THINKing

Great Images Make Content More Compelling

You are probably wondering what this photo has to do with this post. Well, in part one of this series, Five Key Elements To Creating Compelling Content, our friend, Rubbermaid blogger  Jim Dietzel, laid out his five key elements for creating compelling content. Number 3 was “pictures are good.”

Our digital colleague, Rodger Johnson from GetSocialPR, also thinks that imagery can kick your content up a notch. He says use compelling images to support the story, a lesson he learned from his journalism days that still works today.

The photo above may be interesting, but it doesn’t really go with this post. So, good pictures are not enough. Photos can help draw attention to a post, keeping it from looking like a huge gray mass of words. But – to be most effective – the image must complement, or support the the story in some way.

If you are going to use photos, you also must respect copyright law. Don’t just do a Google search and use the images. They may be copyright protected. We did a piece sometime back about some free photo resources that you may want to revisit.

Below are a few more related posts on the use of images in your blog.

An Introduction To Using Images On Blogs

Finding Compelling Flickr Images

Using Images Legally On Your Blog

Using Images To Take Your Posts To A New Level

Why Images Are Vital To Modern Blogs

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8 Ways To Use Twitter Lists

UPDATE: We just launched our Fortune 100 Twitter list. Feel free to follow it or any of our lists mentioned below.

We talked recently about the Twitter lists set up by My Creative Team. Are you using Twitter lists? Tell us about it.

We now have a Twittering Media Outlet List, a Twittering US Journalist List, and a Twittering Canadian Journalist List. Because Hootsuite – our favorite Twitter appliance – now allows you to import your lists, we also set up a Social Media List of our favorites in that category.

We have found a number of ways to utilize Twitter lists. Let’s take a couple of minutes to think about the how-tos of lists.

1. Experts. We established our social media list for the purpose of following experts in this milieu.

2. Social media monitoring. There’s a good piece on this at Fresh Networks‘ blog.

3. Industry news monitoring. We have set up the Twittering Media Outlets list to keep up with breaking news. You also could set up niche news monitoring lists, as we are going to do for our client, Camstar Systems, so we can keep up-to-date on topics such as manufacturing execution and quality management.

4. Employees. A number of businesses, ranging from Mashable to the New York Times, have set up employee lists. This could be a good customer service tool for your company, particularly if you work for a Fortune 1000 size firm.

5. Promote Causes. NonProfit Tech 2.0 has a post about how to use Twitter lists for promoting non-profits and causes.

6. Geo-Specific Lists. My Creative Team has been listed in a number of Charlotte, NC-area Twitter lists, like this one. This is a good way to keep up with what’s happening where you live, or where you used to live.

7. News Sources. Poynter Online has a solid post telling journalists how to use Twitter lists to help streamline their jobs.  Mashable also has a piece on how journalists are using Twitter lists.

8. Job Search.  Looking for a job? Set up a list of companies for which you would like to work, so you can get a sense of the corporate culture. Add executive search contacts to the list so you can discover what jobs are available.

Those are just a few ways to use Twitter lists. Got other ideas?

Oh, before you set up your own list, there may already be one out there. Check Listorious, the directory of Twitter lists.   Here’s one we found about job searches.

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Everyman 1, Influentials, 0

Back in the 20th Century, you might remember, PR people were advised to determine who were the influentials in their market and spend the majority of their efforts reaching these elites. The theory was that if you reached these centers of influence – the media or someone who could influence popular culture – you could develop more targeted programs and avoid a mass approach. Approaching influentials was less expensive than mass communications.

The internet changed all that. Information and influence have now been democratized. Like the corporate world, culture is less hierarchical and has fewer layers.We now have a cheap way to reach a mass audience. That’s not to say there is no place for influentials in your marketing program. Although, Duncan Watts disagrees. He thinks it is a waste of money to try to target what Malcolm Gladwell called “tastemakers.” But that is a story for another day.

The media is losing much of its power and its mass appeal thanks to its lockstep liberal media bias and the rise of citizen journalism. I still think PR pros can utilize the media to help reach key audiences, however there are new ways to spread your message. Blogs and social media like Facebook and Twitter are the new media PR practitioners need to master.

Guy Kawasaki has some excellent advice for anyone who wants to master these new tools for profit. You’d be well advised to read and put his thoughts into practice.

By Harry Hoover

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Social Nets vs. Email

A new Nielsen study shows that social networks have overtaken email as the most popular online activity. Says a story in Adweek,

Active reach in what Nielsen defines as “member communities” now exceeds e-mail participation by 67 percent to 65 percent. What’s more, the reach of social networking and blogging venues is growing at twice the rate of other large drivers of Internet use such as portals, e-mail and search.

No real surprise there. Email is maturing. It has settled into its niche as an excellent longer-form instantaneous communication tool.

How mature? Friend Mark Harrison and I were discussing this recently. Email has become so mature that spam has decreased in our inboxes. Now, we’re starting to see spam infiltrate social media. When spam arrives, so has your medium. You can learn a lot from spammers. But that is a topic for another day.

