PR for Start-ups!

Sad Day for Colorado... Rocky Mountain News To Print Final Issue

R.I.P

What a sad day for Colorado. Our oldest newspaper announced today that it will print its final newspaper tomorrow. A slideshow documents the news as it is being told to the staff.

A sign of the economy or the digital age? Perhaps a combination of the two.  You will be missed...

Twitter Poll- Kindle Books or Paper Books?

Social Media Gets Socially Active: 12for12k Challenge

Recently, we have seen several examples of how social media can make a social impact in the world through online/offline events like the Tweetathon 2009 and Twestival (just to name a few). Another social media charity challenge is underway and is worth taking a look at.

The 12for12k Challenge is the brainchild of Press Release PR owner Danny Brown. Inspired by the way that social media has changed so many lives for the better already with various charity promotions, Danny wanted to do something that was both easy to take part in and have the potential to change as many lives as possible. The 12for12k Challenge started taking shape.

Dave Taylor and TrackVia -- Driving Awareness Online

Dave Taylor is widely recognized for his writing and speaking engagements on both technical and business issues. He has written over twenty business and technical books including The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Growing Your Business with Google and maintains several weblogs two of which are the The Intuitive Life Business Blog and Ask Dave Taylor.

What's in your social media toolbox?

Here is a list of tools that I have come across that are extremely useful in storing and promoting content whether it is audio, video or text. Feel free to pass on or add to the list.

The Pew Internet Project Releases Twitter Usage Study

Main take-away, 11% of online adults use Twitter or update their status online  Twitter users are mobile, less tethered by technology.

Check it out.

Pew Internet Project: Twitter Study

"Everyone else has a blog so we should too"

 A common comment made by companies large and small. What isn't common? Is the understanding that  you can't simply dip your toe into these waters, you have to dive in or be prepared to swim with the fishes. Okay, that is probably enough aquatic references for today...

Creating a blog is one thing, diving into the community that you hope will engage, read and follow your blog is another. To take a line from the infamous Gary Vaynerchuck... you have to get in the trenches, bitches.

Before you decide to start a corporate blog, here are a few suggestions.

1. Promise transparency - be truthful, authentic and personable.
2. Listen to your customers - bring issues (good and bad) onto your blog.
3. Give something away - whether it is a best practice, tips, report, PowerPoint, information fed into the community will help build social equity.
4. Make it easy for people to comment and participate.
5. Link love- link back to areas of your site as well as other sites of interest.
6. Chill on the marketing speak - this is a place to be conversational, not speak like a robot.
7. Make it social - make it easy for others to bookmark the content, subscribe etc.
8. Give it personality - what can people expect to hear from you.
9. Be the first to provide a statement - in case of an outage or other issue, make sure you use the blog to communicate to your customers and community before someone else does.
10. Commit or don't do it... This isn't a one time thing, you need to dive in.

Good luck and if you would like to learn what not to do, give me a call. I have a catalog of lessons learned the hard way!

Are you connected to MR. Peanut?

Was interested to see how the latest salmonella breakout was being communicated on social networks. This story demonstrates how the FDA and relevant agencies got to work online to get the word out.

Officials with Health and Human Services Department and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention  used widgets, blogs, Twitter, podcasts, mobile alerts and online videos to warn the public that peanut butter manufactured by Peanut Corp. of America for institutional use and for additives in other products such as snacks may be tainted with salmonella.

The FDA created a database of recalled products, which the public could search either by product name or category such as cookies, chips and crackers (sounds like a good case for a TrackVia database). The also used a blog, Twitter and video as well as social networks like MySpace and Second Life (insert flying peanut here ;) to get the word out.

Nice work, let's hope that we see this type of behavior continue!