Browsing articles in “Public Relations
Nov 29, 2022
csalomonlee

PRMeetsMarketing Weekly Articles: November 29, 2022

Here is this week’s of interesting articles. You can click on the Weekly Articles tag for previous issues or subscribe to the Weekly Articles Feed:  

 The Blog Bubble? – R. Scott Raynovich of Light Reading has an interesting post on Internet Revolution. Raynovich believes that there will be a crash in blogs in terms of how one can make money and continue drawing an audience. If he’s correct, then those blogs that provide truly interesting content and insight will continue to stay above the noise. I think we may also see the rise of more blog-lomerates (blogging conglomerates) list GigaOm, TechCrunch, VentureBeat and others.

What Millennials Don’t Know – Advertising Age highlights ten marketing myths and their implications for marketers.  Sorry Mellennials, the world doesn’t revolve around you! 

 Hallelujah – The Truth About PR “Relationships” – I read a few PR agency blogs and inmedia is one of the best. In a recent post, inmedia highlight the myth about media relationships resulting in media coverage. As the post concludes: Bottom line: The only thing that has any currency in a newsroom, the only thing any journalist cares about, is the news value of the story. Anyone who tells you otherwise doesn’t understand the news business  

 Marketing In is Better Than Out – Brian Hulligan of HubSpot wrote this interesting post about how company websites can become better “hubs” for industry information. In this way, your prospective customers can better find you on search engines, blogs and social networks.  

 Spammers Get Sneaky – I had paid scant attention to what seems to be a security hole in WordPress. Wired highlighted a recent sneak attack on Al Gore’s website. I’m assuming this doesn’t impact the freely hosted WordPress, right? 

 Consumer Stats for Pitching – MediaPost’s Online Spin blog summarized some interesting data points that were published in Time magazine. Great fodder for those 2008 pitches or for those guys prepping for CES already! 

 More SEO Tips for Press Releases – Lee Odden of Online Marketing Blog has some useful tips for press release optimization. Lee has advice from some of the leading press release wires. Also check out my previous post about how to select keywords for your press release.    

 Oh My – You Can Be Fired for CARING Too Much – I’ve just started reading Alec Saunders’ blog. Alec usually covers VoIP and VON related issues, but occasionally brings up issues in his native Canada. This recent post about a customer service rep who is concerned about being fired because she spends time with customers. Sorry Sears, you’re getting the “I Hate Customers” award.    

 technorati tags: Blogs Consumer Stats Customer Service inmedia HubSpot Marketing Millenials Media Relations PR Press Release Public Relations SEO Spam Weekly Articles
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Nov 29, 2022
csalomonlee

PR Pitch Review: Advanta’s Ideablob.com

So I received an interesting pitch today (my first, yeah!) from Erick of Advanta. After responding to a comment he left on the About page, Erick forwarded me a quite lengthy email about Ideablob.com. 

 His goal was to hear my impressions of the company’s efforts to promote Ideablob.com virally and without an ad spend. PS – I wouldn’t equate PR/media coverage as an ad spend – each achieves a different purpose and are approached differently. The second purpose was to get feedback about the site.

 After receiving Erick’s approval that I can provide my impressions via my blog, here is my overall impression from the process of contacting me and “viral” PR efforts. I’ll then provide my thoughts about the site itself in a follow up post.
 

PR Pitch and Overall Program
Erick left me a comment as he was seeking to respect my time by not spamming me. This was good as I love reading all my comments and this peaked my interest. However, I was a bit suspicious as he didn’t leave a company association and I wasn’t sure if this was a clever ploy to get my email address for spam purposes.
If Erick had checked out my company site, he could have found my work contact information, but leaving a comment was a good alternative sans email.

His pitch was a bit lengthy – highlighting the success that Ideablob had at the Demo conference earlier this year. For about a $40K investment ($15-20K to participate + travel & lodging for 2-3 representatives) and considering the uniqueness of their offering, this was probably a good choice to be in front of a lot of reporters and secure good media coverage.

