THINKing

A Question Of Trust

What companies do you trust? From all the recent headlines, it seems there are no trustworthy companies out there these days. Well, Forbes has just published its list of the 100 most trustworthy companies.

Brainstorming Resources

When it comes to brainstorming, most people do it wrong. There truly is only one rule: initially, there are no bad ideas. The objective of brainstorming is to generate as many ideas as possible.

So, here is my list of brainstorming rules, followed by some resources.

Dead Fish Website

Too often, websites are just repurposed brochures. When you hit the home page of one of these sites, they lay there like a dead fish in the sun. There is no interactivity, nothing to direct you on to deeper content. Colleague Jack Aaronson has some advice on how to determine what should be on your home page.

My MediaRoom

Do you have a media room on your website? A media room is a dedicated web site for press releases, event announcements, a blog, and more. If you don’t have one, MyMediaRoom may be the answer for you. It is a community news platform that enables organizations to get their message out to targeted audiences.

I Own You!

Who owns what? That is a question media buyers have asked for years. With this knowledge you often can craft a media buy that does a better job leveraging your media budget. With media moving toward the web, it is still a valid question. Here’s at least part of the answer.

Optimize

Today?s news release is written differently than those from the past. It needs to be newsworthy and it needs to sound like a human wrote it. However, you also must include the right keywords in it. Let?s examine some news release optimization techniques.

Digitize

Some say Ivy Lee invented the news release in 1906. But since its invention, a news release only rarely has scored anyone a placement in the New York Times. But, as we have discussed before, the news release is not dead. It has evolved into a powerful tool for publicity and driving web traffic.Written and distributed correctly, a news release can provide a real boost to your online PR program. How so, you ask?

Cool Tool

eHub calls itself “a constantly updated resource of web applications, services or sites with a focus on next generation web (web 2.0), social software, blogging, Ajax, Ruby on Rails, location mapping, open source, folksonomy, design and digital media sharing.” I call it cool.

Social Media Ages Gracefully

Let’s face it, highly hyped sites like MySpace and YouTube are for younger people. I am not younger people. Nor are the people I’m trying to reach for my clients and myself.

Web 2.0 Leads MSM Evolution

Many members of the mainstream media (MSM) are dinosaurs just waiting to die. But a few are starting to figure out how to evolve into relevance. USA Today has begun the evolutionary journey with its relaunch of USAToday.com.