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Persuasive Picks for the week of 10/11/10

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How to Integrate Video Into Your Social Media Marketing
The latest episode of Social Media Examiner TV hosted by Mari Smith features a plethora of basic information on getting started with mixing video into your social content offerings. Watch the episode below, but be sure to make the jump over to the site for links to all the resources mentioned in the video.

 

Could Facebook be bluffing on search-engine plans?
Mashable‘s Pete Cashmore shares his perspective on this week’s Facebook/Microsoft Bing partnership via his regular column on CNN.com.

What Social Media Can Teach Us About SEO
There are plenty of ways to “game” social platforms in order to give off a perception of greater influence, but when it comes to search rankings, only original and engaging content will get you where you need to be in the world of SEO. Vizion Interactive CEO Mark Jackson shares his views on the the topic, via this post on Clickz.com.

Social Media Now More Popular Than E-mail on Mobile Devices
Lauren Indvik highlights the results of a recent TNS report that found “mobile users spend 1.4 times as many hours using social networking sites than reading and responding to e-mail” via this post on Mashable. Is mobile part of your social strategy yet?

How to drive Facebook likes
This post from Drew McLellan provides a brief overview of Corona’s recent Facebook campaign to drive more “Likes.” Don’t have a Corona-sized budget? Drew also provides some good tips on executing your own successful campaign.

Persuasive Picks for the week of 06/14/2010

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Peter Himler recaps the opinion that traditional Search Engine Optimization is dying – as proclaimed by Gary Vaynerchuk during his speaking session at last week’s Internet Week in NYC. The post also provides opposing points of view from Jeff Jarvis and Lee Odden.

You Have To Have Thin Skin
It’s common to hear that putting yourself (or your brand) out there in the social media space requires a thick skin. Comments and opinions won’t always be in-line with your beliefs or mission, and your response to those needs to be timely, yet thoughtful. This post from Mitch Joel explores the idea of wearing a “thin skin” instead. I like his angle.

Five Ways to Keep Current in Public Relations News & Trends
This post from Barbara B. Nixon on her Public Relations Matters blog provides PR students and practitioners with five simple ways to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to keeping up with the fast pace of the PR world.

Intuit Fails Big Time to Communicate During Service Outage
B2B Marcom Writer, Diana Huff recaps Intuit’s bad decision to stay silent during their recent service outage this week, only to post an apology and an explanation for the downtime on their site after systems came back up about 24 hours later.

Robert Scoble on Being a Spokesperson and a Reporter
Andy Plesser from Beet.TV shares this candid interview with Robert Scoble that explores the “issues facing companies who are seeking to use Web video to enhance their image.” Stay tuned for PerkettPR’s own multi-part video interview with Robert hitting our blog next week.

 

 

Image Credit: Heather Hoesly

Persuasive Picks for the week of 04/19/10

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prwire_iphone PR Newswire Launches App for iPhone, iPod Touch
PR Newswire announces the launch of their new iPhone app that allows easy access to their enormous database of press releases and multimedia content. The app also allows users to share the content back out via email, Facebook, LinkedIn an Twitter.

Twitter kicks off Promoted Tweets
Dianna Dilworth from DMNews explains Twitter’s recent rollout of their Promoted Tweets service and includes some examples of how brands have started using it.

Creating a Social Media Analytics Action Plan – Part 1: Defining KPIs
A 2009 Bazaarvoice survey that revealed (on average) how businesses have no idea what their social media ROI is. Taylor Pratt from Raven Internet Marketing Tools expands on the results and provides tips on defining KPI (Key Performance Indicators) in this first post of his new Analytics series

How to be a PR rock star in a social media world: The changing face of public relations
Rich Brooks from Flyte New Media recently asked his LinkedIn community the following question: “The role of PR is changing, and I’m curious to know what do you need to do to be appreciated at your job? What are the expectations, what new roles do you have, and how do you look like a hero to your boss at the end of the day and year?” He shares some of the interesting responses via this post.

Social Media Turns Tiny Mistakes Into Big Headaches for Delta Airlines
BNET’s travel industry blogger, Brett Snyder shares the account of Delta Airlines most recent online media blunder that clearly shows the importance of paying attention to every detail when it comes to your brand’s online presence. Someone is always watching.

Persuasive Picks for the week of 03/15/10

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facebook-et-1Facebook overtakes Google, Twitterers prefer social to news
The SiliconRepublic’s John Kennedy shares a variety of stats and projections from a recent study issued by Hitwise. The study confirms that traffic to Facebook has outpaced Google. In addition, Twitter is continuing to emerge as a key source for news and media sites.

Twitter’s @anywhere could prove risky for users
Computerworld’s Sharon Gaudin provides a rundown of Twitter’s new @anywhere functionality and explains why this offering could prove risky to brands.

