Google was founded on a simple principle -- some web pages are more important than others. How is that importance quantified? Ideally, it's based on the
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PR insight, social media & thought leadership - from The PR Coach www.theprcoach.com
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Rescooped by Jeff Domansky from Writing Tips and Techniques onto Public Relations & Social Media Insight |
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Via Barb Lack
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More reasons to reconsider G+...
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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....
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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....
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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...
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Does this scheme by Gawker cross ethical boundaries? You decide... Gawker is about $80,000 into a cheeky scheme to raise a couple hundred grand to pay some drug dealers for a video that allegedly shows Toronto Mayor Rob Ford smoking crack. The “Crackstarter” campaign has caught some flak on ethical grounds – some people are uncomfortable with the idea of a news organization paying drug dealers for anything – but put those concerns aside and you can see that Gawker’s experiment presents a pretty useful case study for the idea of crowdfunding journalism....
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Research gives us some valuable tips and best practices for Twitter... 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....
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I am often asked what it takes to be a great reporter in the digital era. The essential mission, I say, remains the same: to observe, collect and interpret information. Don’t be a generalist; pick a subject, dig deep into it, bring “passion” to the job. That word evokes the obligatory question about objectivity. My response: journalism has always entailed biases, conscious or not. Next, a great reporter engages one-on-one with news consumers, joins social news streams, learns to be a marketer and plays with the technology. I end with this: understand the business models behind the profession — and start to think like an entrepreneur. FORBES has 1,000 writers learning and practicing all of that. Here are four who are leading the way...
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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....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Accountability? Not so much. Delete the scoop?
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How we consume the news has changed dramatically over the years. With the rise of social and information networks like Twitter and Facebook, we now have access to our own crowdsourced news wires.
Add to that an army of applications reinterpreting the magazine and newspaper for mobile and tablet forms, and what we have is a news media renaissance that puts the reader's interests above all else. Should you prefer to discover news through social connections, you can turn to Flipboard, Smartr or XYDO. If you want to consume news from just the publishers you trust, then you'll likely develop an affinity for Pulse or FLUD. But if you'd rather your application tell you what to read, Zite may be right for you. And, we're just getting started.
What follows is a collection of 13 different apps and services that provide you with alternative ways to consume news....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Great list! You're sure to find one that works for you. 
Dean Ara's curator insight,
May 20, 9:54 AM
A lot of good ways to consume information, freely available. Delete the scoop?
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Yes, social media play an important role in your digital channels, but they are outposts meant to bring traffic to home base: your website! During Social Media Marketing World event in San Diego last month, Chris Brogan gave a provocative session, aptly called: You Aren’t Going to Like This: Social Media Isn’t the Answer!
It echoed what I strongly believe and what I tend to recommend during my consulting with clients in the travel and hospitality industry. In essence, social media are an important part of the digital channels an organization needs to embrace, but they are mere “outposts” in your communication mix, part of a bigger, four-step approach which can be summarized as follows...
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Recommended reading! Fresh thinking about social media and expectations. Delete the scoop?
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Traditional media is on the decline and we can now identify "influencers" with relevant content pipelines to help us. Now what do we do about it? All the old “pipelines” for our content are drying up.
So one viable alternative is to borrow somebody else’s pipeline.
Today, bloggers, podcasters, and home video producers are gaining consumer mindshare through their passionate and entertaining content. No wonder this is the new media gold rush — influencer outreach. I have a 360-degree experience with this trend as I strategize with clients, advise agencies, and become a target for outreach programs myself. And what I see is not pretty. Sure we have tons of content. We have lots of wonderful new alternatives to identify influencers.
Now, what do we do about it? I think the core competency that needs to develop is a mindset transformation from a “purchaser of ad space” to a “developer of relationships.” Here is a model to get you thinking about this in a new way....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Mark Schaefer offers up new ideas on influencers and suggests an interesting new approach. Will it be celebrity, advocates or influencers? Delete the scoop?
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Nieman Lab: The value of starting your own news brand — and sponsored content done right: http://t.co/Hq8uMsQ9nV #journo #journalism Via Andy Bull 
Andy Bull's curator insight,
May 17, 2:52 PM
interesting example of how a young journalist can create a personal brand through doing good journalism, and get a great job
Christine DeGraff's curator insight,
May 20, 6:18 AM
Very easy to do nowadays with tools like paper.li and RebelMouse. Delete the scoop?
