This post originally appeared on Marketwire’s Small Business Blog on March 28.

By Karen Geier

We live in a world where you probably know more about what your friends had for lunch than you do about some of your extended family. Social media has disrupted so much of the “old way” of doing things that it comes as a surprise most branded events are still very analogue.

Luckily, there are some very simple ways before, during, and after your event you can enhance it and increase your engagement with clients and customers.

Before Your Event:  Publicise and Build Excitement

The easiest way to integrate social media with your branded event is to get people talking and excited to attend it. There are several ways you can do this, depending on which social media accounts you have.

You can use your Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or Instagram feeds to tease out details of the event, including venue pictures, decorations, pictures of special guests, food, etc. Let your attendees build up the event in their own minds.

You might even want to crowdsource your event in some way. Using your social media feeds, have your guests vote on an option for the event. Invite them to vote for a speaker, or even offer choices for food (this would make an interesting Pinterest campaign)

Make sure when you’re sending out any and all communications that you tell attendees about your official event hashtag. This ensures your followers will use it into the run-up to the event, and you can retweet or post these updates in a dedicated feed on your blog or website.

During Your Event: Hashtags, Feeds, and Gathering User-Generated Content

The easiest way to gauge guest reaction at your event is by using a dedicated hashtag (users with Instagram or Vine can use these tags as well, don’t forget). You can display these on-the-fly reactions on a TwitterFall. One of the benefits of TwitterFall is that you can customise what gets displayed, and you can filter out naughty words. You should still have a dedicated social media point person at the event looking at the raw feed to make sure that guest complaints are remedied quickly, or that potentially troublesome (over-served) guests are dealt with appropriately.

You could also consider displaying an Instagram feed of all images generated during your party. People love to look at themselves onscreen, and will contribute more if they know there is a possibility they will make it on to the wall. You can use a program like Statigram to achieve this easily.

If you’re interested in posting Vines, you can use Vineaholic to display all Vines on a given hashtag.

Consider the surprise and delight of your invitees if you set up a special Foursquare message for attendees that notifies them of a special feature of your party (a secret sweet table, for instance.) As they head to the special place, they’ll tell their friends, and you will have provided a VIP experience to those “in the know.”

Fun Takeaways: Photo Booths and More

Most parties have a step and repeat background now. Why not take your step and repeat and make it social? Post a hashtag near the background, and let participants take Instagrams or TwitPics of themselves that you can collect for a dedicated event page on your blog or website. You can also hire companies like Instaprint to print “photo booth” type photos for your guests on-the-fly. Instaprint even posts the event hashtag right on the camera, eliminating your need for an extra sign.

After the Party: Your Event Portal

You can still get a boost from fans by connecting with them one last time after your party. Consider setting up a page on your site or blog, which is the clearing house for all the content you collected from attendees.

Think about having a few event helpers present to take video of your event. You might even consider setting up a place where attendees can upload their videos. You can edit your video along withy videos you’ve collected and stills from Instagram, Twitpic, etc. into a short video that you can then post on your dedicated event page.

For a fun thank-you gift, you could also collect the Instagram photos taken by hashtag, download them using a program like Instamac or Instagram Downloader, and print off stickers to mail to event attendees after the fact.

If you’re using Facebook to post event photos, invite your attendees to tag themselves and each other in the images. Offer a special prize to one tagger. (By having the names, you can cross-check your invitation list, and see who actually attended, and who had a good time.)

Consider putting together a Storify of the event. Storify allows you to pull in social media, blog, and web updates, write a story around them, and publish the story to the web in an easily embeddable form. You can always edit the Storify as you get more user generated content in, or if you get media coverage.

Just as customer care and retail are about an end-to-end service with many marketing touchpoints, events are an opportunity to interact with brand advocates in a real-time, reactive way. Don’t make your parties a hit-and-run experience. You can extend the life and excitement of a party well beyond the party date.

By Dagmar King

ALERT: Your organization’s brand image is no longer in your control.

