eriksr on May 18th, 2007
Odds are you’ve probably got some sort of toolbar built into your browser, be it from Google or Yahoo
or any of the thousands of spyware peddlers out there. Maybe you use it because it organizes your bookmarks more efficiently, or because it has games built into it, or flashes the latest headlines at you. Or maybe you don’t even know how to get rid of it. Bottom line: These things are just awesome from a PR perspective. Imagine having your own branded toolbar in front of a person’s eyeballs as they surf. Imagine them using the toolbar and scrolling past all your latest news.
There’s a company called Conduit that makes that dream a reality. 
Read the rest of this entry »
eriksr on May 16th, 2007
We get knocked off course sometimes, in the course of our outreach, and it’s good to have a reminder about how best to do things. So, since I don’t harp on this topic enough, here are three reminders to keep in mind next time you speak with bloggers:
- Never, ever, EVER corrupt your influencers! Don’t bribe them, and don’t pay them to write about you. If your little transaction ever becomes public, here’s what happens:
- Your influencer’s reputation will be destroyed, making them worthless in supporting your company or client
- You will be recognized as the cheating scum your customers fear/suspect you may be
- Other bloggers may shun you and your client/firm, further reducing the pool of influencers you have access to
- Don’t be an ass. I’ve seen pitches to bloggers, from some PR practitioners, that make me cringe because they are, sometimes, cajoling, demanding, aggressive, rude, etc. Folks, most bloggers aren’t businesspeople and they don’t consider themselves that way. When you approach a blogger it has to be at a one-to-one level — personal, friendly, and not expecting anything. Not even coverage.
- If you want them to write about you, you have to be ready to offer them something. Newsworthiness probably won’t cut it. And, see point number one, cash isn’t good enough. Sponsoring their site publicly
eriksr on May 14th, 2007
No, it is not a Hawaiian drink. It is a Web page that allows visitors to quickly and easily add, edit, or
delete information without any technical expertise. While Wikis abound, the most famous is the free encyclopedia Wikipedia.
So what’s it good for? Absolutely somethin’!
Collaboration and interaction. Small groups and large groups; people in the same time zone and in different time zones; people in the same country and in different continents; novices, experts, and anyone in-between. In other words, the whole point of a Wiki is to enable people, all people, to come together.
Which means, for the PR practitioner, Wikis have two great uses: One for the firm and one for the clients. Read the rest of this entry »
eriksr on May 8th, 2007
If you’ve ever found yourself in cut’n'paste land, know that you are not 
alone. Every day trillions of people toil away at the CRTL+X, CRTL+V keys (or the event less fortunate, who click “EDIT” and “CUT” then “PASTE) in an effort to get information from one place to another.
Thankfully, for some of you, Ditto has come to your rescue. Click the screenshot to see what it looks like, by the way!
So, how is this going to change my life?
Let’s say you’re constantly cutting/copying and pasting the same group of things. You have to go to your source, copy/cut, go to your destination, select your point, and paste. Ditto actually stores everything you’ve copied and kept on your clipboard so you don’t have to keep going back to your source — you just open Ditto and paste what you want from there.
Ditto can be launched quickly by hitting CRTL+` (it’s the rarely used button to the left of the number 1 on most keyboards).
Even better, Ditto hangs onto data for a long time, even after you turn your computer off, so you can access things you worked with days ago. Heck, you can keep whole tables in there!
eriksr on May 4th, 2007
Day in, day out, you blog and blog and blog. And then, one day, you run out
of things to blog about. Or, you just hit an incredibly busy day; just plain old don’t feel like it; life gets in the way…
Certainly it is a good idea to have a few extra blog posts kicking around for these times, but it you don’t, here are a few ideas to help you create a fast and dirty blog post.
Round ‘em up
Find you revisit the same topic again and again? How about a round-up of all the product reviews you’ve posted, for example, or all the how-to posts? You probably shouldn’t do this too often, but once in a while it’s great to help remind your readers of all the wholesome goodness on your site; wholesome goodness they might have missed.
Link lively
Got a great list of resources? Provide a “Top Ten Tech Links” list, for example. What about a list of blogs of interest? How about “Five Great Blogs Everyone Should Bookmark.” Or what about tools, such as time trackers or mileage calculators that your reader’s could use? “Fourteen Handy Tools for PR Practitioners” would work nicely. Not only is this truly helpful for your visitor but, even better, linking out may, just may, encourage them to link right back to you.
What’s new, pussycat?
Certainly press releases are a great source of information. But don’t forget the news, too. Particularly if something you hear will have an impact on your industry. This is where your RSS reader is your friend. And this, too, is where you get to show your visitors that you are a valuable source of the newest information.
Gotta get a guest
Is there anything easier or better than a guest poster? Your reader gets another point of view, which is great for variety. And you get to take the day off. Which reminds me, if anyone would like to guest post, just let me know. I truly value your insight. And my bottle of suntan lotion is standing by.
Comment heaven
The focus on blogs is traditionally the person(s) running the blog, not the people who leave the comments. But, hey, why should commenter’s get off scott-free? Instead, encourage them to do the work by posing an interesting theory, perhaps, or a question or story or what-have-you and ask for their thoughts. Ask “How would you have handled this matter?,” for example, or “What alternative avenues would you explore?,” or “Why do you think this failed?” and watch the comments fly. Do note, however, that this only works if you have commenter’s. Doh!
Everything old is new again
Wrote about something some time ago and changed your opinion, for example, or suggested a site and a better one has come along? It’s not a bad idea to review old posts. If any of them now require additional comments, it should be fast and easy to simply create a new post with new comments and a link to the old post.
Laughter is the best medicine
When all else fails, you can’t go wrong with the occasional theme-related cartoons, images, videos, or even jokes. Assuming they are not offensive. And they are funny.
