Showing posts with label Ella Bee Social Media PR. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ella Bee Social Media PR. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Latest Twitter Applications
I wanted the Latest Twitter Application updates to be weekly, but this may turn into a daily thing because I am always finding new things about Twitter.
Here are more new Twitter applications, this should keep you busy for a while.
Celebrity Tweet | Stalk Celebrities on Twitter (as if I wasn't already, I kid)
Hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons' Web site GlobalGrind has just acquired CelebrityTweet, a site that aggregates the tweets of famous people, both on the Web and via mobile applications.
Klout | Measuring Influence Across the Social Web
If you work in social media marketing, you already know that measurement-at the end of the day- is KING. Hooray for Klout.
Klout allows you to track the impact of your opinions, links and recommendations across your social graph. We collect data about the content you create, how people interact with that content and the size and composition of your network. From there, we analyze the data to find indicators of influence and then provide you with innovative tools to interact with and interpret the data.
Listorious | Discover the Best Twitter Lists
Twitter's new Lists feature allows anyone to curate the real time web. Listorious makes it easy to find the best lists of Twitter users on any given topic, and for list creator to publicize their lists.
Brizzly | A Better Way to Experience the Social Web
Brizzly is a reader that works with Twitter and Facebook. It simplifies your browsing and updating experience, while adding a few nifty extras. We'll take some of the work out of keeping up to date with the people, trends and news you want to know about.
Flickr2Twitter | Flickr Your Twitter
You can now link your Flickr and Twitter accounts! With Flickr2Twitter you can:
* Tweet any photo you email from your mobile device
* Tweet photos or video from Flickr
* Tweet via the Flickr API
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Social Media Checklist for Marketers
By Kathy Cabrera
Planning your B2B social media program is only the first step in a long process. Once you have clearly defined your social media objectives, there are a few other steps that can put you on the right footing for success.
Here is a simple social media checklist for B2B marketers you can use to get things started in the right direction:
* Gain internal support from the top-down. Social media must be embraced at all levels of your organization. This is important for approving an on-going budget and to ensure long-term sustainability of social media programs. In addition, executive participation is often a key requirement for many social media activities.
* View social media participation as an extension of your brand. Many of the same considerations given to content on your company website should be extended to content you publish via social media channels.
* Know your audience. Before deciding on a specific social media program, learn about what types of social media sites your target audiences already frequent, or what social media tools they use.
* Become an active contributor. Social media engagement is based on user-generated content and regular communication with audiences. Establishing schedules for publishing or producing content can help you stay consistent.
* Get help. External help is available to support a range of social media initiatives, from strategic planning and consulting to professional content production. Many PR and marketing agencies offer social media expertise. Businesses new to social media may require the assistance of these resources to strategically plan and execute initiatives.
* Create an honest, welcome dialog. Time and again, successful adopters use social media to establish a two-way exchange of information and perspectives. Avoid the temptation to use social media as an advertising channel, and work to ensure your communications are never considered spam. Social media must be thought of as a shift from autocratic thinking and one-to-many communications to a participatory environment. Social media is not about selling and talking at your audience. It is about sharing and engaging with them.
Social media is where the future of PR and marketing is headed. By exploring now, you can be a step ahead of the crowd and gain a tremendous competitive advantage. Have fun, be creative and participate!
Planning your B2B social media program is only the first step in a long process. Once you have clearly defined your social media objectives, there are a few other steps that can put you on the right footing for success.
Here is a simple social media checklist for B2B marketers you can use to get things started in the right direction:
* Gain internal support from the top-down. Social media must be embraced at all levels of your organization. This is important for approving an on-going budget and to ensure long-term sustainability of social media programs. In addition, executive participation is often a key requirement for many social media activities.
* View social media participation as an extension of your brand. Many of the same considerations given to content on your company website should be extended to content you publish via social media channels.
* Know your audience. Before deciding on a specific social media program, learn about what types of social media sites your target audiences already frequent, or what social media tools they use.
* Become an active contributor. Social media engagement is based on user-generated content and regular communication with audiences. Establishing schedules for publishing or producing content can help you stay consistent.
