Hiiiiiiii!!!!!!! Happy New Year 2020!

Hello Tin Shinglers!

It’s been so long! Two weeks, yet over the course of the holiday season, seems like, well, an entire season!

Two Tips

This video is a connection point with you, and includes 2 tips for you for how to get media this year:

• Pitch A Lot. More than you think. You need to stop thinking about it, and just DO IT. You can strategize it, grow it, stretch it in all kinds of directions on why you would pitch a particular media. But you need to just block out all of the other ideas, and do it to the one idea you cooked up! Record your other ideas in your Content Planner or your PR Planner and Tracker (both are Tin Shingle Templates you can download).

• Pitch Different. If you’re going to be pitching a lot, you need new ideas. You need unique story angles. If you don’t know what I mean, then join Tin Shingle right now, and set your Wednesdays at 12pm EST for a PR Challenge Session, where we can talk face to face. In the meantime, I’ll explain: there is a magical intersection between really good idea - a must-write-about-idea - and timeliness. That is how pure editorial happens. Editorial that you don’t pay for. But that a magazine or TV show actually paid to have produced. They paid their writers, graphic designers, photographers, videographers, producers, editors, to produce this great story. And it mentions or totally features your business. This isn’t something you deserve. It isn’t something that must be done for you. It isn’t why the media exists. To write about you for free. This magical intersection I speak of is the WHY the media exists, to inform their readers, to entertain their viewers, to reward you with the press you do deserve. You must think of what is that tiny, unique snowflake of an article idea that will tempt them.

Sure, you can pitch in a general pitch. A “hey, this is what my business does” type pitch. And you may have invented something totally different, and that in and of itself is a strong enough pitch. That does happen all of the time. But for every other produced story out there, it’s the magical intersection you must tap into.

I know you can do it!

Stick with Tin Shingle. Ideas come from here, and that’s more than half the battle. Media contacts are helpful, sure. But unique story ideas are golden.

Happy New Year!

How To Add Tin Shingle's Editorial Content Planner To Google Drive To Use On The Go

Well hey there!

Bet you’re having a lot of amazing ideas that you want to publish on your company blog that will no doubt increase your digital footprint and create organic SEO rankings for you for new keyword combinations. And that’s just if you’re a business owner who knows they need to publish content onto their website if they ever want to compete in Google (no Google Ads required).

If you’re a blogger or a print publisher, or even a podcaster, and are scheduling when you are going to publish your stories and promos, Tin Shingle’s Editorial Content Planner is perfect for you. It is simple and to the point. It requires no app downloads, as it is simply a tricked out Excel Doc that we hyper-organized and color coded for your organizing enjoyment.

Thanks to Google Drive, you can upload this Excel spreadsheet to your cloud to share with your team and use on the go from your mobile device.

Watch the video below for step by step directions on how to add Tin Shingle’s Editorial Content Planner to your Google Drive. If you are a Media Kit Member, you can download this and all of our templates for free. If you’re not a member, no problem! You can buy this template directly and enjoy lifetime access to it.

New 2020 Editorial Calendars: Fast Company, Gourmet Insider, Country Gardens and More...

You’re wrapping up your holiday shopping as December rolls to a close, but it’s summertime in the print magazine world. Here is a sampling of 2020 Editorial Calendars we have added to Tin Shingle’s Editorial Calendar Collection, which you can access anytime with a Media Kit Membership, a program we designed to empower business owners, artists and makers who are getting the word out and making their own publicity happen.

Editorial Calendars are the top-line plans for a magazine issue. Knowing what these broad themes are in advance helps you pitch a story angle into a magazine that is more relevant to what they are working on right now. Larger publications are putting together a magazine about 6 months in advance. Regional publications might be working on it 3 months out. So even though it’s cold outside, editors at big publications might be sweating over the summer issue. Learn more about how this works by listening to our monthly TuneUp webinars on Wednesdays at 12pm EST. Media Kit Members get anytime access to our archive of recordings.

As the foremost business media publication, Fast Company focuses on technology, leadership, world changing ideas, creativity, and design. Fast Company is geared towards business leaders who think progressively and expansively, leading with purpose to shape the future of business.

COMING UP: World Changing Ideas

Offering insider information on the world of culinary retail, Gourmet Insider is the trade publication for gourmet store operators by store operators.

COMING UP: Kitchen Electrics

Country Gardens , a publication from Better Homes & Gardens at Meredith, provides advice on gardening, decorating, gardening tools, recipes and inspiring profiles to unite gardeners worldwide.

COMING UP:  Summer

New to our database, Vertical and its associated publications (Vertical 911, Insight) cover the helicopter industry. They provide a first-person perspective from some of the premiere writers specializing in this niche.

COMING UP: Photo Contest Issue

Vertical911 highlights the achievements and provides leading editorials on law enforcement, military, EMS, fire and SAR.

