Photo courtesy of hoangnam_nguyen via Flickr
It’s time for my weekly round-up of the best blog posts I have seen around the web this past week! Here’s the top five in no particular order…
Optimize Your Social Media Schedule: 4 Tips for Avoiding the Social Media Time Suck via Online Marketing Blog
Making the time to execute on a social media strategy can rattle even the most experienced marketers. Unlike traditional marketing, social media marketing can present many different challenges and distractions. According to a study by eMarketer 73% of marketers say finding the time to create content as their biggest marketing challenge.
I recently ran a poll of @TopRankTwitter followers to get a sense of how they spend their time online. I asked “If you had only 20 minutes a day to spend on social media what would you focus on?”
How to Make Your PR Pitch Stand Out in Crowded Inboxes via HubSpot Blog
Journalists receive hundreds of emails every day from public relations professionals. A lot of them may end up in the trash or get ignored, but many of them really, truly are used for stories. If that sounds surprising, you might be one of the PR professionals who is having trouble getting journalists to consider your pitches.
Just like a resume needs to stand out to a recruiter (especially in this economy), a pitch or press release needs to stand out to a journalist. But how can you do that? Let’s review some of the ways we’ve successfully gotten the attention of journalists over the years despite their jam-packed email inboxes.
The 2012 Community Manager Report [Infographic] via Social Fresh
Every 4th Monday of January social media professionals gather around their warm, cozy monitors to toast Starbucks and sing viral video carols — all to celebrate Community Manager Appreciation Day. Today marks the third annual celebration of the day, started in 2010 by Jeremiah Owyang.
The community manager is the most popular role among social media teams (according to Altimeter). It has emerged as the main public face of the social media efforts for most companies. Some companies choose to use junior level employees to manage their online communities, while others commit large teams with hierarchies to the task.
Last year, Social Fresh launched our first Community Manager report. And this year we have gathered even more data from twice as many community managers.
Want to see the future of PR? Here ya go… via jasonkintzler.com
My last post (A New Battle Emerges) about the future of public relations and content creation seriously struck a chord. For some, it came as a shocker – Journalists might actually replace me?! For others, it provided reassurance that they were on the right track.
One of those savvy PR pros published a beautiful pitch this week that exemplifies exactly what I’ve been getting at – throw out what you know about press release templates, wire distribution and weak-sauce efforts and shake what your mamma gave you. Exercise your writing chops and create something great.
In this case, ironically, Dogfish Head’s Justin Williams happens to be a former journalist and he knows how to tell a story.
The Power of a Blog via Social Media Explorer
Why are blogs such a powerful communications tool in the arsenal of a company? There are lots of reasons, really. But the explanation I’ve used that normally gives those who don’t quite understand blogging have their “ah-ha” moment is a simple one. To understand the power of a blog you have to compare it to something familiar.
Think about your company newsletter. If you’re not that hip to blogging yet, your company newsletter is probably still printed and circulated in everyone’s box in the mailroom. Or maybe it’s mailed to everyone’s house. But in some form or fashion, some printed piece of information is circulated monthly or bi-weekly to everyone in the company. There are pictures of new hires, company softball team news, maybe even some tips and tricks articles for the sales team and a list of birthdays.
The problem with that mechanism of communication is that the information has a limited life cycle and, due to costs, the publication has a limited circulation. Only a few people can access it.
And a recap of what happened on Cision Blog:
PR experts sound off: “How would YOU define public relations?”
Late last year, PRSA announced a new initiative to redefine public relations with a more modern definition through their Public Relations Defined campaign. The definition hasn’t been revised since the 1980s, and with the rapidly changing media landscape, it may just be time to think about how our profession has changed. Using crowdsourcing techniques, PRSA has announced three candidate definitions and is asking for feedback in the comments section of this hyperlinked post – final responses due today.
Beyond responding in the comments, I’ve reached out to some of the PR experts that I respect the most and asked them, “How would YOU define public relations?”
Getting the Most Out of Seek or Shout
The old saying goes: A carpenter is only as good as his or her tools, and users are only as effective as the effort put into maintaining a community presence. We launched an incredible site in public beta last week, and as the Community Manager of Seek or Shout, I would be remiss if didn’t help users maximize the experience. Here are five tips for perfecting and publicizing profiles and posts that give back.