* Get help. External help is available to support a range of social media initiatives, from strategic planning and consulting to professional content production. Many PR and marketing agencies offer social media expertise. Businesses new to social media may require the assistance of these resources to strategically plan and execute initiatives.
* Create an honest, welcome dialog. Time and again, successful adopters use social media to establish a two-way exchange of information and perspectives. Avoid the temptation to use social media as an advertising channel, and work to ensure your communications are never considered spam. Social media must be thought of as a shift from autocratic thinking and one-to-many communications to a participatory environment. Social media is not about selling and talking at your audience. It is about sharing and engaging with them.
Social media is where the future of PR and marketing is headed. By exploring now, you can be a step ahead of the crowd and gain a tremendous competitive advantage. Have fun, be creative and participate!
Thursday, November 19, 2009
The Lost Art of the Media Alert
by Jeremy Porter
You hear a lot of talk about press releases as a PR tactic, but what about the media alert (also commonly known as a media advisory)? Before the days or email and Twitter, media alerts were the short form way to alert news organizations about something timely you wanted them to cover. I’m sure newsrooms still get a ton of media alerts, but I’ve seen few posts on the subject. I think the building blocks of a good media alert translate well to email and social media, so here are some brief tips for you.
First, What’s a Media Alert?
There’s a good chance many of you don’t know what a media alert is. A media alert is an alernative format for PR writing used to communicate an event to the media in advance. Think of a media alert as a quick, at-a-glance summary of your event, which gives reporters, editors and producers all the information they need to decide whether or not to cover your story. Media alerts are typically one page (or less) and focus on the following information:
* An attention-grabbing first paragraph that summarizes your event
* Clear identification of all your event details (the who, what, where, when and why)
* Some value-add that makes it worth the time
Why Media Alerts Work
Now first of all, this event probably wouldn’t be much of a media draw, unless the attendees were true celebrities and the event was in a market like NYC, where there might be a large number of journalists covering marketing and social media topics. That said, the format works well for more newsworthy events, such as press conferences, grand openings, fundraiser events, public product launches, etc.
Media alerts work well because they take a “just the facts” approach to communicating the news. They work best when you have recognized individuals or organizations participating in the event. As media professionals are getting more and more comfortable with the 140 character Twitter pitch, it’s of increased importance to be brief, get to the point, and take as little of their time as possible.
If you post your media alert to the Web, you could easily tweet about your event with a link to more details. This approach is being used by smart publicists all the time. Rather than forcing a journalist to read through a news release to find what’s most important, boil your news down to its root details with a media alert.
Do you use media alerts or media advisories to communicate your news? Do media alerts work better for securing news coverage than traditional press releases? Please share your thoughts – or better yet, links to your media alerts.
You hear a lot of talk about press releases as a PR tactic, but what about the media alert (also commonly known as a media advisory)? Before the days or email and Twitter, media alerts were the short form way to alert news organizations about something timely you wanted them to cover. I’m sure newsrooms still get a ton of media alerts, but I’ve seen few posts on the subject. I think the building blocks of a good media alert translate well to email and social media, so here are some brief tips for you.
First, What’s a Media Alert?
There’s a good chance many of you don’t know what a media alert is. A media alert is an alernative format for PR writing used to communicate an event to the media in advance. Think of a media alert as a quick, at-a-glance summary of your event, which gives reporters, editors and producers all the information they need to decide whether or not to cover your story. Media alerts are typically one page (or less) and focus on the following information:
* An attention-grabbing first paragraph that summarizes your event
* Clear identification of all your event details (the who, what, where, when and why)
* Some value-add that makes it worth the time
Why Media Alerts Work
Now first of all, this event probably wouldn’t be much of a media draw, unless the attendees were true celebrities and the event was in a market like NYC, where there might be a large number of journalists covering marketing and social media topics. That said, the format works well for more newsworthy events, such as press conferences, grand openings, fundraiser events, public product launches, etc.
Media alerts work well because they take a “just the facts” approach to communicating the news. They work best when you have recognized individuals or organizations participating in the event. As media professionals are getting more and more comfortable with the 140 character Twitter pitch, it’s of increased importance to be brief, get to the point, and take as little of their time as possible.
If you post your media alert to the Web, you could easily tweet about your event with a link to more details. This approach is being used by smart publicists all the time. Rather than forcing a journalist to read through a news release to find what’s most important, boil your news down to its root details with a media alert.
