Local Company Helps Charlestonians Take on Twitter

MT. PLEASANT, S.C.— In the world of Web 2.0, there’s no denying Twitter, a microblogging service, is the industry darling of the moment, with new statistics from Nielson Online deeming it the fastest growing online social network in the past year. Step Ahead Web Strategies, a Mt Pleasant-based company that helps businesses strategically engage Web 2.0 tools and manage them on a day-to-day basis, is stepping up to the plate to make sure Charlestonians take advantage of Twitter with a seminar on the topic and a list for Lowcountry Twitterers.

The “Using Twitter for Business” seminar will be held Nov. 18, from Noon to 1:30 p.m. at the Francis Marion Hotel, 375 King St. for a cost of $50, including a box lunch and drink. The seminar will cover the basics for people new to Twitter, discuss the benefits, the etiquette, the most useful applications, as well as how to fit it into your schedule, what to say, who to say it to and lots more. Register at www.stepaheadwebstrategies.com.

“As a PR professional, Twitter is one of the best PR and marketing tools I’ve come across in a long time,” says Lyn Mettler, president of Step Ahead Web Strategies. “It’s helped me personally to get new business, media coverage, increased Web site hits and more, and we hope to share that insight with others. It’s a free tool, and in this economy, it’s a great way to expand awareness about your business for only the cost of your time.”

The company also recently developed the Lowcountry Twitter list, a place for Twitterers from Hilton Head to Charleston to register their “handle” or username so others can “follow” them. Locals can view the list and sign up at www.stepaheadwebstrategies.com.

“While it’s easy to make contact with those in your field, or with similar interests, on Twitter, it can be kind of tricky to find those geographically close to you,” says Simon Ashton, vice president of technology for Step Ahead Web Strategies. “So we developed the Lowcountry Twitter list to help those in our area connect. If you’re looking to make local contacts and network, this is a great resource.”

About Step Ahead Web Strategies
Step Ahead Web Strategies is a Mt Pleasant-based company that helps businesses and organizations strategically engage and manage the latest and most innovative technologies, including online video, social networking, search engine optimization, blogs, Podcasting and more, to reach their target audiences with the right message. To date, the company has worked with the Charleston Area Convention & Visitors Bureau, Charming Inns of Charleston, ClassifiedFlyerAds.com, Tiger Lily florist, Charleston Parks Conservancy, Golf Island, Myrtle Beach National, Coco’s Café, POSITUS consulting and others.

Step Ahead Web Strategies executives regularly speak about social media across the state, including events and luncheons for the South Carolina Public Relations Society of America state conference, Columbia chapter and Lowcountry chapter; Center for Women; Charleston Digital Corridor; Charleston Trident Association of Realtors and more. The company has also been featured in the Wall Street Journal, on MSNBC.com and numerous local publications. Visit www.stepaheadwebstrategies.com or call (843) 388-8376 for more information.

What Media SHOULD Be Doing Online

Recently, I’ve come across several Web sites which are doing a great job of offering up news in a way that’s compelling and smartly engages social media as part of the experience. None is associated with a traditional media outlet, and sadly, I think they had to come along because traditional media wasn’t getting the job done online.

One is TheDigitel, a site that is local to Charleston, and produces its own content, as well as highlighting the best of news from other sources across the area. They describe themselves as “a Web outlet that ‘gets it,’ [that] provides the Web integration and savviness that is demanded by young adults who grew up during the Internet revolution.”

TheDigitel.com strives to have good relationships with local media outlets. “We know that only through working together on the local level can we achieve the goal that we’ve set for ourselves: a comprehensive view of the community for everyone,” they say.

I had the privilege of meeting the founders Ken Hawkins and Chris Gigante at an event I helped organize for the Charleston Parks Conservancy and these are smart guys who I think have done something the Post & Courier should have along time ago. If traditional media don’t “get it” soon, they’re done for in the not too distant future, I fear.

