Google launched its Google+ Communities last week creating another way to connect with people who share the same interests.
It’s pretty easy to use. You search for an interest whether it’s skiing or knitting or Star Trek and join the community. Then you interact with like-minded people. If there isn’t a community, you can create one in less than ten minutes.
So you know what to do if you like Star Trek but Google+ Communities is also a great place to grow your brand. You can set up a community based on your products and invite your brand ambassadors to interact with you, your brand and your product. (more…)
Bad names happen all the time but a kids’ store named after an overblown, overwrought book about imprisonment and death? If you’re of a certain demographic, you may have read Flowers in the Attic. Angelica Moreno shows us why you really need to do some market research.
On the Sysomos blog, Sheldon Levine looks at baseball’s 2012 World Series. If you’re not into sports but love politics, take a look at who won the three presidential debates and what Canadians think of the US elections (a lot).
Plus there’s all the great content on this blog. Like we said, it’s been a busy week!
It’s a question many brands and individuals have probably been asking since the service was launched in July, 2011 after more than a year of work behind the scenes.
On the surface, it seems that Google+ has been a huge success with more than 100 million “active” investors among the 400 million people who have signed up for the service, which lets people share information and communicate with friends and business colleagues.
Even so, there seems to be ambivalence about Google+, which Google describes as a “social layer” that sits on top of its other services – as opposed to a social network. (more…)
This week on our Small Business Blog we’ve got tips from marketing and branding experts on how to develop and grow your business.
Angelica Moreno, who has managed the well-known household brands Becel, Hellmann’s and Sensodyne, takes us through the 4Ps of marketing – the first in a series looking at how to correctly market your product.
This new look and brand promise is the first step of our next journey as a company- we refer to this as our “Brand New Day” at Marketwire. Our vision is to inspire and empower the world’s communicators to achieve greatness. We are not just about issuing press releases for our clients nor are we just about social media monitoring and analysis software. We are about powerfully simple communication solutions. We are about technology and great design. We are about our customer service. We are about living up to all that our great brand promises for our clients.
To do this we are launching our new Marketwire Resonate platform in the next few weeks. Our platform will align the business intelligence extracted from the social web with the ability for our audiences to connect with all their audiences.
At Marketwire we have worked hard over the past 29 years to build a reputation for our company, to stand for all the good things we want our clients, prospects, partners and employees to think of when they hear the name “Marketwire.” They know that Marketwire is recognized for the innovative offerings and tremendous client service that we have delivered over the years, but as with all markets, technology is changing how we communicate. The world of social media is transforming the way people access, consume and interact with information and each other.
So today we are introducing our new brand identity. This new identity represents a refreshing of our brand. We want to ensure our brand is identified with social media communications, and speaks to a marketing communications audience as well as our traditional public relations and investor relations customers. Our service is Beyond Words in every respect and we will be working to develop our brand presence that matches our movement beyond traditional communications, beyond just social media communications and is actually recognized as the leading authority in bridging these two worlds of communication.
Aaaaah, the business blog. A welcoming destination where visitors get to glimpse behind the velvet ropes and experience your organization’s unique business personality. Where they’re drawn to captivating content that speaks to them. And where feedback and conversation are encouraged. Do these statements describe your organization’s blog? Or is it a foreboding place that posts business updates and pushes corporate propaganda? If it’s the latter, or if you want to improve the results of a so-so blog, take a few tips from Jeff Ente, publisher of “Who’s Blogging What?” and Mark Evans, award-winning blogger and journalist.
The insight and intelligence that can be gathered from closely monitoring the activity and conversations across the social web are rapidly becoming “must have’s” for any company or brand. Tech journalist and social strategist Amber Mac sat down with our own Jeff Cann during her Canadian Tech Spotlight series at Toronto’s Dx3 Canada conference to talk about the power of tapping into billions of online conversations, and how companies can monitor and evaluate their brand health, campaign performance and consumer sentiment.
We continue to be amazed at the variety of creative ways our clients use Sysomos Heartbeat and MAP (Media Analysis Platform) to monitor, analyze and engage in the social sphere. Although the basics are the same, the applications are as wide-ranging as each client’s business objectives. There’s no doubt that social media monitoring is today’s must-have for every type of organization, whether B2B, B2C, non-profit, government, media outlet or agency. The possibilities are endless.
