Brand Central Station

(From Bulldog Reporter’s PR University)
When:   July 21, 2010
Time:  1-5pm EDT
Location:  Online
Cost:  $ 695 (early-bird discounts available)

Half-Day Webinar for Communicators at Food Manufacturers, Beverage Producers, Grocery Stores, Kitchen Suppliers, and Specialty Food Retailers.  Moderated by renowned social media expert, blogger, consultant and trainer, Sally Falkow, APR.

Use advanced social media marketing strategies to skyrocket visibility and sales— frontline practitioners reveal how to build loyalty, website traffic, press coverage, client satisfaction and sales

In just one-half day, you’ll cover:

• Best practices for using Twitter as a food and beverage marketing tool
• Key elements every food or beverage online newsroom must have to boost press coverage and Google search ranking
• Which social media promotions work best to boost trackable sales now?
• How to create communities of evangelists for your food or beverage
• How to track online conversations and mentions of your product—and how to respond when you don’t like what you hear
• How to create a cost-effective social media strategic plan “step-by-step”
• A bad review on food and beverage websites and blogs: What you can and should do about it
• Cultivating food and beverage bloggers and websites: What works and what doesn’t
• How to decide which social media are most valuable for your product . . . and which you can ignore
• What should your online messaging strategy be—and how can you communicate it in just 140 characters?
• To blog or not to blog: How to assess blogging costs vs. benefits
• How to build a large and loyal following on Facebook
• Most effective uses of online video—and what you need (and don’t need) to produce your own
• And many, many more tips, tricks, trends and inside approaches

Hear and confer with communicators from General Mills, Campbell Soup, and other food and beverage brands like yours, as well as other social media experts, who will share their “war stories” and valuable lessons learned.

Register Now (Early-Bird Discounts Available)

(from Mediabistro.com)
When: 4 weeks starting Wednesday, June 9; 9-10am EDT
Cost: $350

There have never been more potential outlets and opportunities for writers, but at the same time, there’s never been more competition.

In this course, you will learn how to make the current climate in both publishing and parenting work for you. We’ll explore the many different outlets available to freelance writers, from blogs to websites to magazines, as well as the kinds of story ideas and formats that today’s editors are looking for. We’ll cover the nuts and bolts of researching, writing, and revising a parenting story, how pitches differ and most importantly, how to develop strong relationships with your editors.

In this class, you will learn how to:

• Mine your life, experience, and connections for ideas
• Define yourself as a parenting writer
• Find the markets available to you as a parenting writer, including magazines, blogs, and websites
• Target your pitches
• Research topics and identify sources
• Create engaging stories that editors and readers won’t want to put down

Learn more and register now. Prefer to register by telephone? Call us at 212-547-7890.

Besides when you’re at an all-you-can-eat restaurant, of course.

The answer is when you’re trying to drag your business (or your client) into the realm of social media and/or online marketing (no, they’re not exactly the same thing – but that’s a topic for another post at another time). 

(more…)

Astroturfing is bad … and there are plenty of published floggings of PR firms guilty of “over-enthusiastic” shilling for clients.  Enough, in fact, that many PR folks are viewed with disdain by journalists and bloggers.

There’s no doubt that PR firms that plant good reviews on blogs, write letters to the editor in support of their clients, etc. – and don’t identify themselves as agents for their clients are stepping over an ethical line.  But what do you do when you find bloggers (and journalists) who offer to provide positive reviews and/or coverage at a price?

Danny Brown, social media maverick and PR guy, posted an example of this on his weblog yesterday and it deserves further review and comment.

(more…)

Our friends at the Copyblogger web site have an excellent post that explains what a “catablog” is … (check out the post here).

In short, Brian Clark offers this thumbnail description of a catablog:

A catablog is basically a blog that is designed to mix content and commerce in a very deliberate fashion. It’s looking to attract people who are interested in buying things, but who are also interested in immersing themselves in the lifestyle surrounding the products.

For traditionalists, this is an excellent example of how to blend the “new” social media with the “old” concept of a direct mail catalog.  Focus on the story-telling and follow some basic rules for catalog sales.  The measurable aspect of the medium (online) will help you fine tune your product offering, refine your approach and improve your ROI.

The irony of writing this post the day after an on-going e-mail exchange with a guy who wrote a post about the lack of civility in advertising hasn’t passed me by, but …

I received an e-mail from a friend of this blog today who filled me in on an interesting online exchange between a blogger and the president of a company he blogged about.  As it turns out, the post written by the blogger provides a less-than-friendly portrayal of the president’s company. 

Nineteen months after the fact (Tuesday, as a matter of fact), the president contacts the blogger with more than one nasty e-mail message.  Threats of lawsuits follow and the ‘libel’ word is thrown around liberally.  The blogger was sufficiently po’d to contact another blogger, who wrote about the exchange and then passed the information on to me.

And now I’m blogging about it – albiet third-hand and without using names or quoting accusations.  You see, I don’t know either party involved in this broughaha and can’t vouch for them.  But that’s not my objective here.  Instead, I’d like to dive into the tactics employed and their ramification on reputation and, eventually, market share. (more…)

The first edition of the Adnews podcast was posted on August 19 and despite the best intentions of blogger Mike Delgado, we’re all still waiting for another installment. The Adnews blog has seen a little more action, but not much.

The premise of the podcasts might be problematic. In his first transmission, Mike explains that he’ll build a weekly summary of marketing stories derived from the usual industry sources. He’ll add some additional information gleaned from ad-oriented blogs and wrap everything up in under ten minutes.

To be truthful, by the time Mike has done his weekly wrap-up and posted it to his site, the news is so old that most of us who keep up on it may not have much interest in hearing him read it back to us.

Here’s hoping the delay in getting installment #2 of the Adnews podcast up is the result of Mike fine-tuning his concept and creating a truly unique voice worth tuning in to hear.

Good luck, Mike.

Micropersuasion’s Steve Rubel shares a list of the things every company should be monitoring online:

- Your company name
- Your company URL
- Your company’s public-facing figures
- Your product names
- Your product URL’s
- Your industry hang-outs
- Your employee’s blogs
- Online conversations about your brand/company
- Your brand’s image
- Your competition

Thanks to Steve for tipping us off to Cameron Olthuis’ blog post on this subject. Cameron provides a list of web sites and tools that you can use to “track your buzz.”

Sounds like a full-time job, doesn’t it? I know a firm that would be happy to help.

An instructional post from the SEOBook blog – and 101 ways to build your blog’s link popularity. (Take the lessons learned here and apply it to your other social media projects, too.)

SEO will remain an important factor (if not THE important factor) in driving the implied importance of your blog or web site. Links are the basic connector between sites and because of that search engines will continue looking for them and scoring your site accordingly.

And if 101 tips aren’t enough for you, try this.

Colin McKay, the blogger behind the Canuckflack blog, provides 22 Immutable Laws of Blogging (with an appropriate hat tip to Ries & Trout).

My favorites:
#2 Half baked ideas are better than no ideas.
#15 Sympathy drives traffic.
#21 One comment is a fad; three trackbacks is a trend

and my personal fave …
#6 Intellectual plagiarism is rarely called out.

Thanks for the content, Colin.

PS – love the new look for the blog.