THINKing » Google

Brands Need A Home

Harry Hoover — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 16:47:31 +0000

Photo credit: clarita from morguefile.com

Many brands are investing a lot of time and money into social networks, almost to the point of ceding control to another entity. It’s time to rethink this.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t participate on platforms like Facebook and Google +. I am just issuing a warning that it is not a good idea to become too intertwined in something controlled by someone else. Facebook and Google + are free platforms, and as such they can make the rules. Therein lies the problem.

Take for instance Facebook’s decision to remove the discussion tab from pages. Says Inside Facebook,

The in-house app, also known as Discussion Boards, allows Pages to host simple forums. However, Facebook says “The best way to encourage conversation and feedback is through posts and comments on your wall”. It will therefore eliminate the Discussions app, despite AppData showing that it has 22 million monthly active users.

Well, there are a lot of Facebook page administrators who have spent literally years using this application. Some have used it for its threaded discussion ability. What happens to the archives? Our friends at SocialFish don’t like this much either.

It doesn’t matter to Facebook that it’s much easier for people interested in ongoing discussions to follow an archived, threaded discussion format. Or that it’s much easier to have an actual discussion format, not Facebook’s ever-changing, secretly-algorithmed wall post format. What’s easy or useful for users is not Facebook’s concern; Facebook cares about Facebook. Period.

All brands are in danger here, but particularly smaller ones. For months, I have warned friends who own small businesses that they need a digital home besides Facebook. I encourage them to at least set up a free WordPress blog if they can’t afford to have someone build them a website. Your site should be the hub – not a spoke – of your content marketing. You should use social networks as a sidewalk back home, not the other way around. Or, someday, your brand could be homeless.

Reading List

Harry Hoover — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 13:42:49 +0000

What are you reading today? Here are a few items we are checking out.

Newspaper Online Traffic Heads Up

Google Fast Flip Speeds Online News Reading

iPhone App Helps You Find Guinness

Measuring The Business Effects Of Web 2.0

Content Marketing On Steroids

Harry Hoover — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 14:29:35 +0000

Photo By David Kitchenham

Content marketers often equate public relations techniques purely with media relations. They think distributing news releases is only to promote a product, make an executive announcement or discuss company financial matters. They forget that they can use PR to get their information about their content out to the most important audiences: the media and their own customers. Let’s review.

Content is a treasure chest for marketers. So, let’s share it everywhere and in every way possible. But do it from the inside out. In other words, tell those audiences closest to you first, and then go wider from there.

First, write an educational or informational white paper on your area of expertise.

Use your customer and prospect email list to tell key constituents about the white paper’s availability.

Issue a brief news release about the availability on your website of the white paper. Send the release to your targeted media list using Pitchengine, which also gets your release picked up by Google News.

Consider spending a little extra to broaden your reach by distributing your release on PRNewswire or PRWeb.

Use the content in your blog.

Develop a seminar from the white paper.

Use email to offer this seminar to your key constituents.

Issue a brief release about the availability of the seminar, and repeat the above sequence.

Hammer this one content message in all communication channels and reap the rewards. How are you marketing your content?

Remember, You Are Naked Online

Harry Hoover — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 13:28:30 +0000

Here in the Charlotte area a number of teachers are in danger of losing their jobs because of online indiscretions. They posted objectionable items in their Facebook accounts. Last time I checked Facebook was the fifth most visited site on the web with millions of visitors each day.

Did these teachers not know that? Anyone can see what you are saying. When you utilize social media, you are naked online for all to see. If they are that dumb, should they be teaching our children?

I’ve seen many – mostly younger – people airing out too much online. Savvy HR people Google candidates before hiring them. How would you look in an HR search?

This gets back to personal branding, a topic on which I’ve written a lot. A brand rests on truth, not on a thin veneer of calculated actions. So, like any good brand, you must nurture and maintain your reputation. All of your actions – offline and online – add up to form your personal brand. As Warren Buffett said,

It takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it. If you think about that you will do things differently.

It’s a little late for the Charlotte, NC teachers to heed that advice or to read my white paper on personal branding. But you may want to give it a whirl.

Links 8/7/2008

Harry Hoover — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 12:45:45 +0000

Job Market Intact For Young Journalists

NEW YORK The job market for journalism graduates has remained largely unchanged for the second half of 2007 and the first half of 2008, according to a new survey from the University of Georgia.

New Google Marketer’s Tool Launches

Google is giving everyone a chance to peek deeper into its database of search requests and discover the things that preoccupy individuals and, in aggregate, entire cities, states or nations, at any one time. The company has introduced a free service called Insights for Search. The tool is intended for marketers, but it allows anyone to track the popularity of various words and phrases that people type into Google’s search box, the NY Times reports.

See You At The Debate, Bitches

When you get called out, as Paris Hilton recently was by a political ad that tried to paint her and Barack Obama in unflattering light, you have three options:

Comcast Gets Its Media On

DailyCandy started in 2000 as an email publisher for a relatively small group: young women in New York who were interested in the latest in shopping and culture, and had money to spend. Eight years later, the company, driven by a small army of contributors providing breezy tips, has grown to encompass 13 daily and 8 weekly newsletters, reaching 2.5 million subscribers in 11 American cities and London.That drew the interest of cable giant Comcast, which this week agreed to buy DailyCandy to add to its stable of Internet media properties, the NY Times reports.

Magazine Circulation Figures: Headed South?

The magazine industry is bracing for one of its worst beatings in years on the newsstand front as the Audit Bureau of Circulations prepares to release on Monday its full report on the first half of 2008. Consumers, faced with a dearth of celebrity scandals and a souring economy, have seemingly turned skittish on many of their favorite magazines, NY Post media columnist Keith J. Kelly reports.

Bonus Link: 2008 Online Newsroom Survey Results

How often do journalists visit Online Newsrooms? What do they want in an Online Newsroom? Find out – download a free copy of the NEW 2008 Online Newsroom Survey Results.