January 1, 2010

Tech and social media New Year’s resolutions

With the holiday hustle bustle, I have gotten completely behind on being productive online. Aside from shopping, I haven’t had much time to network, stay updated on the latest tech trends or share content online (updating this blog or my Tumblr, for example). So, I’ve made some resolutions to help me be more productive online as well as some overall tech resolutions that are just good practice. Here’s what I’ve come up with.

1. I will get a handle on my e-mails. Personally, I hate dealing with e-mail. I would prefer friends to Facebook me, everyone else out there to tweet me and subscribe to RSS feeds rather than e-mail newsletters. Still, everyone uses e-mail, which means I need to be better at handling the inbox influx. I remember when I was in graduate school at Syracuse University, my professor Brenda Wrigley guaranteed to her students that if you e-mailed her, she would respond within 24 hours. In my eyes, that made her amazing. Just think, she was making everyone happy while at the same time, never getting behind on her e-mails. I’m going to follow her example. The trick is, keeping your responses short. I like the three.sentenc.es idea of treating your e-mails like sms messages or tweets and limiting them to only three sentences. That would seem to work well, especially if you are checking e-mail on your phone. I’ll experiment and let you know how it goes. I also plan to unsubscribe to unnecessary e-newsletters and notifications.

2. I will share create and share good content on a regular basis. With all the time I’m saving by not writing long e-mails, I’ll be able to spend more time sharing content and updating my Web site, blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Vimeo, etc. It’s takes a lot of commitment to have a blog and create content. Admittedly, I end up doing that more for my clients and neglecting my own blog. This is a tough one…just gotta find more time.

3. I will use Twitter lists. Twitter lists allow you to create your own categories of the people you follow. What a great way to manage Twitter, especially if you are following thousands of people. I haven’t taken full advantage of this feature. But I know if I max it out, it’s gonna be another time saver!

4. I will clean up my hard drive, back up regularly and run updates. This is nothing new, and it’s so simple. Yet, I always give everything else priority. I remember when my iBook hard drive failed a few years ago, I vowed never again to be left in a lurch without a back up. But I honestly can’t say that I’ve backed up regularly. In fact, I have turned off scheduled back ups and updates many times because they’ve gotten in the way when I had something timely to work on. Very bad!

5. I’ll review,  update and reorganize my RSS feeds for blogs and podcasts I consume. My feeds have gotten out of control. I remember the time when I was addicted to my Google Reader. Now, I can’t find the blogs I want to scan each morning because I haven’t kept up by categorizing them with folders. So I’ve abandoned my feeds for the most part, which causes me to miss out on so much information. Time to get organized.

These are my tech resolutions for 2010. Wish me luck, I’ll need it. I hope these will inspire you to make resolutions of your own. Happy New Year and all the best in 2010!

Tags: blogs, e-mail, goals, New Year, resolutions, RSS, social media, tech
Posted in Twitter, Web/Tech | No Comments »

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November 2, 2009

Getting started in the social media space with GumdropLane.com

Reina Communications is helping Gumdrop Lane step up its social media marketing efforts. Gumdrop Lane is an online children’s clothing boutique, somewhat new to the social space. Here are some tips I offered Gumdrop Lane to get social. Hope they help you as well. Also, please check out Gumpdrop Lane’s twitter and facebook pages as well as their new blog. Let us know what you think!

• People should tweet, not businesses. Twitter is about personal communication. Consumers know there is a person behind each business, and we want to see who they are. While you are representing a brand, tweet about personal experiences — those experiences are what make your business unique! Just make sure the people representing your business have fun personalities and you can trust them to represent your brand.
• Share information and promote interesting finds, even if it doesn’t directly relate to what you’re selling. You want to be an information resource for your customers. Read other blogs and seek information your customers would seek. If you see something that would be helpful for them, blog about it or retweet it without the expectation of sales in return. You’re building a relationship, and that’s a two-way street.
• Don’t underestimate the power of blogs. Good bloggers know their audiences and can recognize when your products or services are a good fit for their readers. Word-of-mouth advertising can be as effective as Google Adwords in gaining exposure for your business. Identify the influential bloggers in your market and use sites like Alexa to see what kind of traffic they get. Bloggers love hosting giveaways for your products, but if you have limited resources, you need to be sure you offer products to the most influential blogs first.

Tags: blogs, GumdropLane, marketing, social media, Twitter
Posted in Best Practices, PR Strategy, PR Tactics, Twitter, Web/Tech | No Comments »

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September 17, 2009

Reasons you need a blog

A number of my clients still do not have blogs as well as many major companies, and while other social media like Facebook and Twitter are stealing the spotlight, it’s time to revisit this oldie but goodie. Blogs offer several advantages and just about every type of business can benefit from the communication tool. Here’s what a blog can do for you.

Keep your audience regularly engaged
As consumers, we all have short attention spans. To stay top of mind, you have to communicate a consistent message often. Updating a blog daily or weekly offers an opportunity to reach out to stakeholders on a regular basis.