How SEO Can Build Brand
This post from SEOConsult begins the exploration of the relationship between Search Engine Optimization and the profitability of your business.

Is Google Wave getting Buzzed?
Google Wave and Google Buzz are two new apps that many web-workers are still struggling to figure out. Both were launched in radically different ways. While users are still trying to figure out how these products fit into their workflow, it seems that Google itself is also still trying to determine what’s next for these new offerings. To be continued…

It’s the Social Media Strategy Struggle
WebWorkDaily’s Aliza Sherman shares a list of helpful social media strategies that she learned from her experience at this year’s SXSW Interactive Conference.

Persuasive Picks for the week of 01/04/10

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group hug by massdistraction.What Is Engagement And How Do We Measure It?
Jason Falls helps readers maximize their social media success by understanding the importance of defining “engagement” before applying it to their social strategies.

Women Warm Up to Brands on Social Sites
EMarketer.com highlights some very interesting statistics from the recent SheSpeaks “Annual Social Media Study” – showing a large increase in brand activity among females across online social networks.

SEO tips for smarter social media
Geary Interactive CEO, Andreas Roell, explains how social media efforts and SEO go hand-in-hand, while providing some tips to make sure you are maximizing your efforts.

Is 2010 Your Year for a Mobile App?
Interactive Media Strategist, Tessa Wegert, shares statistics and examples of why 2010 just might usher in a trend of mobile-focused marketing campaigns.

Seven Tools to Better Manage Your Social Networks
CIO Staff Writer, Kristin Burnham, shares this list of seven tools to help you streamline your social media interactions. This post gets my vote for introducing me to five new tools I wasn’t aware of yet!

Can You Afford Not to Demand Excellence?

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I recently had a conversation with an industry colleague who works on the client side. During that conversation, which took place at a marketing conference, he shared with me his experience at a certain other interactive conference last year: “One awesome week-long party paid for by my company. No real business takes place in terms of ROI. I can’t wait to go back.”

burning-wasting-money-600Huh? With that mentality, no wonder marketing is often the first line item when companies are facing budget cuts.

But wait a minute – aren’t you responsible for ensuring excellence for your company across the board at all times? In this day and age of record unemployment, pay cuts, “turning out the lights,” and more work with less resources, can you afford this sort of mentality on your workforce? Do you have any idea what the marketing department does with its budget? Are you assessing and measuring and demanding excellence on a weekly basis?

More importantly, if you have a marketing department spending money on events, travel, conferences and tradeshows, are you really measuring the ROI of such efforts? Do you assess the cost of the show (in full) and what it yielded for results? Do you pay attention to who’s going, what they’re doing and the expected results? Do you compare these investments to other marketing activities? Can you afford not to have such checks and balances in place these days?

Mind you, this was no multi-billion dollar company – although even they, too, are being affected by this global recession. This was a start up in a precarious and competitive industry. In other words, that kind of irresponsible mentality (like #11 here) shouldn’t be difficult to spot. But if you’re not paying attention – and not demanding results from every investment – then it could be missed. And such ignorance could cost you not only money, but perhaps a future layoff or worse.

Take the time to assess all of your  marketing activities – not just SEO or PR or advertising – but the dollars spent on every activity online and off. Demand excellence in everything and set parameters for employees. Prioritize in advance – know which activities yield the best results and which could easily be diminished with minimal impact.

Can you draw a direct line to results or positive ROI for each  marketing activity? If not, can you afford not to demand excellence and results across the board? I didn’t think so.

Persuasive Picks for the week of 05/17/09

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Know and Master Your Social Media Data Flow
The deeper you get into trying and using multiple social media tools, the more data begins to flow in different directions – especially with many platforms providing the ability to cross-post to one and other. Louis Gray touches upon this topic and shares how he handles the flow of his social media data.

Are You Spreading Yourself Too Thin?
Jacob Morgan provides some food for thought around the idea of creating multiple accounts for your business on each of the platforms that you are adopting as part of your overall social strategy. The topic definitely deserves consideration to avoid diluting your efforts.

16 Boring but Important Ways to Make Your Business More Social
It’s all too easy to get caught up in the “cool-factor” of the shiny new social web-apps that get released each week. Trying to figure out how to fit all these tools into your company’s social strategy can often distract you from many of the basic things you can do that will often make a bigger (social) impact. Shannon Paul shares 16 “boring” strategies for making your business more social.

Lessons Learned from 3 Years of Blogging
Are you still struggling with the idea of starting a blog and the what content you should create for it that will contribute to its success? Rebecca from the SEOMoz blog shares a plethora of lessons learned from the last three years of her blogging experience.

