Part Three of a series discussing blogger relations, “Building a Bridge Between Your Story, Bloggers, and People.” Now that blogging is crossing over into the mainstream, certain bloggers have earned a right of influence and clout that rival many of the top journalists. Good friend Robert Scoble recently discussed the subject of blogger relations, embargoes and the process of news and launches in tech PR. Scoble, for those who may or may not know, is probably the one of the…
The Future of the Social Media Release is in Your Hands
Todd Defren and Brian Solis. The Social Media Release (SMR) is gaining traction and visibility and is now looked to by many as the savior of the traditional press release – which may honestly be too great a task for any one tool. But, at the very least, the discussions around the SMR are fueling the evolution and improvement of the press release overall. Each day new examples are emerging and will only continue to be showcased as Social Media…
Building a Bridge Between Your Story, Bloggers, and People – Part II
Blogger relations is a popular topic of discussion these days, not just on the blogosphere, but within the HR departments of PR agencies and businesses alike. It’s something new and perceived to require a very different skill set than most PR and communications professionals possess. Therefore new job positions are opening up in an attempt to hire people who understand the art of blogger relations and, if that doesn’t work, hire anyone who blogs – regardless of industry and communications…
Link Love for Sept. 24, 2007
What Is Influence? – Max Kalehoff explores influence and why it should be a focus of every marketing campaign. The Immediate Media Age: Of Broadband & Blogs – Om Malik discusses how the face of media has changed creating a new medium of immediacy. Valley PR Blog, 5 Reasons to Use Social Networks – Linda VandeVrede discusses 5 reasons to use social networks for PR professionals. Features a quote from yours truly. Social Media: Evolution to Execution – Excellent discussion…
Conversational Marketing Versus Market Conversations
The much discussed and highly revered Cluetrain Manifesto is proving to be more relevant than ever. As Social Media becomes more pervasive in marketing, it’s imperative that we become gatekeepers to prevent opportunistic marketers from bankrupting the conversation economy. As someone noted, aren’t all marketers opportunistic? Yes and no. It’s the difference between leveraging an opportunity because you can bring value to the discussion vs. selling an opportunity simply because you can capitalize on it. Jakob Nielsen added a unique…
Link Love for September 19, 2007
Truth and Transparency and the Pursuit of Happiness – Brian Blank talks about the need for companies to participate transparently in the new world of social media without applying old school tactics to the process. Analysts of social media – A list of the top analysts covering social media Top 50 analyst bloggers – A ranking of the top analysts who actively blog NxE’s Fifty Most Influential Bloggers – There are literally millions of bloggers out there, each of them…
Lifestreams Channel Online Activity, Creating Rivers of Relevance
Lifestreams are back in the spotlight again thanks to the most recent meme started by Steve Rubel, except this time, the popularity of flow, aka presence applications, such as Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku, and Tumblr is much greater and expansive than the last time the topic circulated the blogosphere. As the idea starts to move along the bell curve, people are realizing the potential for aggregating information and broadcasting a focused channel of relevant content – on both sides of the…
PRWeek Interviews PR Pros on the Ascendancy of Facebook
PRWeek recently interviewed me, along with a few other PR pros including, Gerald Kimber White, John H. Bell, David Almacy, B. Bonin Bough, and David Haase to discuss Facebook’s impact on the PR industry. It would have also been interesting to include Facebook’s inhouse PR spokesperson, Brandee Barker – I wonder if she’s had a chance to read this yet. PRWeek is the primary (traditional) source for news and information in the PR industry. Author, Alexandra Bruell, explored why PR…
Building a Bridge Between Your Story, Bloggers, and People – Part I
To all of you advanced new media PR professionals, this post may seem a bit remedial in comparison to some of more technical and exploratory subjects we usually cover. Last year I ran a series covering blogger relations Forward Moving, a specialized blog dedicated to PR education. Due to unexpected demand, I’ve been asked to update these posts and re-run them as an ongoing series. I’m happy to do so. I’ll try to double up on posts to make sure…
Deleting Users, Audience, and Messages from PR and Social Media
Attention PR and practicing Social Media professionals, step away from using “messages” to target “users” and “audience.” They are no longer filling the theaters, stadiums, and auditoriums to hear from marketers. I’ve been in tech PR since 91 and have been also guilty of using such terminology. Back in the day, users really were users in the tech business and when we were researching who they were, they would ultimately become the audience for our marketing initatives. Not everyone (aka…
