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5 Frequently Asked HARO Questions

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HARO is a powerful way to build free PR. For the most part, I have been using HARO as a source. Writing Lead The Stampede motivated me to become a reporter on HARO as well. I have learned a lot about HARO over many months, and there was a point when I had many questions. These are the 5 most frequently asked questions about HARO.

  1. Why does it take people so long for reporters to get back to me? This was on the top of my list of questions. I did not get to know the answer to that question until I decided to become a reporter. Sending out an email with hours or days to spare gives you enough time to come up with a response. However, the reporter needs to read all of those responses. As the reporter reads the responses, that reporter needs to do research on every person. The reporter wants to interview the best options, and the weeding process takes some time. It took me an hour to read through 45 responses. Imagine how much time it takes someone who is from the Associated Press or Forbes to read the responses they got. In addition, the reporter has to contact possible candidates with individual emails/interviews which takes up more time. This is why people are rarely told if they got rejected. There simply is not enough time in the day to send out that many emails and still do everything else such as writing blog posts or scheduling tweets.
  2. How do I get more reporters to accept me? We all want the reporter to say yes to us. We all want to be in the Forbes article, the first page of The New York Times, or any other big magazine or TV channel. The three components that go into getting more reporters to accept you are how much time you put into your response, how clear your response is, and how quickly you respond. For some reporters, you could be the first or last person to respond and still get featured. However, most reporters usually look for no more than 5 people, and some queries get well over 100 responses. When you send out your response to the reporter, include your bio and credentials in the email. Instead of letting the reporter guess or do more research to figure out that you are the right fit, use your bio and credentials to convince them that you are the right fit.
  3. How do I become a reporter? The main requirement is that your blog or website needs to have an Alexa rank under 1 million. Just like all other places on the web, HARO does have restrictions on inappropriate content and using HARO to promote products. Remember that HARO is something to either get free PR or find people to feature in a book or blog post. HARO is not a place to tell the world to buy your product. These are HARO’s official rules.
  4. How frequently do the responses come in? That depends on a lot of factors. The best way to get more responses is by asking a clear question with a summary that is crystal clear. Being an anonymous reporter or being a reporter from The New York Times also plays a part in the process. When in doubt, list the media outlet as your blog’s URL. That will give readers something to see that proves you are influential on the web. In some cases, responses can come in at 15 minute intervals while others come in shorter or longer intervals. It all depends on how clear the query is and your media outlet (but don’t lie about who you are either).
  5. Is the workload worth it? The workload is worth it both for the reporter and the source. The source gets free exposure. Some sources get to be in front of millions of people just because they took 15 minutes out of their day (ideal amount of time) to respond to a HARO query. For reporters, the workload is worth it because you will be able to connect with incredible people. HARO has allowed me to connect with many people who have been featured on big media outlets such as Forbes, CBS, NBC, and many others as well. As a reporter, being able to tell your readers that you were able to talk with someone who was on the Today Show will give you preeminence because you were able to get that person to talk to you. For both ends, the workload is more than worth it.

Those are the five most frequently asked questions about HARO. Do you have any questions about HARO that I did not address in this blog post or thoughts? Please share them below and I will respond as quickly as possible.

Your College Application For Life

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Writing a college application is an interesting process. The college application is a place where it is okay to constantly go on about your accomplishments. Whether someone got all A’s, was the best athlete on the team, or does many extracurricular activities, that person is not going to hesitate to mention those things on their college application.

Most people stop going in detail about themselves after the college application process. There are some mentions about your extracurricular activities, grades, or sports once in a while. However, these credentials lose their effect as they get pushed to the back of other people’s minds. By no means am I saying it is bad to get good grades, do sports, or extracurricular activities. Instead, I am saying that you should prevent those things from getting pushed to the back of other people’s minds.

Just take a look at Jeff Bullas’ Twitter account. In less than 160 characters, you will immediately learn that he is on the Forbes Top 50 Social Media Power Influencers 2013 List and the Huffington Post Top 100 Business Twitter Accounts. On his blog, you can see the “Forbes Top 50 Social Media Power Influencers” picture on the blog’s sidebar with the link to the Forbes article. Let’s not forget that Jeff Bullas has a list of all of his achievements with links in his bio.

Jeff Bullas is by no means the only person who tells people about his accomplishments. Kim Garst is another person who mentions her achievements many times. You will learn about some of her achievements in less than 160 characters, or you can go to her website where she displays two of her big achievements right away.