Not that it ever entirely was, but once upon a time you had more say in convincing people what to think about your company, its products and services than you do today.

Now your brand and what it represents is largely shaped by social forces that fall outside the influence of traditional advertising and public relations. It’s no longer a “top-down” world. But what’s exciting is that today you have more opportunities to win hearts and minds than ever before.

Brent Heatley says it best in his op-ed “The brand control delusion,” which appeared this past December in the Australian publication AdNews: “Building and evolving brand strategies from the customer perspective is a smarter way of gaining permission to connect, adding value and, ultimately, of winning hearts and minds. Marketers who persist in imposing their top-down processes are likely to end up with brand strategies that are little more than wishful thinking.”

Build a brand strategy from the customer’s perspective

So how do you build and evolve a brand strategy from the customer’s perspective? Short answer: start by researching and monitoring social media. It is no longer optional to ignore social media conversations about your industry, your company and its competitors. Insight into relevant conversations on social sites like Twitter, blogs and industry forums will help you shape successful business decisions and strategies in today’s new world.

But what if you don’t have the time, tools or resources to analyze or monitor social media activity? Or you haven’t perfected the skills to generate and deliver a professional social media report and/or presentation? In these situations, you may want to consider having social media analytical reports created for you.

Marketwire Reports to the rescue

Marketwire provides a service called Marketwire Reports that does all the work for you. The only requirement is that you are a Marketwire client. Even if you’re not currently a client, it costs nothing to sign up – there’s no annual fee and you pay only for the reports you want.

To begin, our social media experts consult with you to set up and create a custom report using MAP (Media Analysis Platform) and Heartbeat, both powered by the industry-leading social media platform Sysomos. After your initial consultation, your first report is delivered to you in five business days.

You can order a Competitive Intelligence Report or a Brand Mention Report and each includes a wealth of valuable information. Following are some analytics from a Competitive Intelligence report on the Smartphone industry.

DASHBOARD

Below is a competitive overview of mentions collected for all Smartphones industry conversations, compared to Android, iPhone, BlackBerry and Windows Phone from June 1 to August 31, 2012.

INDUSTRY SHARE OF VOICE

The following graphs represent the total share of voice for Android, BlackBerry, iPhone and Windows Phone within generic smartphone conversations. The “Non-Branded” portion represents mentions that do not include a reference to any of these four brands (but may reference others).

Insights:

• The iPhone continues to dominate the smartphone conversations.
• While overall BlackBerry received the second greatest number of mentions of all the smartphone brands analyzed when we removed all the conversations where people also talked about their competitors, they fell down to having the second fewest mentions.
• BlackBerry phones get talked about most often when people compare their products to the other phones in the market. If we also factor in their low favorability rating from the dashboard we can conclude that people talk about BlackBerry in terms of needing to catch up with the other smartphone brands.
• Within the competitive landscape of smartphones, all brands lose a significant amount of conversation when they are not being compared to or talked about with their competitors.

INDUSTRY LEADER PROFILES

Insights

• The iPhone gets mentioned more than twice as much on average as the next most talked-about smartphone, both overall and on a monthly average.
• After the iPhone, the BlackBerry gets the second greatest volume of talk, but a lot of that chatter is coming from outside of the United States. For all the smartphones, the United States has the greatest number of conversations, but BlackBerrys seem to be talked about more outside of the United States as well.
• Both Android and BlackBerry phones seem to be more popular on a worldwide basis as the United States seems to talk about them less than the other phones on a share-of-voice per-country volume.

TEXT ANALYTICS

Android – Frequent Word Analysis

The following mention results are for Android from June 1 to August 31, 2012. The Word Cloud shows (by size) the most frequently mentioned words from all sources, and beneath it the Entities Word Cloud shows (by size) the most frequently referenced nouns.

The Payback: Better ROI

It doesn’t matter if you represent a large consumer brand, a B2B company or a non-profit. People are talking about you and/or your type of product, service and industry. Until you find out what they are saying and gauge the sentiment of their social media conversations, your outreaches will largely be in the dark. When you use social intelligence to guide your strategies and tactics – especially before, during and after a marketing campaign – you’ll not only make more informed decisions, but you’ll ultimately find out if you’re getting a decent ROI for your work and efforts.

