The last few days have seen a higher then usual number of Gloom and Doom posts proclaiming that “Blogging is Dead” and the “Golden Age” of blogging has come to end. A few people even think that blogs have been dead so long they are ripe for a retro-comeback. Discounting the general web fixation of declaring things “Dead” every so often (Bon Jovi anyone?), is it true? Is blogging dead? The main post I’m referring to is from Jeremiah Owyang. The 2nd post is a response to that from Brian Solis and for good measure here is one from Mark Evans.

No. Not only is blogging still very much alive, it’s far from “Living on a Prayer”. Blogging might appear to have taken up residence in the digital hospice, but that’s just because blogging has become the norm. It is an accepted, integral part of the web. More people read and write blogs then ever before, so how can it be on life support?

Many pundits are declaring blogging “dead” because it is no longer the newest, hippest kid on the block. That’s certainly true. If you examine who the people writing the eulogies for the blog are, they are overwhelmingly tech reporters. To a tech reporter, a blog is old news. They’ve been around forever, don’t have the exciting, shiny new start-up street credibility or cache of being the new kid on the block anymore. There isn’t much of a story there for a tech reporter. In the tradition of great reporters throughout the ages, when there is no story...make one up!

Blogs have become one of the main components of the internet. They are a standard, accepted backbone of the web . The other 99.9% of the web audience who aren’t tech writers realizes that a good chunk of their news, reviews, opinions and media are consumed via blogs. Blogs are so much a part of the web landscape today, that readers just see them as “websites”, not as a wholly separate entity and writing format.

The shifting nature of what a blog actually is, plays a big part in the perception some have that they are “dead”. BoingBoing. TechCrunch. Mashable. MetaFilter. Slashdot. When you think of these sites, do you think of a dying medium? Certainly not, All of these sites bring in massive amounts of traffic, regularly break news and interesting stories and have large and engaged user communities. Each of these sites is also most certainly a blog. This is the point of contention. While all of these sites are blogs, most readers just think of them as “websites” or “news sites”. The definition of what we think of as a blog has changed. A blog is no longer an overly long, scrolling page with spinning HTML stars where a 13 year old goth girl reprints Cure lyrics and discusses her depression to an audience of 8 unique viewers per day. Many of the most popular, and most respected “news” sites, are blogs.

Either way you look at it, it’s a game of semantics and definitions. Whether we choose to call a site like Mashable a blog, or something else, is at the heart of things, unimportant. The site, and its brethren are alive and kicking. The blog is not dead, it has just gone through a name change in some cases and a perception change in others. Blogs have become such a dominant force on the web, that we no longer separate them out from the other sites out there. This is an excellent thing, and a more potent argument for blogs being alive and well. So to all the writers out there, declaring the Death of Blogging, I have one question to ask. Where did you publish that article declaring the blog is dead? I thought so…

Over the last few days, one of the most unbelievable and incredibly visible PR disasters has been ripping its’ way through the Geek-O-Sphere: “The Ocean Marketing Incident”. If you haven’t had the twisted pleasure of reading the first hand accounts that make up “The Ocean Marketing Incident” for yourself, I won’t deprive you of that entertainment. Penny Arcade, Kotaku, Venture Beat and scores of other websites have done an excellent job reporting the facts and delivering some scathing opinions. Instead, I think there are some lessons about how to properly operate in the online public relations world and how to interact with geek culture. Being both a lifelong geek and having spent most of my working life in PR, this is a subject that interests me both professionally and personally.

Never Bully A Geek
In my entire working life in the PR sphere, I can’t recall another incident that tore through the web so quickly, and with so much vitriol as “The Ocean Marketing Incident”. Why? Geeks don’t hate anything as much as they hate a bully. Sadly, the web is currently filled with fake geeks. In the last few years, it has become fashionable to throw in a pair of oversized, non-prescription glasses, profess your love of Zelda as a kid, tell everyone you know what Linux is and proclaim yourself a Geek. What’s missing from these credentials is the years of being picked on, bullied and abused for lugging around DnD books, quoting Dr. Who and wearing Spider Man t-shirts.

Paul Christoforo, the President of Ocean Marketing is a bully. He sent his customer several emails that were filled with the kind of loudmouthed threats that geeks have been hearing on the playground for decades. Christoforo sells very specialized video game controllers, and he knows his audience: hardcore gamers. He assumed that since he was dealing with a gamer, he could play internet tough guy, and abuse his clientele. It was this abuse, and especially the petty, threatening nature of the comments, that rallied the nerds of the web world together to take on Ocean Marketing. The second that the email exchange crossed from “dissatisfied customer” to “geek being bullied”, it was a given that the online nerd posse would close ranks to defend one of their own against an outsider.