Jeff Bullas, Kim Garst, and thousands of other constantly show people their achievements through social media profiles, blogs, and bios. If these people decided to mention an accomplishment in 1 blog post, that blog post would be forgotten. However, by seeing the sidebar, looking at the 160 character Twitter bio, and reading the full bios on their blogs, we are unable to forget these people’s achievements. This strategy allows some people to turn a short burst of credibility into something that sticks around forever.

Few people see how the design of a college application is very important even after completing the application and graduating college. The college application is designed to tell people about all of your achievements. By telling people about your achievements in the real world, you will get the college application effect: people remembering you until the next remarkable college application comes along. By telling people and having that picture on the sidebar or something in your bio that mentions your achievements, people will remember you long after you submitted your application.

What are your achievements, and do enough people know about them?

 

The First Day…

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The first day I launched this blog, it got 0 visitors.

The first day I created my Twitter account, it had 0 followers.

The first day Jeff Bezos decided to start Amazon, he had no customers or forklifts.

The first day Steve Jobs decided to create the Apple, no one was paying attention.

The first day is always the most challenging. We often look at the people before us who have become very successful. We look at the Jeff Bezoses and Mark Zuckerbergs of the world wondering if we will ever get there. If you make it through the first day, your chances of making it through the entire week will go up. When you make it through the entire week, your chances of making it through the entire month go up. Then, you keep on sticking with something for many years, and you eventually become the next success story.

This Is All Too Much For Me

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When I was going into my sophomore year, I decided to take several honors courses including an AP course. While I have been successfully able to maintain my blog for most of the school year, school is becoming more challenging. I have been assigned more homework than ever before as the quarter comes to an end. In addition, I will be studying intensely for finals because I am on the border line of B+ or A for many of my courses. In order to get A’s for my courses, I will have to pay more attention to my schoolwork than my blog, Twitter account, and business ventures.

Sending out blog posts takes up a large portion of my time, and by writing more blog posts, I have found less time to study throughout the day. I will still be able to blog over the summer, but if I end up with B+’s, I will not be able to undo those. For the sake of getting A’s instead of B+’s, I will be giving up blogging and using any of my social networks from now until the start of summer.

Blogging has created an overwhelming schedule which I can no longer deal with. In the end, I am doing research and writing blog posts for a combined total of 3 hours every day. Combined with extracurricular activities and high level courses, writing blog posts has become more of a chore than a hobby. In addition, my grades keep on dropping as I write more blog posts. This change is necessary for the safety of my grades. I am sorry to disappoint the people who have been reading this blog for a while, but I’m throwing up the white flag.

Before I give everyone my final farewell until the start of summer, I would like you to do one thing. Please look at the date on which this blog post was published. If you were afraid that my blog would remain dormant for two months, you have nothing to worry about. Blogging is a passion of mine. I’m here to stay, not give in.

 

5 Lessons I Have Learned As A HARO Journalist

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I have been working long and hard on my book Lead The Stampede which will be coming out in the summer. A big component of many business books is the examples of others. In order to get examples to add to my book, I decided to use HARO. Ever since submitting my query, I was able to learn a lot about HARO. These are the five lessons I learned from submitting that query. Some apply specifically to HARO while others apply to everyone in any business.

  1. Early bird gets the worm. The first person who submits a response to your query goes on the top of a giant list, and the late person who submits a response to your query goes on the bottom of the giant list. Early people get seen first (but don’t worry, I view all of the applications).
  2. It’s okay to ask for help. Instead of searching for people one by one, I decided to use HARO in order to spread the word. In the end, I got close to 20 qualifying responses in a day!
  3. Include a link to your blog. I choose to identify “www.marcguberti.com” as the media outlet. By doing so, people were able to see the entire URL. Traffic to my blog almost doubled that day, and my blog traffic did not see a one hit wonder. The extra traffic stuck around.
  4. Find multiple avenues for free quality traffic. Using HARO helped me get more examples to add to Lead The Stampede. HARO also increased my blog traffic. HARO just became another avenue for me to get free quality traffic.
  5. Be patient. When I sent out my first query on HARO, I did not know what to expect. My first HARO query was sent out in the morning, and I got 1 response within 30 minutes. Then, it slowed down. I ended up with 5 responses in 4 hours. Once the afternoon came along, I ended up getting more responses and was up to 20 before the end of the day. Patience pays off.

Those are the 5 lessons I learned when I sent out my first query on HARO officially making me a HARO journalist. For those of you who have received many HARO emails, you can find my query in the Business & Finance morning section sent out on March 8, 2014.

Have you used HARO before?