Here’s what TheDigitel does right:

• Focuses completely on local content and on doing it right
• Has multimedia components; shoot their own video or use others’ video when appropriate
• Has a most popular stories category
• Allows you to search by topic and location
• Provides links to related coverage at other media outlets — TV, newspapers, radio, etc — and related stories on their site, making it a true resource for ALL Charleston news
• Allows for comments
• Very clean site, easy to read

What else it could do:

• Offer ability to share articles on popular social media sites with one click
• Allow others to embed video so long as it credits TheDigitel
• Add RSS feeds by topic

This is a fairly new site, however, and I’m betting these things are in the works.

Now, let’s compare to the Charleston Post & Courier site, the local paper of Charleston, S.C. Here’s what the Post & Courier does right:

• Ability to share stories on social media sites with one click
• Ability to post comments
• Starting to include some video with stories
• Offers some RSS feeds
• Offer some audio clips

Here’s what else it needs to do:

• Unclutter the pages; very distracting and difficult to read
• Add reporter blogs
• Improve search function; very clunky right now

In looking at these two lists, it appears the Post & Courier is not too far off TheDigitel, but visit the two sites and I think you’ll see the difference. I believe the key here is for traditional media to incorporate social media in a way that is unintrusive and helps organize the news experience instead of adding to the clutter. TheDigitel gets this right.

Any other suggestions out there for how traditional media can “digitize” itself into maintaining an existence?

Some (Limited) Praise for the Google AdWords Changes

In the latest round of updates at the end of last week, Google announced that they would (finally!) be adding more detail about where your clicks are coming from:

“Previously, these pages divided statistics into two categories: search, which included Google and search partners, and the content network.
Now, we show one set of statistics for Google and another set aggregating search partner performance. Search partners include AOL, Ask.com, and many other search sites around the web. ”

This is a major change, comparable to when Google started showing where exactly your ads where coming from in the Content network.

That was a huge step forward, and one that made sense for Google. Previously advertisers were skeptical about throwing money down a black hole which included some very, um, shady Made For AdSense sites alongside the high quality sites they may have wanted to target.

However, these latest changes don’t go far enough. Yet.

We can now see how Google stacks up against the other search partners, but not how the individual partners (Ask, AOL, etc) are performing individually. Rich, over at Destilled is asking the question, “Have Google Shot Themselves in the Foot?”, and it’s a valid point.

Here’s the data for one of the accounts we manage:

(I removed the campaign names for anonymity for my client)

As you can see, in each case the cost per click for the search partners is higher, up to 25% higher, than it is on Google, but even more importantly, the number of conversions (final column) are way down. So I’m paying more, and getting less. That is why all the Search partner ads are now set to ‘Off’. I’d rather spend where it is working.

So, what happens now?

Well I suspect that that many others will follow suit and shut off the complete search network, for example, see this thread at Webmaster World:

“At first glance it looks like 90% of my conversions are from google search only not the network.”

“Wow, just split stats on an account. Bye bye Search Network!”

“We totally disabled Partners in a few campaigns after seeing 100 to 200% higher conversion costs.
No wonder they didn’t show this data for so long.”

And if that happens, I’d have to assume that Google will be forced to show the search network in greater details, if only due to pressure from their partners. If AOL is performing well, for instance, they’re unlikely to be happy about being cut out due to the deficiencies of other sites.

However, for now we have to deal with what we have, and I’m at least glad that I’ve been able to learn this much.

How about you? How do your stats measure up across the different sites?

Get Your Pizza on Facebook

Who wants to sit on hold waiting for the person at the pizza place to get your order wrong? Not me. Well, now you can order your pizza, if you like Pizza Hut, on Facebook! Hooray! Now I can see the latest pictures of my friends and order a pizza too.

But all kidding aside, I do think that’s a pretty smart use of Facebook. It gives people a reason to go to Pizza Hut’s page beyond just getting general information. They say that they are one of only a few restaurants to have ordering capabilities via Facebook and the only pizza chain to do so.

And of course, the phone isn’t the only way to order pizza these days. There are text messaging options, ordering via a Web site, and using your cell phone. But, personally I think Facebook is the coolest.

Would you order your pizza via Facebook?

