Source This post highlights the nuances associated with crisis communications and not the merit of either case. In the era of socialized media, brands and businesses are now vulnerable to a new era of influencers – their customers. But what happens when the community that championed consumer experiences is accused of exploiting them to extort advertising dollars from the businesses affected by the reviews? User generated reviews aren’t necessarily a brand new concept, epinions, Amazon, among any others have provided…
Make Tweet Love – Top Tips for Building Twitter Relationships
be tweet Twitter is an incredible medium for listening, learning, and sharing. And, for those in the media and communications industries, it’s also a rapid and immersive education in meaningful, two-way micro messaging that helps both parties walk away with a new form of value. While there are no shortage of posts that offer tips and tricks to help you boost your Twitter followers, it is by no means a popularity contest. The surmounting ploys, friending races, theatrics, and contests…
The Top Social Brands of 2008: What’s Your Conversation Index?
Source Vitrue released a report on the Top Social Brands of 2008 based on an index the company launched last year. The top social brands list is a result of Vitrue’s daily analysis of over 2,000 popular brands. Each day, the team analyzes online conversations on a variety of social networking, blogging, microblogging, photo and video sharing sites. Virtue then applies a series of algorithms to measure the frequency of keyword usage, the size of the social media environment, and…
Anheuser-Busch Debuts AB-Extras.com; Fuses PR with Social Media to Humanize Stories and Ads
Disclosure: I am collaborating with Anheuser-Busch on the creation and release of AB-Extras.com Today Anheuser-Busch announced AB-Extras.com – a social media destination for Bud fans 21 years of age and older to reveal the human element and stories behind the ads that will premier during the Big Game. AB-Extras.com is a unique social platform for the internal PR team at Anheuser-Busch to also work more effectively with traditional and digital press and bloggers using the tools and services that they…
Growth for Newspapers Online? Yes and No
Source Nielsen Online is reporting that nine out of the top 10 newspapers experienced growth in online traffic between December 2007 to December 2008. The average growth across the board equated to 16%. Here’s the breakdown: NYTimes.com Dec 07 (000): 17,1777 Dec 08 (000): 18,187 Percentage Change: 16 USATODAY.com Dec 07 (000): 9,939 Dec 08 (000): 11,420 Percentage Change: 15 WashingtonPost.com Dec 07 (000): 8.478 Dec 08 (000): 9,470 Percentage Change: 12 LA Times Dec 07 (000): 4,607 Dec 08…
The Poetry of Social Networking to Court Customers and Invest in Relationships
Sean Percival is a published author, developer, blogger, and an overall online marketing and SEO expert. A short while ago, Sean asked if I would write the foreword for his new book, MySpace Marketing. Que, the book’s publisher, has graciously granted me permission to share the foreword with you. While the premise encompasses MySpace, as a social marketer, you could theoretically insert any “social network name” and find that the guiding principles and ideologies are perpetual. Enjoy… — In the…
PR 2.0: Must Read Posts of 2008
It’s easy to lose sight of the beacons and milestones that resonate, influence and guide us as we navigate through these evolutionary times. After all, we’re deluged with education, lessons, and insight from so many brilliant leaders and inspirational voices, that it’s practically impossible to retain and reference all that moved us when we’re moved on a minute-by-minute basis. Our attention and relationships are more precious than ever. As 2008 comes to a close, I wanted to share with you…
State of the Twittersphere – Q4 2008
HubSpot released a report based on the analysis of over 600,000 Twitter users who have utilized the company’s Twitter Grader app. The full study is free and available for download in PDF. Here are the highlights: – Twitter has about 4-5 million users, about 30% are relatively new or unengaged users – Twitter is dominated by newer users – 70% of Twitter users joined in 2008 – An estimated 5-10 thousand new accounts are opened per day – 35% of…
Extra Extra, Read All About It! Newspapers Respond to the Social Web
Source Yes, the headline isn’t really breaking news to many of us. However, I received an interesting report this week that ties numbers to the tumultuous newspaper industry and its struggle to remain relevant, today and tomorrow. I wanted to share the numbers with you… Every year, The Bivings Group, analyzes how and to what extent America’s largest newspapers are embracing the Web. With Social Media opening the flood gates for innovation in online content creation and distribution, newspapers are…
TechCrunch Kills The Embargo, But PR Holds the Smoking Gun
Disclosure, I am a contributor to TechCrunch and I have had my fair share of embargoes broken by various reporters and bloggers over the years. In some cases, we trusted the wrong people. Credit In what is sure to come as an absolute surprise to the tech PR industry, TechCrunch proclaimed that it will no longer honor embargoes, unless they’re granted exclusivity. The move was triggered by a growing pattern of underhanded and also irresponsible behavior in the backchannels of…