PR types, marketers, journalists, bullies or anyone that deals with the numerous geeky subcultures on the web should take note of how this situation played out. There are some valuable takeaways here.

Geeks absolutely loathe bullies. The reasons above explain why, so be certain to keep this in mind during all your web interactions. You may be tempted to act like a creep, throw your verbal muscle around and get pushy. This isn’t “Revenge of the Nerds”. Just a whiff of bullying is all it takes to get the nerd herd riled up, the Lego pitchforks out and the Minecraft torches digitally flickering.

Internet Gangsterism 101: Do You Know Who I Know?
As the email exchanges between Ocean Marketing and their customer “Dave” continued on, and got more and more insane, Christoforo began dropping names. If you’ve spent more then a minute working in PR, and you’re any good at your job, chances are you know quite a few editors and journalists. Christoforo decided that he would use his “connections” in the reporting world to both justify and excuse his inexcusable and irrational behavior. This was a huge mistake.  Most journos don’t have a problem working with flacks who do their job well. In many cases we can make their lives easier and help them create better content by providing access, interviews, products and information. However, this is somewhat of an unspoken rule that good PR people operate in the background. Journalists appreciate the option to keep their sources, including PR, their own. They may or may not feel the need to openly discuss how, or who they interact with in the PR world. Using the names of editors and reporters that you have relationships with as a bludgeon to scare someone is an absolute breach of confidence of the worst kind.

As soon as Christoforo started naming names, he lost any credibility or goodwill he might have accumulated in the press sphere. When the journalists he identified in his emails discovered he was bandying their names about, they couldn’t distance themselves from this guy fast enough. Almost immediately, tweets, blog posts and emails went out declaring that Christoforo’s “connections” wanted nothing to do with him. In some cases they went even further, and denounced him as a liar, a creep and explicitly called his behavior into question.

The Hack/Flack Relationship is sacred - don’t kiss and tell. When you work in PR, a certain level of discretion and privacy is expected. The journalists you work with should have the option to make the call, and be able to decide how their stories are written and how much they want to reveal. There is nothing more pathetic then using “Who You Know” as a weapon. This isn’t a bad made for TV mob film.

There Is No “Undo” Command for Being a Creep
After a long series of back and forth emails, Dave, the very dissatisfied customer in this scenario, decided to take his story to the press, and CC’ed several well know game and tech journalists into the email exchange with Ocean Marketing. Unbelievably, Christoforo then decided to get into it with these writers. Christoforo continued dropping names and flaunting his “connections”. He began belittling Penny Arcade in an email to Mike Krahulik, the sites editor, saying that the site was tiny and insignificant. As a PR person, working in the tech and game sector, you should know Penny Arcade is one of the big players, much beloved by gamers and that they also run the very popular PAX conferences. Even if you somehow missed this major factoid, you should have the good sense as a PR pro to run a quick search on a site before you begin ripping them apart to their founder (then again, as a PR pro you probably shouldn’t be ripping anyone apart...).

Do Your Research! A big part of working in PR is knowing the space you work in. Having detailed knowledge of who the players are, where they write, and their outlook on your industry is part of your job. In 2011, where this information is just a click away it is absolutely inexcusable to plead ignorance. Each and every time you’re about to click “Send”, conjure up the voice of your favorite member of the GI Joe team (I think of Shipwreck...) and remember their immortal wisdom: “Knowing is half the battle!”

I was going to add a second point above, pointing out all the trouble you can get into by verbally attacking someone before Googling them to find out if they are a big player in your space or not. Then I decided against it. Some people are just jerks. If you’re a creep that gets off on attacking people, then you’re in the wrong line of business. I’m sure there is a vivisection lab somewhere that is hiring.

Good PR Advice from Hall and Oates

The way the “Ocean Marketing Incident” has shaken out on the web over the last 24 hours, it appears that both Ocean Marketing and Paul Christoforo are both complete write offs. They won’t ever be working in the PR or gaming world again. While he won’t be getting much pity from me, I do think it’s a bit sad, because this entire ugly incident could have been prevented by following what is essentially the Golden Rule of PR. What I like to call “The Hall and Oates Rule”.

