Social Media - Related Conferences in 2009

The Social Media has become such a versatile tool that the PR industry has gradually come to rely heavily on it. Twitter has evolved from a social media site for youngsters into a meeting place for professionals and experts in academics and the industry.

Sally Falkow's Proactive gives you a few more reasons why you should be on Twitter:

http://falkow.blogsite.com/

Plus,
a list of Online Community and Social Media Conferences in 2009.

(source: John Cass' PR Communications)

Radian 6 and Cision deal will expand horizons for PR and Social Media

Radian6 has shook hands with Cision on a deal to provide social media monitoring services to the PR company. CEOs and heads of both companies anticipate this move to be profitable for all concerned.

The move will mean wider scope of opportunities for Radian6, as it will bring social media monitoring into mainstream. Marcel Lebrun, CEO of Radian6 said, “It’s quite significant for us. The size of the organization and their customer base … means a whole lot of new customers.”

For Cision, one of the leading companies in the Public Relations scene, it will mean a drastic increase in the number of blogs it monitors. Vice-president Peter Granat had this to say, “We already monitor thousands of blogs, but Radian6 is up to almost 100 million. It’s a great expansion for us”. Cision will also be monitoring thousands of online forums, over 20,000 online media sources, over 450 leading rich media sites, top micro blogging sites, LinkedIn, and video- and image-sharing sites, including YouTube and Flickr.

The media monitoring trend is fast becoming popular among successful brand names as it translates into broadening of markets and a more efficient management of reputation and relationships.

For more on this subject, go to:

Media Newsline

New Brunswick Business Journal

KDPaine's PR Measurement Blog

Journalism to Public Relations - A Career Switch!

The American newspaper business is facing its all time biggest slump. Journalists are losing jobs every day, and the percentage of people displaced is only increasing.

This has given rise to the escalation of another phenomenon. Experts say that the transition from journalism to PR has been highest in recent times, following the newspapers layoffs. Though many senior journalists eventually shift to the PR industry, the layoff has forced reporter to make the change much earlier in their careers.

A career in PR is currently seen as one that is more secure than journalism. It has also proved to be more profitable, and the industry is expanding.

Setting up a PR business is easier than you think! If you are a journalist-turned-PR professional, all you need is a Notebook, and a media database that will provide you with opportunities. One in-demand media database you could go to is MyMedia Info, an affordable media database offered by RedEgg Solutions. Cision and Vocus offer similar products at varying prices.

Make the right choices and watch your PR career take off!

Barack Obama’s Impeccable PR Strategies

As Obama, the 44^th President of the United States of America, and the first Afro-American President of the nation, takes office, much discussion has been initiated on what he did right. This in the light of negative media that was brandished about the man, on an almost daily basis. Apparently, he couldn’t do anything wrong.

His PR strategies alone are testimony to his meticulous planning.

Here is an analysis of the strategies used by Obama to make sure he reaches all sectors of the society.

Obama’s campaign experts have given importance to every detail, right down to updating the logo of their official website. Great care has been taken to maintain a consistent font on all the campaign material. The tone of the campaign has been the same throughout. Also, Obama’s PR people have turned him into a real tech savvy candidate. His campaigners had used text messaging to communicate to voters about their manifesto, his promises, and even simple things like the route to the voting offices, and a reminder of the voting date. Social Networking sites have been used to the maximum. On MySpace Obama has over 270,000 friends, Facebook shows over 200,000, YouTube shows over 16,000 subscribers. LinkedIn has a profile of Obama, with over 500 contacts listed. Suffice to say, this candidate is everywhere on the net.

One could ascribe his vote among the younger generation to these tech savvy strategies.

One his website you can find Flickr and Videos, that would be interesting to any casual browser. The website also offers options to set up your own communities.

Obama even blogs! His campaign staff are avid bloggers and constantly upload updates, YouTube videos of speeches and such. And their posts have regular followers and numerous comments.

PR Squared and Search Marketing Gurus (Jan, 2008, Oct, 2008 and Nov, 2008) go into an in depth analysis of the campaign.

Most Popular Topics for the year 2009!

Eric Hill, President and Chief Strategy Officer over at Redegg Solutions, Boston, Ma, predicts the hot topics for the media next year. As a PR professional, it helps to know what the world will be interested in next year.

