Convince and Convert Blog: Where Social Media and Email Collide

Thanks to Jason Falls for the inspiration (okay, it’s a straight rip-off) for this post. Jason pointed out five lesser-known bloggers that he reads regularly (including Convince & Convert). His post seems to have triggered an a-ha moment, as several other excellent social media bloggers including Mack Collier and Amber Naslund have posted similar lists of people to read. 

This is truly the genius of the World Wide Web. A hyper-linked community that enables users to find interesting and useful content based on the recommendations of real people, enabled (but not driven by) technology. 

Here’s my Fab Five bloggers. People I read that may be less well-known by Convince & Convert readers. Also, because I work in email marketing and digital marketing in addition to social media, my list is not purely social media focused, as are those cited above. 

Tamara Gielen

Tamara’s blog BeRelevant is dedicated to B2B email marketing best practices. Tamara doesn’t post a ton of her own content, but her ability to cull down the huge output of blog content about the email industry, and include only what’s legitimate and groundbreaking on her own site is a godsend. 

Tamara is also the founder of the Email Marketers Club, a social network for professional emailers with more than 1,700 members. By day, Tamara is the Director of Email and Digital Dialogue for OgilvyOne. She lives in Belgium, and can be found on Twitter @tamaragielen 

Bryan Eisenberg

One of the few folks out there who have been in digital marketing as long as me, Eisenberg is a conference staple (especially search conferences). His insights into customer experience, usability, information architecture, and conversion rate optimization are simply unparalleled. If you need to get more results from your Web site, he’s a guy to follow.

His blog Grokdotcom is more of a company-wide production now, but still brimming with insights. Watch for his regular series of books too. His new one, “Call to Action” is outstanding, and “Waiting for Your Cat to Bark” is required reading for all Web designers, project managers, and information architects I hire. 

He’s on Twitter @theGrok

Dan Zarrella

A great blogger with no shortage of opinions about social media, search, and cross-linking. Not afraid to rock the boat, Dan Zarrella brings serious science to the discussion of social media and viral marketing. He believes that “going viral” is no accident, and I believe he’s the number one guy to watch in terms of the emerging confluence between blogging, other forms of social media, and SEO.

He’s got some very useful tools for maximizing the search and viral friendliness of your blog. Check them out in his Tools section. 

Dan is on Twitter @danzarrella

Michael Gass

I do a lot of work for ad agencies and PR firms, and Michael Gass’ blog Fuel Lines is redefining how agencies think about business development. A great example of a blogger picking a distinct topic and absolutely owning it, Michael eats his own dog food (and the food of other dogs as well). You see, his consulting business is based on helping agencies use smart blogging, SEO, and social media to generate inbound leads - rather than shooting in the dark making cold calls.

In addition to regular, insightful posts about the future of ad agencies, Michael has added a ton of value to his blog with a sweeping survey of the agency biz dev landscape, and a “best agency blog” competition.

Michael has been a huge help and a great friend to Convince & Convert. If you’re at an agency (and even if you’re not), read his stuff. He’s on Twitter @michaelgass

Jason Falls

Yeah, he put me in his five. But, I would have had him in here regardless. With the tsunami of blog posts, opinions, pass-alongs, retweets, and me-toos out there, Jason Falls maintains an exceptionally high quality level. If he says something on his blog - Social Media Explorer, it’s worth reading. If he sends a tweet, the link is worth clicking.

Unlike many (most?) social media consultants, Jason is actually a practitioner of the art. His work for Jim Beam via his agency Doe Anderson is one of the legendary examples of social media press releases and integrated microsites. His blog isn’t about what social media will become, it’s about what social media is now, and how to do it right. 

Jason is a straight shooter that’s not caught up in his own emerging Web fame, and among the top tier of social media and PR 2.0 “names” I find him to be the most dedicated to sharing and extremely giving with his time. He was an early champion of Convince & Convert, and I’ll never forget that. (Chris Brogan is another one that’s amazingly cool to lesser known folks, despite his insane schedule and content generation volume). 

Jason is a must-follow on Twitter @jasonfalls

Who Are Your Fab Five? Leave Them in the Comments, Or Write Your Own Post

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Welcome. If you liked that, there's plenty more. Please subscribe to my RSS feed. You can also find me on Twitter @jaybaer

I am of a vintage that was shaped by Van Halen’s album (actually a cassette for me) 1984. With Jump, Panama, and Hot for Teacher (a video that joins “Hungry Like the Wolf” in my early teen pantheon), this was a truly epic record - highlighted by David Lee Roth’s bad boy caterwauling. 