When I started my first PR gig at an agency, back in the age of 3.5 floppies and monitors that weighed 45 pounds, my boss sat me down my first day on the job to fill me in on the landscape of where I would be working. The first thing she told me was, “I can, and will read your emails”.  My initial thought was that this was an unnecessary, creepy invasion of privacy. Then she explained why. There is nothing that I should ever be writing to a client, or a co-worker that I wouldn’t want to have read out loud in public at a meeting. This is truly excellent advice. If Paul Christoforo kept this in mind while he was replying to Dave, this situation would have turned out entirely differently. It may have even ended with a happy customer and Ocean Marketing looking like heroes for solving the issues that caused this out of control kerfuffle in the first place.

Act like anything you write will be read publicly (Private Eyes - They’re Watching You. They See Your Every Move!) There is no such thing as privacy in the PR world. Any email, tweet or blog post you write can and will be shared, forwarded, screen shotted, passed around and commented on. Write like your Mom is going to read it. Would she approve of the tone and what you’re saying? Always keep this idea at the top of your mind when writing, especially if you’re ticked off or angry. Before you hit send, take a second and give what you wrote the Dear Old Mom Test. Would it embarrass her, your boss, your client or yourself? The hit delete and start again.

It’s too late for Ocean Marketing and Paul Christoforo. Any apologies, change of Twitter handles, connections to the Mayor of Boston or hired goons are a day late and any dollars short at this point. The “Ocean Marketing Incident” will go down as one of the great, and most entertaining, PR screw ups in history. When agencies warn rookies to be careful on the job, they will tell them to Google “Ocean Marketing” as a cautionary tale. My advice may be too late to help Ocean Marketing, but I hope it can help prevent someone else from stepping on a digital land mine like this. As amusing as I find this whole incident, I actually really hate that it happened. After doing a bit of research on Paul Christoforo, and reading his various apologies, I see that he has a newborn child, and wants to make things right in order to survive. This won’t happen. Take this as a cautionary tale flacks.

Now you need to come up with a strategy, an idea and a voice.

Before you start hitting publish on your computer (or smart phone) you need to stop and think about what you’re going to be saying and how you’re going to be saying it.

There are a lot of theories and examples and how to’s out there in the world for you to read and take from. And I’m not here to tell you that any of them are more right or more wrong than any other. But, I will tell you how I feel and why I feel that way. That’s why I’m writing this post.

Be Conversational. I can’t stress this enough. Think back to when you were a student in elementary or high school or even post-secondary classes, were you more engaged and attentive in a lecture format that had you staring with glazed over eyes at a talking head or were you more engaged and excited about what you were being told when you were part of the conversation? For me it was the later. I wanted to be talked to not talked at. I wanted to be part of the discussion. I wanted to raise my hand and be called on. And that’s exactly how I feel about blogging. I want to talk to my readers like they are friends sitting in the living room with me. And that’s how I wanted to be spoken to as well.

Don’t Be Afraid To Brag. If your team is doing fantastic, amazing, terrific things - tell the world! Your people deserve the spotlight and your future clients deserve to know that you are awesome. You may want to hold onto a little bit of humility so you don’t turn into that kid who is always talking about herself in the third person and boasting about her resume, but at the same time you’ll want to slip in some of those accomplishments and make yourself stand out from the crowd. Use your blog space as an opportunity to make announcements about big projects or parties or donations or sponsorships. Use it to tell us about the great new community manager you hired in the office. Use it to tell us the things that you are proud of. Just remember to be humble.

Teach, Don’t Preach. This is a huge issue for me. If you know something, believe something, trust in something with every fibre of your being and you want to tell me about it - DO IT! However, do it in a way that doesn’t leave me feeling like you’re telling me to think like you lest I turn myself into an idiot. Give me a list of reasons why I should believe you and follow your lead. Tell me how green the grass is on the other side. Heck, give me directions on how to get over the fence. Just don’t push me over the fence if I’m not climbing fast enough for you. If you’re talking about something that I’m interested in and want to know more about and get into, I will. You don’t have to be my crossing guard. Just show me that you’re excited and knowledgeable and give me the map. I’ll do the rest.

Proofread. This may seem like a simple step, but it’s one that is far too often missed or done so quickly that errors go live online when they could be avoided. There are going to be times when your fingers slip, your mind starts a sentence in one tense and ends it in another or a word just gets misspelled. It happens. The cool thing is that you can make me forget that it happens by cleaning up your copy before it goes live. Whether you have someone else in the office give your piece a once over or you take a little break, run it through spelling and grammar checks and then send it to the world is your choice. Just make sure that it’s not a step that you skip. Trust me.

