You can click on the Weekly Articles tag for previous issues or subscribe to the Weekly Articles Feed. If you feel that you have an article that would fit in the weekly articles, leave a comment and I’ll check it our for the following week’s digest. Enjoy.

Permission Please – Mark Goren of Transmission Marketing highlights how he was automatically subscribed to Marriott Hotel newsletters without his permission. The comment stream is interesting regarding the needs of business and person perspective. However, I side with Mark on this one. There are better ways to ask for permission. Supplying an email for a “confirmation notification” isn’t the same as asking to receive frequent emails about your company, promotions and other marketing stuff.

From a Blogger to You – Chris Brogan writes a great post about why bloggers aren’t journalists. He also provides great tips for pitching him and the topics that he likes to discuss. Key point – make a blogger feel special, whether with beta invitations, previews or free schwag.

So You Want to Pitch? – Jason Falls provides a great post on how he would pitch bloggers. By writing a fictional blog pitch, Jason provides actionable tips for contacting bloggers and probably getting results as well.

Engaging Employees –Anna Farmery posted about how to engage employees as most of the conversation is about engaging customers. Well, employees ARE customers too. I think companies take this for granted until it’s too late.

You can click on the Weekly Articles tag for previous issues or subscribe to the Weekly Articles Feed.

If you feel that you have an article that would fit in the weekly articles, leave a comment and I’ll check it our for the following week’s digest. Enjoy.

E-Mail Marketing – According to eMarketer, don’t underestimate email. Relevancy to your audience is key to the success of email marketing promotions and offers.

Delicious Measurement – Courtesy of measurement maven, KD Paine, I found this article about how delicious can be used for measuring PR. I do use delicious to track my personal blog postings and company information. This posting reminds me I should look into them more closely.

Persistence Counts – Mr. Tom Pick underscores the importance of persistence when pitching bloggers. Great tips for getting through to key bloggers and getting their attention. Note to self – add to page about pitching bloggers.

ROI of Online Press Releases – Larissa Fair of The Buzz Bin provided a summary of a survey regarding the ROI of online press releases. I have to agree with Larissa, I’m little surprised that the main goal of the release was to reach media. Frankly, press releases should be to reach your target audiences – media find out about your stuff when you contact them =)

What’s the Trend? – TechCrunch has a useful post about apps to help find trends in Facebook walls and Twitter. This is useful for getting a sense of what people are writing about and tracking it. Wonder when someone will combine Google with these other apps for one big trending application?

Customer Approved – Golden Practices provides some useful tips on how to get those tricky customer testimonials. What I usually do is offer to draft a quote for customers, but it’s based on what they’ve told me over the phone. I like some of the approach and will file this away for my next customer call.

This week’s Weekly Articles looks at a variety of topics from Twitter, search to spamming bloggers. Another interesting article highlights lead scoring benefits and how sometimes a bad pitch isn’t really a bad pitch.  You can click on the Weekly Articles tag for previous issues or subscribe to the Weekly Articles Feed.

If you feel that you have an article that would fit in the weekly articles, leave a comment and I’ll check it our for the following week’s digest. Enjoy.

Tweets for You – David Berkowitz of Search Insider does a great job reviewing tools that can help you search on Twitter.  Frankly, Twitter is losing out on a huge opportunity here. Instead of inserting ads in the tweets, they could have done a Tweetsearch and done a similar model to Google. Lost opportunity anyone?

Out of Focus – The Church of the Customer highlights how Vocus’ practices are pissing off bloggers. I thankfully haven’t had the “honor” of being added to this database, but they have pissed me off by incessantly calling me for services. I told them to stop calling.

Blending the New with the Old – Center for Media Research highlights a new report on blended search results.

“Since users have historically ignored the vertical offerings of the major search engines, a marketer might conclude that users aren’t interested in that type of content, and as a result, not invest in producing or optimizing digital assets,” said Robert Murray, President, iProspect. “But that would be a mistake – the findings of this study make that quite clear. Marketers have a great opportunity to claim more search shelf space by optimizing their news, image, and video assets.”

Respecting Embargoes – Rick Turoczy of CenterNetworks writes the first of three parts of how to manage the embargo process with bloggers. Check out my previous post about embargoes in the brave new world of PR. 

The Value of Lead Scoring – Laura Ramos wrote a post about the value of lead scoring for determining campaign effectiveness. This was prompted by her recent briefing with Eloqua. It’s surprising to me that lead scoring is not a normal part of marketing. Maybe I’m spoiled that my company has incorporated lead scoring into our products.   

Good Pitch, Yet Could’ve Been Better – Scott Monty of Social Media Marketing highlights a recent pitch titled “Do Taxes and Social Media Mix?” At first, he thought it was a spam pitch but realized that there was relevance to his blog. His post highlights the importance of participating or being more relevant to getting a pitch noticed. He succinctly states:

“I probably would have been even more likely to pay attention to it had the author been participating in my community, used a different subject line or been a little less scripted in her email.”