Learn more about Marketwire Reports.

By Deborah Baum

Eventually all companies will make a mistake. It may be a big mistake or a tiny, insignificant error.  But it will be made at one time or another. When a mistake happens, most of us do all that we can to correct it before it snowballs.

A mistake made on a live press release is a dilemma that can be fixed very simply: by issuing an updated press release, or in some cases, a full wire correction.  While that may sound scary, every paper of record has had to correct misinformation at some point, and has done so without trepidation; doing so via the wire medium is just as easy.

A correction does not, and should not, be the big, bad, boogeyman used to frighten eager, young marketing professionals. There are simple methods to ensure that incorrect information that has been sent out will be corrected.  Here’s an example: your company is planning a webcasting event and in your zeal to publish your announcement, the date given is Tuesday, April 17, 2013.  As it turns out though, April 17, 2013 is a Wednesday.  This day/date mismatch needs to be corrected to ensure that stakeholders, as well as all interested parties, will know to tune in on the correct date.

Once the mix-up has been identified there are two basic ways to handle the situation: by issuing an updated press release, or by issuing a wire correction.  By notifying Marketwire, you can discuss your options in greater detail and your company can decide on the best course of action.

Option 1: Updated Press Release

An updated press release is, in general terms, a re-issue of exactly the same content as was previously circulated, with two major changes: words such as “update,” “revised” or “new information” appear in the headline to notify readers of a change from the original document, and the correct information, as in the day/date mismatch in our example above, has been inserted in place of the original text.

Option 2: Wire Correction

A wire correction is also a separate press release that contains some, if not all, of the same content as was distributed originally, with the addition of a very crucial paragraph at the beginning explaining what information has been changed in the text, and describing its exact location in the document.  This decisive correction paragraph is a clear message to the media and stakeholders of revised information, whereas the softer update option does not point out specifically what has been altered.

Both updated news releases and wire correction releases are distributed to the same journalists that received the earlier erroneous text.  This ensures that all relevant parties have access to the most recent, accurate data.

Here are a few examples of textual changes that might best be handled by means of an update:

• Change in speaker at an event
• Alteration in the contact person or phone number for the media
• Minor rephrasing of text or diction (i.e. grand vs. large)

By choosing to issue an updated press release, the new text will not replace or overwrite any information previously distributed; however, it will be the newest information of record and will be the content used by journalists reporting on your company.

Sometimes though, updated information is just not enough and a clear recognition of inaccurate content must be made.  Revisions that fall into this category include: incorrect financial numbers related to a company’s earnings, erroneous spelling of an individual’s name, or a mistaken title, and of course any false or untrue information regarding your company’s business and activities.

Both updated documents and wire corrections can be viewed as expensive and extreme measures to fix minor problems; in some cases it’s best to leave the disseminated text as is. Instances like this might include missing punctuation, incorrect grammatical usage, or minor misspellings.  While you may be unhappy leaving such things as is, drawing attention to them by issuing new text can sometimes do more harm than good as journalists do not want to see four re-issues of a document containing no new information.

Before twisting yourself into a tailspin of self-doubt, here are a few quick tips to remember when you come across incorrect information in the text of a press release already live on the internet.

• How important is it that the information be corrected or updated?  In the day/date mismatch given above, the answer is simply “very important.”  A more mundane typo such as the transposition of two words in a sentence (“The company a is” vs. “The company is a”) might only warrant an updated press release or could be left as is; a full wire correction might draw more notice than it really warrants.
• What type of press release announcement was issued, and who is the intended audience? A simple media advisory advising the press of the location of an event with a minor change like a misspelled word is small beans, whereas a company’s year-end financial statement with incorrect numbers is a capital letters BIG DEAL. Photographers checking the information on your company’s media advisory to reach a press event will forgive you the spelling error, whereas financial journalists and shareholders cannot excuse erroneous figures as too much is riding on that data.
• How soon after the embargo time was the error caught and how soon can you decide on a course of action?  If your press release has been posted and live for over a month, a full correction is probably not warranted, especially for small nut-and-bolts types of spelling and grammar gaffes. The exception to this being, if such a slip-up might change the meaning of the sentence in such a way that your company finds itself at fault, then acting quickly and decisively is your first priority.

