After everyone wrapped up their faux-pitch, we provided the class with pointers, best practices and some of our own personal experiences with reporters.  That’s when we put pitching into context students could relate to – approach it in the same way you would if you had news you desperately needed to share with your best friend who was running late to class, and you need her/him to listen.  You just have to get this one thing  (the story idea in this case) off your chest - a quick rundown in less than a minute that touches on the important stuff, leaving your friend wanting more (class can wait, right?). 

Ok, so maybe college drama isn’t the same as a client relevant pitch – but the urgency behind both scenarios – getting your friend to hear you out or getting a cover story – is about the same.   You have news that you feel is critical, and need to find a way to get it – succinctly - in front of others to engage their interest.

The new facilities are jam-packed with the latest technology, equipment and contemporary architecture, so reminiscent of a DWELL magazine spread. And the students match. Granted we visited only one class, but those sophomores knew their stuff.  Not only had the majority of the class already completed at least one internship, their attention and follow-up questions impressed me to no end. I discussed my experience working for two Arizona public relations firms and they followed up with questions on marketing research and strategies. We discussed current client issues and key message development and they asked for follow-up on crisis communication case studies!

Every question was on target, but one made me pause…

“What have you done if a client or product conflicted with your ethical, religious or personal beliefs?” We talked about decisions they will have to make in their careers and options they can consider, but I am curious how others would respond. Now don’t jeopardize your future in the industry- but what would you have said to the student who posed this ethical query?

According to an article appearing on Forbes.com, in-store advertising expenditures are poised for an annual growth of nearly 21 percent through 2010. It is easy to see why, with the variety of advertising options, including shopping cart signage, end-cap displays, video screens and floor stickers, all available at low costs and with potential for very high return on investments. In fact, one study has even indicated that up to 70 percent of brand decisions are made while in stores, making these ads that much more important in molding consumer choices. These in-store advertisements are also not just big business for manufacturers, but more so for the actual retailers who benefit from selling in demand ad space and the overall sales in their stores.

So the next time you are checking out at the grocery store and aren’t quite sure how those jumbo cheese puffs made it into your cart, take a look around because advertisers may have helped get them there.

Well, I haven’t heard back from the guy, so I’m going to post it on my own. Because this stuff is GOLD!

Well, maybe not… but Lord knows we don’t have enough Top 10 lists in the world.

1) Editing or deleting negative comments: The greatest, No. 1 problem business bloggers have is understanding that negative comments will happen, and they should not be edited, deleted, or blocked. Spam comments should be deleted and blocked, of course. No one will take issue with this.

However, if someone has a legitimate gripe or difference of opinion, censoring this opinion is only going to hurt the blog. Think of it: Someone has taken the time to actually respond to something you’ve written. That’s someone asking to be engaged by you. The right way to handle this is to respond back. If they are complaining in a way that really requires customer service, steer them off line where you can deal with their problem directly. (Because you don’t want to do customer service in public.) But do not ignore this person simply because what they are saying isn’t a good advertisement for your company. Doing so may get them to leave negative comments on several other sites you won’t be able to delete.

2) Writing blog posts that are strictly ad copy: No one wants to read an advertisement. People will watch a commercial on TV if they’re waiting for their favorite show to come back on, but no one would ever tune into a cable station devoted to only showing advertisements and infomercials 24 hours a day. Similarly, no one would read a blog that only pitches the products and services of the authors. Instead, try to make your blog a resource to other people – give them information they might be looking for, rather than telling them how you have the answer to their question but want them to pay for it first. If you can become the place to go to for answers, you will be sought out by people wanting to buy your products or services directly.

3) Not commenting on other people’s blogs: If a blogger isn’t taking part on other people’s blogs, they are missing out on several opportunities. First, by commenting on someone else’s blog, you can make others aware of your own expertise, without even having to write an entire post of your own. Second, you find out what is of concern to other bloggers and blog readers. Third, through the use of trackbacks and links within your signature, you can give other readers the opportunity to find your own blog. If you are commenting on blogs with similar interests as your own, these readers would make good readers of your own blog as well.

4) Not posting regularly to one’s blog: A blog that only updates once every two weeks is at best an article site. Neither search engines nor readers – who might otherwise be interested in the topic you are writing about – will wait long for you to post again. If you cannot be bothered to think of more to say, readers won’t bother to keep checking.

If you cannot spare as little as 15 minutes every other day or so to post something - or anything - relating to your company or industry, you probably shouldn’t be blogging. There will definitely be dry spells, which most every blog has from time to time. However, if one only posts something every two months because they feel they have to, then the blog can be doing more harm than good.

