We here at HypeGirls are super stoked about all the awesome submissions we have been receiving! We have also received a lot of requests on how to go about submissions and what to submit. The rules are pretty simple!
Your company, product or talent should…
1. Just be AWESOME! We here at HypeGirls.com love to see unique ideas (or new spins on existing ideas), creative companies, up and coming artists and really cool products! We ask that your company be fully ready for a feature, meaning you are actually up and running! Remember, by covering your company we’re telling our readers that they might enjoy checking it out. We don’t want to waste their time by sending them to something that isn’t usable or stable. Just another local artist or common business is not what we are looking for! That’s so 2010 😛
2. Fit into HypeGirls “coverage world”: We’re a Music, Fashion, College-Culture “vlogazine” geared towards college students, particularly women. While we love mainstream pop culture, sports teams, sexy models and many others types of entertainment, it’s not our core focus. Of course, there are exceptions to this rule– cool music releases, major games and new web tools, etc. – but generally speaking we like to maintain our coverage focus.
3. Have not already been covered to death elsewhere. A certain level of exclusivity makes your news much more interesting to us! Like you, we’re also a young startup that depends on page views and ad revenue to pay the bills. No one wants to read about something they’ve seen a million times elsewhere, so keep that in mind and make sure we are one of your first media outlets. However, we honor all embargoes! If you prefer to submit your news to the masses, we will still read it over.
4. Submit to our Spanking New Review series: We are happy to be launching our “Spanking New Review” series this fall in collaboration with other publishing partners. While we encourage you to submit your pitch the usual way (via email – [email protected]), our Spanking New Review series has some special criteria and also gives you a chance to explain your company, brand or talent in your own words. More info coming soon!
5. Personalize your pitch: Receiving an email that says “Dear News Editor!” is not the way to go. That is clearly sent to a huge BCC list – or worse, a CC list- and is quite a turn off. Try and make it clear that you actually read HypeGirls and know about the topics we cover!
6. Be concise and to the point: Please be mindful of the fact that we receive many submissions each day by keeping your pitch concise and to the point. Above all else, we’re most interested in actually seeing your site and work, so try and work the relevant URL into the first couple of sentences so we can check it out. Be sure to include any main points such as the company name, contact info and location.
7. Come to our events! If at all possible, you should try and attend one of our Hype Mix&Meets or partner events and pitch us your story in-person! Although we are based in Miami, we are trying to accommodate people all across the country. In coming months, we plan to hold Hype Mix&Meets in Orlando, Nashville, Austin, New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles. We may even have a few international events in the works so stay tuned!
Your company, product or talent does NOT have to…
1. Be overly complex: There are a lot of awesome things we cover that people from pitches put together in less than a week, sometimes a day! If it’s something we think is interesting and meets the above criteria, we will cover it!
2. Be venture funded: A lot of the best ideas and business – ours included – don’t have millions of dollars behind them, yet. Remember both Napster and Facebook were started in one of our favorite places – a college dorm room. Our goal is to help you get out there!
3. Be friends with HypeGirls staff: While you’re certainly welcome to buy us a drink or send a muffin basket our way, we cover businesses based solely on merit. Editors and contributors are NOT allowed to receive gifts or compensation for media coverage and nor are they allowed to personally feature their friends or family, so please do not even try.
4. Have a PR firm: It’s actually quite exciting for us to hear from the actual artists or founders of companies versus their paid representatives, (with all due respect to the mostly excellent PR people we get to interact with daily). But don’t feel like you must have a representative or agent to contact us, we don’t bite!
5. Be a new business at all: If you’re an existing company or brand launching a new product or service that is relevant to our audience and meets the above criteria, we want to hear about it!
Remember, we here at HypeGirls are also entrepreneurs, and we want to help great freelancers and companies get the word out and be successful. We depend on you as much as you depend on us, so please keep your news coming and we hope to see you at an event soon!
Also read How Not To Get A Feature on HypeGirls.com