And then, he screwed it up. Went solo. Recorded novelty hits like Just a Gigolo and California Girls, which were only slightly more legit than Weird Al Yankovic shlock. 

From 1985 until the inevitable bittersweet reunion tour in 2007, both Roth and his former band mates suffered, never recapturing their former glory (despite the yeoman efforts of Sammy Hagar). 

Internet Marketing is Not a Solo Act

Ultimately, it was proven that David Lee Roth was better as part of a group, than he was a solo artist. And the same is true of your Internet marketing efforts.

Many (and perhaps even most) agencies I talk to are trying to add digital marketing services to their capabilities by hiring their own David Lee Roth. A guru. A turtle-necked Web geek that can do it all. Don’t make that mistake.

Here are 3 reasons why the one man show routine doesn’t work.

1. It’s Unknowable

Digital marketing is a paradigm and a platform, not a job function. You can’t hire somebody who does “digital marketing” the same way you hire a copywriter or an account executive, or an art director. The field of Internet marketing is now far too broad and the nuances too numerous for one person to be able to cover all the bases on a practitioner level.

There is no way I could actually execute on the full array of tactics the way I did in 1995-2002 when the variety of tactics was semi-graspable.

The biggest mistake agencies (and clients) make is believing that the same guru that is designing and/or programming Web sites on your behalf can also handle the marketing of those Web sites. They cannot. The two skill sets are almost opposites.

Web design is a project-based, creative, inward-facing, technology-driven process. Internet marketing is an ongoing, methodical, outward-facing, relationship and message-driven process. Other than a little initial search optimization on recently completed sites, Web designers are not doing Internet marketing.

2. Knowledge in a Silo Cannot Expand

I very much believe that eventually we won’t have digital marketing departments or even digital marketing agencies. As digital (Web, mobile, digital outdoor, etc.) becomes fully integrated into the lives of a majority of the developed world, “digital marketing” will be a component of every campaign.

This convergence is already happening. Public relations and search engine optimization are blending. The growing use of video advertising online. Direct mail campaigns that use personal URLs that lead to individualized landing pages - are those “traditional” tactics, or “digital” tactics?

Eventually, digital won’t be given the special treatment the way it is today. You wouldn’t have a “radio department” and eventually you won’t have a “digital department” either.

If digital will be a part of everything, isn’t it imperative that everyone in your agency (or in-house marketing department) understand digital marketing to some degree?

If you have a guru, it gives EVERY other member of your team a built-in excuse (that you provided) to not have to get up to speed on digital marketing.

3. Asking for Trouble

If you hire a guru to handle all of your digital marketing and centralize that understanding, it creates an operational bottleneck in your organization. It’s not even a hub and spoke model. It’s just hub. Every brainstorm that requires digital thinking requires the guru. Every client meeting. Every pitch. When the guru is sick, the digital effort is grounded.

Plus, how many accounts can the guru work on competently?

It’s an extremely inefficient way to manage your personnel.

Further, since the guru gets to work on all the big accounts (because all the big accounts will want digital marketing), the guru develops quite a resume. Consequently, the guru will be endlessly recruited (perhaps even by your own clients). Eventually, the guru will leave for another opportunity that doesn’t require the ball juggling of an agency, and may include free lunch, stock options, and a big office.

Trust me. The guru will leave.

And then what? When the sum total of your organization’s digital marketing expertise walks out the door, how do you keep providing services to current clients, much less attract new ones? Typically, agencies faced with this scenario try to find Guru 2.0 which of course just perpetuates the problem.

Don’t Be Seduced by the Guru

I know fully embracing and integrating digital marketing is hard. If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t have started a consulting company to assist. The pull of hiring one person to make the pain go away is strong. But don’t fall for it.

Make a plan to distribute responsibility for digital marketing tactics to multiple members of your team. One person handles SEO. One person handles Email. One person handles online media buying. Clearly, once you have a concentration of clients that need digital marketing services from you, you may want to add staff to work on tactical execution. But until then, remember one critical fact:

Internet Marketing is Complicated, But It’s Not Hard

If your staff is bright enough to work for you, they’re bright enough to figure out part of the digital marketing arsenal.

Do you agree? What are your cautionary tales or success stories about Internet marketing gurus? I’d love to hear your comments. Let’s discuss.
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AdWeek announced today that security software maker McAfee has hired Tribal DDB as their agency of record. In addition to digital marketing, the assignment includes TV, print, and outdoor. 

