PR Blunders from Politics – Sarah Palin, Anthony Weiner and John Edwards

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Over the past week, I’ve seen the stories develop over Sarah Palin’s interesting take on history, Anthony Weiner’s unfortunate pictures on Twitter, and the indictment of John Edwards. In each of these cases, I’m seeing classic PR mistakes that these two seasoned politicians (and yes, Sarah is a politician at heart) make. Here is my top five list of where these folks went wrong:

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Top Five Social Media Mistakes

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by opensourceway via flickr

Over the past few years, it’s struck me how often people ask me the best way to participate on social media. While we are becoming more mature in how we leverage social media for public relations and marketing, there are still some common mistakes I see peopel make. Here are the top five mistakes that I think you or a company should avoid when you begin any social media activity: Continue reading »

PRMM Interview #18: Heidi Cohen of Actionable Marketing

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Heidi Cohen, president of Riverside Marketing Strategies, has 20+ years experience in direct and digital marketing across diverse product categories encompassing soft goods (such as clothes and uniforms), highly regulated financials services, entertainment-related products, and craft-oriented offerings. Her blog provides marketing related insights grounded in digital and direct marketing. In this installment, Heidi answered some questions via email. You can follow Heidi on Twitter @HeidiCohen. Continue reading »

5 Ways to Storify Your PR and Marketing Efforts

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Though I just received my invite to Storify, I am very impressed with the power that this content curation tool can provide for marketing and public relations. It’s simple and easy to use, a must for today’s busy professional. And a single story can have multiple contributors.

Still in beta with invites given out occasionally, Storify has great potential for marketing and public relations. Here are five ways Storify can help your efforts:

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Rise of the Infographic

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The old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words”underscores how a single image can communicate complex ideas. In my RSS feed, I’ve noticed an increase in infographics used for a variety of topics from mobile usage to social media stats. And in the work I’ve been doing for Virtual Edge Institute, we’ve created a couple of infographics as well.

While I envision more and more PR/marketing practitioners to use infographics, I would recommend limiting their use to summarizing key figures or information of interest to your audience. Here are a few of my favorite infographics:

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B2B Blogging Is Still Relevant

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With the prevalence of microblogging and status updates via Twitter and Facebook respectively, the question  is whether or not blogging is a worthwhile endeavor for B2B marketing. In Brian Solis’ “The State of the Blogosphere 2010,” post, he writes:

“What might have started as a form of self-expression has officially graduated into fully fledged self-actualization. 30% of corporate bloggers admit to blogging as a way to get published or featured in traditional media. 57% of self-employed bloggers share their expertise and thought-leadership as a way of attracting new clients.  Across the board however, the preponderance of bloggers speak their mind to meet and connect with like-minded people. Blogs form the basis for the formation of interest graphs, which, for all intents and purposes, represent the next stage of social networking. Close behind, a significant faction of bloggers use the platform to speak their mind as tied to areas of interest, specifically hobbyists, part-timers and the self-employed”

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PRMM Interview #16: Chris Abraham on PR and Social Media

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I met Chris Abraham, President of Abraham Harrison, while he was in a San Francisco late last year. While we were unable to record an interview at the time, I sent Chris some questions via email. Here are Chris’ video responses, as he shares his thoughts about his company, why they don’t consider themselves a PR agency, and what he would like to see in 2011.

Briefly, Chris is a leading expert in online public relations with a focus on blogger outreach, blogger engagement, and Internet reputation management. He can be reached on Twitter @chrisabraham.

If you are interested in submitting suggestions for future blog posts or would like to be a guest blogger, please contact me.