The goal with this project was to create a Wordpress blog that matched the look and feel of their existing website as much as possible.  This sounds easy, but it usually isn’t.  A small screen shot of the blog is to the left.  Check out the actual Sheltering Arms Blog here.

Be sure to check back and/or subscribe, as we’ll be posting news about advancements in physical rehabilitation, success stories from Sheltering Arms, and news about the 120-year-old organization itself.

This is just the latest move in the social media strategy that EndGame PR has helped create for Sheltering Arms.  We’ve already launched a Facebook page that is nearing the 100 “fan” mark.  Future tactics may include a podcast series and a presence on Twitter.  Stay tuned!

• July 14: I’ll conduct a private workshop on using Facebook and Twitter at a local Realty firm
• July 22: I’ll teach two classes on this day for the Richmond Association of REALTORS®. At 10am, I’ll teach Facebook for beginners.  At 1pm, I’ll repeat last month’s class on Facebook and Twitter for REALTORS®.  More information will be posted in the coming days at the RAR education site.
• July 24: I’ll be manning a discussion table at the Strategic Leadership and Social Media for Social Good Conference at the University of Richmond’s Jepson School of Business.  The table topic will be podcasts and web videos.  The conference is for decision-makers in nonprofit and government organizations.  Registration information is available here.

I spoke this week at the July edition of the monthly New Media Seminars, organized by Advertising and New Media firm Madison + Main.  I recorded my portion of the half-day workshop, and included it in the latest episode of my small business advice podcast, Startup BizCast.  My topic was “How Social Media Changed Everything in PR”.

You can listen in the player below, or find out how to subscribe via iTunes, RSS, or other podcast directories by visiting the Startup BizCast blog.

Just kidding, of course.  What I’m talking about is making sure your Twitter account is optimized for the search engines.  Yes, Virginia, Twitter is indexed by Google.  That means you want to make sure you get the most bang for that opportunity.  I found a good article at Mashable recently that described the steps you should be making, including picking the right Twitter name, and taking advantage of the space for your bio.

Read more at The Top 10 Twitter SEO Tips

Richmond, VA (June 16, 2009) - The Fight SMA 2009 Annual Spinal Muscular Atrophy Conference, The Good Fight, featured many firsts.  One of the most important to SMA families was the first-ever webcast of the “Friends and Family” portion of the conference.  Now, Fight SMA is announcing that the video from that webcast is available for online viewing and download.

Founded in 1991 in Richmond, Virginia, Fight SMA is an international non-profit organization dedicated to finding a treatment or cure for Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA), the leading inherited killer of children under two.  The neuromuscular disease affects the victim’s motor neurons, causing muscle atrophy, loss of strength, and disability.  The majority of children who are born with SMA die prematurely due to respiratory complications.

“We were thrilled with the success of our first conference webcast, and we’re very excited to be able to make this video available,” said Fight SMA President Martha Slay.  “Families facing SMA need all of the information they can get about research, and the scientists who attended our conference are some of the best in the world.”

The video features the “Basic Science Update”, one of two panel discussions during the Families and Friends Conference.  Fight SMA Science Director Dr. Chris Lorson from the University of Missouri in Columbia led the discussion.  He presented the most current information available about the search for an SMA cure.

To view and download the video, please visit the 2009 Spinal Muscular Atrophy Conference page on the Fight SMA website.  The page can be accessed via a link on the front page of the Fight SMA site, or via this link: http://www.fightsma.org/index.php?annual_meeting_2009 .

About Fight SMA
Headquartered in Richmond, Virginia, Fight SMA (also known as Andrew’s Buddies) is an international nonprofit group dedicated to accelerating research for a treatment or a cure for spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), a neuromuscular disorder that kills more babies than any other genetic disease.  For more information on spinal muscular atrophy and Fight SMA, please visit http://www.fightsma.org.  The latest SMA news and research information is available at the Spinal Muscular Atrophy Blog, at http://www.fightsma/blog.

The thing that I’m loving about this club is that it isn’t owned by one industry or group.  Unlike the Public Relations Society of America or the Ad Club, it’s not populated by one type of person.  While there are, of course, many in the club who are part of the marketing industry, the Social Media Club is incredibly … almost frighteningly … diverse.  During the course of this week’s meeting I talked with traditional journalists, new media journalists, a real estate agent, a department store employee, a barista, and even the owner of a store that sells scooters.

Obviously, this is an all-inclusive club.  No one owns social media, and that’s very exciting.  All that’s required to start a blog is a desire to write.  All you need to start a Facebook or Twitter account is an email address.  All that’s required to start a podcast or video blog is some equipment and the desire to broadcast.

While it can be said that it much more is required with all of the above activities if you want to be successful, the word “success” is a relative term.  For some, it means “rich” or at least “self-sustaining”.  It can also mean “proud of my work” or “having fun”.  For others, it means using quotation marks less than five times in the same paragraph.  The fact is, there are as many reasons for taking the time to engage in social media as there are types of people engaging in it, and that’s a wonderful thing.  I’m a little tired of homogeny.