Note that Tribal DDB is the excellent digital marketing sister of DDB. These guys know their stuff. I’ve met a few Tribal DDB folks via my work with ExactTarget. But historically, Tribal DDB has been a large but “regular” digital marketing shop. 

Warning. This is just the beginning

Tribal didn’t just beat out a bunch of other digital firms for this account. They were selected as AOR over big league integrated shops including Young & Rubicam and Dentsu. Wow.

As I’ve been saying (especially in my post “Agencies Wake Up - Digital Shops = Trojan Horse“) digital marketers have a much better handle on ROI, testing and optimization, and audience segmentation than do most of their traditional counterparts. Clients increasingly want to minimize ad risk and are willing to engage in several targeted tactics rather than one huge TV campaign.

If the traditional advertising agency community doesn’t see this win by Tribal DDB as a clear sign that the game is changing, I don’t know what will.

What is your agency doing to be able to compete with digital specialists?

How long will it be before digital agencies being agency of record becomes commonplace, rather than an exception? Leave a comment and let me know what you think. 

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My 5 Workshops that train agencies on Internet marketing

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Web services giant Sapient recently fielded a national online digital marketing survey of more than 200 chief marketing officers (CMOs) and senior marketers responsible for managing digital budgets (among other things).

Survey respondents were asked about the top qualities they sought in their advertising and marketing agencies in the coming year.

Sapient’s Top 10 Wish List for Agencies of the Future…and My Comments

1. Greater knowledge of the digital space. With more than a third of marketers surveyed revealing that they are not confident that their current agency is well-positioned to take their brand through the unchartered waters of online digital marketing and interactive advertising, it’s clear that agencies need to have a greater knowledge of the digital space in order to thrive. In fact, nearly half (45 percent) of the respondents have switched agencies (or plan to switch in the next 12 months) for one with greater digital knowledge or have hired an additional digital specialist to handle their interactive campaigns.

This is another in a series of warnings from me that traditional agencies NEED to get uber-competent at digital marketing now. Clients are switching agencies based on digital marketing knowledge. See my post “Wake Up Agencies - Digital Shops = Trojan Horse” for more.

2. More use of “pull interactions.” When trying to engage consumers with their brand, 90 percent of respondents agree that it is becoming increasingly important that their agency uses ‘pull interactions’ such as social media and online communities rather than traditional ‘push’ campaigns.

No question this is true, and it will be even more acute in 2010 when Millennials (who prefer organic sources of information and recommendations) become a larger demographic cohort than Boomers or Gen X. 

3. Leverage virtual communities. An overwhelming 94 percent of respondents expressed interest in leveraging virtual communities (public and private) to understand more about their target audience.

This one is a little fuzzy for me. It sounds like market research using social networks. That can work, but if this list is in order, no way is this #3 for the future of agencies. On a related note, check out Rapleaf. They take a database (your client’s email list, for example) and cross-reference it against all the social networks so you can figure out if you should emphasize MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, or something else. Cool, and potentially massively useful. 

4. Agency executives using the technology they are recommending. Ninety-two percent of respondents said it was ‘somewhat’ or ‘very’ important that agency employees use the technologies that they are recommending. For example, it is important that agency executives regularly use Facebook, Flickr, wikis, blogs, etc. in their personal social media mix.

The fact that this even made the list is an indictment of the advertising profession. If you’re going to pitch a social media campaign to a major client, you might want to have a Twitter account (among other things). It’s like SEO firms that aren’t ranked anywhere on Google for their own services. The Emperor has no clothes.

5. Chief Digital Officers make agencies more appealing. Forty-three percent of marketers surveyed said that agencies with chief digital officers are more appealing than those without.

I agree that having somebody in charge of digital strategy in an agency can be beneficial (disclosure: I had this role at Off Madison Ave for nearly 3 years). However, that approach only works if the agency has many digital experts, and just needs someone to steer the ship. Too many small and mid-sized agencies far prey to the “guru syndrom” and hire one Internet guy to handle all digital marketing for their agency. Big mistake. If that guy leaves (and he will), you’re screwed. And, centralizing digital expertise gives the rest of your staff an excuse to not get better at digital marketing. Don’t do this. See my series of training workshops for agencies on how to not get your whole agency competent at digital marketing. 

6. Web 2.0 and social media savvy. Sixty three percent of marketers surveyed said that an agency’s Web 2.0 and social media capabilities are ‘important/very important’ when it comes to agency selection.

