Archive for the ‘Alternatives to the Media’ Category
eriksr on October 10th, 2008
Over the past few months I’ve been in touch with hundreds of public relations and marketing professionals. Through some great discussions about how social media is affecting their work and business, I’ve learned two very important things. I’ll go into detail on them, below, but the reason I bring these up is because I’ve developed a very short, very friendly social media primer. It’s a .PDF file, and you can get it by clicking here: Social Media Primer.
The first big pain point
“There’s so much out there, I don’t know what to focus on.” No kidding! The only way I can keep up is by constantly reading technology news sites, blogs, message forums, leading Twitter users…and then spending time to think about what I’ve just read.
I can do that because I love this stuff and am glued to my computer. Other people aren’t quite that passionate — they have things like stamp collections, dogs, and children. My suggestion? Read my primer, and then go out there and pick a social media strategist blog to read. Like mine.
Pain point number two
“There’s no single source of information that gives me just the very basics so I can get started.” There is now! Again, snag my primer, above. But I feel your pain. What I recommend is that you find a single source you trust and stick with them — they will eventually cover just about everything you need. No need to try to take it all in at once. You can of course read me, but check out my blogroll, off to the right there — I follow all those folks, and ProBlogger is my favorite source for news.
Ultimately, you can always write to me! I’m happy to help.
eriksr on September 2nd, 2008
So, yeah, okay, like what’s the point of social media?
I mean, we are so busy rushing around and doing it that we never stop, take a look at ourselves, and see if we are actually accomplishing anything of value.
Well, those days are about to end. And they are about to end with a book called “Now is Gone: A Primer on New Media for Executives and Entrepreneurs” by Geoff Livingston and Brian Solis.
Read the rest of this entry »
eriksr on July 24th, 2008
One of my personal crusades is to help grease the wheels between marketers and bloggers. It’s no secret that the relationship between the two is frequently strained with PR practitioners not truly understanding bloggers and with bloggers routinely receiving press releases or pitches that have little or nothing to do with what they write about.
And that’s where a new service, Blogio, fits, or tries to fit, in.
Blogio describes itself as “…a pipeline between top marketers and top Bloggers.” Here’s some more on their philosophy:
Blogio was born from a need to adapt an “old world” media (Public Relations) to a new media phenomenon (Bloggers). We believe that the continued fragmentation and diversity of the internet is great, but lacks an economic engine that is non-advertising based. Blogio provides a new financial model that allows marketers access to bloggers while supporting the blogging movement in general. Blogio seeks to offer compensation for a Blogger to read and review the information offered.”
Blogio uses a revenue share model — marketers pay $300 to distribute information on Blogio, and that revenue is shared with targets 50/50. The top ten bloggers in a niche end up with $15 each. Marketers can even use a service called “BlogExclusive” where Blogio keeps $150 and the target blogger gets $150. Marketers are paying for access to bloggers, who are under no obligation to write about anything.
Sounds good, doesn’t it? I’m going to register and take it for a spin and get back to you with a more in-depth report later. (But, in the meantime, if any of you have tried the service, do comment and let us know how it worked out.)
eriksr on July 12th, 2008
In this new post I cover ways bloggers can work with PR people to build traffic for their sites. Pretty easy stuff — asking for product, information, or even setting up interviews. PR people are good sources of content, and content rules supreme!
My original post over at ProBlogger can be found here. It attempts to explain to bloggers why PR people do the things they do…with an eye towards easing tensions between these two communities. Think before you spam!
eriksr on July 3rd, 2008
Well, someone at Nintendo has got to be pretty happy right about now. See, they got Dooce to mention the Wii in her blog.
And that would make the day of any social media person.
But, as if that wasn’t good enough, she also mentioned Nintendo three times. And she mentioned their newest product, Wii Fit, eight times.
That’s twelve mentions of wholesome goodness on a blog that averages 40-50,000 viewers daily.
Twelve mentions surrounded by words of love, like ”… good people from Nintendo …” and “… this is a product I use, something in my house, something I’d love to share with you.”
If I were the lucky Nintendo social media person who managed this, I’d be having a cigarette right about now and mumbling something along the lines of “And was it good for you?” Read the rest of this entry »
eriksr on August 24th, 2007
I wrote about event aggregators here and here a while ago. In those posts, I wrote about using event aggregators to keep an eye out for speaking opportunities for your clients. Recently, I had an opportunity to create entries on these services on behalf of a nationally well-known client. The goal was to make people aware of the event and encourage them to attend or, at the very least, click through to a special website the client had set up.
The results? Very, very disappointing.
Read the rest of this entry »