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Discover 60 of the freshest stats and facts on social media strategy, including Twitter integration for easy sharing! Tell me the truth - is there such thing as a social media statistic that isn’t mind-blowing? The growth of major networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ has fundamentally changed the way we connect with our friends and brands in less than 10 years time. When I was in college, Facebook was a status symbol for students. Now, it’s one of the world’s biggest information highways. Join us to discover 60 of the most surprising stats we’ve encountered lately:
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Great stats for the primary social channels. Delete the scoop?
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The media constellation has become increasingly fractured. The Web produced the initial fissure, but mobile created new cracks in the landscape. Today, no single medium earns more than 45% of our media consumption.
How can you solve this problem? Social media offers a solution....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
A new report from BI Intelligence analyzes: "the state of social media advertising and where it is heading, offering a comprehensive guide and examination of the advertising ecosystems on Facebook and Twitter, offer a primer on Tumblr as an emerging ad medium, and detail how mobile is an important part of this story as mobile-friendly as native ad formats fuel growth in the market."
The overview gives you a good introduction and the links to numerous reports cited are invaluable for marketers, PR and content pros. Recommended reading.
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There are lots of articles that cover how to create effective calls to action (see below), but the question that really interests me is this: when it comes to content marketing assets such as eBooks, blog posts, articles, social media promotions, and beyond, when do you define your call to action? When do you decide that, yes, this is what I want the visitor to do? Hopefully, you answered, “before I ever lay finger to keyboard and begin to type.” That’s right. A call to action should never be an after-thought. It needs to be defined from the very start....
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The Onion points out how awesome sponsored content is and how there is still an need for print in the digital age. Must read satire as always... The ad industry tends to talk in ways that baffle civilians. Sometimes it pays to have reminders of that. Thanks to The Onion, we do. The Onion does a great job of spoofing these digital media news stories, and points out what should be pretty obvious. For example, how ridiculous and obnoxious sponsored content can be. See below for five great digital media industry spoof articles and click through to The Onion for the full stories....
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BuzzFeed gets free content, users get exposure, we get 11 Engagement Photos That Will Make You Happy You’re Single. ... The department devoted to creating this “old school” content is known as BuzzTeam. Their focus is anything shareable — lists, animals, nostalgia. The kind of content that BuzzFeed’s loyal readers have become hyper-familiar with. Many, in fact, have consumed so many such BuzzFeed posts that they’ve become adept at mimicking both their tone and their viral success. Earlier this month, BuzzFeed’s editors took a step toward giving those faithful followers a little more of the spotlight they crave. Shepherd, along with a staff of four, now run BuzzFeed Community, a content-producing vertical of its very own, complete with featured posts by community members and a leaderboard with the latest on who’s posts are getting the most traffic, likes, comments, and badges. It’s a competitive place, and anyone can join and enter the fray....
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With so many individuals and companies competing for attention on social media, it can seem nearly impossible to make your voice heard above the crowd. However, compelling social media content is a quick way to earn attention and brand loyalty. So what can you do to take your social media strategy from “blah” to viral? Here are some tips...
GiveBackWorksHull's curator insight,
Today, 3:06 AM
Great tips on making your Social Media more memorable. Delete the scoop?
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Valuable SEO and blogging perspective... The most popular way of building back links right now is guest blogging. Why is it so popular? Simple, it’s so effective at driving up keyword rankings – when it’s done consistently and when those guest posts are published on authoritative domains that are relevant. It’s been in the back of my mind for some time now, actually since the first iteration of the Google Penguin update, that guest blogging may become a target of Google. I believe that guest blogging will still continue to be effective after the next major Penguin update, however the way in which you build links through guest blogging will change. This is how I think guest bloggers will be impacted...
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A little over six months ago two young journalists sat down at Google Campus in London and discussed how to build a news site for 18 to 25-year-olds with articles written by people in that age category. Under the mantra "don't publish anything boring", Planet Ivy has grown into a site with a network of more than 150 young writers publishing around 80 articles a week between them and reaching up to 400,000 unique users a month.
