The Tin Shingle Blog

Meet Tin Shingle member, Katie Danziger, founder of Nomie Baby, and designer of the Nomie Baby Car Seat Cover - the lifesaver for a child's car seat. Katie faced a challenge one morning when her daughter got sick in her car seat, and the fabric of the car seat was near impossible to remove and wash.

Like most mom-preneurs, Katie was determined to solve the problem, and designed a washable, soft yet spill-proof car seat cover. Her littlest daughter was the muse for the product (see video below), and all three of Katie's children help Katie grow the business, from cheering her on, to IT help in a pinch. Save yourself or a friend from a gross car seat, and get one of these colors in an infant and toddler size. You will be happy you did! Learn more about Katie here at Tin Shingle, and start shopping her store here.

We interviewed Katie to learn more her background as an entrepreneur:

What inspired you to get started?
A messy accident was the inspiration for the nomie baby car seat covers.  I needed to find an easier way!

What was your background? Was it in what you were doing now?
I had a background in marketing and promotions.  I certainly call on that now to help get to word out.

What challenge have you had to face that led to a big growth for your company?
Getting in to big stores and etailers like Diapers.com as well as doing an amazing promo with Good Morning America meant that everything needed to step up.

What do you have going on in your business right now that you're excited about?
Just launched 3 new colors which look great for summer, fall,  any season, so there is a cover for everyone, and they are still softer, easier to slip on and off, and less expensive than all others out there, AND they are waterproof, which almost all others are NOT!

Where would you love to see your business in 5 years?
I would love the nomie baby brand to be a household name, in many of the major stores as well joining forces with some great partners to co-brand!

Watch Katie's cute video, which includes her daughter painting the car seat cover in yogurt:

We feature our small business members with these special interviews. 

If you've been working in the public relations industry or are a DIY-er in the PR world who has been doing it long enough, you know that one key landing press (other than straight pitches focused on a particular good/service/expert) is piggybacking onto hot topics that the media is already excited about and covering regularly.  Why?  Quite simply because these issues or trends are of interest to the media and the public, and in order to keep talking about it, producers and editors will be looking for multiple angles and fresh twists they can use in future stories.

Piggybacking onto hot news stories or pitching yourself into a trend story can be one of the most effective ways to land a TV segment, a blog post, share your expertise and more. 

With that in mind we thought we'd kick your creativity and strategic thinking into high gear by giving you a list of hot topics we think some of you can spin yourself or brand into.  We've also included some of our own freestyle story association of related topics we came up with while writing this for you that you can use to inspire yourself!

Summer Travel - families are traveling by plane, train, automobile...families are planning staycations, people are traveling abroad, people are finding themselves in stressful travel-related situations, people need proper travel gear.....so many ways to spin this - go for it!

Summer Weddings - families are joining as one (exciting, romantic, stressful), weddings mean wedding budgets to deal with, what will people wear to summer weddings, what is the best gift to give to the new bride & groom, where are hot spots to honeymoon? How can you spice up your honeymoon? How can blended families get along better?

Fourth of July is on its way - picnics, barbeques, hot dogs, healthy alternatives to barbeque food, how to plan a romantic picnic, staycations, Fourth of July safety procedures, party games for kids, how to plan a holiday barbeque, local festivals to check out over the holiday...

50 Shades of Grey - yes, we're going there...50 Shades inspired anything & everything (food, books, jewelry), this is the time where love and relationship experts can weigh in, hardware stores and supply stores, this is your chance to weigh in on rope sales...

Stay tuned next week for more topics you should be pitching!

It's no secret that more and more often everyone from small business owners to the media can be found on Twitter connecting, sharing key messages, promoting their brands or seeking sources for stories.  If you're running your own DIY PR campaign it's likely you have taken to Twitter to connect with media, current and potential customers, celebrities, stylists - you name it!

If you're using this form of social media to connect with press targets you are probably doing it by re-tweeting them, attempting to engage them in Twitter conversations and so forth.  All of these are useful and necessary and the keys to starting your online relationship with them (and as we remember, PR is all about relationships), and we commend you for it.  That said, here are a few other useful ways you can use Twitter to positively impact your press relationships.

Get to know and read their content, and comment on it:  You will be hard pressed to find someone in media who doesn't share their work over their Twitter feeds. This is more or less an RSS feed you can use to stay up-to-date on their work, and when you feel moved by it, let them know! You can do this via Twitter as well!  Don't simply say "nice work" but get specific, share your fave parts! 

Use Twitter to get to know what they love, and surprise them with it:  No, I don't mean send them a new Prada handbag or gift certificate for a Costa Rican getaway.  Very often a small gesture can go a long way with the media.  I have been known to discover an editor's favorite candy or type of wine simply by checking in on their feeds every week.  I'm not looking for this information specifically but if I see something in that vein on the feed, I take note of it in my media contact sheets and send them a surprise delivery with a note saying hello, connecting, etc.  It's a fun way to brighten their day and yet another way to connect and grow a media relationship.

Before you go in for that call or email, check to see how their work day is going...I'll explain this via the story of something that happened last week:  I really needed to connect with an editor about a story I thought she should cover, and I hadn't heard back in a few days.  To speed things up I decided to switch from emails to phone calls, but before I did this I took it to Twitter and checked in on her feed.  It turns out she had been at a shoot for the past three days and was still there, tweeting away images from the shoot.  This told me that not only was she not at work, but she was clealry a bit distracted and not at a place to reach out to me.  I held off my emails and calls until I saw that she was back at work.

At first when I was writing these tips down I wondered "does this make me sound like a stalker", but the answer is no. It makes me sound like someone who is very invested in creating authentic, respectful relationships with my media targets and part of that means knowing them, their beat,  what they're up to, what they're interested in and so forth.  It lets me know how I can best serve them.  Not only do these things help you in the short term, but they're going to help you grow relationships for the long term as well.  On top of that, you're using information that is free and easy to come by!

Happy Tweeting!

This note originally appeared as an email written to ProPreneur members from co-founder Sabina sent across our private email group. We thought you'd like to know about it too:

Hey fellow entrepreneurial hustlers!

I wanted to write you as I'm so thrilled about something that just
happened as a result of our latest PR Tune Up Call we had this
afternoon.  Here's the play-by-play just in case ya missed it (it's
really simple).

Tin Shingle hosted another one of our weekly PR Tune Up Calls.

We gave all of the attendees some simple step-by-step instructions on
how to a) create their holiday pitches (whether they be experts,
service or products).

We also armed our attendees with simple instructions on how to track
down the best holiday gift guide editor for their stories and pitches.

The rest of the call was spent answering any specific questions they
have about PR in general.

KABLAM!  After our call, your fellow Tin Shingle member Peggy Li took the energy of the call into real life and went straight after one of her target outlets.

Shortly after, they wrote back and connected her with the editor she
needed for the holiday gift guide, who she will now be pitching.

HOORAY Peggy, hooray for all of your DIY-ers and hope to have more of you on our call next week!

You can do this, we believe in you, it's not easy but heck - nothing
worth it in life is ever THAT easy.  The good news is that the more
you do it, the easier this process will become.

All our best,

Sabina & Katie