These are my 4 biggest things for you to keep in mind. As you go on and get more comfortable with your blog you will find that it starts to come easy. You’ll know what point you want to get across and how you want to do it. You’ll be tearing up the blogosphere and will have people begging for more content. That’s a good position to be in. Prepare yourself, you’re going to get there.

Oh, I forgot one thing - Have Fun! You’re not writing a text book, you’re running a blog. Enjoy yourself, when users can tell you’re enjoying yourself they’ll be back to share in the good times when you post again. 

The good folks at Wordpress made version 3.3 available on Tuesday and website owners all over the world are jumping on board. There have been 65 million Wordpress downloads since 3.0 was introduced in 2010 and it’s estimated that 15% of websites are running on Wordpress and 22% of new websites are using the platform.

Wordpress 3.3 is a big step forward in a few ways and offers new and updated features and functions for all users.

Some of the highlights include:

• Drag and Drop Media Uploading. No more clicking to browse though folders and files. All you have to do is grab your media and drag it into the box. As a big plus this is an all-in-one media centre. Whether you’re pulling in an image, video or audio file you have less to do and a faster system to do it with. The new media uploader also saves time with its multiple upload capabilities and general ease of use options. Your positioning, sizing, tagging and caption functions remain the same with Wordpress 3.3, only the uploading has changed. And it has changed for the better.
• Small Screen Optimization. With the boom in the mobile market there are more and more bloggers and site administrators working on the go from smartphones and tablets. Wordpress 3.3 has created an easier and sleeker admin option. The key to the small screen optimization is the left side menu bar. The side bar automatically collapses in a small screen format. While not having your menus may sound like a detriment to your work, it gives you so much more space that you won’t miss it at all.
• Fly-Out Menus. Less clicking is more productive. Wordpress 3.3 is upping your productivity one admin menu at a time. Everything on the left side looks the same with the layout of administrative options but it’s smoother, cleaner, faster and easier to find what you need and get to work on your website. Instead of expanding and contracting menus when you’re working on your website you can simply hover over the menu that you need and have the expanded options appear for you. When you stop hovering the options disappear. Time, space and headaches are saved.
• Tumblr Importer. With the growing (and growing) popularity of Tumblr there had to be a step taken by the good people at Wordpress for importing posted content. With a one click plugin you can move your content from your existing Tumblr account to your Wordpress website. Multi-site web publishing (and life) just got a lot easier. If you’ve got a release, report or meme you need to bring over this new gadget will get the job done.

What does all of this mean to you? If you are a blogger, designer or Wordpress website administrator it will not take long for you to notice the difference. And the differences that you notice will only help you. From Tumblr imports to media uploads to fly-out menus, you will start to see your experience improve in your day-to-day Wordpress life.

By no means is this the be all and end all of Wordpress improvements, but it’s a great step forward and a perfect holiday gift to all of us!

Ladies and gentlemen, we are only days away from HoHoTO 2011 at The Mod Club (722 College St.) and everyone in Toronto is getting excited. And here at The Blog Studio we are especially excited this year.

Not only are we proud to be a sponsor of this amazing annual event supporting The Daily Bread Food Bank but we are also offering a major raffle prize to HoHoTO attendees. Raffle ticket purchasers or silent auction participants will have the chance to win $2000 worth of services from The Blog Studio. Whether you need a redesign, a new design, some strategy, some advice or some sick dance moves - we’ve got it for you!

I know, sounds pretty great right?!

Since 2008 this event has been raising money to help feed the needy in Toronto. To date the funds raised through 3 Christmas and 1 summer event has surpassed $165,000. This year though the expectations have risen and the organizers of HoHoTO aim to bring in more than $65,000. With corporate and personal donations already exceeding $50,000 they are well on their way, but still need your help.

If you would like to join The Blog Studio as sponsors of the party that Twitter built you can contact the team at sponsors@hohoto.ca or make an online donation RIGHT HERE!

If you want to come to the party (and trust me, you want to be there), follow the converstaion on twitter - I’m sure some people are giving away tickets since it’s sold out. But don’t wait. It will be the biggest and best holiday party in Toronto this season.

Want to know more about HoHoTO 2011? Check them out on Twitter @hohoto and #hohoto or on Facebook or at www.HoHoTO.ca!

Doors open at 7pm on Thursday, December 15th. I hope we see you there!

It’s an interesting question that nobody can really answer. But even still, we are all invested in the outcome.