By Adam Lovinus

One of the most common pitfalls in drafting a press release is injecting it full of copy that belongs in an advertisement.  Think of advertisements and press releases as being cousins:  they are of the same family, share a few common characteristics, have the same broad goals — but too much intermingling is taboo. So how can we avoid it?

Center your release around something newsworthy. Before you write a single word, take time to pinpoint the element that will make your press release appealing to the news media, your target audience. Tradeshows, conferences, grand openings, product launches, new hires, mergers & acquisitions, notable stock activities – these are the bread-and-butter reasons for writing a news release.  Without a solid news peg, a press release naturally has to resort to the storytelling methods more akin to advertising. A good news peg makes writing a press release simple: just answer the what, who, when, why and how of what your company has going on.

Use headlines, not taglines. The overarching aesthetic of a press release should resemble a news story. So, just like a story you’d find in a newspaper, a press release should contain a well-crafted headline that is fact-based and summarizes the story your press release tells. This is the opposite of a tagline, which might use wordplay and abstractions to implore the reader. Instead, tell the reader in about 70 words why you are writing a press release; use a subject-verb-object sentence structure for optimal clarity.

Implement an inverted pyramid structure. This refers to how a journalist orients the hierarchy of a news story: the most important facts up top in the beginning paragraphs, the lesser facts and supporting details toward the middle and bottom of a press release. This helps a press release flow, keeps it concise, and most important, makes it stay factual. Your “facts” are the answers to the who, what, where, when and why questions; it might help to make a list of these facts before drafting the release so you can orient them accordingly.   

Attribute all opinion statements. The narrative of a press release must never be confused for opinion. That mars the tone of your news release, and under some circumstances, news outlets may be unable to use your information.  But don’t let that stop you from adding opinions in a release altogether; just remember, anything that seems like an opinion needs to appear as a quote or a paraphrase. Let the company CEO espouse the opinions. You, the writer, stick to the facts.

Avoid exclamation marks and flowery adjectives.  These types of elements distract from the factual tone that a press release should have. Plain and simple. There’s rarely any reason to use an exclamation mark in news reporting; the same goes for a press release.

Implement these five tips in each stage of drafting your press materials and you will be in good shape. For other points of advice on how to make an impactful, resonant news release, here are a few more articles to reference:

• Beyond Buzzwords: Rising Above the Garble Online
• Think Local: Tips for a Community-Focused Press Release
• How to Make Your News Release Stand Out
• Writing Your Technical Press Release for Every Reader
• Press Release Structure: Making Your Content Stand Out on the Screen

By Dagmar King

Today, business success relies heavily on getting social media influencers on your side. The Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) defines an influencer as having “greater than average reach or impact through word of mouth in a relevant marketplace.” So it’s word-of-mouth marketing at its best when a well-known, well-respected expert in your industry positively reviews and promotes your product, service or brand on her blog or website, or tweets about it to his followers.

From finding the right influencers to fostering those relationships, how do you know that you’re focusing your time and efforts on those who will generate the best results for your business? Especially when your influencers all seem equal in their level of influence?

Tune in to our upcoming, complimentary one-hour webinar to learn the surprisingly simple answer to this very important question.

On March 21, social media expert Tamsen Webster walks you through a fascinating case study about social influence. Did you know that there are four types of social media influencers? Find out who they are, and learn what benefits each group brings to your marketing efforts. You’ll learn how to prioritize these groups based on budget, time and effort. This will help you shape the outreach, incentive and reward programs that will maximize your marketing efforts.

