Sprout is a new, very cool service that lets everyday people create portable widgets for embedding on Web sites, blogs, and in social networks. I was originally introduced to the service at DEMO08 in January and was immediately blown away. We live in the widget economy and people today are empowered and compelled to lift and place encapsulated content and experiences from one place to another, however and whenever they’d like. With SproutBuilder, you can now build your own custom,…
The Essential Guide to Social Media Translated into French
Francois Ramaget of Aspect Consulting translated The Essential Guide to Social Media into French and has made it available as a free download here. Thank you Francois! The Essential Guide to Social Media is a “quick start” overview of how to listen and participate in social media and new media marketing. Last year, Yuri Aksyonov translated The Social Media Manifesto into Russian. You can find it here. If you haven’t already had a chance, be sure to read, The Art…
Intel Insiders to Advise Intel on Social Media Strategies
You’ve heard of Intel Inside, the now legendary marketing program that intelligently convinced consumers to make purchasing decisions based on the chip that powered their PCs. Now, I’m proud to introduce the new Intel Insiders program, a new initiative that extends the company’s genuine intention of reaching and engaging with people, while freely trusting the brand’s future to the very people who can and will shape it. Not only am I proud to introduce the Intel Insiders program, I’m also…
The Art of Conversation – Thoughts and Observations
We all purport to be social media experts these days, yet most of us are truly students. Many of us overlook some of the most rudimentary elements that define and inspire the socialization of content, especially the social sciences involved with observing the culture, behavior, and conversations within online societies. We’re excited, and maybe even obsessed, by the tools. We frantically rush from service to service in an exhausting attempt to keep up with our peers, fearing that we may…
PR Tips for Startups – The Director’s Cut
Note: This post was originally published on TechCrunch as “PR Secrets for Startups.” Many thanks to Michael Arrington and Erick Schonfeld for giving me the opportunity to share my experiences with the startup community. Due to space constraints, the original draft, which was entitled “PR Tips for Startups,” did not run in its entirety. Some of the edits actually wound up changing the context of the post and its intentions. I’ve included the full draft for you here, as I…
MicroPR Personalizes Public Relations
New media is forcing the rapid evolution of communications and is reinventing the science of public relations into the art of āpersonalizedā relations. And, with micromedia further refining and improving how we communicate with each other, PR is going to learn the hard way, that the days of blasts and untargeted spam pitching will get us nowhere with todayās influencers. Stowe Boyd placed a stake in the ground during the Web 2.0 Expo with the introduction of #TwitPitch, a very…
The Evolution of Press Releases
Thank you to Erick Schonfeld and Michael Arrington for giving me the opportunity share my vision, and experience, on the evolution of the press release on TechCrunch. There’s certainly no shortage of opinions on where we are and where we need to be in order to improve the working relationships between PR and bloggers, journalists, and analysts and the brands we ultimately represent – including our own. There are just better ways to share information, and hopefully, this post helps…
Making Mistakes and Amends in Blogger and Media Relations
In the rapidly shifting era of blogger and media relations, we can expect one thing to occur as we forge ahead, mistakes. It happens to the best and the worst of us. This isnāt a generic post on how not to make mistakes, or if you do, how to apologize, per se. This is an example of true transparency and public soul searching that will hopefully help and inspire PR practitioners, journalists, and bloggers to learn from the mistakes of…
Social Media Continues to Rival Traditional Media
As each day passes, we’re presented with new information that documents the decline of traditional media in favor of online counterparts and new media competitors. It seems that newspapers are among the hardest hit with circulation and print advertising down – forcing layoffs across the country. The Newspaper Association of America (NAA) recently released a study showing newspaper Web sites attracted an average of about 66 million unique visitors in the first quarter, up about 12 percent over the same…
PR 2.0: Putting the Public Back in Public Relations
Have you ever met someone so energetic, positive and incredibly smart – someone who exudes passion and someone who “gets it” in an inspirational way? I’m lucky to know one such person, Deirdre Breakenridge, and she has just published a new, must-read book, PR 2.0: New Media, New Tools, New Audiences. I’m honored to have my ideas, philosophies, experiences, and vision shared throughout the book. I’m even more humbled to have been asked to contribute the foreword. PR 2.0, as…