Yes. Related to a couple of the points above. However, it’s critical for agencies to have a social media strategy for their clients, not just a random collection of social media tactics. Building a wikipedia page is not a strategy.

7. Agencies that understand consumer behavior. Seventy-six percent of respondents deemed this as an ‘important/very important’ aspect of their agency’s online digital marketing and interactive advertising area of expertise.

Isn’t this what agencies are supposed to be doing now (never mind the future)? This will be a huge determinant on agency winners and losers in the future, because Google and others will take away agencies’ revenue streams that are procedural rather than strategy and creative-driven. See my post about Google looking to crush agencies for scary details. 

8. Demonstrate strategic thinking. Seventy-seven percent of marketers surveyed ranked strategy/brain trust capabilities at the top of their agency wish list.

Yes. See #7. Same thing in my book. 

9. Branding and creative capabilities. Sixty-seven percent of respondents ranked branding at the top of their agency wish list while seventy-six percent ranked creative capabilities as ‘important/very important.’

This one is definitely more future looking than some of the others. At present, especially for the mid market, digital marketing can sometimes be very successful without great branding. But that will change, and agencies MUST get their creative teams comfortable with digital. How do creative directors get away with “I don’t really understand online, so I have our junior art director do that stuff”? Would that work for radio? For outdoor? For magazine? Well guess what, Internet advertising is larger than all three of these media types (U.S. annual spend).

10. Ability to measure success. It’s no surprise that marketers want an agency that can report on where campaigns succeeded, fell short and where they should be fine-tuned. Sixty-five percent ranked analytics at the top of their agency wish list.

This is the secret weapon of digital marketing and what makes it superior to traditional in some ways. Agencies that aren’t using the inherent measurability of interactive marketing to their advantage are missing the boat. The reason digital marketing will thrive in the recession is its targeting and tracking components. 

What do you think? Are there other attributes the agency of the future must have? Jetsons-style flying car? Extreme Wii proficiency? Please leave a comment with your ideas.

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Convince & Convert launches new training program series to help agencies improve their digital capabilities

Addressing the needs of ad agencies and PR firms to improve their digital marketing competency, Convince & Convert is now providing a series of customizable, in-person training programs.

We are offering 5 intensive, all-day sessions to train ad agencies and PR firms on a wide variety of critically important digital marketing services including:

Digital Marketing Audits & Action Plans
2 days on site interviewing staff and reviewing interactive marketing work samples, followed by creation of a detailed 90 day action plan.

Winning Search Engine Optimization & PPC Techniques
Includes training exercises on SEO copywriting, link building, PPC ad creation, bid management, and reporting.

Relevant Email Marketing That Works
Learn how to segment recipient lists, boost click through rates, and deliver killer email ROI to your clients.

Internet Advertising Tactics and Targeting
Learn how to craft solid online media plans, how to maximize effective targeting, and the 4 rules for effective Internet creative.

Social Media - The Roar of the Crowd
Learn how to create layered social media programs that get measurable results for your clients, and how to monetize social media efforts.

Better Than Conferences

“Sure agency staff can go to conferences, but they typically are full of theory and case studies,” said Jason Baer, President of Convince & Convert. “We deliver training that’s hands-on, tactical, and relevant. After our sessions, agencies can begin implementing the next morning,” he said.

All Convince & Convert training programs are conducted at the agency’s location, eliminating travel time and expense for attendees.

Programs are customized for each agency, and all attendees receive personalized workbooks and implementation materials, including checklists, vendor recommendations, and step by step procedures for digital marketing success.

After the training sessions, we conduct follow up Webinars with all attendees to answer questions and oversee implementation.

“Too many agencies are trying to handle advanced digital marketing for their clients, without the expertise to do so,” said Baer. “These new training programs will give agencies the serious know-how necessary to compete with digital specialists.”

>>Call or email to discuss setting up customized training at your agency

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It was bound to happen, and now it has. A big-time digital agency (R/GA) has opened up a full-fledged brand development arm.

And whom do you think they will be competing against with this new branding department? Other digital agencies? Nope. They are aiming for traditional agencies and the branding, media placement, and creative budgets they enjoy. The division is headed up by an ex Wieden & Kennedy executive.

To quote from AdAge:

Branding is a logical progression for R/GA, an agency that focuses on digital design for clients — for example, its Nike Plus work. It’s also another example of R/GA’s aggressive expansion into other marketing disciplines; the shop was originally known for its web work but has added TV production and media planning in the past few years. 