Social media is rife with business buyers searching for business solutions. According to Forrester Research, 84 percent of business buyers say word of mouth has the greatest influence over their purchasing decisions, far surpassing any form of paid media. And Twitter is a great place to find business buyers. It’s a veritable goldmine that can pay off handsomely for B2B organizations. Jonathan Astor, social media lead at Valtech and Sheldon Levine, community manager at Marketwire + Sysomos, show us how to find and nurture social media leads. To listen to Jonathan and Sheldon discuss this fascinating topic, tune into the archived version of our recent webinar: “B2B Social Media: Turning Untapped Conversations into Business Wins.”
Positive word of mouth and brand advocacy are important to any organization. But for nonprofits, groups that are typically challenged by strict budgets, limited human resources and government regulations, word-of-mouth and advocacy marketing are key strategies. Enter social media and the abundance of wide-open channels (most of them free to use) and communities of socially and ethically conscious millions. For many nonprofits, the opportunity to identify and tap into groups of like-minded citizens helps the organization not only share its mission and mandate, but use the common collective of fans and followers to spread those messages far(ther) and wide(r). Let’s look at ten nonprofits doing just that.
If you’re in marketing, PR or any communications role you’ve likely been inundated with expert advice on how to incorporate content marketing into your business strategies and heard why it’s a must-have in your corporate plan. Many practitioners are just getting familiar with terms like content marketing, content strategy, content publishing and content curation, while others are writing books and blog posts about it. If you’re new to it all, don’t despair: You’re probably already doing some kind of content marketing, even if you don’t realize it.
Anyone who’s ever written a press release knows it’s all about the one-two punch: You want people to read your release, and you want them to act on what they’ve read in some way. Whether the goal is to solicit media attendance at the grand-opening of your new corporate headquarters, announce the launch of a new line of kids’ organic clothing to generate online sales, or notify the public of contaminated deli meats, the intent of any press release is the same. Social media has become a driving force in the way we create and publish news, so making press releases more social media friendly is a smart communications tactic. It’s not difficult, and it opens the door for having your content seen, shared and acted upon by more people.
There’s no doubt about it; 2012 is going to be a year of great conversations with your customers, employees, investors and the media. You’ll create fantastic content and share it with the people who matter most to your company. You’ll provide them with the news and information they need to make informed decisions about buying your products and services, and you’ll build strong, long-lasting relationships with the people who can make your brand better and your business more successful. And you’ll do it all by being engaged.
There’s little question that for many companies, Twitter is good for business. With more than 300 million user accounts and about 13% of online adults in the U.S. using Twitter there is increasing potential for companies to build relationships with customers, increase brand awareness and drive revenue. Twitter has become a hotspot for social media-savvy brands, and the best-of-the-best use creativity and a customer-centric focus to engage their audiences and cultivate true brand ambassadors. But for a brand to truly succeed on Twitter, they must look beyond the number of followers and retweets, and instead focus on the level of engagement they have with the stakeholders who can – and do – impact their bottom line. Take a look at ten brands that are doing it right.
If you wonder how much impact social media has on sports, consider two of the most tweeted events in recent history: Japan’s victory over Denmark in the World Cup (3,200+ tweets per second), and this year’s Super Bowl (4,000+ tweets per second). In the last few years, professional sports teams from around the world have tapped social media as a new way to connect with fans, allowing them to share the same enthusiasm and team spirit on Facebook that they do courtside. But what teams are hitting it out of the park when it comes to their social media presence? Take a look at ten teams who are doing it right.
What is the “X-factor” for excellence in corporate reputation? Is it simply how a brand is perceived by the public? Is it company culture? What about charitable activities, community engagement, corporate leadership and work-life balance? It’s all of these things, but we also believe corporate reputation starts closer to home, with employee brand ambassadors who best represent the company online and offline, at work and at home, and via social or traditional media. In our list of ten companies with stellar reputations, you’ll find some unsung heroes—and one guaranteed surprise—in this refreshing collection of small and large companies who value and foster brand ambassadorship.
