Video Clip of the Month: Chris Brogan Interview

chrisbrogan

My May 2010 video clip of the month is an interview Chris Brogan gave for the LikeMinds conference in the United Kingdom. Brogan, arguably one of the top social media experts in the world, discusses his vision for social media's future.  Here's the YouTube video: … [Read more...]

Do-It-Yourself Media Relations: 5 Easy Steps

pitch-thumb

Public relations is vital to building your company and promoting your brand. If you're a small business, non-profit, or start up, however, your budget might be too tight to hire a public relations firm to publicize your products and services to reporters and bloggers. Here are five easy steps for successful do-it-yourself media relations: 1. Create a Press Kit Every company should have a press kit: a hard-copy version, contained in an attractive folder, and … [Read more...]

Video Clip of the Month: University ‘The Office’ Spoof

theoffice

My March 2010 video clip of the month is a spoof of the NBC sitcom "The Office" that students at the University of Denver produced to show their frustrations with technology in the classroom. The video features “Michael,” a technology professor who hasn't kept up with the latest technology and is trying to wing his technology lectures. At one point, he hands out floppy disks so outdated his students’ laptops don’t even have drives to read them. Later, he … [Read more...]

Are Blogs King and Press Releases Obsolete?

huffington

UPDATE: As noted in my Is Twitter King and the Press Release Obsolete? post, Brokaw: ‘I Don’t Get Twitter…Just Stuff That Fills Air' post, and Video Clip of the Month: Conan’s YouTube Choice post, social media has the future of press releases in a flux. Stay tuned! Blogs are more effective than press releases, Arianna Huffington, cofounder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post, said during a Q&A interview in the February 2010 issue of PR … [Read more...]

Video Clip of the Month: Social Media ROI

Socialnomics

My February 2010 video clip of the month is a video by Erik Qualman, author of the Socialnomics - Social Media Blog, on social media return on investment (ROI). The video showcases several social media ROI examples along with other highly successful social media strategies.  Here's the YouTube video: … [Read more...]

HOW TO: Arm a Press Release with Magic Magnets

SEO magnet

A snappy, eye-catching headline used to be the most critical part of a press release back in the day when a press release was—shockingly—actually a release to the press. Now that the Web has allowed people to read press releases directly, even the cleverest headline is useless on a news release that doesn’t generate traffic. In today’s Web 2.0 world, the most important thing your press release and its headline needs is keywords. Keywords are what … [Read more...]

Twitter: Pornography & Spam vs. Quality Contacts

spambot

I lost about a hundred Twitter followers over the holidays. "Alice" was on Christmas break, and I didn't have time to review my new followers to decide if I wanted to follow them back. I check every Twitter profile before I manually follow back, making it is easy for me to fall behind. I definitely do lose a few contacts that way. Some new Twitter followers will unfollow you in as a little as two days if you don't return the follow. Of course, some of these can … [Read more...]

Video Clip of the Month: Serendipity Engine

chris_brogan

My January 2010 video clip of the month features a valuable talk Chris Brogan gave at the Web 2.0 Expo in New York City. Brogan is arguably one of the top social media experts in the world and his blog is rated number 0ne by Advertising Age magazine. Here's the YouTube video: … [Read more...]

Your Brand: Taking Social Media Seriously

twitter_bird_book

Now that Google has added live results from Twitter into searches, you need to face the fact once and for all that you can no longer control your organization's online reputation. Negative comments on blogs, Facebook, or Twitter have the power to tarnish your brand overnight in ways unimaginable a few years back. Even a small business should take social media seriously and try to influence conversations about its brand. A common concern, however, is managing … [Read more...]

Your Brand: 10-Minute Social Media Monitoring

twitter

Google is adding live results from Twitter into searches this week, forever changing the nature of brand management. Now more than ever, you need to monitor your organization's social media presence.  You need to know right away if the live Tweet results include "worst service" or "sucks," so you can diffuse these conversations and "push down" negative tweet search results. A common concern, however, is that monitoring social media takes too much time, … [Read more...]

Video Clip of the Month: Muppets on Social Media

muppets

The Muppets Studio produced a cute clip about social media. Here's a link to the video on YouTube: … [Read more...]

Social Media Campaign Sets Guinness Record

GuinnesWorldRecords

The Atlanta-based social media marketing agency Everywhere set a Guinness World Record October 16 to 17, 2009, for the most widespread social network message in a 24-hour period with 209,771 mentions on Twitter, Facebook, and blogs. In fact, the massive viral effort was so successful that #beatcancer, the campaign's trending topic, became the top one on Twitter. Incredibly, Everywhere conceptualized and executed the one-day pro-bono campaign in one week. It ended … [Read more...]