Search Engine Optimization
Blogs offer rich fresh content for search engine spiders as well as the opportunity that others may link to your posts. Just remember your blog should serve a purpose to communicate with your publics first and foremost. The SEO benefits should develop naturally from that. Saturating your posts intentionally with too many keywords will not win over many readers.

Share content with people who want to connect
Blogs offer a way to connect with customers who want to read your content. By subscribing to your RSS feed, consumers are proactively pulling information. Stakeholders who seek out your information are much more likely to become advocates than passive recipients of marketing e-mails and advertising.

Simple and efficient interaction
Blogs are a tool for two-way communication. By opening up your comments for readers to participate, you empower your stakeholders to communicate and reap the rewards of gaining valuable feedback.

Another tip, blogs can be very time consuming to maintain and post updates regularly. The PR department doesn’t have to go it alone. Consider having several employees from different departments contribute to the blog each week. Varied perspectives will keep it interesting for the reader while helping you balance out organizational resources.

Tags: blogs, PR Tactics, SEO
Posted in PR Tactics, Weblogs | No Comments »

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August 24, 2009

A comment about comments

One of the biggest fears PR people have about social media is negative comments. First, everyone assumes the worst when it comes to interacting with stakeholders on the corporate  blog, YouTube, Facebook or other online social networks. When I’m consulting and the topic comes up, there’s typically push back about trusting the community to police itself.

It’s okay for people to write bad things about your brand online. While it can be intimidating to know that someone can write malicious comments about your business, you have to remember that there is a greater world of participation. If your organization is doing what’s right, there will be far more positive comments to follow the negative prick who wants to vent and spread lies about your brand. If your organization is doing what’s wrong, monitoring social media will offer you a red flag warning before the situation gets out of control. There are far greater benefits than risks when it comes to opening comments on social media (e.g., obtaining feedback, sharing information, improved customer service).

Even still, I find that argument is not enough to convince executives to consider opening comments and relinquishing their perceived control over the Web presence. Perhaps then, an alternative approach is to post a “Code of Comments.” One of my favorite blogs, The Consumerist, posted a Code of Comments this week, and I think it’s a great example. I’ve shared it with my clients in hopes that with a little time, I’ll gain their buy-in and we can start getting them to participate in social media the way it is intended.

Tags: blogs, comments, online social networks
Posted in PR Strategy | No Comments »

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July 15, 2009

Tips for responding to a negative blog post

Is all publicity good publicity when it comes to social media? Well if your goal is simply to generate buzz for your brand, certainly any attention from blogs could be considered good publicity. However, in public relations, the goal is to communicate accurate information and manage reputation. So if you discover a negative blog post about your organization, you might want to take action.

This assumes that you have already taken the first very big step in social media PR, which is monitoring the blogosphere. Half the battle is simply being aware of what’s being said about you. From there, every situation will be different. However, here are some general tips when considering your response.

Do you even want to respond? The first option of response in any public relations problem is to do nothing. Obviously many times, this is not the best approach. However, consider the audience of the blog in question. Do you need to engage with this audience or will posting a response just give a blog with little credibility unnecessary attention and validation? If you decide to respond, time is of the essence. The Internet news cycle moves very quickly. Depending on the blog, you may have days or even hours before the post you need to address is archived news.

How do you respond? If you decide you do need to engage with the blogger and his/her readers, your plan of action should depend on if the blog post contains erroneous information or simply casts your organization in a negative light. In the former instance, clearing up the misinformation should be your primary goal. Post a respectful response in the blog comments explaining what was misstated and provide evidence to back up your claim. If the blog comments are not open, e-mail the blogger with the information. Do not ask the blogger to take specific action (e.g., take down the post, correct the post), simply explain that the information posted is defamatory and provide information to correct the misstatements. If the blogger does nothing to rectify the defamatory statement, you may want to consider the long-term resolution of legal action. However, in the short-term, do not threaten the blogger with legal action.

If the negative information is true, take a similar approach that you would to traditional media in formulating a message for response. Create a message that respectfully acknowledges what the blogger wrote and thank them for covering your organization. Consider offering an apology (if necessary) and point out everything positive your organization is doing to remedy the situation. Post your response in the comments section (or e-mail the blogger if comments are closed) and continue to monitor the conversation and participate as needed.

In all cases, a non-confrontational, professional approach is your best bet when relating to bloggers.

Who should respond? Some of the big PR firms who provide blog monitoring offer the full-service solution of responding to blogs on your behalf. I do not recommend this approach. If you have a PR agency, use it to monitor blogs and help formulate your message, but be sure an internal spokesperson actually posts the response and engages in the conversation. Social media is all about genuine, transparent participation in the community.

Tags: blogs, defamation, publicity, reputation management
Posted in PR Tactics, Weblogs | No Comments »

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June 10, 2009

After weeks of redesign, welcome to my new blog

With Web sites and blogs, the work is never done. You are always tweaking and updating. It’s quite exhausting. In PR, we recommend you get out there and start blogging, but I think it’s important to keep in mind that blogging is a commitment. Once you get the site up, the work really just begins. In that sense, my work is beginning. Continue Reading…

Tags: blogs, redesign
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

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