Congrats to the Social Media Club and particularly its hard-working organizers on the early success of the endeavor.  May the club long stand as a group that can be joined by anyone with a Twitter handle.  If you’re interested in coming to the next meeting, please check out the SMCRVA Wiki and join the SMCRVA Facebook Group for more information.  You can also join in the fun chats among group members on Twitter by searching the hashtag #SMCRVA.

The class will cover how REALTORS® can use Facebook and Twitter to find new clients, specifically those first time home buyers.  Social networking is showing immense growth among users who are more than 30 years old, but a large percentage of the users are still 20-somethings, an age group that is most likely to fall into that “first time home buyer” category.

Click here to download a PDF flyer about the class!

I’m very excited about this seminar, as REALTORS® are a natural fit for social networking. They’re salespeople, which means the successful ones have a lot of personality and know how to talk with people, which, after all, is what social networking is all about!

The seminar is on Wednesday, June 24 from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. at RAR’s Three Chopt Road location, and is open to everyone.  The cost is $25, or $10 for RAR members.  If you’re able to attend, please stop me afterward to say “hi!”

Registration and directions can be found on the TRES website (which I built) by clicking here!

Blatantly promotional note: If you’re interested in setting up a seminar for your employees or organization, please contact me! I’ve presented to numerous associations and other audiences on how businesses (non-profit and for profit) can utilize media relations, social media, and social networking.  I’d love to talk with you about what I can teach your group!

Forcing immediate registration: Requiring a new user to register is a reasonable request-after you’ve sucked him in. The sites that require registration as the first step are putting a barrier in front of adoption.

I run into this frequently on blogs that make you register before commenting.  Nothing will make me less likely to comment on your blog that forcing me to register before doing it.

The reason I said that they almost nailed this list is that I disagree with one of the points and would add two more.  I think they dropped the ball in including this one:

Friction-full commenting: “Moderated comments” is an oxymoron. If your company is trying to be a hip, myth-busting, hypocrisy-outing joint, it should let anyone comment. Also, many times I’ve started to leave a comment on a blog but stopped when I realized I’d have to register.

Have you ever been in charge of a blog or web site that allows unmoderated comments?  Even with great spam catchers like Akismet, it’s going to be covered in comments that point to sites selling solutions for ED.  You’d spend so much time deleting those comments, that you wouldn’t have time for any kind of conversation with your legitimate commenters.

I would add the following two points to the list:

Advertisements that fly out and cover the website: Sadly, I thought of this one while I was looking at Entrepreneur’s website and an ad expanded to cover much of my screen. This one, at least, made it obvious how you could close the ad.  Some of them require several moments of close investigation before you can find the little “X”.  Bad move and irritating to the user.

Intermediate advertising pages: These are the pages you have to look at before actually seeing the content you wanted to view.  You’ll see what I mean when you follow the link to the Entrepreneur article. Many, many websites use this tactic, so don’t think I’m picking on Entrepreneur.  It’s annoying.

Here’s a link to the full article, or at least to the intermediate ad page that will lead you there.

Here’s a portion of the announcement:

We’ve recently been targeted by spammers who are using our tool solely as a means to affect their Google rank, which is simply not in the best interest of our users, especially our paid subscribers. While it’s been a great asset for our users, it’s simply not going to work if this content goes unregulated. We’re also going to step up our SMR and brand authentication efforts to maintain the validity of content hitting our feeds - even for paid subscribers.

Releases from those who subscribe, and pay $35 per month, will continue to have releases streamed to Google News.

I realize that nothing stays free on the Interwebs for long these days, but PitchEngine was an outstanding free way to create and make available attractive social media releases.  Now, because the management of the site wasn’t able to police submissions properly, no one gets to take full advantage unless they pay.

I’ve already seen on Twitter a bit of a backlash to the decision, and some support of it.  The response from one of PitchEngine’s site builders to the critics has been to say the spammers are to blame, and that the move adds to the value of the paid service.  They’re not going away and they don’t care what you think, so you’re wasting your breathe blaming them.  They’re like the common cold in that way.  And, as with the common cold, taking a few precautions will help reduce the chance of  “infection”.  Changing the way you do everything seems a bit extreme.

Note: I’ve updated my ongoing Review of Online News Release Sites to reflect this change in policy.

The seminar once again covered all things new media and social media, and how businesses can use these new tools to promote themselves. There were sessions that introduced the concept of social media, how to optimize your site for the search engines, and how to get noticed in the social media universe.  I reprised my earlier presentation on how social media has changed PR, and how it can be used as a PR tool.  That’s me in the picture, in the middle of talking about how social media has changed the way PR professionals build relationships with reporters.

Thanks to Dave Saunders (@madmain) and Madison+Main for inviting me.  The next iteration of the seminars will be held in Virginia Beach, so if you live in the Tidewater area, be sure to attend!