In today’s digital landscape where content, SEO and social media collide, your headline is more important than ever.   Whether it’s at the top of your blog post, press release or online article, the key to grabbing attention and getting your message across is to start with a captivating headline.  You not only want your news to be read, you want it to be optimized for search and easy to share.  When you write your headline, you need to consider writing to accommodate search engines, social networks and human readers alike.  Lofty goals for a dozen words, indeed.  Here are a few quick tips to help you with your headlines:

(more…)

We’re inundated with stories about the failure of mainstream media to rise up to the challenge and expectation of social media stakeholders and digital consumers, and with accounts of iconic enterprises scrambling to find a way to deal with steadily declining paid subscribers and advertisers.  There are, however, nimble adapters – even media icons – that are not only learning to survive in the new media era—they’re thriving in it.  Some even lead the charge when it comes to breaking ground in innovative uses of social media techniques to gather, report, publish and distribute the news.

(more…)

A traditional press release is still relevant in today’s evolving PR landscape. But more and more companies are complementing their traditional releases with social media press releases (and even replacing them) because a social media press release is a vehicle to tell a fuller, richer story by offering multimedia assets and a way for your audiences to easily share your content through their social networks.  When you take the time to properly plan your social media release, you increase your chances for getting your content read and shared with greater frequency.

(more…)

Many North American employees spend as much time (if not more) at the office as we do at home, so it’s little wonder that we want our workplace to be more than a sea of cubicles bathed in fluorescent light and muzac.  But what makes a great space?  We set off in search of the coolest PR and marketing agency reception areas knowing we’d see some pretty incredible spaces:  exposed brick, funky artwork and open, welcoming interiors. We didn’t expect to see the utterly amazing, quirky, and just plain fun alternatives to traditional office design, including an antique carousel, a barista bar and even a “WOW” bell for clients to ring when they experience great service.  Equally impressive was the extent to which these agencies and their employees personified the social media ethos: collaborative work environments, Wi-Fi lounges, breakout spaces that foster creativity and sharing.  Let’s take a look at ten of the places some very fortunate and creative people call “the office.” 

(more…)

Anyone who has worked in the field of marketing for more than five years knows it hasn’t always been quite this crazy. And I don’t mean just because of the dramatic changes brought forth by social media and the relentless stream of new tools and technologies. What I’m talking about is the non-stop pursuit to demonstrate ROI in a department not traditionally considered a revenue center.  Marketing departments – along with other functional areas of organizations – have always had to demonstrate their value. But today’s C-suite – regardless of industry, market or brand – wants to see marketing’s contribution to increased sales or cost savings or customer retention. We now need to draw the connection between leads and dollars.   But what do we do if we’re primarily responsible for generating online content instead of running a lead-gen or DM program? How do we quantify our results? Here’s a few tips on how to demonstrate our contribution to the bottom line.

(more…)

When it comes to social media usage around the globe, the stats, trends, and “did-you-knows” are seemingly infinite.  A lot of surveys have been conducted to determine the most socially connected cities based on numbers alone, so we did things a bit differently:  we identified international cities that personify the social way of life in their own unique ways.  We’ll take you to London, the city with the most Twitter users worldwide, and to Seoul, whose broadband penetration rate of 83 percent is nothing short of astonishing.  And you’ll learn which US city is the best for online dating and where you’d likely get the best salary as a social media manager.

(more…)

I’m a news junky. Have been my whole life. Probably why I started out as a reporter and why I enjoy much of what I do today. It’s the story that matters and the impact that story has to bring people closer or pull them farther apart. Every story has the power to – at the very least – get the conversation started, and, hopefully, get people to take some action. The story that broke a decade ago is one that touched every human being, and one that is being remembered on this 10th anniversary with the dedication of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum taking place today on the very site in New York that has been known as “Ground Zero.”

  (more…)

Perhaps the best examples of real-time content are Twitter and Facebook.  Think of it:  every tweet, retweet and post is content that you are authoring and sharing in real time.  You share an opinion or post a question to your friends and followers and often, you’ve got a response even before you can hit “refresh.” These real-time conversations produce real-time content.  But in and of itself, the conversations on Twitter and many other social networks are not innately SEO-friendly. 

(more…)

Crisis management in the face of social media requires a masterful and agile skillset.  Today’s crises (and their responses) play out in real-time, as do breaking news and opinion about the situation at hand.  Add to that the viral nature of social networks and the ability for a story to get around the world in mere minutes, and you’ve got a virtual powder keg of bad publicity threatening to explode in the hands of the organization at the center of the crisis.  Gone are the days when you can bury a story or get by with a simple “no comment.”  How your company reacts (or doesn’t) to a bad situation can sometimes make or break its future.

(more…)

More and more companies, both B2B and B2C, are integrating social media into their overall marketing mix because they have realized the incredible opportunities that exist across the social web.  The ability for real-time customer service, lead generation, brand and reputation management, sales opportunities…the list goes on.   Let’s go over a few reasons why your business should be using social media.  

(more…)