5) Writing off-topic posts for the sake of drawing in traffic: A post about some star going to rehab may catch the eye of some readers, but if your blog is about your shutter installation business, you won’t keep them. Keep your topics interesting but related to your blog’s overall theme.

6) Only posting links to other people’s posts: Linking out to other blogs is a good thing, within reason. It shows that you are a member of the community, not just trying to box people into your blog. However, when you rely entirely on the writings of others, either to link to or to write synopses of, then all the people you link to are the experts – not you.

7) Being outrageous to gain readership: There’s a belief that if you start a fight on your blog, it will gain attention, and gain popularity. There are two problems with this. Even if your argument or position attracts a certain number of people, it will also alienate a number of others with differing opinions. These people can then go forth into the social media world and bleed poison into your brand perception, doing more damage than good. Secondly, it shows a lack of professionalism that will likely turn off new business leads.

8) Not knowing keywords relevant to your company: This relates to your second question about SEO and blogging. One of the simplest ways to maintain search rankings for a blog is to know what people are searching for. This isn’t some random figure, but a statement about what the zeitgeist is interested in.

A simple keyword list can be created using Google Adwords’ keyword tool, which will show you the topics people are searching for. If these terms are also related to your business or industry, you stand a good chance of becoming a resource by writing about them.

9) Not applying keywords relevant to your company: In order for these keywords to be of use to a post, the post obviously needs to be about that keyword. If that’s the case, you can then include the keyword liberally throughout the post.

For example, a post on the Off Madison Ave blog “Phoenix Business Blogs and writing to succeed” was written specifically to rank in search for the phrase, “Phoenix Business Blogs.” Therefore, the phrase was included in the blog title, the post’s URL, tags, and the text of the post itself. (It is important to remember that this only works if what you are writing about is directly related to these keyword phrases. Trying to write to the keyword phrase, “Phoenix Business Blogs” in a entry about how to train a Doberman will make your post sound like gibberish.)

10) Not establishing a voice: Writing style becomes very important to a blog, and it is dictated by what the audience of the blog should be. If one is too formal, it will turn off some readers. That could be good or bad, depending if they are the kind of readers one wants. After all, a B2B blog for investment professionals has no reason to refer to its readers as, “dude.” At the same time, a skateboard shop blog will want to write with a voice similar to the audience they want to attract. In short, one has to consider its audience before deciding at is the “right way” and the “wrong way” to sound in a blog post.

With so much talk about the power of social media, many companies want to immediately launch themselves onto the bandwagon. However, without the right research, guidance and strategy, these tools might not be as effective they could be. That’s why the first thing we recommend here at Off Madison Ave is for companies to just listen. Take some time to monitor many social sites to see what is being said about your company and your industry. This will help to determine which site/method will be most useful, if key messages can be communicated effectively and if target audiences are being reached. Basically, listening can tell you if social media is the right fit and is worth pursuing. See, it really is just like any other relationship…except in this one, you are actually encouraged to push its buttons.

As of early this year, I have been given an opportunity to lead a group comprised of search marketing professionals, lifecycle marketing experts, social media aficionados and a seasoned media buying team.  With every department, it is a necessity to include a few standard operations such as setting department/individual goals, projecting revenue, developing new service offerings, billing procedures, and of course, holding a regular staff meeting. 

But, here’s the thing. I really, strongly, completely dislike staff meetings.  It’s been my experience in ten years in this industry that a scheduled time to come together for the purpose of maintaining productivity and efficiency is, more often than not, a huge time suck.  Thankfully, my cohorts agree.

So we have developed a weekly meeting in which we discuss all of the relevant objectives, tasks and opportunities for our clients in just 15 minutes. 

I say again, “15 Minutes.”

Goodbye, 60 minutes with three measly next steps.  Later, dude in the corner of the conference room checking your email on your phone the entire time.  And to the diarrhea of the mouth epidemics for which staff meetings across the country are made famous, I wish you luck in your future endeavors.

While you assume an incredulous facial expression, allow me to explain the rules.

Rule #1 - Everyone arrives on time.  If you don’t make it by the time the meeting starts, you may miss something.

Rule #2 - A grid is prepared/updated in advance by the team leader.  This grid includes active projects and shows each task to which individual team members are assigned.  Information is displayed on a large monitor for all to see.  Every team member is aware of his/her responsibilities and deadlines (as well as those of other staffers).  As a team, we run through the grid line-by-line, covering current client projects and retainer engagements.

Rule #3 - Separate meetings are called.  If one particular client or topic requires a deeper, more detailed discussion, another desk-side meeting is set to talk about the particulars.  These smaller gatherings are scheduled so that two or three team members don’t waste the time of the other meeting attendees.