Businesses big and small continue to push forward with social media tools and there are no signs to show that those efforts will slow in the next year. In fact, many large businesses have set themselves goals to increase their presence and engagement in 2012. And, to me, that’s the key. It has taken some properties longer than expected to realize that engagement is the important indicator. Large numbers of Likes and Followers don’t mean nearly as much if people aren’t interested in the content. It’s the reason that I’m not a fan of buying numbers.

Personally I would like to see more conversation taking place in the social media sphere. I would like to see companies, both large and small, starting the conversation rather than reacting to it. There are still a lot of opportunities for businesses to publish traditional print and online ads. Social Media doesn’t need to be used as the primary sales and marketing tool. Engage with fans, followers and watch as your customer base rises.

The current numbers and growth projections show that Facebook should reach 1 billion users in 2012 - that’s billion, with a B. The current numbers have Facebook at more than 800 million active users. They also show more than 350 million users actively engaging on a mobile device. I would not be surprised to learn that by the end of 2012 Facebook has surpassed the 1 billion user mark with over 500 million users engaged using mobile devices.

Twitter should also continue to see substantial growth in 2012. In September 2011 it was announced that the site had surpassed 100 million active users. At the same time they mentioned mobile user numbers of approximately 55% with 40 percent quarter on quarter growth over the last 3 to 4 quarters. While many people argue over the validity of any Twitter numbers because of the large percentage of spam accounts, there is no denying that the micro-blogging space is only getting more popular and becoming more mainstream.

Point: Mobile is only going to become bigger and more impact-full. Users are going to expect and demand more access to information from their mobile device. They are going to want more real-time experiences on the go rather than when they are sitting down with a coffee and their laptop. Businesses both large and small are going to have to accommodate those desires or risk alienating clientele that are looking for instant answers when making decisions.

Now, there is a chance that something very spectacular will be released and change the way we interact online. Maybe there will be a new comer to the social media world in 2012 and we will all receive invites to join a network that offers us the chance to connect and share in an new and exciting way. Or perhaps Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and Linkedin will bring us new options that we haven’t even dreamt of.

Either way, we have to be ready to move forward. Whether we continue on with the same tools that we have today, or we are given a drawer full of awesome tools to work with, social media is not going away - and I’m happy for that!

What do you expect from 2012? What do you want to see? And what is your plan?

Let us know and get yourself ready, 2012 is just around the corner!

The Supreme Court of Canada has just made a landmark decision that will have a huge effect on all of that work with the web and social media. To sum the decision up in the simplest terms, a hyper link cannot be libel. This means that you can publish any link on the web, without being concerned that someone will sue you because they don’t like the content. This is a huge victory for web freedom.

How did the Supreme Court come to this decision? The case began with a Vancouver business man, named Mr Crookes who filed suit against a Mr Newton, a newspaper publisher.  Mr Newton’s paper published an article, with some links that portrayed Mr. Crooke’s business interests in a negative light. Mr. Crooke’s files a libel suit, attempting to have the newspaper remove the links from the story.

Throughout the history of the web, suits like this have been fairly common. Because of the distributed nature of the web, the outcome of these suits really runs the gamut. In some instances, sites have been forced to remove links, strike entire articles, issue apologies and pay monetary damages. In other cases, courts have upheld the right of newspapers to publish what they like in the interest of free speech. There is also the issue of what court has jurisdiction in many cases. If a site is created in one country, hosted in a second country, and the aggrieved party is in a third, who gets to make the final legal decision? That is one reason this particular case is so important. Since all the parties involved are Canadian, it was actually possible for a decision to be reached.

While freedom of speech, and freedom of the press are certainly at issue here, the justices actually based their judgment on another factor entirely: footnotes! The court views hyperlinks as footnotes, that is reference materials. It’s a huge positive that the court is clearly tech savvy enough to understand and support the idea that an open web cannot function without the use of hyperlinks, and by stifling the use of hyperlinks you threaten the very ability of the web itself to function.

The court explained:

“The Internet cannot, in short, provide access to information without hyperlinks. The potential ‘chill’ in how the Internet functions could be devastating, since primary article authors would unlikely want to risk liability for linking to another article over whose changeable content they have no control.”

This highlights the idea that no one is “forcing” you to click a link, so in essence the person including a link in their work, is not responsible for the content that they link to. Overall, this is excellent news for bloggers, online journalists and users of social media. The Supreme Court of Canada is guaranteeing your right to write, publish and link to materials without worrying that someone who disagrees with your content will easily be able to sue you. This is a huge event in the history of the web, and will likely set precedent in other courts and countries when similar issues pop up.