The Changing Face of PR

The Changing Face of PR
Electronic Retailer Magazine
October, 2008

The world of PR is changing at light speed. Long gone are the days of sharing story scoops over a three-martini lunch, mass-faxing press releases to editors and journalists and the enormous “power of the press” being controlled by a few large newspaper empires.

Today’s PR environment is about social networks, online expert sources and web-induced story deadlines measured in seconds or minutes, rather than days or hours.

Furthermore, traditional PR tactics are experiencing a diminishing return. As Lyn Mettler of Mettler Public Relations observes, “I see an steadily reduced emphasis on the importance of traditional media in getting the word out about a company. Over the last five years, I have seen a great decline in the response my clients get to stories placed in even major media outlets. A few years ago, an article in The New York Times would result in dozens, sometimes hundreds of inquiries. Today, it may generate a handful at best. It seems a story on websites such as CNN.com or the Engadget blog is much more beneficial today.”

So what exactly is an e-retailing company supposed to do in order to get a little PR “juice” in today’s world? What tools and techniques can be leveraged to help you get the word out about your product or service?

To see what’s new, as well as what’s on the horizon, I did a little publicity of my own and put the word out to some of the top PR experts in the business for input. Following are the key issues, tools and strategies these experts wanted you to know about.

PR IS NOW “ONE ON ONE”

“The biggest change in the public relations industry is the ability to bypass traditional gatekeepers and communicate directly with consumers, prospects, reporters and bloggers,” says Valerie Jennings of Jennings Public Relations and Advertising. “It’s caused a transformation in the PR landscape, from one in which PR professionals were completely dependent on journalists, to a collaborative effort between the PR practitioners, citizen journalists and the general public. As a result of the social media revolution, there are endless avenues to deliver any message to niche markets and communities.”

PR MOVES FASTER THAN EVER

In today’s world, news happens fast, and the reporting of the news sometimes happens even faster. David Burrows from Fzzz! Media says the biggest change he has seen in recent years is this speed. He elaborates: “With tens of thousands of bloggers covering thousands of subjects, news happens and is reported in minutes. Decades ago, CNN gave us instant access with 24/7 reporting on television.” But even that’s not fast enough for today’s information junkies, Burrows notes. “Those classic relationships between newsmakers and reporters or editors have now moved into relationships–with almost instant communication–with top bloggers and other influencers.”

“The strategy of the PR professional has shifted as a result of the rise in credibility of the blogosphere, with the top news sources relying heavily on its new and emerging content,” says Jennings. “The online landscape now incorporates news and web communities, social networks, video sites and much more.”

SOCIAL MEDIA IS CHANGING PR

In the Spring 2008 issue of Online Strategies, I discussed how social networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn are impacting marketing. The reach and impact of social networks are having a profound effect on PR as well.

According to Jerry Grasso from GrassoPR, “You don’t have to be big to be relevant. If you have something to say, and the communication tools to help you say it with passion, then you have as much of a chance as any established media outlet of becoming a ‘guru’ in a niche area or interest–or of generating interest in your company. That’s the power of the Internet, blogging and social media.”

And it doesn’t matter how established your company is, or how full its coffers may be. “It isn’t about marketing budgets or media flights–it’s all about content and consistency,” Grasso continues. “If you have the best content, the most insightful and compelling information about a solid company that really performs for its customers or strives for its clients, you can play on a pretty even playing field with the likes of WalMart and GE by utilizing blogs and social networks.”

CASE STUDY: USING FACEBOOK TO CREATE PR BUZZ

David Peck, associate vice president of university relations at Azusa Pacific University offers the following case study of the recent release of the Miley Cyrus album “Breakout.”

Miley Cyrus and Disney demonstrated effective use of these new tools of engagement with the launch of her new song and album. On May 14, 2008, Radio Disney played the “planet debut” of her new song, “7 Things.” The album, however, was not scheduled for release until July 22, 2008. But Radio Disney and Miley Cyrus made the decision to create pre-release excitement by featuring the debut of the song on Radio Disney, and then posting an option to hear the song on her Facebook group page, which lists more than 107,000 fans. From a strategic standpoint, it made sense to release the song and album artwork, starting the excitement while students were still in school, encouraging them to talk about it for a month or so before the official release. Roughly two weeks later, more than one million people had listened to the song on YouTube alone, not including those who may have listened on Facebook, MySpace and Cyrus’s own website.