Eventually, every medium finds its place. Radio didn’t kill newspaper and magazines. TV didn’t kill radio. The web didn’t kill everything else. I’m still a believer in the power of email, as I’ve said on numerous occasions.

Email is a superb customer retention tool. I think its effectiveness in acquiring new customers is suspect. Smart businesses use email to keep customers informed, reinforce their brand and to drive traffic to stores or their online presence. In 2008, the average return on investment for email was $45 for every $1 spent for an ROI of 4,400%. Sounds like email is working to me.

The best marketers have figured out how to integrate all the communication vehicles. Remember, there is a time and season for all things. Do it right and you win.

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100 Reporters Were Sitting At A Bar…

We’ve talked here often about the use of digital tools like Twitter for PR and media relations purposes. Digital colleague Joan Stewart alerted me about a post on PR and Social Media at Ronn Torossian’s blog,

Someone made a very wise comment about using Twitter and the value of passively reading comments and thoughts of reporters and writers. He said, “If you had the chance to sit at a bar and silently listen to 100 Reporters talking, would you? That’s Twitter.”

He is dead on. You get to find out what is on their minds and what kinds of stories they work on without having to bother them with an unneccessary phone call or email. Why should you worry about that, you’re asking? Reporters – like everyone else – hate spam and they consider this a form of it. As the Media Relations Blog points out in 11 Tips For Pitching Reporters,

Reporters STILL hate PR spam and irrelevant pitches. Such tactics are unlikely to generate coverage, it turns out. Shocking, I know.

Are you using social media like Twitter or tools like PitchEngine in your media relations efforts? Do tell.

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PitchEngine: A PR Tool For Savvy Practitioners

Editor’s Note: Today’s post comes from guest blogger, Jason Kintzler of PitchEngine. This is a terrific service that every PR practitioner should be using. So, get over there and sign up.

How it was born
I don’t claim to be a PR or social media expert, however I have had experience on both sides of the coin, as a journalist and as a PR guy. I’ve seen the disconnect between media and PR when it comes to technology, and I realized that there are better ways to close the gap and better media relations. That’s how PitchEngine came about.

Phase One
The first phase of PitchEngine is the Social Media Release Builder which gives PR firms (large and small) the ability to create and share digital content easily. It differs from what’s out there today because it’s easy, it’s free and it’s designed to be shared via social methods instead of through PR distribution services.

Jason Baer shared the need for PitchEngine in a recent blog post:

“The hang-up with social media releases has been actually getting them built. Most PR folks are not Web programmers, and the very nature of what makes a social media release useful (tags, links, multi-media) makes it tricky to execute if your definition of high tech is inserting a footer in Microsoft Word. PitchEngine is out to change all that. Their slick, exceptionally easy online social media release creation engine is by far the best I’ve seen. Literally, if I took the time to explain what a “tag” was to my 9 year-old, she could make a release (it would probably be about ice skating or the dresses on The Titanic).”

Phase Two
The second phase, which we’ll be rolling out this week, is the Social Media Newsroom. Now, users will be able to create customized newsrooms for each brand they manage within PitchEngine. These Newsrooms host and archive current and future PitchEngine SMRs and can be added via link to a brand’s website (or integrated into a frame set or iframe on their site). This will be a subscription-based service for $600/yr. We’ll have more details up on the site this week!

Phase Three
This phase is the one I’m most excited about. Typical newswires offer media access to a selection of pre-determined RSS feeds full of traditional releases. The media side of PitchEngine will give journalists and bloggers unprecedented controls over PR content. Users can create a completely custom and individualized feed for their newsbeat, industry or category – no two feeds will be alike. Once a media user has a profile, they can send all PR pitches through the PitchEngine system, where they can approve or deny each of them based on their interest level. It’s an innovative platform that I’m anxious to unveil.

The need is apparent. People like social media consultant and blogger, Chris Brogan, are already sending PR people directly to the site.

“I’m going to refer EVERYONE who pitches me to the PitchFeed part of PitchEngine, ” Brogan said in his post on chrisbrogan.com.

The experts weigh in
I’ve read posts and tweets from a few critics of PitchEngine. Without much investigation, they’re quick to jump in and tell people that it won’t work or it’s a pipedream. I’ve heard how newswires are drawing parallels to their services and comparing apples to oranges. I believe PitchEngine competes with Microsoft Word more than it does with PR distribution services, especially at this early stage. I welcome the criticism. The beauty of a start-up like this is that my intentions are genuine and I have no one to answer to except our PR and media users.

The feedback from the alpha run of PitchEngine was incredible. Practically every user I invited fired back an email or a tweet expressing their appreciation for what we’re doing. That says more than any ‘expert’ opinion out there.