Maximizing Social Influence: A Case Study (or, Glasses, a Love Study)
Presented by Tamsen Webster
Thursday, March 21 at 1pm EDT, 10 am PDT

Register here

The webinar will be recorded and available to view later on demand.

About the Expert
Tamsen Webster specializes in how to tell the right story to the right people at the right time to drive business results. As the SVP of Content Activation and Digital Strategy for independent Boston advertising agency Allen & Gerritsen, she creates brand, content, digital, social, integrated media, community building, and audience engagement strategies for startups, retail, restaurant, CPG, and B2B brands.

By Michal Sorensen, Associate Editor

Cloud computing originally began as a way to back up files, photos, data and the like in case of a computer or server crash. If your files were stored “in the cloud” (read through the Internet on someone else’s servers), you were protected from losing all of your information at once. But then, companies began to realize that so many more things could be accomplished by using the cloud as an everyday working environment. For example, when your files/data are stored in the cloud, they can be accessed from anywhere that has an Internet connection: computer, tablet, or phone. This makes an employee completely mobile. Not only can employees work from home, the train, or a hotel, but they can work with anyone: different city, state, or country. With instant access to the most up-to-date version of their files, employees become more productive. Plus, many of the costs associated with IT are passed along to the cloud provider; no longer is an IT person needed on staff to install and update software, servers or run backups. But the cloud provides so much more for SMBs (small and medium-sized businesses)..

By taking advantage of the mobility and social business aspect (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) afforded by cloud computing, SMBs can identify, engage, and/or collaborate with new customers or partner businesses. This allows for innovation and partnerships that could have been left undiscovered.  In a world where immediacy is key to survival, cloud computing allows SMBs to meet their customers’ expectations for information at their fingertips in the form of mobile and tablet apps. An added convenience for consumers and the SMB: feedback made easy. With a presence on Facebook/Twitter or with an easy-to-use app, client feedback can be addressed immediately and from anywhere to redress an issue and track to see if this is a one-time problem or a bigger issue that needs immediate attention. But is cloud computing all hearts and roses?

As with all new technology there are concerns that need to be given careful consideration. For example, if your data/files are stored ONLY in the cloud, and that cloud service provider goes down, you go down with it. Or if your cloud provider acquires a virus or is hacked, your information could be compromised. However, most cloud-stored data is now encrypted for safety reasons, and most cloud service providers work very hard to create a secure environment for their data storage, often investing more resources in data backup and security that SMBs could for their own companies. Plus, no one can eliminate all risk from a computing environment.  Anyone can get a virus or get hacked, hard drives and servers can fail, or laptops with private work data can be stolen.  It is up to SMBs to research their cloud service providers to ensure they are reputable and then, as with any business decision, weigh the benefits vs. the risks.

How and when SMBs take advantage of the cloud is up to them, but eventually they will. Let’s face it, the cloud is not the future, it’s the present. How, though, can SMBs advertise their cloud computing capabilities? Is it enough to just use the term “the cloud” in press releases, email marketing campaigns, and on company websites and assume readers will be impressed? Right now, hundreds of press releases a week are distributed to reporters and websites by SMBs about their cloud computing capabilities. “I can hardly stomach the term ‘cloud’ anymore because it has become so overused by marketing personnel,” said Eric Kilgore, a member of the information technology infrastructure team for Severstal North America, a Dearborn, Mich.-based manufacturing company.

To stand out, SMBs need to explain how cloud computing is setting their company apart from the competition, not just that they are now a part of the cloud in some way. What feature are they using (in the cloud) that makes them outshine everyone else, makes them faster, makes them smarter, easier to use, more profitable, etc.? Where does the competitive edge come from? “In two years’ time, […] I don’t think we’ll be talking cloud,” said Nigel Beighton, international VP of technology for Rackspace. “I think it’s an old word, almost. Look at some of the advanced markets, areas like the West Coast; the phrase is starting to die down.” The mentality is changing from ‘who is in the cloud’ to ‘what are you doing with the cloud?’ and that is what SMBs should be focusing on explaining to their current and future customers.”