Digital marketing is going to grow. That’s unquestioned (see blog post about growth rate). But the smart digital agencies aren’t satisfied with consuming that piece of the marketing pie. They figure that if they can master the digital component - widely recognized as the most complicated aspect of marketing - surely they can handle traditional branding and advertising. I see a horse. His name is Trojan.

As social media (see blog post on social media’s role) becomes a more important part of public relations, this argument becomes more valid. It’s further supported by the increasing ties between online and offline media, with traditional media tactics driving traffic to landing pages (see blog post about landing page testing) and campaign microsites.

This is not just a national, big agency trend. In every market in the country, digital agencies are adding PR 2.0 divisions to specialize in social media, and are trying to deliver traditional services. With the digital marketing DNA being firmly rooted in measurement and analytics, digital shops are using tracking reports and low cost new media tactics to convince advertisers that they know a better way.

Forty Agency in Chandler, Arizona is a good example. Formerly a Web design and application development firm, they have branched out into branding and social media PR. They’re not doing broadcast production or traditional media buying, but that’s a logical next step. 
 

Agencies, the time is now

This is the official call to arms. Traditional agencies have to get serious about digital marketing now (see blog post about how to embrace digital). Not only are you not tapping into your clients’ digital budget, but you run the risk of those clients beginning to think that their beloved advertising and PR agencies just haven’t kept up with the times.

Agencies that want to do the “easy” digital stuff like building Web sites, but don’t want to get their hands dirty with SEO, analytics, or other numbers and process intensive services just perpetuate clients’ thinking that digital shops understand the future better than traditional firms.

It’s not too late. Is digital marketing complicated? Absolutely. Is it out of reach for advertising and PR firms that want to commit to it? Absolutely not. But you have to take the plunge pretty soon, or the curve to catch up will be exceedingly steep.

Comments? Any digital agencies want to admit to their master plan? Any traditional shops feeling threatened and ready to do something about it?

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AdWeek ran an interesting story a few days ago about Google’s foray into television advertising. As I’ve been saying for years, Google’s ultimate plan is to be the middle-man for all advertising, everywhere. 

There are clearly inefficiencies in the buying and selling of traditional media. It requires multiple phone calls and emails and spread sheets. Why? Because sellers of media will not make their inventory and their pricing transparent, believing (perhaps correctly) that to do so will result in lower prices.

The Internet Puts People Out of Business

Let’s see if there are other industries that were based in large measure on a slow, inefficient buying process with a lack of transparency. How about travel agents, financial agents, and insurance agents?

The Web does a lot of things well, but its long-term legacies will be instant knowledge and the creation of efficient markets in either broad (amazon, ebay) or targeted (expedia, eTrade, Geico) categories.

Google Has Chosen Advertising as Its Market

To me, the agency community seems frighteningly slow to realize that Google is looking to take away all agency services that are not strategic and creative, and replace them with Google-owned software. Google Ad Planner. Google Analytics. Google Web Optimizer. And now Google Radio, Print, and TV ad insertions. ALL of these are services that agencies could charge for as recently as 30 days ago in some cases. 

TV is the Final Frontier for Google

There are 2 components to Google’s TV strategy that if successful, will put a ton of broadcast media reps (buyers and sellers) on the street.

First, Google wants to deliver their menagerie of hundreds of thousands of advertisers directly to TV networks - and especially local stations. Imagine if your local CBS affiliate only needed 1 salesperson instead of 7 because most ads were bought direct through a Google interface. That’s the plan. 

Second, Google wants to deliver precise, real-time results tracking for television. They want to do away with Nielsen and all forms of panel and meter measurement. Already, Google is serving ads in the EchoStar satellite network, and providing second by second data on which ads are watched, skipped, paused, etc. They then combine data from online marketing and print and radio campaigns to provide advertisers with a comprehensive report on which media tactics and which creative executions are driving sales. 

Are there any clients out there that might want to know precisely how their TV fares versus their radio and print? Ummm, yes. 

Old Media is Denying Their Own Peril

What’s equally amazing and aggravating in the AdWeek article are the quotes from all manner of old guard TV folks and their hand maidens. They point to the newish effort by cable companies to join forces to provide the type of online marketplace and measurability for TV that Google is offering. The problem is, it doesn’t matter how great Project Canoe is (which is literally what it is code named - so much for futuristic nomenclature) - they have a grand total of zero advertisers on board. Whereas, Google has hundreds of thousands of marketers logging into their system every day. 