We encourage you to read the entire Decision of the Supreme Court of Canada, to really dig into the details of the case. It’s compelling material for anyone who works on the web or creates contents. In the meantime, we can all enjoy a big win for web freedom courtesy of the Canadian Supreme Court. 

You’ve no doubt noticed quite a few big changes on Facebook over the last few weeks. There’s a good chance that you’ve missed a few of the biggest, but potentially most valuable changes because they’re hidden away in the Facebook Ads units. In general, we’re big fans of Facebook ads. They’re relatively cheap. They can target a very specific audience. They supply you with great analytics and Facebook has an absolutely enormous user base. Depending on the project, Facebook ads can really make a huge difference in driving traffic and creating success.

So what’s new with Facebook ads? The biggest change is the way they’re displayed. Facebook ads now appear like they’re posts from your friends. They are clearly marked as ads by being labelled “Sponsored”, but physically look much more like a link that your friends have chosen to share with you. The piece of screen real estate that the ads occupy has changed as well. They’re right above the news feed, making them seem even more like shared content from friends. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Some people will say that it’s a bit shady, having ads appear so similar to what your friends pass around. Then again, if you’re running an ad, you obviously want people to click on it, so the more “friendly” the ad appears, the better results it is likely to get.

The social changes to Facebook ads aren’t purely cosmetic though, the ads have become more social in the back end too. The new ads actually interact with the user. For example, if a friend clicks on a certain ad, when you see that ad it will let you know “Your Friend Jane Doe has clicked on this ad.” This is a powerful tool for marketers. Certainly we don’t use, buy or enjoy everything that are friends like or recommend. However, we are much more likely to click an ad to hear a song, watch a video or read a book if a friend enjoys it. Word of mouth and personal recommendations are still the most powerful marketing tools there is, despite the 21st Century social media approach featured here. Letting recommendations from friends creep into the ads provides am enormous amount of added value to a marketing campaign.

The targeting and analytics that Facebook provides has always been what makes the ads so effective. You can drill down to a specific group on the network based on their interests, likes, dislikes or just about anything else that is contained in their profile. The next time you begin to create a Facebook ad campaign, it would be a smart move to check out the new Page Insights tool. This lets you find out who is looking at your Facebook Pages, what they’re into and how they engage with your content. This information is invaluable when setting up a marketing campaign on Facebook, or in the larger social media universe.  You can finally track what effect the content you post on Facebook is having in a meaningful way. This same data is also being made available through an API, so the possibilities for the analytics obsessed are really limitless.

The new changes to Facebook are a giant bonus for anyone working in marketing and social media. While they’re still too fresh to make a final assessment, it isn’t difficult to see that it’s a massive improvement, and will only make creating, targeting and tracking the effectiveness of Facebook as a marketing platform better. 

What is T.co?
URL shorteners are a funny thing. They exist to be used exclusively with Twitter, and sprung up due to the 140 character Tweet limit. Despite their existence being wholly created by the Twitter framework, up until this point, Twitter has left the world of URL shortening to third parties. It’s easy to see why this is strange, especially from a development and UX perspective. With the rollout of T.co, Twitter is now in the game with their own link shortening service.

Before you sharpen the pitchforks and head towards The Old Mill, in many ways T.co will function transparently. According to the devs at Twitter, T.co isn’t about giving you more room to tweet with smaller links: it’s mainly about stopping spam. When T.co shortens a link, it’s compared to a list of known spam and scam domains to keep them from being passed around. If you’ve been using Twitter for a while, then you certainly have fond memories of various link based viruses, phishing attacks and schemes that made their way around the site. Unobtrusively filtering every link that is shared is an effective and thorough security measure. If it works as promised, it should just about eradicate shady doing on the social network. That is no easy feat for any network.

Why T.co is a True Game Changer
Because T.co is essentially part of the Twitter application, it behaves quite differently compared to other popular URL shorteners like Bit.ly and TinyURL. The first thing you’ll notice is that T.co works automatically to shorten links, whether you like it or not. At the moment, links less than 20 characters won’t automatically trigger T.co, but this is set to change in the next few weeks. At that point, all links shared on Twitter will automatically be shortened by T.co. Now pay attention! This is the game changer: Each individual Tweet is now a separate entity unto itself, which can be uniquely identified by its’ code! Why is this a hugely important change? It is now possible to track the impact of individual Tweets!