The Weekly Articles list is back! Thanks for everyone’s patience as the last few weeks have been a bit hectic. I frankly haven’t been able to get through my RSS feeds, which at one point, numbered over 600.

I will now try to keep up with my blogging duties in the future =):

Bordering Cultural Differences – AdAge highlighted the issues of cultural advertising in an increasingly global world. Frankly, I thought this was funny and was obviously meant for a specific market.

A Selling Blog – HubSpot’s Small Business Blog is one of my favs for getting useful tips. This recent posting provides anecdotal examples of how the company’s blog has helped the sales process. This is a great example of how a blog is helping a B2B company.

Inside the Media Blogger – I couldn’t get to the full interview referenced in this posting from PR Communications. However, the interview tidbits provided in the posting give you an inside look at how reporters view blogging.

It’s the Content Stupid – The Flack highlighted that sometimes it’s not the format of the press release that attracts attention, it’s the content within.

I’m a little late in posting my Weekly Articles. I will try to post another set of articles at the end of the week. However, future weekly updates may be more spotty as I’m focused on an upcoming launch. You can click on the Weekly Articles tag for previous issues or subscribe to the Weekly Articles Feed.

Disclosing Everything? – Scott’s Morning Brew discusses how Mitch Ratcliffe of ZDNet discloses his professional affiliations. This raises an interesting question about ethical blogging. And in the spirit of full disclosure, I work for ON24. Mitch previously invested in ON24 when the company was a financial multimedia services company.

Next Gen Marketing – Richard Karpinski of BtoB Magazine’s wrote a recent article about next generation tech marketing. The article provides a high-level view of widgets, social feeds, mash ups and more.

More than Media Relations – a shel of my former self highlights why PR is a two-way dialogue. Though media relations may have the “highest” visibility, Shel discusses how this is a small portion of what PR truly is.

The True Measurement of Social Media? – In this post, KD Paine highlights why trying to develop a standard way to social media is not possible. Rather, she ends her post, “Sorry to inform you folks, but a standard metric will not solve the problem. Listening to your customers will.”  

More than Media Databases - Peter Himler of the Flack blog provides his perspective on how Vocus is systematically spamming people in their media database. Frankly, in the age of permission marketing, these databases should be forced to take people out of the database upon request. 

Quality Versus Quantity – Brian Carroll of B2B Lead Generation Blog is an expert on lead nurturing. In this post. Carroll brings up the issue of measuring the effectiveness of programs by cost-per-lead. Rather, he advocates looking at the cost-per-opportunity. This way, better quality leads are forwarded to sale. Sending quantity doesn’t do anything if sales views the leads as “poor.” Hence, you may be generating lots of leads and blame the sales team for not following up. But who’s truly at fault?

Online Marketers Don’t Feel Recession – Betsy Schiffman of Epicenter writes that online marketers are bullish despite overall industry indicators of a recession. Unlike the dot.com crash, if there is a recession, online marketing will weather it better than other types of marketing spends, such as print advertisements.

technorati tags: BtoB Magazine Brian Carroll Epicenter KD Paine Marketing Media databases Media relations Morning Brew Online marketers PR measurement Social media The Flack Weekly Articles
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icerocket tags: BtoB Magazine Brian Carroll Epicenter KD Paine Marketing Media databases Media relations Morning Brew Online marketers PR measurement Social media The Flack Weekly Articles

Here is this week’s summary of articles. You can click on the Weekly Articles tag for previous issues or subscribe to the Weekly Articles Feed.

Building Relationships – Valerie Valeria Maltoni of Conversation Agent discusses how revealing yourself is a key part of building relationships. As part of this post, Valerie provides her 4 good and bad things to do when pitching her.

Reinventing Journalism – Though written last week, I found Scott Karp’s post on Feb. 20th about reinventing journalism interesting. If more publications move to including links from other sources, how does this impact PR? And from a press room perspective, what is the value of creating a useful resource that also links to “competitive” coverage?

One Chair Creates Conversation -The Lonely Marketer had an interesting post about how a person created internal conversation at her company. All you need is two chairs, a sign and a person willing to listen. IMO, the last part is sometimes the most difficult thing to find.

The Emperor Has No Clothes – I frankly couldn’t improve on the title of this post by Michelle Golden of Golden Practices. In this post, Michelle discussed how her brutal honesty in reviewing CPA websites has won her fans. This wasn’t done with “marketing” in mind, but rather to share her expertise and provide counsel. This positions her as a thought leader and expert. And isn’t that what PR and marketing is all about?

technorati tags: Authenticity Conversation Customer Journalism Marketing Relationship Weekly Article
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icerocket tags: Authenticity Conversation Customer Journalism Marketing Relationship Weekly Article

Sorry everyone. Work’s been a bit busy this week and I haven’t had time to put this week’s Weekly Articles together.  With that said, this past week provided closure to an account I mentioned here previously - Blu-ray.  Here are some articles for your reading pleasure:

Sony’s Blu-ray wins HD DVD battler – UK Guardian

Blu-ray Wins Battle in the High-Def War – US News & Report

Blu-Ray wins, who cares? – Silicon Valley Watcher

Blu-Ray wins, HD DVD loses, Probably – CNet Blogs

You can click on the Weekly Articles tag for previous issues or subscribe to the Weekly Articles Feed.  