Six months on and back in at Google Campus, where the three paid employees of Planet Ivy are based, the founder and the editor of the title told Journalism.co.uk about the site's model and how they have received investment from an angel investor and from Ascension Ventures....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Great digital startup success story: The news site for young people secures investment. Delete the scoop?
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According to Gallup, 60% of the American public has little or no trust in news media. Audiences and readership have been declining, as trust in media has been eroding. In the same survey, 30% of people surveyed told pollsters they had abandoned a media outlet because it no longer provided information they found useful.
I realize there is a big dose of self-interest in this post. I make my living teaching people to communicate with journalists. That doesn't mean the three reasons below are less valid. There is still value in talking to reporters....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Great question: Why would anyone talk to a journalist today? Here are several reasons. Delete the scoop?
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...one quick glance at your computer screen or smartphone will tell you that the news media has changed enormously in the last 10 years. What began as two separate worlds – “ traditional media” and “online media” – is now thoroughly and completely transformed into one seamless media landscape that continues to morph and change as new technologies come online and users discover new ways to engage.
At the same time, the public relations tactics needed to sweet talk editors and writers into covering your news have remained surprisingly constant. What’s changed more than anything are the pitching targets and pitchable opportunities....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Here are five things that haven’t changed about media relations, and then five things that have... Delete the scoop?
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If you are serious about turning a blog into income and then your business, then laying the right foundations is important. It means sitting down and doing some planning. It means asking some questions What am I going to focus on? What should the branding and design be like? What should I develop it on? The list goes on.
If you do mean business then you need to create the right framework and foundation for your blog. A framework for the future Sometimes a little thought, the right framework and resources can be time saving and stress relieving in the long run.
Here are 10 key building blocks to get you started....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Really good read and reminder about blogging and social business fundamentals. Delete the scoop?
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Cowbird has been used by the National Geographic and other outlets as a storytelling tool Via Karen Dietz, Cendrine Marrouat - www.cendrinemarrouat.com
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Storytelling tool worth a look. 
Karen Dietz's curator insight,
May 17, 12:08 AM
Now here's a treat! The digital storytelling tool Cowbird has released new functionality. You are now able to embed a story you create using their tool anywhere on the web -- complete with audio, sharing, handwriting, and more. Here's the direct link to Cowbird: http://cowbird.com Way cool! Have fun making your biz stories with Cowbird, embedding them and sharing them all around. Written by Karen Dietz for her curated content on busines storytelling at www.scoop.it/t/just-story-it 
Chris Agro's curator insight,
May 20, 9:57 AM
Storytelling is the new black. I never heard of Cowbird but look forward to learning about it. Delete the scoop?
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Everyone wants to cut the fat from their work flows. Good news: Applying lean methodology to your efforts is simple, and can result in more effective content marketing. Use these 6 steps to go lean... Via Ally Greer
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Liked these tips. Very practical. 
Ally Greer's curator insight,
May 17, 4:17 PM
Great post by Mark Sherbin on the true meaning of lean content and some excellent tips on how to get started and continue keeping your content lean! 
Randy Bauer's comment,
May 18, 11:56 AM
Thanks Ally for passing this along. Very concise article on the lean content creation and curation.
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Bookshelves are designed in our homes, schools, offices, libraries and companies to keep books, office files and other documents at place. Today, bookshelf is not just a piece of furniture rather it has also taken a form of art. Via Brian Yanish - MarketingHits.com
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Pure fun. 
Laurence Dubuc's curator insight,
May 20, 9:29 AM
20 incredible bookshelves. Take a look at Luke Hart's work for the Sculpture House though, they are wonderful as well! http://mmminimal.com/rubber-bookshelves-by-luke-hart/ 
systerwoody's curator insight,
May 20, 10:06 AM
Great scoop from Dennis O'Connor and this from L.Dubuc to check out Luke Hart's work for the Sculpture House also. http://mmminimal.com/rubber-bookshelves-by-luke-hart/ Delete the scoop?
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Must read for any blogger or online writer. Google + was all too easily dismissed a few years ago. It's now THE place to be for building an audience and online presence. Tips here ensure you use it well.