When I meet with corporate marketers and their agencies these days, I’m frequently surprised to learn how little they think about search engine optimization.This is despite the fact that Google alone processes an estimated 750 million queries daily, and that IT professionals are some of the most active and advanced users of search engines. One […]
Are you getting the most bang for your blog? Successful blogging is all about generating awareness, repeat visitors, search engine visibility and lots of inbound links. Take the following test to see how well your blog shapes up. Give yourself one point for each “yes” answer and 0 points for each “no.” Check your score […]
I wrote last week about the power of social bookmarking sites to promote interesting Web content and to potentially drive a lot of traffic. But they’re also anexcellent personal productivity tool. This week I’ll describe a couple of tricks that I use to shave hours each month off the process of organizing information and publishing […]
Meet Ben Popken. You’ve probably never heard of him, but I recommend you learn what he’s all about. He and others like him are rewriting the rules of journalism and, with it, the practice of media relations. Ben sits atop the editorial pyramid at the blog The Consumerist. In conventional media terms, that pyramid isn’t […]
According to my e-mail service provider’s reports, a lot of subscribers to my newsletter skip my opening essay each week and going directly to a little item called “Just for Fun” that I include in every newsletter. Just For Fun is a link to a funny, offbeat or just plain bizarre item that I find […]
The annual South by Southwest (SXSW) Conference in Austin, Texas is a showcase for geeks and their new toys, but the event held earlier this month broke new ground in another way. Anyone who runs corporate events or works in a time-dependent business should be fascinated — and maybe a little scared — by what […]
I was presenting a social media seminar to a public-relations agency recently when the talk turned to uses of blogs. The people in the room were excitedabout blogging’s potential and were eager to apply the technology to new tasks. I cautioned them that they were asking the wrong question. The issue isn’t what tool to […]
Two organizations that have a — shall we say — problematic public image have recently launched blogs using a tactic that I think more marketers should consider:They’re letting their employees do the talking for them. The Transportation Security Administration launched Evolution of Security in January. Its purpose is to explain, in a calm and rational […]
If you’re sitting on the sidelines waiting for the market to pick winners in the social network race, you can stand up now. Hitwise data for 2007 shows that MySpace and Facebook together accounted for 88% of all visits to social network sites. The next closest competitor, Bebo , got a little more than 1% […]
In the previous articles in this series, we talked about how our hypothetical Quebec resort can find online influencers. We’ve seen that the process involves more than just a Google search. Now that you’ve identified people to engage with, you need to craft an approach and an incentive that’s right for them. Influencers aren’t reporters. […]