Do you use media alerts or media advisories to communicate your news? Do media alerts work better for securing news coverage than traditional press releases? Please share your thoughts – or better yet, links to your media alerts.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Art and Social Media Marketing
Even contemporary fine art galleries can use social media for various marketing and public relations purposes. Whether it is sharing images on Flickr or videos on YouTube, there are a variety ways you can use social media.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Yours Truly, Ella Bee Social Media & PR, on Ragan.com
I was just featured in an article from Ragan.com-one of my favorite PR news resources. I've learned how to be a better communicator thanks to Ragan.com. Once again, thanks to HARO I was able to help my favorite writer from the company build a news story.
Dressing for excess: Is your Halloween persona the real you, communicators?
By Jessica Levco @ragan.com
MyRaganites divulge their planned transmogrifications for Allhallows Eve. This weekend, your co-worker might turn into a lion tamer. Or Cleopatra.
If you’re like me, the primary question you find yourself asking people in October is: What are you going to be for Halloween?
Besides asking friends and co-workers, it’s a good question for corporate communicators. In a MyRagan forum post, we wondered how your costume reflects your communication style and what it says about your personality.
At first, we were a little concerned.
Here’s an answer from one MyRaganite in Illinois: “I’m just gong to tape some angel wings to my ass and go as I do everything else: flying by the seat of my pants.”
But it turns out there’s a lot of you who are putting a lot of effort—and thought—into your costumes. This is a collection of our favorite answers.
And please, let’s keep the list going.
Media mavens
Extra, extra! Read all about it!
“I am dressing up as a reporter from the earliest days of journalism,” says Lila Brown, of Ella Bee Social Media & Public Relations. “I’m wearing a fedora with the paper sticking out of the top that says ‘PRESS.’ I’m carrying around a notepad with a pencil, and I have an old camera with a big flash tower at the top. What my costume says about me as a communicator is that even though I’m young, I wish I would’ve worked in a time when print media was king.”
Halloween 2.0Halloween, 2.0 style
“I’m dressing up as a social media maven,” Holly Frew, at MedShare says. “As a communicator, my iPhone is always in my hand, either tweeting, e-mailing, listening to NPR on Stitcher, watching the latest YouTube viral sensation and then communicating it. I will be wrapped in computer cables and will have Twitter birds and iPhone social media app logos stuck all over me. The premise is to say that I am bound by social media, both professionally and personally.”
You talk; I’ll listen
“One of my favorite costumes is when I dress up as a ‘Chatty Cathy’ doll,” says Carole V. Bartholomeaux, president of Bartholomeaux Public Relations LLC. “When [her string was] pulled, the doll would talk. I’d go to parties and would not speak all evening unless someone pulls my string. What does it say about me? That I try to listen to my clients rather than overwhelm them with preconceived concepts of what they should do.”
Dressing for excess: Is your Halloween persona the real you, communicators?
By Jessica Levco @ragan.com
MyRaganites divulge their planned transmogrifications for Allhallows Eve. This weekend, your co-worker might turn into a lion tamer. Or Cleopatra.
If you’re like me, the primary question you find yourself asking people in October is: What are you going to be for Halloween?
Besides asking friends and co-workers, it’s a good question for corporate communicators. In a MyRagan forum post, we wondered how your costume reflects your communication style and what it says about your personality.
At first, we were a little concerned.
Here’s an answer from one MyRaganite in Illinois: “I’m just gong to tape some angel wings to my ass and go as I do everything else: flying by the seat of my pants.”
But it turns out there’s a lot of you who are putting a lot of effort—and thought—into your costumes. This is a collection of our favorite answers.
And please, let’s keep the list going.
Media mavens
Extra, extra! Read all about it!
“I am dressing up as a reporter from the earliest days of journalism,” says Lila Brown, of Ella Bee Social Media & Public Relations. “I’m wearing a fedora with the paper sticking out of the top that says ‘PRESS.’ I’m carrying around a notepad with a pencil, and I have an old camera with a big flash tower at the top. What my costume says about me as a communicator is that even though I’m young, I wish I would’ve worked in a time when print media was king.”
