A place for crochet lovers to BE

If you want me to promote you...

You would not believe how often I get requests from PR firms and other websites to plug their events for free. I used to think this was just how things were done, so I would contact those same people and ask them to promote my events and the response would be, "Not unless you're a client or you can pay X $ for ad space."

Um, so why should I promote their event? For the privilege? For the honor? I don't think so, obviously i have a big enough reach that you want me to plug your event, so guess what, I am not giving myself away.

My next favorite is the amount of people who get a hold of me wanting me to plug quilting and knitting events. Really? What does Crochet Liberation Front mean to you? Seriously? Do I LOOK like a quilting web site? Is there ONE article about quilting there? Seriously? Knitting? Have you bothered to READ my blog?

PR firms are now on notice: You tell us "little guys" we need to be professional and to do our homework? Well, my gauntlet is thrown to you! Do your homework... If you want someone to help you out or promote something for you, you might just want to check to see if they are interested or if it gels with what they do.

I used to just ignore these errant requests, now? I respond back with, "Your event does not match our messaging, however should your clients have a crochet centered event we would be happy to negotiate advertising rates with you."

There, that showed 'em, right? Probably not but at least I feel better.

6 members like this

CroPro Comment by Craftwich on March 6, 2012 at 4:41pm: I feel better, too. Knowing I don't have to wade through knitting and quilting ads I don't care about! ;) On Hookey, anyways...

BossLady Comment by Laurie Wheeler on March 7, 2012 at 12:03am: Glad you noticed the lack of those :D I will have advertising on Hookey.org at some point, but I am deciding on my advertising policies etc at the moment. Since I hadn't intended CLF 3.0 and Hookey.org to be separate spaces, I'm having to redo that part of my plan :D But I can guarantee this there will never other crafts advertised here. There may be yarn, or hooks, or patterns, or multi-craftural sites etc, but never a sea of non-crochet ads to wade through.

Member Comment by CrochetGeek - Teresa Richardson on March 7, 2012 at 8:37am: I get quite a few offers as well. One of my favorite was out of the blue, from a known publishing company promoting different authors. They sent me an email asking if I would like to review their book. I wrote back the told them yes, thinking they would actually send me a real book. Something I could physically touch and use in a video that might convince people to run out and buy the book. Never heard back from them until a few months later. This time they said I would have early access to a blog. Still no book. I looked at the bottom of the email and found a unsubscribe link. Someone from their company took the time to find my email and sign me up to their email list. The yarn companies and publishing companies need to learn that it works both ways.

BossLady Comment by Laurie Wheeler on March 7, 2012 at 11:01am: Teresa, doesn't that just beat all? I have to say though, this time the PR person actually responded thanking me for clarifying what we do and if they have a crochet event that they can contact me for advertising space or promotion. Which is better than what usually happens, maybe it's my attitude that changed, maybe it's because I see myself as professional and not just playing around any more? Maybe it was a fluke :D

Member Comment by CrochetGeek - Teresa Richardson on March 7, 2012 at 11:55am: Another thing, I tried to get in to a specific site for learning how to write crochet instructions. The site owner wrote back with, "Well, I don't mean to be catty but you would have to be a professional. Have you spoke public an event, been published or earn a living from what you do"? At that time I had 2-3 million video views on my YouTube channel and was earning revenue but I didn't think it was any of her darn business.

I am an independent content creator. One of the biggest things I have learned is the "good old boys" want to keep it all for them, their family and friends. It has just been in the past couple years that most good old boys are threatened by independent content creators in every aspect of content creation, music, art, TV, crafting.

BossLady Comment by Laurie Wheeler on March 7, 2012 at 12:09pm: Well said ;)

CroPro Comment by Craftwich on March 7, 2012 at 3:09pm: re: "I don't mean to to be catty, but..."

Dang.

BossLady Comment by Laurie Wheeler on March 7, 2012 at 10:32pm: BTW when I talk about other websites I'm not talking about little fellas, I'm talking big fellas!

CroPro Comment by Tracie Barrett on March 15, 2012 at 5:21am: You should read The Bloggess. She has a whole set of posts on how she deals with PR firms that hit her up for stuff that has nothing to do with her blog. Most handle it well (she sends them a photo of Wil Wheaton collating paper), but one dared to call her (in a reply all email that went to her when it shouldn't have) a f'ing bitch. When she called him on it, he said she's not relevant. And in the words that should strike fear in every PR firm's hearts, she said, "Please stand by for a demonstration of my relevance." She then tweeted what happened. And the twitterverse EXPLODED. It was epic. She's one of my heroes. :)