With its highly engaging environment and 800 million-plus user base, Facebook represents unlimited opportunity for companies looking to establish brand presence and develop long-standing relationships with customers and fans. Many public relations and marketing professionals have found success in building communities around their brands (and their clients’ brands) and adapted their communication strategies to be more “Facebook-friendly.” In this week’s Pulse, see if you can glean some tips from these world PR agency leaders who also lead in connecting, contributing and communicating online. We think you’ll find plenty to learn from here, and even more to “like.”
Perhaps more often than anything else, I am asked about press releases and their continued role and relevancy as communications vehicles. “Has social media made traditional media irrelevant?” “Can the process of distributing a press release simply be replaced with a tweet?” “Have companies abandoned releases as a means to share their news with stakeholders?” My answer to all of these questions is quite simply, “No.”
There are a lot of PR blogs and bloggers out there – and that’s a good thing. From Richard Edelman to Brian Solis, many are RSS and TweetDeck mainstays, and whether you follow industry giants or niche writers, some of the most insightful and foreward-thinking blogs about communication, social media and audience engagement are authored by those in the PR space. With “The New Breed,” we set out find ten PR blogs we could recommend to you that offered a unique mix of content and personality, and gave you some new ideas and fresh thinking when it comes to public relations.
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Google launched its Google+ Communities last week creating another way to connect with people who share the same interests.
We continue to be amazed at the variety of creative ways our clients use Sysomos Heartbeat and MAP (Media Analysis Platform) to monitor, analyze and engage in the social sphere. Although the basics are the same, the applications are as wide-ranging as each client’s business objectives. There’s no doubt that 
Social media is rife with business buyers searching for business solutions. According to Forrester Research, 84 percent of business buyers say word of mouth has the greatest influence over their purchasing decisions, far surpassing any form of paid media. And Twitter is a great place to find business buyers. It’s a veritable goldmine that can pay off handsomely for B2B organizations. Jonathan Astor, social media lead at Valtech and Sheldon Levine, community manager at Marketwire + Sysomos, show us how to find and nurture social media leads. To listen to Jonathan and Sheldon discuss this fascinating topic, tune into the archived version of our recent webinar: “
Positive word of mouth and brand advocacy are important to any organization. But for nonprofits, groups that are typically challenged by strict budgets, limited human resources and government regulations, word-of-mouth and advocacy marketing are key strategies. Enter social media and the abundance of wide-open channels (most of them free to use) and communities of socially and ethically conscious millions. For many nonprofits, the opportunity to identify and tap into groups of like-minded citizens helps the organization not only share its mission and mandate, but use the common collective of fans and followers to spread those messages far(ther) and wide(r). Let’s look at ten nonprofits doing just that.
If you’re in marketing, PR or any communications role you’ve likely been inundated with expert advice on how to incorporate content marketing into your business strategies and heard why it’s a must-have in your corporate plan. Many practitioners are just getting familiar with terms like content marketing, content strategy, content publishing and content curation, while others are writing books and blog posts about it. If you’re new to it all, don’t despair: You’re probably already doing some kind of content marketing, even if you don’t realize it.
Anyone who’s ever written a press release knows it’s all about the one-two punch: You want people to read your release, and you want them to act on what they’ve read in some way. Whether the goal is to solicit media attendance at the grand-opening of your new corporate headquarters, announce the launch of a new line of kids’ organic clothing to generate online sales, or notify the public of contaminated deli meats, the intent of any press release is the same. Social media has become a driving force in the way we create and publish news, so making press releases more social media friendly is a smart communications tactic. It’s not difficult, and it opens the door for having your content seen, shared and acted upon by more people.
There’s no doubt about it; 2012 is going to be a year of great conversations with your customers, employees, investors and the media. You’ll create fantastic content and share it with the people who matter most to your company. You’ll provide them with the news and information they need to make informed decisions about buying your products and services, and you’ll build strong, long-lasting relationships with the people who can make your brand better and your business more successful. And you’ll do it all by being engaged.
There’s little question that for many companies, Twitter is good for business. With more than 300 million user accounts and about 
Perhaps more often than anything else, I am asked about press releases and their continued role and relevancy as communications vehicles. “Has social media made traditional media irrelevant?” “Can the process of distributing a press release simply be replaced with a tweet?” “Have companies abandoned releases as a means to share their news with stakeholders?” My answer to all of these questions is quite simply, “No.” 