Only after reading the pitch a few times, I finally realized that Ideablob.com is a social network for entrepreneurs and small business owners and extension of Advanta’s main business. I would have tried to bring this connection up a little sooner before. I’m unsure what efforts Advanta is undertaking to 1) publicize Ideablob and 2) highlight Advanta’s connection to the social network.

In doing a quick Google search, there were 17 50 blog mentions over the past month with 310 total, with some coverage in “mainstream” media. Not bad for launching in September. (Update Note: When I did the search last night, I got 93 mentions overall with 17 in last month. I’ve updated this to reflect more accurate numbers).

 As Ideablob awards $10,000 each month to a winning idea and entrepreneur, I envision Advanta highlighting the location, idea and personal background of each winner for coverage. What would be powerful is having personal video diaries of the winners’ reaction to winning and how they are leveraging the awards to progress their ideas.

 I could see a YouTube like channel or video blog to highlight the progress of winners to further engage visitors to the Ideablob website. The videos also have the possibility of being picked up by other blogs as well.

 Once some time has passed, it will be interesting to see if these $10,000 awards have had any impact on the success of these ideas. Again, the human factor will be key, similar to micro lending site Kiva.org, for securing profiles – both successes and lessons learned.

 Technorati Tags: Advanta Ideablob.com pr public relations social network

Nov 27, 2022
csalomonlee

Just Tell Me You’re Not Interested

I know reporters are busy. We all are. Chris Andersen wrote an article about being inundated with PR spam, and I even commented about how our industry sometimes contributes to this issue.

But I also know the frustration of following up with a reporter, who asks you to resend the email or to call back later at another time.  When you do what they ask, you expect the journalist to follow his/her promise as well. Except, all I get is the cold shoulder.

All I ask is simple respect in turn.

If you don’t want to review or read my email, tell me.

If you don’t have the time to chat with me, tell me.

But don’t tell me to resend an email that you promise to read and call me back after your meetings. And don’t use the same excuse twice to blow me off… because well, I know you’re blowing me off. The outlet and reporter will remain nameless.

OK – back to pitching reporters.

 

Technorati Tags: media relations  PR  Public relations  Reporters

Nov 21, 2022
csalomonlee

PRMeetsMarketing Weekly Articles: November 21, 2022

Here is this week’s of interesting articles. Have a great Thanksgiving. Yum Yum, I can taste them giblets now! =) You can click on the Weekly Articles tag for previous issues or subscribe to the Weekly Articles Feed:

 The Power of 150… or Not? – Mack Collier of Viral Garden brings up a good point of how AdAge is leveraging the Power of 150 list. Maybe it’s a case of another company not understanding the full power of social media? 
<What do Tulip History and Web 2.0 Have in Common? – Check out this humorous history lesson from mrontemp blog. Thankfully, I don’t like flowers – my lucky husband!

Going Deep into the Blogosphere – David Meerman Scott highlights an interesting site – DeepBlog.com – for finding popular blogs in certain niches 

 Astroturf Can Burn Baby –  John Blossom of Shore Communications writes about PR agencies still working their way around social media. He highlights the issue of “astroturfing” – pretending to be a satisfied customer when posting online. My perspective – learning about social media is no longer an excuse for doing one’s homework and understanding the rules of the road. 

 Lessons on Customer Service – Jeremiah of Web Strategy put up an amusing post about his experience with Real, Delta Airlines and PeopleSoft. Sometimes, it’s good to pay attention to what is being said about your brand online. Kudos to Real for responding so quickly.  Now only if Jeremiah can help me with Citibank’s stupid emails – read my rants here, here and here. Jeremiah also retells a story about his Uncle Ted’s experience working with prospects. You never know who will become your best customers.  

 And When Negative is a Positive – Marketing Pilgrim provides an interesting perspective on the power of negative reviews. They demonstrate that your customers care enough to write a negative review and can even provide good competitive intelligence on competitors. 

