The Corporate Twitter Discussion Continues at BusinessWeek

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On April 3 I wrote a post asking the community for opinions on corporations establishing a Twitter presence. We have been pleasantly surprised at the continued reactions and comments to this post and we have learned about some really cool trials taking place within the community. A good deal of folks – including some from Zappos, Stanford University and Mzinga (client) – have all chimed in with opinions and examples.

The conversation continues today at BusinessWeek as Heather Green wrote a post asking for examples of creative business use on Twitter – for a pending cover story. If you know of some examples, please pass them along to Heather by posting a comment on their blog. We are very interested in reading the article when it comes out, as well as continuing to learn – along with the community – about the best way corporations can successfully get involved in the social media landscape.

This is a fun journey!

Persuasive Picks for the week of 04/21/08

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This week brings five picks on a variety of topics to dive into. Enjoy!

Overcoming key resistence to adopting social media
If your company still hasn’t adopted a social media strategy, then it might be due to one of the reasons listed in this post. However, Shel Holtz lends his expertise to show you why these excuses no longer hold water.

Personal Brand Statement Contest – Win The Full Issue 4
If you haven’t paid for a subscription to Dan Schwabel’s excellent Personal Branding Magazine, then this post will allow you to download a sample of the upcoming issue as well as enter into a contest to win the full version when it comes out.

Video Comments? No Thanks – 5 Reasons They Don’t Work
Earlier this week TechCunch launched the ability to leave video comments on blog posts as an alternative to a traditional text comment – courtesy of the new Seesmic plugin for WordPress. At first, video comments seem to be hip alternative to typing, but in this post, Josh Catone clearly reveals a few downsides to adopting video comments on your blog.

del.icio.us as a PR measurement tool
Andrew Careaga of the Higher Ed Marketing blog gives some incite on a recent experience using the social bookmarking site del.icio.us as a measurement tool when keeping track of media coverage. His advice could also be carried over to similar tools like StumbleUpon, Digg and Reddit.

Seven Types Of Highly Effective Corporate Blogs
In this post, Mitch Joel covers 6 styles of corporate blogs and provides examples of each. Does your company’s blog fall into one of these categories? Or perhaps one of these blog types will inspire you to get one started if your company still hasn’t joined the blogosphere.

10 Blogging Tips from the Web 2.0 Expo

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It’s been building for a while now, but being at the Web 2.0 Expo and attending sessions led by, and attended by, some of the biggest names in blogging right along side first-timers, made me realize how common blogging and micro blogging are now. Every session had a plethora of busy bloggers/wannabes from all over the world, with laptops open with Twitter up all day, cameras and camera phones, audio recording devices and of course PDAs constantly in hand. Everyone in the same boat feverishly plugging down nuggets to share with their respective online audiences. We are all becoming bloggers and want to tell our stories in one way or another whether it be blogging or micro blogging or both, we were all there to gather information and share it with our friends and colleagues as soon as possible.



Image courtesy of James Duncan Davidson

One of the Tuesday afternoon workshops; Intro to Blogs & Social Media Marketing 101, hosted by Nick Gonzalez (SocialMedia), Eric Eldon (VentureBeat) and Trisha Okubo (eBay & Omiru fashion blogger) was my first observation point. The workshop was well attended, and though many more experienced bloggers probably found it fairly basic, they indulged the audience with their presence, rolled their eyes and probably left patting themselves on the back for how much further ahead of the game they were than others in the audience. For others it was an eye opening experience that provided some great basic tips on how to get into the game or be more effective as a blogger and micro-blogger.

Here are the Top Ten take aways Nick, Eric and Trisha shared during the session:

  1. Create content that’s easily packaged and reusable for example; Top Ten Lists and How-To’s
  2. When blogging or micro-blogging provide news or exclusive content that’s not available elsewhere
  3. Remember Seth Godin’s Purple Cow use catchy headlines and out of the ordinary content to draw attention
  4. Take advantage of blogging distribution channels and measurement tools such as; FeedBurner, Digg, StumbleUpon, Yahoo Buzz, Friend Feed, Facebook, Techmeme, Del.icio.us, and Aide RSS to ensure maximum distribution
  5. Let your fans know when a new post is up, email influencers and key sources cited to let them know you’ve posted and ALWAYS give credit to other bloggers and use link backs on Twitter, and other micro-blogging applications, whenever appropriate
  6. Do offer free advice and incentives like a free informational PDF file or white paper as an incentive to gain new subscribers
  7. Guest write on other blogs and offer the opportunity for other bloggers to guest write for you
  8. Share opportunities with other bloggers and get involved in the community, posting regular comments on other blogs
  9. Meet other bloggers in the ‘real world’ to get know each other in person
  10. Be passionate about your content and don’t shy away from including some of that passion in your blog profile page, the more your readers know about you the more they will connect with your content.

Hope you found this information helpful. Just remember if you do end up using this content in your own blog or micro-blog please follow tip #5 and cite PerkettPRsuasion as the source! 🙂

PerkettPR Interviews Sean Percival of Mahalo

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Although the lighting gets a little dark in places (they were testing the lights while we interviewed), Sean Percival of Mahalo tells PerkettPR why people should be paid for content. Lisa Dilg learns more.



Persuasive Picks for the week of 04/14/08

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This week’s picks include some diverse topics like podcasting and viral marketing. Enjoy!

