Public Relations & Social Media Insight

... While it is all too easy to think of blasting, or distributing content, any good strategy involves a mix of in and outbound tactics (plus, no one likes to be on the receiving end of a mass blast). This means finding ways to get the word out, but also drawing people in, via links and SEO, for example, to bring them back to a hub such as your website, micro site or landing page – where you can capture their info and convert them, or at least nudge them along to the next step in your sales cycle. The most effective campaigns combine the power of online content and social media marketing; they spring from content that is compelling and optimized for online, and use social media as a way to reach your customers....

Many small businesses are using social media and content marketing to generate traffic and leads for their business. Being a small business helping other small businesses with their online marketing results, we have personal experiences with both. These are two great methods, but one in particular holds a lot more long-term value than the other. Do you know which one it is? (spoiler alert: look at the graph to the right) Let’s take a minute to discuss both of these methods and then you can make your own decision regarding which is more valuable....

Do one SEO tactic incorrectly, or too frequently, and you could be facing Google punishments that remove your website from their search results. This is not a gamble that most businesses can afford, as most consumers initially find a business online.

In fact, Inc.com ran a survey and found that 7 out of 10 consumers said they are more likely to use a local business if they have a social media presence and another 78% said ratings and reviews are important when deciding what to buy. Google has made some significant changes in the last couple of years when it comes to ranking your website in search results. Google Panda and Google Penguin are the two major updates you may have heard about, and many more are coming.

Here are some of the major abuse tactics that were employed by SEO’s and some workarounds that you should be implementing in their place....

Last Saturday I had the honor of teaching at a public writing conference at The Washington Post. After I finished my part of the program, I spent the day listening carefully to four of the Post’s most accomplished writers and reporters: David Finkel, Bob Woodward, DeNeen L. Brown, and Ezra Klein.

I took copious notes, wrote down anything that struck me as wise or useful, and want to share with you what I learned from them. Please don’t take these as direct quotations, but as handwritten paraphrases containing the gist of their advice. Particularly notable were the shared values of craft and sense of mission and purpose in a gang of four that ranged from the 70-year-old Woodward, still cranking out books, to the young phenom Ezra Klein, who is trying to re-invent how to make policy stories interesting and relevant. I’ll take them in the order of their presentations...

Twitter was never meant to be a social network. In fact, Twitter started life as an internal messaging service for a podcasting company just over seven years ago. But how things have changed. Did you know this about Twitter? Twitter has released some internal research that shows how multi-media rich its platform has become and also its increasing role as an effective buzz and engagement tool that can used by journalists, news organisations and users to increase their Twitter followers and retweets....

Simon Dumenco deconstructs the culture of the global news conglomerate that billionaire Mike Bloomberg whimmed into being. Remember that time Bloomberg News got caught using subscriber information from Bloomberg data terminals to spy on the financial industry? Oh, right, that pretty much just happened. But conveniently for Bloomberg, a bigger journalism-related scandal -- the revelation that the Justice Department was spying on the Associated Press (a story that will haunt the Obama administration forever) -- broke, overshadowing the Bloomberg scandal.

You may have missed Bloomberg News Editor-in-Chief Matthew Winkler's admission and apology, titled "Holding Ourselves Accountable," that was published in the dead of the night last Monday -- at 12:11 a.m. ET. In it, he owned up to the fact that Bloomberg News reporters had access to "limited client information" for Bloomberg's financial-data-terminal business, a sibling division of the Bloomberg empire that serves more than 300,000 subscribers on Wall Street and beyond....

When a veteran stand-up comic is also funny on Twitter, it doesn’t exactly come as a shock. When an unknown phenom makes you physically choke on guffaws, though, it’s a revelation and also something of an extended audition.

...After catching the attention of the comedy cognoscenti in 2010, the then recent Harvard graduate soon got jobs writing on the Oscars and Disney’sA.N.T. Farm., before moving to a staff writer position at NBC’s ensemble sitcom Parks and Recreation. (The show was just renewed for a sixth season.) The in-demand writer is also an accomplished poet who’s writing asatirical guide to science for ladies.

Megan Amram’s frothy blend of dark humor and smart, surreal sillinesshas found more than 356,000 followers on Twitter so far. Although not everybody trying to generate laughs online is doing so for the same reasons, or with the same twisted flair, Amram’s consistent comedic quality is enviable for anyone trying to make their mark with brief bursts of humor. The multidiscipline writer recently spoke with Co.Create about puns, poetry, and how to be funny on Twitter altogether....

Learn six helpful tips and tools to help your marketing strategy take advantage of Facebook advertising with FBX (Facebook Exchange). Whatever you think about Facebook, there’s one thing that’s hard to dispute: Mark Zuckerberg isn’t afraid to mix things up and try new strategies, and that’s especially true when it comes to advertising.

If you don’t follow the social network closely, it’s easy to miss the newest advertising tools and tips. Let’s take a quick look at six things you can do to get more out of your Facebook campaign right now....

There is a lot of talk these days about social signals affecting Google Search Results, and many SEOs are feeling the effects for their clients, who are disconnected from the social world. The complexity of marketing your business on Google is rising as search success becomes increasingly intertwined with your social media presence and how you interact with your customers.

Your website content and external links are no longer enough to gain Google’s trust. Publishing fresh content on your site means nothing if no one is reading it — and it means even less if no one is sharing it to their social networks. As a business, your primary marketing goal is always to generate leads. Leads are certainly generated from dominating search results — but what if I told you that a solid content marketing strategy could get you leads, even if it didn’t result in #1 rankings right away?...