COMING UP: Summer 2020

The official trade show publication for the helicopter industry.

COMING UP: Heli-Expo

Delivered straight to CEO’s, presidents, executive directors, heads of global operations and more, helping you to increase your presence and connect.

COMING UP: Legal in Business

Fine Wood Working features woodworking and furniture making advice, offering step-by-step plans, projects, tool reviews and photo galleries.

COMING UP: Shop Solutions

Focusing on the business of ophthalmology, Administrative Eyecare contains timely practice management information, addressing topics including business operations, management, HR, leadership and more.

COMING UP: Developing Tomorrow’s Leaders Today

Lowrider To Cease Printing

It has recently been reported that Lowrider, an “icon of Chicano culture for more than 40 years” will cease publication by the end of 2019. The reason, according to MotorTrend Group President Alex Wellen was that “…we need to be where our audience is…with 3 out of every 4 of our visitors favoriting digital content over print.”

Founded in 1977 by Sonny Madrid, Lowrider drew its inspiration from the East Los Angeles Chicano magazine called Con Safos, examining the socio-political concerns affecting Chicanos on and off campus at San Jose State University. Madrid’s goal was to connect the independent lowriding communities by distributing the magazine in his 1954 Chevrolet sedan, and expanding the magazines to Southern California, New Mexico and Texas. National distributors wanted nothing to do with Lowrider, so the staff was tasked with the responsibility of finding new markets and distribution.

This is not the first time that Lowrider folded. Financial struggles forced the magazine to end in 1985, until former staffer Alberto Lopez resurrected it in 1988, moving its headquarters to the heart of the lowrider community in Southern California. As Lowrider’s audience grew, so did its empire. Boasting an average monthly circulation of 210,000 copies, Lowrider expanded into international spinoff titles, a music label, merchandise and sponsored its own car shows across the country.

In addition to Lowrider, the following publications will also discontinue printing. 

• 4-Wheel & Off-Road 

• Automobile 

• Car Craft 

• Chevy High Performance 

• Classic Trucks  

• Diesel Power 

• Hot Rod Deluxe  

• Jp 

• Mopar Muscle 

• Muscle Car Review 

• Muscle Mustangs & Fast Fords 

• Mustang Monthly 

• Street Rodder 

• Super Chevy  

• Super Street 

• Truck Trend  

• Truckin’ 

• Vette

Media Moves: Vogue.com, GMA, BusinessOfCollegeSports.com

Below is a short list of people who have recently been updated in Tin Shingle's Media Contact Idea Center. We double check on people to see that they are still at a media outlet, and maybe add an Area of Interest idea, or an Instagram handle.

In our database, you can search by a person’s name, media outlet name, or area of interest (our favorite part). Area of Interest is great for if you hadn’t thought of an outlet before. You can see the details for these people when you are logged into your Media Kit Member account at Tin Shingle.

Stuart Emmrich
New Editor in Chief, Vogue.com
Stuart Emmrich is the Editor in Chief of Vogue.com, reporting directly to Anna Wintour, according to this New York Post article. He left the LA Times for this position. He previously worked at the New York Times, including as an editor-at-large for travel and as styles editor directing fashion coverage. He oversaw the SundayStyles, ThursdayStyles and Men's Style sections as well as Fashion coverage. He also contributed to the paper's fashion blog, On The Runway.
Areas of Interests: Fashion, Style, Travel, Lifestyle, Luxury, Design

Nicole Curtis
Producer, Good Morning America
Nicole Curtis is a morning producer for Good Morning America in New York City. Briefs Robin Roberts every morning, before and during the show. Calls elements in control room. Writes and produces Robin Roberts' live/tape segments.
Areas of Interest: Lifestyle, General News, News, Health, Wellness, Spiritual, Sports, Cancer, Chronic Disease, Celebrities, Authors

Talia Parkinson-Jones
Co-Executive Producer, Tamron Hall
Areas of Interest: Women's interest, Arts & Entertainment, Politics, Domestic Violence, Climate, Opioids, Lifestyle, Entertainment, Mental Health, Health, Celebrity Interviews, Authors

Kristi Dosh
Publisher, BusinessOfCollegeSports.com
Contributor, Forbes (College Sports)
Contributor, POPSUGAR (Travel)
Contributor, Entrepreneur (Personal Branding)
Areas of Interest: Sports, College Sports, Athletes, Branding, Entrepreneurship, Women in Business, Business

TIN SHINGLE'S MEDIA KIT MEMBERSHIP

To access the contact suggestions of these and more, apply to start a Media Membership with Tin Shingle today, and start getting new ideas for how to get the word out.

The Membership Program was designed for business owners, artists and makers who are doing their own PR and marketing outreach.