PRESS RELEASES ARE NO LONGER JUST FOR REACHING JOURNALISTS

Anecdotally, journalists tell me they trash 90 percent of unsolicited press releases sent to them via fax or e-mail. So if all of the thousands of press releases written every day aren’t being read by journalists and editors, what is the point of writing and distributing them? “Press releases are being used for search engine opti­mization,” says Robert Blodgett of CRVisions Communications. “The days of press releases being used strictly for announcing news are dead. Now press releases are an effective way of improving a company’s web ranking and search engine traffic.” By publishing the releases online, you’re achieving the dual goals of boosting your website on the search engines and delivering your news directly to individuals interested in the topic who are searching on the relevant keywords. No journalist required.

PR GOES SELF SERVICE

We have self-service gas pumps, bank tellers (in the form of ATMs) and grocery check outs–so why not self-service PR? Some businesses are wondering the same thing. “More and more businesses want to do it themselves and not use a publicist or PR agency,” observes Whitney Keyes of Whitney Keyes Productions. And why not? The news outlets are going direct-to-consumer, so there is no reason the newsmakers can’t go direct to the news outlets.

A prime example: This article was researched, in part, by reaching out to experts via social media and asking for input on the changing face of the public relations industry. In just one day, more than 50 people responded with ideas, information and quotations of potential interest to the readership. In the “old days,” reaching that many experts on a topic would have been a difficult, time-consuming and exhausting process. But thanks to a couple of new and innovative online tools, finding experts was a breeze.

The first tool I used was the “Answers” tool on LinkedIn. By posting my request for info on how PR has evolved to my network of connections, I posed my questions to almost 20 million people.

The second tool I used was Help A Reporter–a service recently started by Peter Shankman. Help a Reporter is a free service that connects experts, academics, business people and company PR executives with journalists and news outlets. As an example of just how fast things are changing in the PR world, consider this: In just 5 short months, Shankman has grown Help A Reporter to more than 25,000 members! If you are seeking PR placement for your company, a subscription to this service is a must. (Similar services such as PR Leads and ProfNet are also recommended resources for reaching top journalists and news outlets with your message.)

Whitney Keyes sums up the self-service trend by stating, “Over the next few years, we’ll see more businesses doing PR themselves–everything from writing press releases to making pitch calls about their news. With all of the accessibility and transparency happening online now, businesses won’t be intimidated about contacting the media. Connecting is easy. As more and more people become citizen journalists and bloggers, the old, hard lines between the powerful journalist and the relatively powerless business person (especially from a new or unestablished company) will start to break and opportunities for media coverage will increase.”

WHAT’S ON THE HORIZON FOR PR?

So what does the future hold for the rapidly evolving world of public relations? “I see more niche social networks being set up and more PR companies hiring people as ‘virtual brand ambassadors,’ or ‘conversation agents’ to keep an eye on what trends the customers are gravitating toward and how the clients can move into that space,” predicts John Carson of gcigroup.

The growth of online video is also expected, and PR experts expect it to impact their business, as well. According to Ed Lamoureaux of WestGlen Communications, “Video is already surpassing text online as the most sought-after form of communication for consumers. Video tracking and monitoring, as well as more video micro-syndication channels will continue to push multimedia PR to the top of the online PR professional’s toolset.”

And, of course, any discussion of the future of digital commerce wouldn’t be complete without acknowledging the incredible growth potential of mobile. “The use of mobile marketing in the form of text messaging to deliver videos and podcasts in order to drive traffic to websites will be a huge factor in future PR efforts,” says Valerie Jennings. “Public relations in the United States is rapidly falling behind that of other countries which already use mobile marketing as a primary means of communication with their audiences. The PR industry needs to understand this medium in order to effectively communicate overseas now–and in the U.S. in the near future.”

CHANGE–AT A COST?

