April 2008

This week we bring you six “Persuasive Picks” across 5 different topics. Enjoy!

Seesmic Acquires Popular Twitter AIR Client Twhirl
Seesmic and Twitter fans have a new reason to be giddy. Seesmic’s acquisition of the popular Twhirl Twitter client will bring about the perfect blend of video and Twitter messaging. It will be interesting to see if this merge brings more business use to the current, primarily social use of Seesmic.

How to Come Up with Topics to Write About On Your Blog
Are you a blogging business professional? Do you find it difficult to generate a steady stream of topics to blog about? Uber-blogger Darren Rowse from ProBlogger.net shares a great video demonstrating one of the techniques he uses to generate ongoing blog topic ideas.

Writing Effective Blog Posts
Now that you’ve watched Darren Rowse’s video from our pick above and have your topic to write about, check out this short post on the techniques social media-master Chris Brogan uses to craft his daily posts.

The Ultimate Top Ten List For Small Business
Lela Davidson from the Business Pundit blog compiles a great list of links to “Top Ten” lists for small business. The linked topics include “Top Ten Marketing Blogs,” “Top Ten Best Presentations Ever,” and “Ten Tips For Time Management in a Multitasking World.”

Ten Things You Didn’t Know About Facebook
Guy Kawasaki taps “I’m on Facebook – Now What???” co-author Jesse Stay for a list of ten Facebook power tips. There are many good nuggets here if you’ve been hesitant to use Facebook for social networking as a business professional.

How to Deal with Internal Stakeholders
Forrester’s Jeremiah Owyang continues to pump out amazing posts and this one is no exception. In this post, he shares many tips on how to leverage the power of your company’s stakeholders (internal customers) to maximize your social media and web strategy efforts.

Thats all for this week. As always, let us know what you think and happy reading!

There have been some interesting discussions lately – both online and off – around the business value of Twitter. As part of those discussions, we’ve noticed some varying opinions on whether or not corporations should establish their own entity on this rapidly-growing micro-blogging community.

When we first established @PerkettPR, we were immediately called out (coincidentally by PR/marketing competitors) for a few incorrect (on their part) assumptions:

1) That we had just joined Twitter without research, or a “lurking” phase

2) That we were only joining Twitter to promote our involvement in bringing TechCrunch MeetUp to Boston

3) That we would spam people (which in and of itself is an inaccurate label to use, considering the way Twitter works)

4) That we would not use our corporate entity wisely and that a “corporation” was not a “person” and therefore couldn’t participate in conversation

A few months later in March, some of these same naysayers have not only set up their own corporate entities (although most have yet to actually update/use them) but they have encouraged others to do so. That leads us to today and our questions to you:

1) Can a corporation participate in conversations on Twitter?

2) Are there certain types of businesses that should not establish a Twitter presence?

3) Do you follow any corporations on Twitter?

4) Why or why not?

Most, if not all, of our staff has individual entities on Twitter (mine’s @missusP if you’d like to engage). We spent months on Twitter watching, conversing (about business and personal issues) and getting to know the landscape before we established our corporate entity. We use @PerkettPR to share interesting developments that our constituents – those who choose to follow us – may find of interest. This can range from client news to agency news to events, interesting articles, blog posts and more. In doing so, we’ve developed new and stronger relationships with reporters, bloggers, clients – even new business prospects and competitors – as well as insightful feedback and new awareness opportunities for clients.

We believe our participation at an individual level helps us to truly understand the community and that we can engage both as indiviudals and as a team – just as in real life. This quote from Forrester’s Jeremiah Owyang also reaffirmed this belief for us:

“I can’t imagine ever advising a client to deal with an advertising, PR, or interactive team that doesn’t get social media….agencies must demonstrate they can participate before they can ever help clients with it.”

We have several clients who have Twitter identities. @mzinga and @Q1labs are the two most recent to join. It remains to be seen if all types of corporations can participate in – and benefit from – Twitter as much as individuals do, but obviously we believe great potential exists. What do you think?

Examples of businesses on Twitter:

@JetBlue

@CNN

@ssldl (This is a local library in one of our staff’s Midwestern towns. How cool is that?!)