The first question that business, agency and power Twitter users are asking is, “What about my analytics?” It’s an extremely valid concern. The in-depth analytics supplied by Bit.ly and similar services have become an integral part of any Twitter campaign worth the server space that runs it. The good news is that the Twitter development team claims that you can still use your favorite link shortening service to trick the analytics. Even though your already shortened link will be shortened a second time by T.co, the data collection features should all work properly [ https://support.twitter.com/articles/109623 ]

The bad news is that while T.co apparently tracks all types of data, this information will be kept solely by the in-house teams, and unavailable to the public, at least for the time being. I would find it hard to believe that Twitter won’t make an analytics dashboard available down the line, but for time being you’ll need to rely on whatever tools you are already using. It isn’t a “bug” by the strict definition, but having to shorten a link to gather analytics, and then have T.co shorten it again does seem like a waste of time. Especially because you Don’t have the option to opt out.

Then again, you might not want to opt out, because of that game changer mentioned above: identifying and tracking single Tweets.  Since we can now track individual Tweets for the first time, an entire new realm of analysis will open up. Up until now, when you checked the traffic to your website, you certainly saw Twitter. When you look at the referrers supplying traffic to your websites, until the roll out of T.co, you would just see Twitter.com for any traffic directed to your site. Now, the referrers will be shown as specific Tweets. This change makes Twitter many times more useful. It will also allow smart social media types to drill down and create unbelievably effective campaigns.

With the ability to track Tweets individually, incredible new possibilities open up:
-Track referrer traffic without the need for 3rd party software
-Track the power of a Tweet, WITHOUT a link
-Monitor traffic while setting off an action step
-Do A/B comparison testing of specific Tweets to create action or drive traffic
-Actually quantify the specific effectiveness of certain copy to effect website visits

The back end change brought about by T.co will fundamentally change the way strategic users view and engage with the service.

Using T.co
The actual use and operation of T.co couldn’t possibly be simpler for the end user, and Twitter should be commended for that. Simply paste the link into your Tweet, and you’ll see a message reading “link will appear shortened”. That’s it. There’s no buttons to click, no choices to make and no settings to fiddle with. When the links appear shortened in your Tweets, the link will reflect the site of origin to give readers an idea of where the link is sending them.  Reading the shortened link users will give users a preview of the destination site. The links won’t read “T.co/YourLinkHere”, they will instead be shown a condensed version of the YouTube, Facebook, Wikipedia etc. link, which is convenient for the curious (or paranoid).

In action T.co will take any link of more than 19 characters, and shrink it down to 10 characters. Any links which are less then 19 characters will be increased in size, to 19 characters. This is another oddball gesture. It’s supposed to be a link shortener. Making a 14 character link 19 characters is making it longer! I’m friends with lots of developers, and I know they have what can only be termed a compulsion for order and uniformity. Maybe that explains it? Making the links longer in certain instances illustrates again that T.co is about security, not shrinking links to pack more into your Tweets.

On the surface, T.co doesn’t seem like a huge step forward. Take a look under the hood, and at the code that makes it go and you have something quite different. We predict this will cause major shifts in the way people use Twitter as part of their social media campaigns. Do you see T.co changing the social media landscape in the coming months, or is it just another URL shortener? We’d love to hear your thoughts and opinions, so please drop us a comment.

When talking with geeks, or anyone who works in tech, they are often mystified by public relations. People are filled with misconceptions. They think of a world of shady spinmeisters huddled up in a back room somewhere constructing audacious lies to save the necks of evil CEO’s. Alternately, they imagine a world of women with too much makeup running interference because Lindsay Lohan got drunk and wrapped her Range Rover around a tree or Tom Cruise said a little too much about Scientology. It’s a shame, because the real world of PR isn’t anything like this. The average business owner, techy, developer or designer actually stands to gain a lot by interacting with the world of PR and the press. Seeing your latest project written, blogged and reported about is essential in the 21st Century. If you’re building something great, they won’t come. You need to lead them there.

Over the course of a few blog posts, we’re going to give you the PR basics you need to get your name up in lights (or in pixels as the case may be). Think of this as “PR 101” for non-PR people. Armed with the right information, supplied by your friends at The Blog Studio, a bit of research, some clever emails and the right attitude, there is no reason the press shouldn’t be writing about what you’re doing.