Halloween 2.0Halloween, 2.0 style
“I’m dressing up as a social media maven,” Holly Frew, at MedShare says. “As a communicator, my iPhone is always in my hand, either tweeting, e-mailing, listening to NPR on Stitcher, watching the latest YouTube viral sensation and then communicating it. I will be wrapped in computer cables and will have Twitter birds and iPhone social media app logos stuck all over me. The premise is to say that I am bound by social media, both professionally and personally.”
You talk; I’ll listen
“One of my favorite costumes is when I dress up as a ‘Chatty Cathy’ doll,” says Carole V. Bartholomeaux, president of Bartholomeaux Public Relations LLC. “When [her string was] pulled, the doll would talk. I’d go to parties and would not speak all evening unless someone pulls my string. What does it say about me? That I try to listen to my clients rather than overwhelm them with preconceived concepts of what they should do.”
Sunday, October 25, 2009
What in the world is a pingback and how can I use it for my company?
So, you are taking better care of your online brand. You have an SEO website and you are maintaining your blog. Great! Now what?
The point of establishing an online presence is to attract web traffic, so let's take a look at some tools to help gain attention to your site.
First, let's examine the the world of linkbacks.
A linkback is a method for Web authors to obtain notifications when other authors link to one of their documents. This enables authors to keep track of who is linking to, or referring to their articles. The three methods (Refback, Trackback, and Pingback) differ in how they accomplish this task.
Any of the four terms -- Linkback, Trackback, Pingback, or (rarely) Refback -- might also refer colloquially to items within a section upon the linked page that display the received notifications, usually along with a reciprocal link; Trackback is used most often for this purpose. Also, the word Trackback is often used colloquially to mean any kind of Linkback.
Pingbacks
Drost Designs explains that the pingback system is a way for your blog to be automatically notified when other Web sites link to it. It is entirely transparent to the linking author, requiring no user intervention to work, and operates on principles of automatic discovery of everything that it needs to know.
Pingbacks allows you to automatically ping all the RSS and blog feed directories every time you make a post. This is a very powerful feature if you want your blog to get a lot of web traffic immediately. You automatically gain backlinks to your blog.
Trackbacks
Trackbacks are ways for one site to notify another about an update.
A trackback consists of a link and optionally a snippet of text. On many blogs you do not have to enable trackbacks and just like comments the trackbacks are moderated.
Chris G explains how it normally works.
1. Mary Blog writes an article on cheese
2. Joe Blogger writes about Mary Blogs new post saying it is really cool
3. Joes blog sends a trackback to Marys blog
4. Marys blog receives the trackback and Mary sees the trackback in her comments moderation
In most cases this is all automatic, you just link to a post and it is all handled for you, in others you have to send trackbacks manually. If you use the scribefire firefox plugin you can send manual trackbacks for example. This involves pasting the special URL displayed in the other blogs post.
Why bother?
Trackbacks are like a kind of commenting. You are saying “I have written about this post over on my blog”. The hope would be that the blogger would notice and also if the trackback gets published that people will click through to read what you have to say. Many trackback links are wrapped in “no-follow” condoms but in some cases you get a clean link.
So, what's the difference?
While all of this may be new to you, trackbacks are the old, manual way of doing this while pingbacks are the more modern and automatic way. The old trackback way includes:
1. Getting the trackback URL for the other person’s content
2. Putting that URL into your blogging software’s editing interface
3. Writing an excerpt for what you said about their content
Pingbacks are much easier. All you have to do with a pingback is:
1. Links to someone else’s content
Daniel Miessler further explains that since pingbacks are enabled (both incoming and outgoing) by default on most major blogging engines. Here are a few other differences:
* Trackbacks contain more content, i.e. the excerpt, where pingbacks just have the source and destination links
* Pingbacks are less prone to spam than trackbacks, as incoming software checks to see if the source link actually exists before it allows it to be posted
* Pingbacks use XML-RPC while trackbacks use a standard HTTP POST
Pinbacks are essentially the newer and less time-consuming way of doing trackbacks.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Social media for business now is life or death
As my daily PR tasks focus on social media marketing, I've realized that I participate in social media everyday. There are no 9-5 hours with availability on Mondays through Fridays. Nope. I live and breathe social media whether I like it or not. Whether it is voicing my political opinion on Twitter and Facebook while watching Sunday's Meet the Press and This Week with George Stephanopoulos or finding new ways to get my clients media coverage through an online publication or on a blog, I understand the need and inclusion of social media in both my personal and professional life.