Eric’s quote source: http://www.altaflux.com/enterprise-skepticism-remains-despite-cloud-benefits-growth/

Nigel’s quote source: http://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/news/2249408/in-two-years-time-we-won’t-be-talking-about-the-cloud

By Dagmar King

Today’s marketers are in the midst of a massive strategic shift as traditional outbound strategies like advertising are giving way to customer-driven, inbound programs based on two-way conversation.  They’ve had to learn how to listen, create relationships with their customers, and find new ways to define and measure success.

In this new environment, do you ever wonder how your perspectives, strategies and practices compare with other marketers – and what those marketers consider “ideal”? If so, you might find that you have a lot in common.

Success factors defined

According to a newly released study, “Defining the Modern Marketer: From Real to Ideal,” sponsored by Oracle|Eloqua and conducted by B2B, the digital marketing professionals surveyed rated themselves at only 65% of the ideal based on five factors they felt define marketing success today:

• Marketing Technology
• Analytics
• Conversion
• Engagement
• Targeting

That percentage seems fairly high considering that the components the survey participants say define their success were all largely or completely nonexistent just five years ago.

Survey participants rated the importance of five essential competencies impacting their work (left) compared with how they believe they measure up to the ideal (right).

A new media environment opens new doors of opportunity

The massive and accelerating changes facing marketing professionals show no signs of slowing down. But these changes open new doors of opportunity. More than ever before, marketers must demonstrate the value of their efforts, so it’s no surprise that survey participants said the ability to track marketing ROI due to technology is the most transformative factor they face today. Following that is the ability to leverage social media as power shifts from the brand to the consumer, along with the capability to market to mobile and fragmented media environments.

What activites are digital marketers actually using?

While email is still considered their most important and frequently used digital channel, the digital marketers surveyed rated social media just behind that. It’s rapidly gaining ground, which is a phenomenon that couldn’t have been predicted a few years ago.  PR, blogging and case studies point to the importance of content marketing as do webinars/virtual events, while pay-per-click and organic search remain important marketing staples.

The bottom line

Today’s marketer must possess the creative skills required for traditional marketing while also knowing how to market in a social culture that fosters two-way communication rather than top-down promotion. Challenges include reduced resources and the ability to respond to the market quickly with tailored, effective messages. Factors defining success include targeting, audience engagement, lead delivery, measurement and generation of ROI – and all require the ability to leverage new tools and technologies that didn’t exist just a few years ago.

Are we there yet? Not quite, but survey participants give themselves credit for coping relatively well in the midst of dramatic change and feel they are making progress in adopting the concepts required by today’s marketing realities.

Survey methodology

In January 2013, BtoB surveyed 556 b-to-b marketing professionals representative of the market: 54% of respondents said their company revenue is less than $100 million, 18% reported revenue of $100 million to $499 million, 8% said their companies have revenue of $500 million to $999 million, and 20% reported annual revenue of $1 billion or more.

Marketers from technology companies comprised 29% of all respondents, with financial services companies (including accounting, banking, insurance and real estate) at 9% of the total, and consulting firms, publishing/media companies and manufacturing companies each at 8%.

This post originally appeared on the Sysomos blog on Tuesday March 5th (just in case you’re wondering why it’s 2 days short of some data)

We’re just days away from what may be the worlds largest gathering of geeks, nerds and lots of new apps. That’s right, South By South West Interactive (SXSWi) starts on Thursday and brings together thousands of marketers, PR professionals, social media specialists, techies and app makers in Austin, Texas.

Of course there’s also a lot more to SXSW, like the music that the festival was built around in the first place, but it’s the interactive portion that is attracting us. Probably you too.

While our excitement is building as we look forward to five great days of learning, meeting new and old friends and the infamous SXSWi parties, we thought we’d take a look through MAP, our social media monitoring and analytics software, to see everyone else’s excitement as well. And you can actually see it building. In the last month we found over 393,000 mentions of “SXSW” OR “SXSWi”. We found 8,466 blog posts, 9,449 online news articles, 9,136 forum postings and 366,428 tweets. Some would probably call this the calm before the storm.