Certainly, the PR business has undergone a sea change. But is all this change for good or ill? It depends on your perspective.

It’s true that companies have more–and more effective–ways of reaching their target audience and shaping their brand with the right messaging. And, as mentioned above, it can be accomplished faster than ever before.

But these factors also carry a downside. “Having more ‘reporters’ and ‘newspeople’ in the form of bloggers and YouTube users is great for speed and the sheer variety and breadth of information,” says Burrows. “But is tends to translate into less probing and intelligent inquiry into any given story, leading to ‘sound-byte news,’ and one-dimensional perspectives. There’s also a ‘lemmings’ approach to accepting and forwarding un-researched information which is then reported as ‘news.’”

See the original article here

Does Anybody Remember Laughter?

Catching up on some RSS feeds (it’s been a busy week!), I came across this Tech Crunch attack on the ‘Team Cyprus Video’ – and I’m so annoyed.

If you haven’t seen it yet, the video (below) was created in Cyprus by some techies on vacation.  Those involved work for some of the biggest names in the industry – Google, Facebook, Blip.tv, etc – and that’s the problem that Techcrunch has with it,

“The video was released just as Silicon Valley really began falling apart and the UnParty began in earnest – eBay’s 10% layoffs, Google’s stock nosedive, Yahoo’s self destruction, VC’s bunkering down, etc. And more than a few people thought the ostentatious partying was a little, ahem, tasteless in light of the meltdown back home.”

Ok, so here’s the video:

I’m not quite sure why Michael Arrington thinks it’s so ‘tasteless’ (he may have said, “more than a few people thought it was tasteless”, but let’s be honest, he’s projecting his own feeling here) – All I’m seeing is a bunch of young people having a good time on vacation. In fact I wish I had been there myself. They’re not bathing in champagne or lighting cigars with $100 bills. Just singing, drinking beer and having fun.

Sure the markets are in meltdown, but are we all supposed to be donning the hairshirts and sitting around watching the talking heads on CNBC tell us how the world is going to end any minute? I’ve already posted this week about optimism, but I think this article goes even beyond that. This isn’t simply being pessimistic, it’s an attack on fun, and includes this ridiculous hyperbole:

“fair or not the video video will always be associated with the end of Web 2.0″

What does that even mean?! If Web 2.0 means the social web, how does a funny Youtube video which has spread virally through blogs prove the end of that?

I’m not sticking my head in the sand over the current financial crisis – I got my daughter’s Future Scholar statement this morning, I know how things are – but can’t we allow a little room for having a good time?

I think if you have to say something about this video, it should be to praise the production values – I mean, really, it’s a single cam tracking shot right up there with the club scene in Goodfellas, the pool party in Boogie Nights or this from Soy Cuba:

Who’d have thought that, from a bunch of tech geeks?

Such a Pair of Tweethearts!

We’ve seen the first hiring via Twitter, the first house sold on Twitter, and now an engagement:

Ah, the power of love!

Congratulations to both Sean and Tara – hope you’ll both have a wonderful life together.

Kodak Lets You Supersize Yourself

If you were a superhero, who would you be? Spiderman, Superman, The Flash? Well, Kodak is giving you the chance to be “super” — well sorta, on their terms, I guess. They’ve come up with a very funny, and smart, campaign online to drive traffic — and sales.

Remember ElfYourself from the last two Christmases? Well this is very similar, but a little smarter. Log on to MakeMeSuper.com, put in your sex, your name and upload your photo and they insert you into a grainy, 70′s looking superhero video doing “superhero” things. It’s not quite as funny as ElfYourself (the dancing on that one just killed me), but the song that accompanies it actually includes your name, which add a new funny element.

Now, the smartest part here is, unlike ElfYourself, which had nothing to do with OfficeMax that I could tell, this one relates. I mean Kodak is all about photos. And once you create your “super” self, you can then buy products with your new image on them. So they directly tied it to sales.

And, they’re not even targeting traditional media with this campaign, instead focusing on bloggers and sites that can help this spread virally. But, you’d better bet, traditional media will hear about it and be all over it. Maybe even better they didn’t hear about it directly; makes it more of a “scoop.”

