Cool Tip of the Day

www.helpareporter.com

It's essentially a poor man's PR Newswire. From what I gather, a journalist/social networking expert started the site and it's a way to bring journalists together with the "expert sources" they need for their stories. You sign up as an "expert source" and are emailed up to three times a day with a list of the queries this guy receives over the course of the day. If there is something on the list that you are qualified to talk about then you email the reporter directly. The reporter gets their sources and you get free PR for your product/company/service/etc. In exchange you promise to never contact journalists for something you are not qualified to talk about and never mine the list to use to send pitches. On the same hand, the person running the site promises never to sell the mailing list to anyone so you don't have to worry about spam.

I signed up last night and so far am decently impressed with both the range of topics covered in each email - everything from LifeStyle to Business & Technology - but also the range of journalists looking for sources. In today's list there were people from small blogs to CNN and the Oprah Show. While nothing on today's list was something I could talk to I did find a blog that was looking for holiday gift ideas in an industry that a friend of mine runs a small business so I sent the information over to her and she's going to follow up tomorrow. Hopefully something positive will come of it for her and perhaps down the road I can be an expert as something.