I guess Social Media has arrived and I should say that I’m not surprised by some of the things I see these days. It was bound to happen. Really good friend, and someone I admire, Erica O’Grady, pointed me to a very interesting conference coming up that has temporarily deflated my hopes for elevating and empowering marketing communications passionate marketers along with it. The conference is not in any way, attempting to mask its intentions… How To Use Blogs, Podcasts,…
Wire Services Bypass Bloggers and Journalists
Whether you like it or not, the headline is true… Looks like I wasn’t the only one to receive an interesting email from BusinessWire, ReadWriteWeb already ran a story about it. BusinessWire is a press release wire service that, among other things, is one of the largest players in the industry for distributing news and content between PR and journalists, analysts, bloggers, investors, and other wire subscribers. Basically, BusinessWire is proactively claiming that companies and marketers can use the distribution…
The Definitive Guide to Social Media Releases
The Social Media Release is back in the spotlight once again and its sparking conversations, inspiring experiments, and raising confusion along the way. This time, intent and distribution take center stage. Good friends Todd Defren and Christopher Lynn took the time to research how wire services are positioning their products for Social Media. Todd posted the results here. Great work guys! Basically, when you call your local representative, you’re presented with the following capabilities. Now, whether these stats are accurate,…
Alltop Aggregates Influential Voices Across the Web
I was alerted earlier by good friend Todd Defren, that I have been included in the Alltop index of top sites on the Web. Wow, thank you! I don’t know what to say. It’s a pretty incredible group of voices and I’m more than flattered to be included. So, allow me to officially introduce Guy Kawasaki‘s latest startup, Alltop. Guy at last year’s Gnomedex Like POPURLs, Alltop aggregates stories from “all the top” sites on the Web. They’ve grouped…
Transforming Customers into Evangelists: The Art of Listening and Engagement
I recently hosted a workshop at the Satisfaction event, Customer Service is the New Marketing. The topic I’m focused on was, “How to Listen to the Market and How to Engage Customers Online.” Fellow workshop leaders include Christopher Carfi, Deb Schultz, Chris Heuer, Jeremiah Owyang, Becky Carroll, and Douglas Hanna. Empowering your customers to become an extension of your marketing and sales forces isn’t new, but it isn’t widely embraced either. In fact, the function of most customer service has…
THE SEMMYS Recognize The Social Media Manifesto
I guess I must have been running a bit too fast lately, because I missed the fact that “The Social Media Manifesto, The Future of Corporate Communications,” made the finals for THE SEMMYS. Had I known, I would have asked for your help during the voting process 😉 THE SEMMYS tracks and ranks the year’s best posts in search engine marketing. Quite honestly, I was happy to be included in the finals. The manifesto finished as a runner up to…
The Evolution of Social Media Releases
The conversation about Social Media Releases (SMRs) as well as the tools to create them continue – albeit slowly. Each time someone introduces something new, we place a new stake in the ground and reignite an important conversation. Maggie Fox released a new Social Media service called Digital Snippits(tm). Congratulations Maggie, it’s a very polished and useful solution that will help your clients expand their options when running proactive communications campaigns. And, I’m being genuine when I say that Maggie…
The Value of Online Conversations
No, blogs are not dying. No, blogs are not going away. Blogs will continue to serve as one of the driving forces for the democratization of how content is created, shared, and also internalized. All forms of user-generated content will continue to excel…maybe to a fault. In conjunction with how blogs are continuing to influence the evolution of online conversations, micromedia is also inspiring new forms content creation and in turn, contributing to the spike of mostly irrelevant conversations. Steve…
PR for Startups Now Available as a Free ebook
I recently spoke at an SVASE StartUp University event in San Francisco to discuss PR and how startups can effectively leverage the right strategies, tools and tactics in order to gain visibility at every stage of their growth – without breaking the bank. Early stage and bootstrapped startups must embrace DIY (Do it Yourself) or outsourced PR as their product reaches advanced alpha in order to build strategic visibility without losing precious time. It all starts with answering a several…
New ebook: The Art and Science of Blogger Relations
Happy New Year everyone! The discussion around blogger relations is more relevant now than ever. And quite honestly, with every debate, exploration, and analysis, these conversations only fuel the advancement and improvement of Public Relations overall. It makes us think. Lest we forget, there is a significant percentage of bloggers, reporters, and analysts who think we’re useless – we’re merely spin artists who focus on pitching, blasting, and cranking out poorly written press releases. We contact people without caring or…