or seamless) product placement?

~Shirien

Reading time: 1 – 2 minutes

Assalamu Alaikum wa rahmitullahi wa barakatuh,

Become a fan of “Tufaan” on the new group on Facebook! Webops@leechonfilms [dot] com is in charge of the group. So if you guys have any questions or suggestions for the group go ahead and email at the email above.

Actually, I will be the first to admit I’m not normally on facebook. I disabled my account longgg ago. I created this account for PR/Marketing purposes for Tufaan. So me and Mr. Facebook here haven’t been getting along.

I started to add random people to my friends list (if you’re on there.. know you’re esbecial and not ummm random?….. yeah… ) So after doing that for a while Facebook thought I was spam, soooo they told me my option of adding people to my friends list is now temporarily disabled . But feel free to add me if you like!

Anyway, for all of you who read the blog and are awaiting the release of the movie, go ahead and join the group. We’ll be posting “featurette” videos of each “Hero” in the documentary up soon on the site, so look out for that inshaAllah.

Barak Allahu feekom all,

wassalam,

Umm Ayoub.