As always, send in media contact or editorial calendar requests to member@tinshingle.com

Connect with us directly in Tin Shingle's Community. The Media Kit Membership gives you access to our online support group to ask your questions, get ideas, and celebrate when you do get press.

Just An FYI: WWE Comes Onto TikTok With Ability To Create Shareable Stories Using Entrance Themes

In “young people” news, WWE (World Wide Entertainment) has started a channel on TikTok. They will begin with making “entrance themes” available for users to create and share expressive content in their own TikToks, as reported in Variety.

Hold Up - What Is TikTok and What Is An “Entrance Theme”?

TikTok is a video-sharing app that kids use. According to TikTok, about 60% of TikTok’s 26.5 million monthly active users in the U.S. are between ages 16 and 24. TikTok started as a video sharing app created by ByteDance, which is largely described by U.S. media as a “Chinese Internet company” (though the website’s home page shows primarily white people and one brown person at a conference table working on laptops).

TikTok then bought a social music video creating/sharing app called Musical.ly, which according to Slate was equally as popular and was all the rage with musicians and regular people who would use the music to make videos. TikTok also favored comedy and lifestyle content, so the name Musical.ly got dropped, and music got heavily absorbed into TikTok. You can read all about it here at this Guide To TikTok at Slate.

According to the Variety article who attributes TikTok, “Amoung U.S. users in 2019, the most popular music artists on the platform were Lil Nas X, Mariah Carey, Lizzo, Stunna Girl, Blanco Brown, Y2k & Bbno$, Kyle, Luh Kel, Billie Eilish and Ashnikko. The top celebrities on TikTok were Will Smith, Miley Cyrus, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Howie Mandel, Terry Crews and Selena Gomez.”

Back to “entrance themes.” That’s a WWE thing, where the wrestling characters have videos that illustrate the base and depths of their characters. Vice did a roundup of the 25 Best Entrance Songs Of All Time in 2018, which gives you an idea of what content will now be easily accessed by kids to create their own expressions.

What Does This All Mean?

For businesses and brands, this simply means that TikTok is getting ever more solid as a social media platform that is in your regular deck of social media apps to create content for and/or be aware of what other brands are creating there.

Advertising is definitely available on the platform and is reaching people with well-crafted content. If you are a musician, it seems like TikTok is solidly a place you want to be and have your music on. TikTok is not limited to music, however, and can include humor, challenges, experiments, how-to’s (the weirder the better), and other oddities. The content is at best imperfect, and extremely raw - meaning you don’t need to make slick, high-polished/produced videos to upload here. The end-game is all about what kind of emotion you create for the person who just scrolled through the dozens of videos and absorbed yours.

At the end of the day, creating content for TikTok would be connected to brand loyalty for you, and falls into the category of “what kind of emotional output are you putting out there?” The answer to that question would determine if you want to start investing your time and energy into making and publishing TikTok videos. And if you wanted to pursue/pitch influencers to incorporate your brand into their videos.

Want to talk more about this strategy? You can in Tin Shingle’s members-only forum or in PR Challenges, where we talk shop about things like this. Learn about it in our Media Kit Membership program.

On The Hunt For Los Angeles Local And Niche Publications

When I was first tasked with the assignment of researching print publications in the Los Angeles area, I thought to myself, “Hell yea, I’m an LA native. I got this, boom snickety all done 2 days whoop whoop!”

How cute of me, right?

What Does “Being From LA” Really Mean?

I grew up in the suburbs 20 minutes from Downtown LA (depending on traffic…it all depends on traffic, ha) and I went to school in Orange County, about 45 minutes away, depending on…well you get it.

Thing is, the Los Angeles area is comprised of over 470 regions, cities and neighborhoods. Of those 470, there are 88 official cities within the County of Los Angeles. Also included are CDPs (census-designated places) and unincorporated communities. ALL of these places are covered by a regional or local publication in one way or another. Add to that the different industries and niche topics and yeaahhh this ain’t getting done in 2 days haha! Especially when you realize that being “from LA” can sometimes mean as far south as Orange County and as far north as Ventura County, depending on who you talk to. It’s just easier to say you’re “from LA” than explaining what the exact proximity of your hometown is from downtown.

Media Researching Tips From Yvonne

I started with a broad search on Google with the keywords “Los Angeles print publications.” The usual suspects popped up: The LA Times, LA Weekly, Time Out Los Angeles, etc. Then I decided to expand my search to the suburbs to get an idea of how narrow of a niche we could go. I found a list of cities within 30 miles of Los Angeles and started searching for their local publications and newspapers (ie “Commerce, CA newspapers) and found that a LOT of the smaller cities are linked through the Los Angeles WAVE Newspapers in addition to having their own dedicated paper.

Then, I decided to look for niche publications, starting with “Los Angeles music scene magazines” and  expanded towards art with great results. I haven’t even begun to list the Spanish language and other foreign language publications. With a population of 3.9 million, the majority of Los Angelenos speak a language other than English at home.