Ultimately, efficient markets will win. It’s as inexorable as water flowing to a point of least resistance. Even Forrester is ignoring the eventuality of Google getting a major foothold in the traditional media buying space, as analyst David Graves was quoted “It seems that the television establishment, both buyers and sellers, are likely to want to buy it person to person.” Not for long, and when Google opens up the billions of dollars in spot TV revenue pent up in the mouse clicks of their PPC user base, watch how fast those “face to face” advocates start learning how to buy and sell remotely.

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My friend Michael Gass, who writes the excellent Fueling Ad Agency New Business blog, has launched a survey of small and mid-sized ad agencies and the current state of their business development program. 

With the economy getting as ugly as pre-surgery Joan Rivers, figuring out how to keep your agency in front of key prospects is more important than ever. (If you haven’t read my post on “5 Reasons Why Digital Marketing Will Thrive in the Recession” you can find it here)

The survey takes literally 2 minutes to complete. 3 if you’re checking email simultaneously. 

The best part is, if you send Michael an email (michael at michael gass dot com) he’ll send you a copy of the results when analysis is completed. 

Take the ad agency new business and promotion survey here

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Agency Advantage Tools - #3 In a Series

Since it’s invention by Todd Defren at Shift Communications in 2006, the social media press release has taken root.

Combining short paragraphs and bullet points with Web-friendly links, tags, and multi-media content, the SM release aims to give reporters and bloggers the key ingredients for a story in an immediately scannable and digestible fashion.

The SM release has been successful because it capitalizes on three converging trends:
1. The emerging use of multi-media content due to increasing bandwidth and ease of content creation.

2. The increasing emphasis on search engine optimization of media releases. After all, isn’t Google just the world’s most powerful reporter?

3. Email has created a deluge of pitches and writers can’t read 1,000 narrative pitches per day. The social media release format enables them to skin and assess what’s newsworthy.

Strategically Brilliant, but Tactically Sketchy - Until Now

The hang-up with social media releases has been actually getting them built. Most PR folks are not Web programmers, and the very nature of what makes a social media release useful (tags, links, multi-media) makes it tricky to execute if your definition of high tech is inserting a footer in Microsoft Word.

Historically, the best social media releases have essentially been customized landing pages, like this genius effort for Jim Beam from Jason Fall at Doe Anderson and Jason Swartz at PSB.

So, unless you have a Jim Beam budget and a Web programmer hanging around, making a killer SM release has been tricky, despite efforts from PRXBuilder (Wordpress and Microsoft Word plug-in) to make it easier. (note, I use PRXBuilder’s SimpleSMPR on this blog).

Enter PitchEngine

Newly launched - still in Alpha release - PitchEngine is out to change all that. Their slick, exceptionally easy online social media release creation engine is by far the best I’ve seen. Literally, if I took the time to explain what a “tag” was to my 9 year-old, she could make a release (it would probably be about ice skating or the dresses on The Titanic).

Here’s how easy it is:

- Request an account
- Log-in
- Add your boilerplate info, logo, contact info (don’t forget your Twitter account)!
- Click “create new release” and you get the screen above
- Type headline
- Type short pitch (Twitter pitch)
- Type rest of release
- Upload photos and videos
- Add links back to your Web site
- Add tags

DONE! Click a button and you have a beautifully formatted, all linked up social media release ready for distribution.

Distribution Included

In addition to enabling you to create your social media release, PitchEngine lets you easily distribute it too, by typing in whom you want to send it to (via email, Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook). All releases created in the system automatically appear in the PitchFeed, a stream of current pitches that can be accessed by reporters and bloggers on site or via RSS.

All This, And It’s Free

For now, PitchEngine is 100% free, which is of course a ridiculously good deal. I suspect they’ll be going to a Freemium model at some point, with advanced features costing a few dollars here and there.

For all PR firms and client-side PR 2.0 and social media managers, PitchEngine is the new social media release champion, and an indispensable tool in the new media arsenal. Check it out.

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A new report from Bernstein Research says online advertising in the U.S. will grow by 20% in 2008, despite weakness in travel, auto, and financials.

Top categories for online advertising spend include:

• Finance, insurance, real estate - 29.6% of overall spend
• Media and entertainment - 25.2%
• Retail - 13.8%
• Other - 12.9%
• Auto - 8.6%

The Question for Agencies…

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