Make it easy for anyone that wants to write about you. The simpler it is for a writer to get the basic background info they need, the more likely they are to include you in the piece they are working on. Plus, the less time you need to spend telling them the basics, the more time you’ll have to discuss the interesting things you’re creating, and make the pitch for your work. The simplest way to do this is to create a press page. Surprisingly, most businesses don’t have a press page. The ones that are out there are often poor, uninteresting, dull and seem like afterthoughts. Having a killer press page will separate you from the competition and make sure you get written about, not your competition.

What makes the perfect press page? To begin with, the tone, attitude and vocabulary of your writing need to be appealing. Do you believe in the work you’re doing and what you’re creating? Make sure that comes across in your copy. Write as if you’re the best thing going, but don’t cross the line into being pompous. That never plays well in the press. Be cheerful, be optimistic and most of all be honest. If you write any half truths, little white lies or blatant falsehoods, they will come back to bite you in the digital ass. In the ultra-connected 21st Century, it only takes a minute with a search engine to suss out your dishonesty. Keep the tone of your copy light, hopeful and honest, and you’ll do great. Keep in mind as your write, that you’re telling a story, hopefully an engaging one. You aren’t filling out a mortgage application.

The physical design of your press page should match the aesthetics and design sensibility of your company, and the rest of your website. There are certain elements that should be included in every press page, which are essential to creating a media friendly image for your company. You should put your own personal spin on these features, but including them will definitely help your case.

A History
Include a short, 3-5 paragraph, history of your company in narrative form. Pretend that you’re telling a story, and the audience knows nothing about what you do. Highlight the people, places, milestones and major successes that you’ve accomplished so far. Describe your company culture, what makes your group unique and the reasons why your business is run the way it is. A company history will give a journalist writing about your company the long view of how your company sees its’ place in the world.

Employee Bios
Create very short biographies of key personnel, and there role in the companies mission. You aren’t writing a resume. A few succinct sentences of what each person does to keep things rolling is plenty. Company bios tend to get boring fast, so just include the major milestone accomplishments for each person. It’s a good idea to include a photo for each person as well. Stay away from those generic corporate mugshots. Is there anything that sucks the life out of a good story any more quickly then a boring photo of a scarecrow in a suit?

A Note To the Press
Compose a short note addressing any journalist who may be thinking about including you in a piece. In your own words, let them know you love the press, enjoy being included in the media circus and would be happy to provide them with quotes, photos, documentation, a preview of your product or anything else that will make the writers job easier. Extending a clear invitation to media types goes a long way, and lets people know that you’re game to play the game. If you have a communications officer or PR person on staff, this note should be written, composed and signed by them. Think of this as extending an olive branch to the media; “We’re friendly, we don’t bite, feel free to get in touch”.

A Document Library
Create a section within your press page to display any company documents that you would feel comfortable sharing with a writer, and that a writer may find useful while researching your company. This is the spot to upload any brochures, white papers, videos, ads and slide decks you’ve created. The more background info you can provide, the more interested parties can learn about what you do. Having a gallery, with photos, logos and graphics in the highest resolution you can provide is extremely helpful. In many cases, the availability of good multimedia assets can be the tipping point that gets you included in a piece over your competitors. If you have a solid social media presence on visual networks like YouTube or Flickr, include links to your pages here. Some companies choose to password protect their document libraries, and hand out the passwords like they’re the key to a national secret. Why? If you’re nervous about people seeing certain documents, don’t post them! Otherwise, make it simple for anyone to view and use what you’ve created.

Previous Press Hits
It’s a simple truth, but press begets more press. If you’ve been featured in the media before, include scans, PDF’s and links to these articles here. Reporters often feel more comfortable writing about companies that have a proven track record in the media. This will also give researching journalists a chance to see what has been said about your work, and a chance to discover fresh angles. A press gallery is also a low key way to do a little bragging to potential clients and your competitors. If your being written about, why not share it with as many people as you can?

Contact Information
Nothing will frustrate a writer more than wanting to grab you for a quote, an interview request or a fact checking session, and not being able to get in touch with you. On your contact page, there is no such thing as overkill. Start with the names of the people in your organization who are the points of contact for the media. Provide as many different ways to get in touch with you as possible - every member of the media has their own preferred method of contact. At the minimum, an email address, phone number and mailing address should be here. However, this is 2011, so you should also include your social media links, Twitter handle, Skype name and any other way it’s possible to get a hold of you.

Creating an online presence for the press is just the first step to making PR work for you. Stay tuned for part two, where we’ll explain how to start making in roads into the media world.