 PR’s New Tools – This article comes courtesy of the Marketing Profs Daily Fix. Looks at how multimedia can enhance your PR program. All good advice – so who’s going to do all of this work! =) 

 SMRs for New PR? – Lena West of InfoWorld highlights the pros and cons of the social media release. And in her wise words, “And remember, no amount of ‘social media-ization’ can make a news release exciting. A crappy news release is still a crappy news release.”   

Technorati Tags: Astroturfing Blogging Customer Service Marketing Pilgrim MarketingProfs New PR PR Public Relations Social Media Social Media Press Release Web Strategy The Viral Garden  Weekly Articles

Nov 15, 2022
csalomonlee

PRMeetsMarketing Weekly Articles: November 15, 2022

My apologies – I am having the damndest time getting the links to work. You can click on the Weekly Articles tag for previous issues:

Share and Share Alike – Todd Defren of PR-Squared brings up a good point that sharing information is integral part of social media.  

Best Buy and Customer Service in the Same Sentence? – MarketingPilgrim writes about a good customer experience. The tons of comments seems to indicate that the typical experience is less than stellar. But who knows, maybe Best Buy will start with business customers, which may slowly invade the in-store experience… Nahhh – I was just kidding! 

Where’s the Short Cut to Timbuktu – inmedia Public Relations Blog has an interesting post about media list building. As I’ve said before, don’t rely solely on the media databases. Augment the research by reading the publications online or in print.  

LinkedIn for the Unconnected? – CenterNetworks posted this article by Drama 2.0 regarding the value of social networks, specifically LinkedIn. Interesting piece about the value of social networks and who’s truly participating.  

You’re Invited But… – Robert Scoble has an interesting point about attending the Google announcement of Android. When looking at early adopters and tech geeks, I think blogs like Scobleizer and TechCrunch should be given equal weight with the “big guys.” It’s about knowing your influencers…

  Google’s PR comes across as “only caring about big bangs.” Last week I was in the Open Social press conference. Everyone else in the room worked for a big-name media outlet. Business Week. Wall Street Journal. Los Angeles Times. CNET. Barrons. etc. etc. Even TechCrunch was relegated to a phone-based seat and wasn’t in the room. That tells me that Google’s PR doesn’t get the value of small people. In fact, if you were tracking the mentions of that press call you’d have seen my use of Twitter during it got mentioned many times on blogs. Google’s PR didn’t seem to even understand why Twitter was important. They also kept me from using my video camera during the press call (the only reason I got video is cause I carried a cell phone with me — they asked me to leave my professional camera out in the car). Compare that to presidential candidate John Edwards who let me film, even on his plane during “off times.” And he has a Twitter account too. 

  Listen to Me Now! – Paul Dunay posted an interesting podcast between Jim Nail, chief strategy and marketing officer at Cymfony, and Pete Blackshaw, executive vice president at Nielsen Online Strategic Services. Jim and Pete discuss what conversational marketing truly is – it’s more than just surveying people or putting up a blog. It’s about how to “engage” and “sustain” conversation beyond just the dollars and cents.  

Being Social Does Help – I’ve gotten to know Tom Pick through his blog and he consistently provides actionable counsel for B2B marketing. In this most recent post, he outlines his experience with social tagging. I’ve used some of his tips for my personal blog and I’ve seen some modest results as well. And if you’ve wondered about the effectiveness of social media, check out this post from Mack Collier of The Viral Garden. 

To Be Ethical Or Not is the Question – Shel Horowitz authored a guest post on the IAOCblog about a Blogger Code of Ethics.  Hmmm, what disclosures should I be making now?? =P 

Technorati Tags: Best Buy,  blog ethics, conversational marketing, Customer Service, inmedia,  media lists, LinkedIn,  Paul Dunay, press conference, Scoble, social media,  social networks, tagging, Todd Defren  

Nov 14, 2022
csalomonlee

What do B2B Reporters Read?

The Center for Media Research recently ran an article about how B2B journalists use Web 2.0 technology. More accurately, it looks at where these journalists get their information and use the Internet. The basis of the article was from a recent survey conducted by the Arketi Group.