Here is this week’s summary of articles. You can click on the Weekly Articles tag for previous issues or subscribe to the Weekly Articles Feed.

Measuring Social Media – Hubspot’s blog provides some good tips for measuring your social media marketing efforts. I’m surprised that the number of links to your blogs and Technorati Authority weren’t included as ways to measure your social media.

BRITE Conversations – Valerie Maltoni provides some food for thought in advance of an interactive CMO Summit being held at the Center for Global Brand Leadership. She discusses some of the challenges that organizations face when trying to innovate and build brands. I wonder how resource constraints and changing priorities fits in the picture? =)

Don’t Do this When Promoting Your Event -Mac McIntosh writes the Sales Lead Insights blog. He provides his 13 Don’ts When Promoting Events. Great insight if your tasked with managing a roundtable or dinner event for your client.

Teaching Old Dogs New Tricks – Brendan points to an example of how journalists and PR folks responded to the Bird Flu. Instead of being a short lived story, it extended over 10 days. I haven’t heard the podcast yet, but it seems worthwhile based on Brendan’s summary.

Is this PR Person You? – David Meerman Scott poses what the future PR job description would look like. It’s most likely, “You haven’t graduated high school yet but you’ve already started 2 start ups, sold another and angel investing in another. You’re invited to beta test EVERY new software offering and your recommendation can make or break the company…”=P

Seeing You Face-to-Face – Sheila Scarborough of the every dot connects blog about the value of meeting people in person at conferences. I know blackberry’s have been banned from company meetings. I wonder if conferences will ban computers and PDAs to keep people focused on the content and people versus Twittering the event?

With Analysts, It’s All In the Briefing – Jeremiah Owyang provides great insight into how to successfully brief analysts. Great advice on how to get the most out of briefings. Remember, analysts can provide a wealth of information in addition to learning about your company.

OK – either I’ve been lazy lately (which is possible) or I’m just not finding things that I want to share. I think I need to expand my list of reading. Until then, here’s this week’s articles.

You can click on the Weekly Articles tag for previous issues or subscribe to the Weekly Articles Feed.

Email Marketing Gone Bad – PR Week demonstrated what NOT to do with email marketing. Per BL Ochman, PR Week spammed thousands of subscribers and exposed passwords.

Pack a Twitter? – This was a topic addressed by Chris Brogan and Dave Fleet. The idea is creating a way for people to find who to follow on Twitter. This post provides advice on using Twitter Packs. Here’s the original post from Chris Brogan. Granted, that depends if Twitter can be stable enough to even allow you to find, follow and tweet!

Beyond the Age of Conversation – Frankly, I go through different stages of reading lots of marketing, PR and technology books and times when I just can’t. The Age of Conversation is one of those books that is waiting anxiously for me to read. I plan to. I just haven’t gotten to it. So it’s interesting that the folks behind the first project are soliciting contributors for the next book. I’m tempted. If you’re planning to contribute, let me know in the comments.

Designing the Right Email Newsletter – I know that this doesn’t usually fall on PR, but I know it does happen. For those asked to write and design an email newsletter, here’s an interesting report on email newsletters from MarketingSherpa. Act now. Only available for one week to non-subscribers.

 This week’s summary is shorter than usual. Let me know if you have any recommendations for make this a more useful list of information. You can click on the Weekly Articles tag for previous issues or subscribe to the Weekly Articles Feed:  

It’s Good to Be Delicious – I so love MarketingPilgrim because I always get nuggets of wisdom that help with PR and marketing. Yahoo is starting to include delicious information into the search results. Whether or not this will augment search rankings, it’s good to know how many other people find the information useful. From a PR perspective, all press releases, marketing materials, etc. should be bookmarked on delicious. You never know who is looking for what where.  

Fact Check Everything – Dave Fleet of Fleet PR writes an important post about fact checking everything first. By just omitting some details, the meaning can be completely different.  

Jumping on the Green Bandwagon – This article in MarketingProfs highlights the recent trend to jump on the green bandwagon. I think this is a key thing to keep in mind as companies proceed with sustainability and green programs.  

Online Reputation Management – Paul Dunay provides good tips for managing your online reputation.  Monitor – Respond – Optimize. Check out my previous posts about online reputation management and the tools I used to manage my online reputation.

Effective New Media Mediums for Marketers -  eMarketer is summarized some recent reports about what are effective marketing mediums. For my company, I found it interesting that 54% of marketers found webinars effective. Who knew!