Are Newspapers & Big Media Dead? Think Again… My Contrarian Take
The continuing speculation over the fate of print media is far from over and there are certainly a lot of interesting takes on the topic. Chris Treadaway shares six interesting reasons why hyperlocal on-line media won’t win out over big print media.

Persuasive Picks for the week of 05/12/08

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Why Twitter Matters
As the popularity of Twitter continues to grow, we’re starting to see it gain more mainstream press coverage. This post on BusinessWeek.com by Stephen Baker dives into what the future might hold for the Twitterverse.

Best Social Media Advice From This Site
Chris Brogan compiles some of the best and most informative posts on his site and breaks them up into categories for mass consumption. Enjoy filling your brain with this Social Media feast!

Answers to all of your Groundswell questions
From one information packed pick to another! Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li provide answers to the many Groundswell related questions that came to them from the 700+ people who joined their recent webinar.

SEO Quick Tips
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is generally an area of expertise that can take a good portion of mental bandwidth to master. However, most readers will find value in getting some exposure to the basics. Steve Spalding from the “How to Spilt an Atom” blog posted these SEO Quick Tips that were shared with him by Mark Hager of Knoxville, TN Web Design.

CBS to Acquire CNET for $1.8 Billion
Definitely the most highly “tweeted” acquisition story this week. It should be interesting to see how CNET’s content changes and what plans CBS really has in-store post merger.

Top Time-wasters for Web Workers (And How to Cure Them)
Valuable advice for those (like you) who utilize the web on a daily basis. Just be sure to practice the cures AFTER you finish being distracted by this week’s Persuasive Picks!!

5 SEO Tips for PR Professionals

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Last night I attended Boston’s March Social Media Club Event in Woburn, Massachusetts. The topic of the evening was “The Search for Results: Social Media and Search Marketing” which was presented by a panel that consisted of:

  • Amanda Watlington, Owner of Searching for Profit
  • Greg Jarboe, President and Co-Founder of SEO-PR
  • Sherwood Stranieri, Director of SEO at SMG Search
  • Thom Brodeur, Senior VP, Global Strategy and Development for Marketwire
  • Andrew Komack, Founder and President of KoMarketing Associates, LLC

Amanda led the panel through several SEO related topics including SEO’s importance in social media marketing strategies, as well as some of the tools and techniques that SEOs use for optimization. The panel discussed different points of view on the topics and strengthened their message with interesting case-study stories.

Towards the end of the evening, the panel separated and joined the audience for small breakout sessions on more specific topics. The session I joined was led by Greg Jarboe and was geared towards SEO and press releases. The primary take-away from Greg’s talk was a 5-part formula for success with online press releases using SEO. The formula was laid out as follows:

Step 1: Do your keyword research.

The importance of keyword research was stressed several times during the event. Your keywords should always be nouns or adjectives. People never search for verbs. Its also important to craft “keyword phrases” rather than using a single keyword. If you can construct a keyword phrase that can be broken up into multiple phrases, your release will have a lot more impact with the search engines.

Step 2: Actually USE the keywords!

This step raised a chuckle when mentioned because it seems so obvious. You’d be surprised to learn how many people go through the process selecting keywords and then don’t use them or use them properly. Always be sure to include your keywords in the title of your release as well as in the lead paragraph.

Step 3: Add a link to the client site in the release.

Online releases need to be written for bloggers and regular readers in addition to the traditional media folks. Adding a link to the client’s site gives the reader the ability to seek out additional information about the topic in the release. Be sure that the link points to a relevant page on the client’s website and not just to the homepage where the reader is left to hunt for the proper page themselves. Those who are familiar with the concept of the social media release will already have this step down and have taken it even farther.

Step 4: Use a search engine friendly wire service.

Not all news wire services are search engine friendly. In addition, those that are search engine friendly not might format their releases in a way that makes all the major engines (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft Live Search, etc.) happy. Take time to discover which services are set up to give you the best results in each search engine. Greg recommended the NASDAQ owned PrimeNewsWire outside of Marketwire, PRWeb, BusinessWire and the others we are most familiar with.

Step 5: Measure the results.

Measurement is definitely a hot topic and a tough nut to crack on the social media side of things, but there are several things that are immediately measurable on the PR side of the house. As always, count your clips. Enough said. Beyond that you should start counting the blog results from your release. Have people started writing about your client on their own as a result of your efforts? One really valuable exercise that might not be easy to pull off is gaining access to your client’s analytics program. You might need to bribe your way into the IT department, but the data being collected about your client’s site can contain a wealth of measurement data as a result of your press release efforts!

Overall it was a good session that yielded several great nuggets to take away. As a PR professional, you owe it to your clients to stay up to date with the ins and outs of basic SEO techniques. Attending Social Media Club events are just one of the many ways to keep up with with the flow.

What tips do you have that could be added to formula?