“2009 Top 5 Story Opportunities

1. Green…green anything

2. Travel

3. Personal Finance

4. Gift Guides

5. Fitness

Top Story Opportunities for 2009:

Green…green anything

From green technology to green construction, green is everywhere

Travel

Although “Green Travel” is part of travel, other travel subjects like domestic travel, family travel and luxury travel round out this ever popular group

Personal Finance

From 401(k)’s to how to save money on your heating bills, publications will be focused on personal finance as the economy slumps

Gift Guides

Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, Holiday Gift guides- what to get someone who has everything or the techie looking for the next best gadget

Fitness

With each year we can be assured there will be thousands of story opportunities from dieting to the newest and greatest fitness trends”

The predictions are based on story ops in MyEdcals, an editorial calendar database of Redegg Solutions.

So, if you’re looking for the perfect pitch to put your written work out there, you know where to start.

*source www.mymediainfo.com

Social Media Tools for PR Professionals and Journalists

Sarah Evans, a blogger at "Mashable", writes about the 10 best social media tools for PR professionals and journalists.

1. First on the list is Help a Reporter Out (HARO). Created by Peter Shankman, it is the only free resource where journalists can come into direct contact with PR professionals with their queries.

2. The Pitch Engine takes second place. Though still in beta stage, Pitch Engine seems to be catching on fast with people who are looking for the whole range of Web 2.0 tools for PR professionals and journalists (including links to social networks, video and audio capabilities, etc.)

3. Reporting On is number three on the list. This is a social network site designed for reporters, and very similar to Twitter. A user can find anywhere upto 600 reporters and professionals from around the world on the site. Ms. Evans claims that its advantage is that journalists have the ability to tag their beats, making it easy for PR professionals to find reporters and offer sources.

4. Journalisted. This site is developed by Martin Moore and enables customers to search for their favorite reporters and stay up to date on their work. It currently has more that 100,000 users. One disadvantage, though, is that it has only UK reporters, but Moore offers hope that he is currently targeting the US. Main advantage of the site is that PR professionals can check the site before pitching a reporter in the UK to read his recent work.

5. The Wikis. Ms. Evans here offers the suggestion that PR professionals could create a shared space in which to provide information to reporters. It could contain anything from interview source contact information to comprehensive product/company background. The advantage - Wiki pages are created with user generated content and can be edited in real-time to best meet the need of reporters.

6. Media People Using Twitter. Twitter, the all pervasive social network engine, does not go ignored in the PR industry. Though it is not entirely possible to locate a comprehensive list of repoters on the site, a wiki site does exist which is dedicated to journalists on Twitter. The page is organized by geographical location, offering an easy-to-use guide.

7. Twellow makes it to number 7. A user can search and follow reporters and PR professionals using keywords. As simple as that. The search content is based on a person's Twitter bio. Therefore, according to Ms. Evans, it yields surprisingly accurate results.

8. BeatBlogging.org is a resource for beat bloggers, which PR professionals can use as a source to build a strong pitch distribution list. Participants can nominate reporters as 'innovative'. That means that the reporter will be features on the frequently updated Leaderboard.

9. WiredJournalists.com is number 9. This is a tool created for reporters, editors, executives, students and faculty. It allows journalists to access resources with one another. The members keep up with Web 2.0 trends.

10. Your Pitch Sucks! or YPS provides a grand finale on number 10! This is a site where you can submit your pitch to PR experts for a serious review. They will give you a feedback on whether it is up to par or not. They can also give suggestions. Best for freelancers who need a third person perspective of their work.

PR Web - Webinar - Summary

PR Web held a Webinar on October 23, 2008 that would be of interest to all PR professionals aiming at maximum visibility for their companies through the online content. The topic of the webinar was "PRWeb New User Orientation-How We Generate Online Visibility for YOU". Hosted by Mario Bonilla Platform Director and Customer Delight Specialist at PR Web, this webinar primarily recommended using different formats to create content - rather than sticking to one. This, would increase your online visibility. The various formats proposed were :- Press Releases, Adding Images to your Press Releases, Creating Videos, Blogging and social networking. Clearly, the stress here is to deliver your message in a way that people would like to get it. For instance, young entrepreneurs may probably search your company in YouTube rather than in Google. Whatever be the format, the content must have depth and understanding.