Embrace unsatisfied customers to bolster your brand?
Stephen Shankland posted this great article on the CNET News Blog that was based on discussions during a panel at the Ad:Tech conference earlier this week. Do the people who handle customer complaints and the social network-savvy folks in your company reside in different departments? Check this post out for good examples of why merging these groups together can be a positive change for your company.

“Podcasting 101” on KCBS with Tim Coyne & Lance Anderson
If “Podcasting” is still a foreign word to you, then take a look at this short clip of LA-based podcasters Tim Coyne and Lance Anderson as they help explain the basics during a CBS news TV segment.

BlogPulse: Metrics Based on Conversation
As the search for the “silver bullet” of Social Media/Blog metrics continues, take a peek at this surface level view of BlogPulse as an alternative tool to using Technorati or Google Blog Search.

Groundswell Discussion Forum Now Open
Following the release of his and Charlene Li’s highly anticipated book, “Groundswell,” co-author Josh Bernoff announced the launch of the official discussion forum site in support of the book. Everyone is invited to participate and join in the conversations starting there now.

What I’ve Learned About Viral Marketing in Three Weeks
Diana Huff continues to deliver up useful content for the B2B marketer with this post on the reality of viral marketing and includes links to some useful resources on the topic.

PerkettPR Interviews JoAnna from ChefJoAnna.com

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Even professionals who may seem non-techie are embracing social media technologies to boost their business. I ran into Chef JoAnna at TechCrunch and had to find out just why a chef was at this “geeked-out” LA party. She tells us more about her business and how she uses podcasts, Twitter and Facebook to market herself and communicate with customers. Cool stuff!



PerkettPR Interviews Loren Nason from The Future of Real Estate blog

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Vertical industries are embracing technology in new and interesting ways all of the time. There’s an abundance of opportunity and – as Loren Nason of The Future of Real Estate Technology tells us – a lot of need. He explains more in a brief (slightly noisy) interview at TechCrunch/PopSugar’s MeetUp. (Pardon my interview skills, I’m used to putting others in front of the camera, not myself.)



PerkettPR Interviews Dave Cruser of Survivor China at TechCrunch LA MeetUp

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We had a fantastic time at the TechCrunch PopSugar LA MeetUp last week. Thanks to all who attended and took the time to chat with us at the event. Stay tuned for more great interviews from the TC Meet Up coming soon.

In the meantime, as some of you may know, the theme of the party was ‘Geek Goes Chic’ – as the event was co-hosted by both TechCrunch and PopSugar, a fashion, beauty, shopping and celebrity news blog. This theme created an interesting mix of about 2000 beautiful people from both the tech and entertainment worlds. While many of our interviews were with traditional emerging tech start-ups, our own Lisa Dilg (a massive Survivor fan) was able to bag an interview with Dave Cruser of Survivor China fame. She catches up with Dave on just what the heck he was doing at the TechCrunch MeetUp and, of course, she had to get the inside scoop on what it was like behind the scenes on Survivor. You gotta love LA!



Persuasive Picks for the week of 04/07/08

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Most of this week’s picks are front the first half of the week do to scheduled travel, but I think we definitely have some winners here!

I Saw The Future Of Social Networking The Other Day
Mike Arrington from TechCrunch.com (like you didn’t know?!) shares some perspective on the future of social networking on mobile devices. Mike has demoed the future and it could involve an iPhone. Make the jump to read more.

Social Media Networking and ROI: How to Maximize Value and Minimize Cost
Maki from the DoshDosh blog breaks down the hot topics of Social Media measurement and ROI. As most in the field will agree, the returns you’ll get out of networking via social media are not direct and immediate. However, Maki shares some ways to maximize your efficiency.

Forrester Marketing Conference Day 1: Understanding Your Customers Through Engagement
Since endless budgets for attending conferences rarely exist, we can be thankful that folks like Jeremiah create posts like this and share the experience virtually with lots of New Media goodness.

My Interview with three 8th Graders on the Future of Social Media
If you still think that your company doesn’t need to start participating on Social Networks, then take a look at this video clip that Jeff Pulver captured during a Social Media Breakfast in Tel Aviv, Israel. These kids are your future customers and employees!

Going viral with YouTube
Jiannis Sotiropoulos of the Pandemic Blog dives head first into how YouTube differs from other social networks in terms of content submission, friends, popularity and going viral.

TechCrunch MeetUp LA–Searching For Internet Celebrities

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TechCrunch/PopSugar PartyPerkettPR is gearing up for the biggest and best TechCrunch MeetUp event yet, being held at the Vanguard in LA this Thursday night. In addition to sponsoring again, we’re interested in turning the tables on tech bloggers and reporters and interviewing them for our blog (thoughts on the NYT blogger piece? Perez Hilton vs. tech bloggers? Arrington vs. Shipley? Facebook vs MySpace? What else is on your radar?).

We’re also interested in interviewing Web 2.0 and social media entrepreneurs on what they’re working on, what they think is hot right now and where they see the market headed in 2008 – will tech stay strong?

If you’re an Internet celebrity or undiscovered talent with opinions to share, and would be game for an interview by the PPR video blog team, please drop us a note or direct message us on Twitter @PerkettPR. We’d like to meet up at the MeetUp and capture your insights for colleagues, friends and industry pundits who can’t be in attendance.

Look forward to seeing those of you that can make it on Thursday night. Please look for us at the event we’ll be the ones “lighting up the night” with some sweet shwag give-aways.