Deirdre Breakenridge from PFS Marketwyse and author of PR 2.0 posted this comment within a day of our launch,

“I think that you will really help many PR professionals to learn about the social media tools that are available in such a way that they will feel comfortable and confident with these easy to use resources.”

The influences
There are lot of people doing great things out there right now. From a PR perspective, I value the insights of people like Brian Solis and Todd Defren. Peter Shankman’s HARO is great example of someone pushing the boundaries beyond tradition in PR circles as well. My views may vary slightly, but it’s that spirit of change that drives me. I want to inspire others to rediscover their passion for PR and media. When that happens, PitchEngine will succeed.

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More Marketing Tools

Here’s another round-up of marketing tools and resources found on the web:

SpotMixer offers self-service tools to small- and midsized-advertisers for creating TV commercials online. Its customers now are able to distribute their ads through Google AdWords. 

I’m now using Quantcast to get deeper demographic information about my website traffic.  Quantcast is a media measurement service that lets advertisers view audience reports on millions of websites and services. It combines directly measured audience data with panel-based estimates to deliver accurate third-party metrics and easy-to-read profiles on digital media properties.

Widgipedia is a search engine and directory for – you guessed it – widgets.

Have the need to poll your visitors? PollDaddy is your application.  The free version is very powerful.

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Best THINKing

What is the best content in your RSS reader? Do you have a way to filter the wheat from the chaff? One way to do it is with AideRSS, the intelligent assistant that continuously monitors RSS feeds, finds the good stuff, creates a PostRank™, and delivers it to you.

It uses an algorithm that takes into consideration relevance and and reaction to blog posts, and then scores the posts accordingly. Here’s what AideRSS says are the top THINKing posts:

Brand Trust

Green Content Marketing

Soft Economy? No, Soft Marketers

The ROI of Social Media

Email Is Alive And Well

What are the top posts in your blog, as ranked by AideRSS? Any surprises? Wade into the conversation.

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Cool Marketing Tools

Photo Courtesy of Morguefile
Here are a few marketing tools and resources I’ve come across recently.

The first is the complete Zip Code Index, a detailed resource containing more than 42,000 US Zip Codes, along with their associated demographic and geographic attributes. There is no cost to download it.

Can’t get enough of Web 2.0? Well, then Go2Web20 – which bills itself as the complete Web 2.0 directory – is for you.

HubSpot provides a couple of useful tools for online marketing and PR folks. First is the Website Grader, a free tool that judges the marketing effectiveness of websites. Their new tool is Press Release Grader. Although I have a few quibbles with it, it is still a good first pass on a release to make sure you have covered the basics.

Here are a couple of Twitter-related tools. Tweetbeep lets you know when a keyword you have registered is being tweeted about. I’ve been using Summize a lot lately to search Tweets related to My Creative Team. Want to tweet about something in the future but schedule it now? Then, TweetLater is for you.

Want to know what gas prices are doing, how your sports team is faring, or what your competitors are up to? Want to get your daily horoscope, or need to set up reminders? Alerts is the service for you.

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Twittering Journalists

UPDATE 12/19/2009 – I have consolidated all of the Twittering Journalists wiki into Twitter lists. 

Twittering Media Outlets

Twittering US Journalists

Twittering Canadian Journalists

UPDATE: Twittering Journalists has been moved to this wiki.

I’ll be adding to this list, and if you have names of Twittering journalists, please feel free to post them. Here is what I’ve dredged up to-date from sources including Red66, CNET and keyword searches on Twitter:

MEDIA PEOPLE

BusinessWeek: Sara Lacy

CNET: Charles Cooper, Caroline McCarthy, Ina Fried, Dan Farber, Jim Kerstetter, Elinor Mills, Maggie Reardon, Stephen Shankland

Techcrunch: Michael Arrington, Duncan Riley

The Charlotte Observer: Jeff Elder

The New York Times: Saul Hansell, John Markoff

The Wall Street Journal: Kara Swisher

MEDIA OUTLETS -Newspapers

Charlotte Observer, @theobserver

Financial Times @FTmedianews, @FTfinancenews

Honolulu Star Bulletin, Honolulu, HI @starbulletin

Knoxville News Sentinel, Knoxville, TN @knoxnews

LA Daily News @ladailynews

LA Times @latimesbreaking, @latimesworldNashua Telegraph, Hudson, NH @NashuaTelegraph

The New York Times, NY @nytimes

The News & Observer, Raleigh, NC @newsobserver

The Oregonian, Portland, OR @oregonian, @OregonianBiz, @OregonianTraff, @OregonianSports

The Orlando Sentinel, Orlando, FL @orlandosentinel

USA Today @ondeadline

MEDIA OUTLETS – Radio & TV

CNN @cnn, @cnnbrk, @CNNNewsroom

Fox News @foxnews

KOAT, Albuquerque, New Mexico @KOAT

KPBS News, San Diego, CA @kpbsnews

News 2 Colorado, Denver, Colorado @News2Colorado

NPR News @nprnewsblog, @nprnews, @bryantpark

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