Rule #4 - One note taker is assigned.  One different person volunteers each week to take notes for the group.  At the close of the meeting, the note taker emails the group the meeting minutes.  Action items, next steps and follow-up meetings are all laid out in detail.  The email is typically received 10 minutes or less after the close of the meeting

Rule #5 - Standing room only.  The only person permitted to sit is the note taker.

A little hard core?  Probably.  Effective?  Yep, to this point. 

While this is a work in progress and one meeting actually reached the 17 minute mark (disgraceful), our new staff meeting protocol have led to productive, efficient uses of time that involve positive interaction among team members.

Feel free to give the 15 minute staff meeting a shot.

In a society that teaches us to put our best foot (or picture) forward in online communication and has allowed us to enhance our personalities and profiles through touched up images and exaggerated descriptions, won’t it be refreshing to see what people are actually doing, and who and how they really talk when they aren’t being “PR Heather” (term of endearment from my family)? Will this blurred line actually be the lie detector on the next generation and help keep us clean and consistent in our communication?

Instead of a cause for concern, can’t it be an excuse to be more true to ourselves at work and at home. Yes, there should be privacy and personal matters, but most would agree, we would be better off not sharing that anywhere online. Who really needs to know your kid pooped or a mutual friend is wasted. Let’s keep these personal tidbits for that old-school communication device, the cell phone. In the future you can simply call your mom or a cab, not tweet 1,000 online followers.

If you were in charge of Wikipedia, what would you do to change their fortunes? Advertising? Sell it to Google? Memberships? Tiered service? What?

Wikipedia is a trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, which is a non-profit foundation. Because their goal is to provide people across the world with access to knowledge, I don’t think selling out would help them stick to their purpose. Most non-profits make their money through donations, but only in part. They also receive grants from the government and foundations, and they have tax exempt status.

Selling to Google wouldn’t be a good idea because Google already has a similar site known as Knol; Google offers a monetary incentive for its’ authors, holding them accountable and providing them a monetary incentive to provide good content.

Ultimately, If I were in charge of Wikipedia I would have people pay membership dues to use the service, having all money go back into the company. I would also have a better system in place to ensure the content is more accurate and not as biased (which has been a complaint in the past). As a non-profit, any surplus revenues cannot go to owner shareholders or employees so how they can spend their money is limited. If Wikipedia is looking to make a profit beyond paying their employees, etc then they would have to give up their non-profit/tax exempt status.

Cassandra Fronzo

Good question.  Here’s my response….

Go with the Google model.  Surround the content with paid ads relevant to the content.  Throw travel ads on the page about the Bahamas.  Place ads for snoring aids on the page about sleep apnea.  Place ads for the Desert Botanical Garden on the page about Dale Chihuly.  I don’t believe this type of advertising would compromise the integrity of the content, but it would give Wikipedia some dough that they could throw at some quality editors.

Chris Sietsema

I think that Wikipedia should start taking ads, but make sure they are relevant based on the topic. With that said they need to ensure there is no undue influence over the content of the topic, and they need to clearly label the ads. In my mind this is no different than how Google does their ads in their search results or in Gmail.

They should also start making companies pay to have a a profile that the company can have full control over. I could see this profile being displayed side-by-side with a publicly editable topic like what currently exists. They could charge them a monthly or yearly subscription fee per topic/product/company. If Wikipedia were to allow this type of activity they must make sure they have controls in place to make sure that companies can only create these profiles for topics/products/companies that they directly are related to or own.

No matter what, I do not think they should start charging the general public for access or editing rights in anyway. This would simply discourage the use of the site and fracture the knowledge base by encouraging others to setup their own similar service which may not have such strict independence guidelines.

Justin Wilson

Wikipedia’s problem stems from how we think about content and information in this country. We produce content and we never place a value on it. Take a look at the magazine businesses.  Subscriptions are cheap and advertising pays for for the content which to produce without it is expensive. Add to that model a lack of editorial objectiveness because it might upset an advertiser. In the UK, magazine subscriptions are expensive, editorial can be as objective as it wants and advertising supplements the cost.

In essence the way we think about what we produce trains people to not value it. In fact, they expect it to be free. After all we’ve had decades of free network television which embedded it into our brains.

If I ran Wikipedia I’d charge a recurring monthly subscription. Supplement it with advertising and put together a research board to verify suspicious posts.  In the end, I don’t believe we will change how we place value on content until businesses like Wikipedia and several companies like them cease to exist.

Roger Hurni

With profits for the newspaper plummeting about 50% in the Q4 and interactive advertising revenues falling 20%, it seems like NYTimes.com is trying to take a more proactive approach to gain back users, and they are not just hoping the industry turns around on its own (which it seems some newspapers are). I think this is the first step of many the industry needs to take to ensure long-term success.