Another aspect which was discussed was the need and significance of writing and hosting an effective press release. The headlines in a press release should sum up the entire release at one go. The presenter speculated that the Google crawls the first 63 characters and hence the words employed in the first few sentences must be intelligently chosen. Apart from these, pull quotes, images and links are vital. The links must be created at the earliest because readers may not read till the end of the release. It was also suggested to use third person voices in the release. Ideally there must 2-3 key words in the entire release.

While highlighting the significance of the looks and the feels of the landing page, the presenter stressed the need to identify one's landing neighbors - Are you landing along with appropriate neighbors? If not, analyze and dissect causes. Find out what other pages are doing which you do not.

Identify who is blogging/ talking/reading and listening to you and try to develop a rapport with them. Create blogs on your press releases. Clearly the thrust of all these is to create online evangelists (other people who will talk about you) who will increase your online visibility.

All in all, an informative webinar which gave a new dimension to PR content generation.

PR Webcast - 30 Oct.

PRWeek is hosting a webcast entitled “PR2.0 reality check”. This is to be webcast on 30 October 2008, 12:00 pm EST /9:00 am pst. Experts in the social media space will discuss a specific new media that will help marketing communications professionals reach a variety of constituents. The experts will explain why the new medium matters, how to make the most of it, and where it is finally heading.

Look out for the following speakers:

Duncan Wardle, VP, global PR, Disney Parks

Deirdre Breakenridge, PR 2.0 - New Media, New Tools, New Audiences

Shel Holtz, principal, Holtz Communication & Technologies
Ruth Cotter, director of IR, Advanced Micro Devices

Moderated by
Paolina Milana, vice president, marketing, Marketwire

Webcast sponsored by : Marketwire

Cision Point – PR Webinar – October 16, 2008

Cision Point held a Webinar on “Using Best Practice Tools to Manage your PR Campaigns more Effectively.” This one-hour-long Webinar focused on using Cision Point to manage a PR campaign effectively. Apart from the hundred thousands of traditional media contacts, Cision Point also offers 10,000 blogger contacts based on their beats. Further, various value added services like Distribution services, Media Monitoring, Creating Press Reports, Generating Publicity Value (instead of Ad Value) etc are at the store.

Though it seemed to promote Cision Point, a significant portion of the presentation was spent on Search Engine Optimization. Cision Point helps its customers create press releases which are spider oriented. This means, the words used in the press releases are judiciously chosen so that the spider would index these words. Also, these words are placed at target spots where the spider is likely to index. Consequently the press releases would prop up with the most number of hits in Google/search engine.

What’s New in the PR Industry?

The Public Relations Industry has long left behind the ‘spin doctors’ who simply rely on sweet talk and word of mouth publicity for market visibility. As the market becomes smarter, the PR professional is forced to innovate in ‘Investor Relations’. A company must set itself apart in its ability to create measurable value, as far as the investor’s attitude and marketplace dynamics in concerned. The Company needs to clearly define and articulate the business model. A PR professional needs to evolve from a technician to a strategist.

The Social Media and Technology, so available to a majority of the business population, has to be utilized in a proper way to put the company on the map. Here are the top trends that are revolutionizing the PR industry this year:

Blogging

Blogs are practically taking over the Internet, with an average of 30,000 new blogs being created every day! By far the most important development in the last year, blogs are the key factor in today’s PR industry that will revolutionize the way PR strategists think. Uninterrupted by, and independent of, any other media, the blog can be created in a few hours and can be used to communicate directly to customers, stakeholders and the public at large. It can be created without any of the hassle and the expense of a web page, and if current trends are anything to go by, are also more frequently followed. Since they are refreshed at regular intervals, unlike a web page, they reach a larger audience of people who are always on the look out for new information. What better place to promote your company or brand?

RSS Feeds

RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, automatically sends your blog posts or new content to those who are interested. That may include customers, shareholders, journalists and interested readers. It works both ways, where you too can keep track of new content and changes in a related blog or web page of particular interest.

PR Measurements

The PR industry has moved on from gauging its visibility through print articles and clippings. It now consists of smart promoters who are measuring business outcomes. They want to know if their publicity changed minds, moved markets, if more of their product has sold since the launch of their campaign, and if they have increased their market share. The PR professional, then, has a specific goal, a target audience, that he aims to move before he launches the campaign. He then judges the success of the campaign based on how many of his goals have been reached through the campaign.