 I think this survey is interesting for understanding the trends that impact how reporters get their information and develop story ideas. However, I was disappointed in how little information there was about the methodology when I downloaded the two-page (yes – 2 pages)report. 

 After submitting my contact information (and I’m waiting for the sales call), I expected at least some insight as to what this meant and how many reporters were contacted. A title breakdown would have been helpful, as well as separating by the different industries represented in the survey. I would suspect that technology reporters would use some tools more than say automotive reporters.  Though I have tons of questions, here is a summary of results. 

  1. The top five places that B2B journalists tend to get their story ideas from industry sources (90%), news releases (90%), PR contacts (89%), newswires (79%) and websites (74%).  I was surprised that “traditional” PR distribution channels ranked higher than new PR methods. However, I anticipate blogs (54%) and RSS feeds (51%) to increase.
  2. In terms of how they use the Internet, 98% read the news, 97% read publications online, 97% emailing, 93% finding news sources. From my day job perspective, it was interesting that 67% watched webinars and webcasts, while blogs (72%), RSS feeds (59%) and wikis (52%) also ranked well.
  3. I found this point interesting – 92% of reporters write for both print and online. To date myself, I remember a time when a Chinese wall existed between print and online reporters.
  4. There are differing degrees of how reporters will use stories started in blogs. Some have reported from blogs directly (20%) or from “reliable professional news organization’s blog” (16%). Interestingly, reporters are still wary about blogs – 18% would cite it as a rumor and 18% only if the information is confirmed by an independent source.
  5. And for pitching stories to B2B reporters, the primary method is email, while the phone is the second preferred method.

Technorati Tags: Arketi Group B2B Center for Media Research New PR PR Public Relations Web 2.0

Nov 8, 2022
csalomonlee

PRMeetsMarketing Weekly Articles: November 8, 2022

Here is this week’s of interesting articles. You can click on the Weekly Articles tag for previous issues:

Dell Pulling Out All the StopsAccording to Now Is Gone, Dell is taking social media/conversation a step further with the launch of Dell Shares – an investment relations related blog. Maybe transparency and conversation is currency for this economy. Hmmm, consider buying some Dell stock.    

Digging ItPro Net Advertising provides some simple tips for creating an interesting digg title. I haven’t tried venturing onto Digg yet, so if you have other helpful hints, let me know.  When New Best Practices are Old – CK brings up a good point about a recent B2B marketing best practices report that was just published. From her perspective, these reports merely add to the echo chamber of what is believed to improve a product launch, versus truly unveiling best practices on what is happening around us. She plans to unveil her top ten best practices shortly.

Ninja Tracking SkillsI just started reading Distilled and they’re providing me with some interesting tricks for tracking web traffic. Very nifty indeed. So where’s my num chucks and stars…

 What Does Language Say About You? – Lois Kelly posted an interesting article on the IAOC Blog. Lois points out how our writing reflects who we are. She analyzed writing from three different CEO blogs and brought up some interesting points.   

 Socializing Within the Enterprise Read/Write Web has an interesting article about the use of social networking within the enterprise. This article raises what tools can/should be used in the enterprise and when. Personally, just more ways to have information overload =)

Brand Consumer for the Fan-sumer  Jeremiah Owyang does a great breakdown on MySpace and Facebook. This raises interesting questions for the brand marketer in each of us.  

 Search and Ye Will Find – First, congrats to Tom Pick for being named one of the top marketing blogs to watch. His article about how to truly leverage SEM is just an example of his approach to B2B marketing. Congrats again Tom!  

 Technorati Tags: B2B Marketing blogging  Facebook  Linguistics marketing  PR  public relations  search marketing social media  Social networking web traffic Weekly Articles

 

About

Cece Salomon-LeeCece Salomon-Lee is director of product marketing for Lanyon Solutions, Inc. and author of PR Meets Marketing, which explores the intersection of public relations, marketing, and social media.

This blog contains Cece's personal opinions and are not representative of her company's.

Learn more about Cece.

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