Check out “Super Lyn” and get a good chuckle. Send me yours or post them here so we can all have a good laugh.

Off I go to save the world!

5 More Products from the Makers of Mail Goggles

Google, always looking out for us, has a new feature available for Gmail. Mail Goggles – love the name! – asks you a series of math problems before sending your email, so that those who have maybe had a little too much to drink won’t send anything they’ll regret later.

A great idea, you’ll no doubt agree.

We gave some thought to 5 more features our Internet Overlords should take a look at, in order to save us from ourselves:

Facebook Heartbreak Timecapsule – When your Relationship Status changes from ‘In a Relationship’ to ‘Single’, Facebook stores all your wall posts, messages, pokes, etc for a period of 9 months, and then allows you to decide whether or not you really want to tell her that she’ll regret it and you’ll never stop loving her.

Ebay ELIZA - turned on automatically after you look at two or more kitsch items costing over $5. The software will nag you with AI intelligence , “Do you really need that? Where will you put it? Shouldn’t we fix the ____ first?” until you finally give up and go to bed.

iTunes Rock Snob – Interrupts your playlists with sarcastic comments about your music choices, “More Air Supply?! Great”, and suggests obscure German bands of the 70s from the iTunes store instead.

MySpace for Dads – let’s you design and play with your page as much as you like, but blocks your kid’s friends from seeing it so they don’t have to live a life of shame at school.

Yahoo Happy News – filters out any news items with mentions of the economy, mortgages, Iraq, or Paris Hilton. Currently a blank page.

Can you think of any more you’d like to see?

Can Good Come From the Recession?

One of my regular reads is Jacob Morgan’s blog – I’ve mentioned him before on here – as he usually has something interesting to say, and he’s very prolific too. Most of his posts take a inquisitive tone, he asks for opinions or thoughts from his audience (which is a great way to interact), and he appears to be generally optimistic.

Which is why I was pretty surprised by the apparent anger and ‘doom+gloom-ery’ in this post.

Don’t get me wrong, I think everyone is pretty angry at having to bail out private companies, and then see them blow $400,000 on a spa retreat. I doubt many felt a great deal of sympathy for the Lehman Bros CEO after he was punched by an employee on Sunday (not that we condone violence, obviously!). Right now anger is perfectly understandable.

But anger, as John Lydon used to sing, is an energy, and that is where I think I differ from Jacob on this one.

His blog was a response to this post on O’Reilly.com, suggesting that the recession will be good for innovation. So to some degree it looks like they are talking at cross-purposes. Saying that a recession is good for tech+innovation isn’t the same as saying that a recession is a good thing.

For example, I think I can safely assume that most people think the Second World War was a ‘Bad Thing’ – the Holocaust, 100s of millions of lives lost, the beginning of the Cold War, etc, etc. The closet we have seen to Hell on Earth.

And yet it is also undeniable that those tragic circumstances were good for technology and innovation – the birth of the modern computer, jets, nuclear technology, medical advances in skin grafts, antibiotics, the birth of the Space Age and so on. People can debate whether or not those things would have happened anyway, but it is true that the war speeded up the process due to necessity, and the same can be true of a recession.

The last recession wiped out jobs too, but (just in the Internet industry) some of those talented people working behind the scenes at Pets.com, Flooz.com and other sites which seem like jokes now, have gone on to create much greater value at Google, Yahoo, Ebay and other success stories. Who knows what great things will be invented by a programmer who gets laid off by AOL, for example?

Nobody wants a recession. I feel enormous sympathy for anyone who is suffering at this time because of things that are beyond their control. But I am (naively?) an optimist. I like to believe that when people are pushed to find new ways of doing things they will. I think that history has shown that this country is better equipped than most to allow new ideas to become great. Yes, many will be hurt be the coming financial problems, but some of those people will use that as a springboard to achieve something wonderful, and that will help to lift us all out of the recession.

After all, this is a country where even bank robbers are finding innovative uses for Internet services. I’ll continue to have faith in the power of people to overcome adversity through technology.

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