Still, I have come to realize that most companies still don't see a need for social media and search engine marketing. Social media marketing is crucial especially when it comes to managing not only an online presence but an overall brand both online and offline.
An article in the New York Times examines managing an online reputation. Whether you like it or not, your customers are online talking about you and the whole wide world is listening. According to the article, local review sites are reshaping the world of small business by becoming the new Yellow Pages, one-stop platforms where customers can find a business — and also see independent critiques of its performance.
The article goes on to say for some business owners, this is a terrifying prospect that seems more like mob rule than the wisdom of crowds. Negative reviews can hang an albatross around your neck if they appear prominently in search results. Happily, there is a big upside: referrals from happy clients are traditionally the best source of new business — and online forums are powerful word-of-mouth. The review process has been democratized.
But managing your online reputation requires a whole new skill set, including monitoring the online conversation and engaging with customers and the tech-savvy to promote yourself in the best channels. These skills are becoming essential for mainstream businesses. According to a survey by the Opinion Research Corporation, 84 percent of Americans say online reviews influence their purchasing decisions.
Here are some quick tips to managing your online reputation:
~Set up automatic alerts to notify you when your business is mentioned in a review or blog.
~Local search sites are the new Yellow Pages -- make sure your business is listed. The more complete your listing, the more likely you are to get good search results.
~Respond to reviews to show readers that you are listening and that you care about customer service.
~Online reviews are a gold mine of business intelligence. Analyze metrics to get a better sense of your customer demographics.
~Don’t write false reviews to puff your business or trash a competitor. You can severely damage your reputation...and look really silly.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Random BLOG tip of the day:: Why? Because I care...
You've heard it all before, search engine optimization this, search engine marketing that. You may get it, you may not, regardless you should try it. Step outside the box and try one social media tip and trust me-you will notice a difference.
Sometimes, throughout the day, RANDOM blog, social media and SEO tips pop into my head. (It's a lot going on up there so I have to get it out somehow.)
Tip: Use SEO keywords and phrases to name and tag your images (even if you took the image from Google)
This tactic became very useful to drawing attention to my site Media and Money. For whatever reason, I wanted to blog about Woodstock 1969. I found an interesting story about how Sirius XM created a channel on the 40th anniversary of Woodstock. I found this awesome image on Google to add to the story. I named it Woodstock 1969. I thought nothing of it. I normally don't name the images I post to my blog. Within a couple of hours, this image captured the attention of more than 500 online users. As the 40th anniversary of Woodstock drew nearer, I gained up to 1,000 new online users. I realized it was because of this awesome picture. Since I started to attract a crowd, I added a picture of Jimmy Hendrix and a rare Youtube video of Janis Joplin singing Can't Turn You Loose. Since I first published that blog post on August 8th until today, I have gained nearly 2,000 new site visitors thanks to a wonderful picture tagged by a highly searched term.
Sometimes, throughout the day, RANDOM blog, social media and SEO tips pop into my head. (It's a lot going on up there so I have to get it out somehow.)
Tip: Use SEO keywords and phrases to name and tag your images (even if you took the image from Google)
This tactic became very useful to drawing attention to my site Media and Money. For whatever reason, I wanted to blog about Woodstock 1969. I found an interesting story about how Sirius XM created a channel on the 40th anniversary of Woodstock. I found this awesome image on Google to add to the story. I named it Woodstock 1969. I thought nothing of it. I normally don't name the images I post to my blog. Within a couple of hours, this image captured the attention of more than 500 online users. As the 40th anniversary of Woodstock drew nearer, I gained up to 1,000 new online users. I realized it was because of this awesome picture. Since I started to attract a crowd, I added a picture of Jimmy Hendrix and a rare Youtube video of Janis Joplin singing Can't Turn You Loose. Since I first published that blog post on August 8th until today, I have gained nearly 2,000 new site visitors thanks to a wonderful picture tagged by a highly searched term.
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