Blog Rescue: 7 Common Problems with Corporate Blogs
If you’re reading this blog, it means that you’re doing a lot right. Your company, brand or client is already on all relevant social media platforms. You’re thinking in terms of editorial calendars and themes. You develop contests and offer your audience Youtility. You’ve got a robust digital presence with eye-catching videos, maybe even a […]
Redesigning Your Blog to Drive Reader Behavior
Soon, you’ll be seeing an all-new version of Convince & Convert. It’s undergoing a full makeover, led by the amazing Rafal Tomal from Copyblogger Media. We’re of course staying with the Genesis Framework that provides enormous customization capabilities with unmatched ease-of-use. Here’s an almost-ready preview: The design is based on the new Streamline child theme […]
How to Match 10 Key Success Metrics to Your Blogging Strategy
If you’re blogging for business, rather than blogging about your cat, baby, fashion addiction, or crush on Taylor Swift, you need to set some success metrics. Without a statistical measure of your blogging progress, adding content to your blog on a regular basis can be an incredibly lonely proposition. Is anyone out there? Does anyone […]
Mack Collier – The Twitter 20 Interview about Blogging and Being Helpful
Are you as good at social media as Mack Collier? Probably not, as proven in this sweeping, live Twitter20 interview. Mack opines on how to write a good blog, how to help others in social media, and why you need to know where your traffic comes from. Mack is a social media consultant and trainer, […]
Ann Handley – The Twitter 20 Interview about Social Media, Content and Journalism
Ann Handley is kinda busy. She’s the Chief Content Officer of Marketing Profs, crack editorial overlord of Marketing Profs’ Daily Fix blog, contributor to the Huffington Post, author of the Annarchy blog, and a mother. She also co-founded the digital marketing portal ClickZ. In addition to her lengthy resume, she’s truly one of the best […]
BL Ochman – The Twitter 20 Interview about Social Media and Blogging
BL Ochman, author of the What’s Next blog, and a veteran of digital marketing since 1996 and a public relations powerhouse before that, agreed to withstand the crucible of a Twitter 20 interview (20 questions live on Twitter). Here are BL’s thoughts on blogging, email, social media, and getting the job done right online. 1. […]
9 Ways to Humanize Your Brand (with real humans)
Many companies are reluctant to fully dive in to social media, either because they are afraid of losing control, or because they believe their customers aren’t using social media. The latter is especially prevalent among B2B companies, and when viewed from a purely numerical perspective they may be right. (photo by The Dana Files) An […]
Jason Falls – The Twitter 20 Interview about Social Media and Public Relations
Featuring Jason Falls, the head of social media at branding agency Doe-Anderson, author of the Social Media Explorer blog, and all-around social media nice guy genius. Jason submitted himself to the rigors of the Twitter 20 interview (20 questions live on Twitter) on November 14, 2008. Excellent questions and comments from viewers throughout, too. Thanks to […]
The Paradox of Social Media Control
As discussed recently in “Why Are We So Scared of Our Customers?” and “Presto, How Social Media Makes Bad News Good” I’m seeing the fear of negativity preventing more companies from embracing social media. The typical social media objection is that if the company has a conversation with consumers in a public forum, the company […]
Why Are We So Scared of Our Customers?
Many companies and even agencies are reluctant to engage in social media because they are afraid that some sort of consumer backlash will occur, doing damage to the brand. Certainly, there are a few noteworthy examples of social media missteps from brands like Wal-Mart, Coca-Cola et al. But in most cases, those shortcomings were due […]
Scott Monty – The Twitter 20 Twinterview about Social Media at Ford
Live from Marketing Profs Digital Mixer Scott Monty, the head of social media for Ford, participated in a Twitter 20 interview on October 23 and answered a wide range of questions about social media at big companies, and his ideas for the future of conversation marketing. Scott and myself and 248 other lucky folks were […]
The World’s Best PR Blog – Vote Today
To celebrate its 10th Anniversary, PR Week has launched a “Best PR Blogs” contest with YOU the agency community as the judge and jury. PR Week nominated 16 well-known PR blogs, and asked each blogger to nominate another blog for the contest. The result is a 32-blog, March Madness-style blog off. Each week, blogs are […]
4 Winners, 2 Losers in SEC’s Press Release Decision
In a major announcement yesterday, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) provided new guidance to public companies stating that corporate Web sites and blogs are a suitable means for official information dissemination to investors, provided those sites are a “recognized channel for distribution.” This apparently means that if the corporation has an openly available […]
Social Media – Your Customers Are Talking About You Online
The Roar of The Crowd As appeared in bizAZ Magazine July/Aug 2008 edition Unless you’re selling specialized rivets to the military industrial complex via no bid contracts, chances are your customers are talking about you online. And not just via email, in a “hey mom, I think your accountant totally messed up your taxes” way, […]
Blogs and the new transparency of communication
Unless you’re a recently thawed caveperson, you’ve heard about blogs. No current-day buzzword is as buzzy as “blog” which leapt from geek-dom to mainstream faster than the evaporation of Bode Miller’s career. (author’s note: Since this was written, Mr. Miller has been resurgent and won this year’s overall World Cup skiing title. Apologies Bode) Blogs […]