If you are looking for an easy way to find a specific niche publication in the Los Angeles area, just begin broad and narrow down. For example, you could do a search on “Los Angeles Spanish Food Magazines” and see what comes up! While you might not find a publication dedicated towards JUST Spanish food, you will find publications in Los Angeles who regularly feature Spanish or Mexican food.

My goal for you, is to start with the big name publications, then whittle down to the different cities/regions and niches within. I haven’t been back to LA for a long time, so this project is allowing me to reconnect with where I grew up. Did you know Elysian Valley is now called Frogtown?! I sure didn’t!

Meanwhile, you can do this searching, or you can find it via your Tin Shingle Media Kit Membership when you tap into the Media Contact Idea Center!

Stay tuned!

Yvonne de Salle

How To Download The 2020 Edition Of Tin Shingle's Editorial Content Planner

Lifetime Access To Template:
How To Get Next Year's 2020 Edition

If you have purchased Tin Shingle's Editorial Content Planner in the past, you have Lifetime Access to it for the future. If you are a current Media Kit Member of Tin Shingle, downloading the template for free is easy.

Here's how to download next year’s template. Let’s get you set up for a successful year:

1. Log into your Tin Shingle account.

2. Visit the Editorial Content Planner page on our website. Click here for direct access.

3. The file link on that page has the most current version. Click it, and the template will download to your computer.

4. Contact Us with any questions. We are happy to help.

How The Editorial Content Planner Template Works

The template is organized by weeks in the month, with a line for every single day, coupled with national themes for that month to help you stay relevant. We found a few new fun themes.
Sample of National Celebration Themes In This Collection:

• National Bald Is Beautiful Day

• Keep Kids Creative Week

• World Space Week

• America Recycles Day

• Parks and Recreation Month

• Go Skateboarding Day

• Take Back The Lunch Break Day

• Take Your Dog To Work Day

• Make Up Your Own Holiday Day

Knowing The Themes Is Great For:
1. Random ideas for content.
2. TV pitches, because broadcast media loves random excuses to feature things on TV, like National Doughnut Day or National Puppy Day (excuse to bring puppies on TV!).

But Really, We Love The Dated Calendar Feature
Anyone can find National Days Of Anything by doing simple Google searches. This content planner makes assigning when you're going to publish what easy. It also makes planning months in advance easy, because you have the National Days of Anything in an at-a-glance view. Sharing the planner with your team is also easy when you upload it to your Google Drive. The planner is a color-coded Excel document.

How To Use Tin Shingle’s Editorial Content Planner

Download this template. It is a color-coded Excel file with Worksheets devoted to each month of the year. Upload it to your Google Drive and Share it with your team, for updating on the go and whenever an idea hits you.

FREE: This template is Free for Tin Shingle's Media Kit Members.
ONE-TIME PURCHASE: If you're not a Media Kit Member, you can purchase it here and have lifetime access to updates.
FREE UPDATES: If you have purchased this in the past, you get this new 2020 edition for free.

Tin Shingle’s Co-Workers Can Spread Out On The Common Table!

We’ve kept the long table of GildedTwig (our landlord and building owner who previously had her art studio in this room) in Tin Shingle’s Co-Work Space so that members can leave their desks and spread out at the table if they need to.

Today we used the table to rip fabric off a wood frame and pinned the fabric in place on our cutting mat for future stitching. Because if you have some fabric you need to tend to quick while you’re doing computer work, you could!

Start a work membership today. You’ll get your very own key 🔑 key so that you can work on your own time and do self check-in.

Tin Shingle’s Co-Work Space is at 291 Main Street, in the Telephone Building. Below A Little Beacon Blog and Beahive.

www.tinshingle.com/cowork

Tamron Hall's TV Talk Show Renewed For Second Season

Tamron Hall’s national syndicated show has been picked up for a 2nd season with ABC-owned stations and Hearst Television stations. Tamron Hall’s show is produced by Disney.

Said Tamron about the accomplishment: “I’m honored to host and executive produce a daytime talk show that explores conversation topics that really matter to our viewers, who we affectionately refer to as our “TamFam.” From inspiring interviews with guests like Tyler Perry and Kelly Rowland to in-depth discussions on issues like the opioid epidemic and domestic violence, nothing is off limits - we’re here to talk about it.

About Tamron Hall’s Show

From the Tamron Hall website: “From the deeply moving to the purely fun, ‘Tamron Hall’ is a daily destination for all things topical and a platform for viewers to connect with the people who are shaping our world through meaningful, engaging, and entertaining conversations. As a new mom, a newlywed, and a survivor who is proving you can accomplish anything at any age, Tamron Hall brings a refreshing, relatable, unpredictable, and unstoppable voice to television.

Tamron Hall is broadcast from New York City.