Maitri Quest

So it's September and it's been that way for a week, but here in sunny Southern California it feels like summer still and it may for some time (though the record heat broke a bit yesterday, whew). Today I found out that Mercury is in retrograde, which can make the things you take for granted every day suddenly rise up and revolt and remind you that you take them for granted - i.e. your email working, your computer working, the check arriving in the mail, knowing where your cell phone is, having all of your numbers programmed into your cell phone and having them work, and on and on.

Mercury in retrograde, or so I've been reading today, is an excellent time to dot your "i's" and cross your "t's" which is what I'm working on - because here's what I really try my best at as a publicist, never asking my clients to do things that I haven't done first. I want you to have a great up to date headshot, so I've got one. I want you to read the media of your industry, and know who the top players and journalists are following your topic, and so I'm reading the media of your industry (sure, you can send blind press release blasts via a service and sometimes they'll get picked up, but it usually takes focus, persistence, and an interesting angle pulled together just for that press outlet to get good stories placed). I want you to be on facebook and twitter sharing your industry focused thoughts (and showing off your personality) regularly, daily+, so I'm on it doing just that. I want you to blog and so I blog (though I admit I should do so at least four times a week and I haven't been of late, my bad, but normally I'm pretty darn prolific). I want you to have a clean, interesting, engaging website that is search engine friendly with the right SEO keywords and yep, I've got one - and now the second one, an expanded and more strategic approach, is in the works.

Whew! But it's important. How can I ask my clients to do things I can't do? Some people do it very easily every day. I can't. I'd feel like a fraud.

What I have not done yet, but need to do asap is back up everything on my new external hard drive, and find a great Mac expert locally. However, I did email someone locally on craig's list today who purports to be just that and am keeping my fingers crossed.