As I said, the excitement and chatter is visibly rising as the start nears. A look at the mentions of SXSW and SXSWi over time shows that week over week the talk has been increasing. As well, we can see that yesterday was actually the most chatter we found around the event. We expect to see that continue rising as this week goes on as well.

It’s interesting to see just how many people the event attracts. A look at people tweeting around the world about SXSW or SXSWi shows that people from around the world are gearing up to either head to Austin to attend or try to keep up with it online. It appears that SXSW attracts people from every continent.

We then took a look at the conversations happening. Since Twitter was mainly driving the conversations we pulled up the most RT’d tweets around SXSWi. For this search we had to remove SXSW because all the retweets around it were retweet contests to win wristbands to the music festival. The tweets we found around SXSWi though seemed to be all about getting people ready for the event. The most RT’d tweet was from The Next Web telling people about an app designed to find all the SXSW parties. Others show how many people are expected to be there this year, surviving the event and The Wall Street Journal asking if it’s still worth it to attend. Of course, our favourite is the map of where all the tacos in Austin are located.

Lastly, we looked at the sentiment around the event. Here we found an astounding 54% of the conversations to be positive. SXSW has a 96% favourable rating around it. Apparently we’re not the only ones excited.

This was just a quick look at what’s coming up, but keep an eye out after SXSW because we’ll be releasing an in-depth report about the entire Interactive section.

Are you going to be attending SXSWi? If so, there will be a bunch of us from Sysomos down there and we’d love to meet you.

By Denielli Dy, Associate Editor

In today’s world, people rely on their mobile devices and electronic gadgets to connect with others near and far. They obtain information about the world and their surroundings via these handheld devices and these tools assist in making activities easier and more enjoyable.

‘Apps,’ or small software applications designed to operate on mobile devices, are developed for each social media platform to allow users to download and browse data in real-time. Users can gather information, organize files, expand their networks and be more productive. They can collect data from various applications using different devices, and even connect with people anywhere in the world to help them carry out their day-to-day tasks with ease and comfort.

People utilize their mobile devices in many ways — from learning about the most ground-breaking news, to finding the most mundane information like the weather report. There is no doubt that press releases and news that are delivered via the mobile app platform have a huge audience that can span the world.

So how can public relations professionals adapt their press releases to ensure they’re most effectively utilized on mobile devices?

1. Keep content concise. People who get information through their mobile devices are usually on-the-go and need to obtain facts quickly, hence, most prefer to read information that is readily available and can be easily understood. Therefore, the text should be direct to the point and written with plenty of details in a small space without sacrificing clarity. Unnecessary details and lengthy explanations should be avoided in order to keep the text clear and easy to read.

2. Make the headline simple but catchy. A brief, easily scanable headline gives readers the general essence of the article and holds their interest longer. An inviting header provides a good opening for more details while supplying the basics of the overall information.

3. Use short text. Information shared through the Internet should not be too wordy and long-winded. Long news with big file size requires more data transfer from the server to the device and takes more time to download. This not only hinders the reader attaining information quickly, but also requires more data usage (and will directly affect your reader’s bottom line).

4. Avoid too many multimedia enhancements. Images and other multimedia enhancements surely make an article more interesting and appealing when viewed from the comfort of a tabletop computer screen, however, images and videos have huge file sizes and will make the download time longer. Instead of including the actual image and video in the article, use SEO (search engine optimization). This allows you to hyperlink words or phrases in your text to other websites, which help extend the reach of the article by optimizing the visibility of the website in search engines and allowing faster file transfer. By linking words or phrases to multimedia-hosting websites such as YouTube and Flickr, you can share your multimedia assets without weighing down the size of your press releases.

Modern technology makes information sharing easier and faster. Mobile devices allow communication and information transfer possible among people – whenever, wherever. Using the mobile device platform to disseminate news is without a doubt beneficial to both the news provider and the consumer