Archive for February, 2007
eriksr on February 28th, 2007
In yesterday’s post I wrote about the user interface of editorial calendar service MyEdcals.com. Today I’m going to provide some more insight on what happens after you hit “Search”.
The big moment
So you’ve entered your criteria and you’ve hit search. Click the screenshot to the right to get a look at what happens next: A nice, clean list of results, 25 at a time, with some of the basic detail you need — publication name, editorial calendar item, issue date and deadline date. Excellent.
I’m particularly fond of the tabs that let you sort the view between edcals, outlets, and contacts. The only thing that would make this all better is if MyEdcals gave us the option to customize the columns — I for one prefer to have all information right up front, so I’d like to see contact names listed — for example, or circulation figures.
Another point in favor is that the database of opportunities is a big one — I wasn’t disappointed with the volume or quality of the results.
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eriksr on February 27th, 2007
Note, for the second entry in this series, click here
Raise your hand if you’ve put together an Excel spreadsheet tracking editorial calendars. Now put your 
hand down, you look silly. Those edcal trackers are a pain in the tush, aren’t they? Keeping them up to date, formatting them so they are legible…and, of course, the dread of everyone at the senior account executive level and below: Calling a publication to get details on an opportunity.
Well, some of you can breathe a sigh of relief. I got the opportunity to peek inside a new service that will make life a bit easier for you. It’s named MyEdcals.com. The first part of my review will focus on the user interface and some of the search options you can use. In my review tomorrow I’ll go deeper and talk about search results and reports.
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eriksr on February 26th, 2007
When I first came across blogcarnival.com my first thought was: “Huh?” My second thought was: 
“Mmmm, cotton candy.” My third thought was: “Awesome!”
A blog carnival is a collection of posts, from a number of different blogs, all on the same topic. They typically collect everything written on a topic within a certain timeframe (Feb 26 - March 4, for example). Here’s an example of a carnival dealing with business, technology, and knowledge.
How are these useful to you?
Some people seem to think that the best way of acknowledging your influencers is to add them to your blogroll. Meh. A great way of acknowledging them is to write a blog post about one of their blog posts. But you can’t do that all the time, else your blog becomes a blog about other people’s blogs.
Still with me?
The solution, I think, is a blog carnival. Come up with a topic relevant to your clients, then seek out and compile entries related to that topic on your or your client’s blog. Forget about whether the blogs you’re going after are high value or not — you’ll drive yourself nuts finding relevant content. Just think of this as a way of harnessing the long tail. All those bloggers will find themselves linked to your client. They may decide to keep reading their blog, or linking to or commenting on interesting articles. Whatever — let your imagination be your guide.
eriksr on February 25th, 2007
In my last few entries I’ve been using the “Read the rest of this entry >” function of Wordpress. If you haven’t noticed it, just skip on over to the end of the last three entries on this page.
The purpose of the function, as I’m using it, is twofold:
- Because I believe my posts tend to be on the lengthy side, I use this function to keep the front page of Tech for PR short and punchy. It’s…easier on the eyes, I think
- Metrics. Metrics metrics metrics! It’s difficult for me to tell who on the blog is reading what, generally — a lot of you come to visit via bookmarks, or typing in the address directly, or even via Google. When that happens, your visit is counted…but I don’t know what you’ve read. When you click on the “Read the rest…” link, THAT is counted and I know when you’ve read something. Bottom line: If I know what people are reading, I can try and focus on the stuff that interests you.
Now, forgive me for burying my lead, but, what do you, faithful reader, think of this? Is it bothersome? Does it make entries at all easier to read? Do you not care?
eriksr on February 23rd, 2007
Here I am again, reviewing another conference/event aggregator — GoingToMeet.com. You can find the other entries on event aggies here, by the way. Boy howdy do I wish I’d found this one a year ago! Anyway, with every good thing comes some bad, so let’s hop to it, shall we?
But first, my bias
I know there are a ton of public relations professionals out there who specialize in all sorts of wonderful industries. Food, law, energy, politics, and so on. Me, I know tech…so if an event aggregator has all the shows I’m familiar with, they get a gold star in my book…but that may not be the case for you. Your mileage may vary.
GoingToMeet: Thorough Enough
There’s not a ton to say about GoingToMeet — and in this case, it’s a good thing. The site has a painless, no-nonsense interface that gets right to the point. You can search for events with the search box and, nice touch folks, save your searches as RSS feeds! There are a wealth of entries, and I was able to recognize all the important shows from the data security, telecom, computer, ECM, and IT service industries. Also, most of the entries I saw contained the contact information for someone at the event organizer’s office — name and phone number at the least, sometimes you even get an Email address. Awesome. General information about the event — what it is about, when it is held, and where, is available and good enough to give you a sense of what’s happening.
The site also has a “subscribe” option that can send you alerts via Email on a weekly or monthly basis regarding newly added to your area of interest.
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eriksr on February 22nd, 2007
An alternative title I was about to use today was, “What direct marketers can teach 
us”. These people have, after all, elevated Email marketing (some of us consider this to be spam) to an art form.
Today’s topic came about when a former colleague of mine, Cece Salomon-Lee, Marketing Communications Manager with ON24 Inc., told me that a recent project her company participated in — an Email blast from the CMO Council — received a mind blowing 99% open rate. How the heck did they pull it off? And how can we take advantage of it ourselves? I did a teensy bit of research on the matter and would like to share some of my findings. Hopefully some of this will help you to write a better, more effective Email/pitch to your target reporters or influencers.
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