PR Specialist [Azerbaijan]

The fears of all creatives, designers and advertising agencies!

noreply@blogger.com (Rafiq Shah) — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 06:46:32 PDT

“Kill Your Monsters“, an advertising campaign for the Latvian Art Directors Club ADWARDS 2013, illustrating the fears of all creatives, designers and advertising agencies: a lack of budget, tight deadlines, the fear of the blank page, the “Can you make the logo bigger” and other…

Posterous closing on April 30th

noreply@blogger.com (Rafiq Shah) — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 21:06:22 PST

It's almost inevitable as breathing: a tech powerhouse acquires a clever yet small startup solely for its talent or technology, and lets any leftover services witheraway.

Posterous' decision to shut down following its 2012 acquisition by Twitter is very nearly a textbook example. The 4-year-old firm will close its Posterous Spaces service on April 30th to shift all of its attention to Twitter, giving customers just over two months to back up their content. There is an unusual twist to this seemingly predictable story, however. Those still using Spaces will have a place to go -- along with Squarespace and Wordpress import tools, Posterous founders Brett Gibson and Garry Tan are planning to launch Posthaven as a (not entirely intentional) refuge.

Diehards will still have reason to mourn the end of an era, but the closure at least won't be the end to their creations.

engadget.com

Best commercial of the Month: If mom is stopped by the police.. be surprised

noreply@blogger.com (Rafiq Shah) — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 05:35:55 PST

If you have such a child, you do not need enemies...
Born to make drama!

25 Billboards with Fascinating Science Facts

noreply@blogger.com (Rafiq Shah) — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 21:06:44 PST

Located in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, Science World is a not-for-profit organization/facility dedicated spreading the awe and wonder of science for kids and adults alike. In collaboration with their long-term advertising agency partners Rethink, Science World are well known in Canada for their award-winning outdoor and ambient media campaigns. From billboards and bus shelters to guerilla ad placements, Science World campaigns are popular in Vancouver for their quirky facts and unique presentation.

Vacancy: Head of Marketing Communications

noreply@blogger.com (Rafiq Shah) — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 21:54:36 PST

Head of Marketing Communications

Requirements

Higher Education in Economics/Management/Marketing; Master degree will be an advantage;
3-5 years of managerial experience in B2C Marketing in big companies from Telecom, FMCG or Financial Sectors;
Fundamental knowledge of marketing, advertisement and sociologic academic disciplines;
Knowledge of methodology of strategic and operational marketing planning;
Knowledge of methodology of economic and communication effectiveness evaluation of marketing activities;
Good understanding of local nuances in communication and advertisement;
Proficiency in MS Office applications (Outlook, Word, Power Point, Excel);
Local marketing experience is a must; international experience will be an advantage;
Fluent Azeri, English and Russian;
Ability to work until late hours and on weekends when necessary;
Required Competencies

High level of Corporate Culture and knowledge of Corporate Etiquette
Initiative, proactive and positive approach
Results oriented approach
Ability to react fast, to solve problems and to delegate tasks
Strong execution capabilities
Ability to motivate and engage people
Attentiveness, responsibility and punctuality
Amicability and commutability
Ability to work with intensive information flow
Multi-tasking and time management skills
Ability to work in stressful environment and to set priorities
Creative thinking
Team spirit

Roles & Responsibilities:

Managing of Marketing Communication Unit and its members.;
Responsibility for communication and promotion of Nar Mobile products and services via creation of appealing and revenue generating advertisement and its communication across different media vehicles (TV, OOH, Web, BTL);
Responsibility for the increase of brand awareness and for the development of the brand according the defined brand strategy;
Creation and execution of Marketing Communication strategy and operational plan (distribution of resources between different advertisement types and media vehicles);
Establishing and maintaining of relationships and working processes with third party vendors involved in service provisioning for Marketing Communication purposes;
Planning, managing and controlling Marketing Communication budget in defined frames, with maximum efficiency and constant optimization;
Responsibility for consistent with the defined guidelines visual identity of the company/brand on all its external appearances;
Initiation, participation and analysis of marketing research activities in areas of:
- brand awareness;
- advertisement effectiveness;
- competitive environment;
- own and competitors’ advertisement monitoring;
Responsibility for web presence of the company according the defined visual guidelines, brand strategy and commercial targets;
Responsibility for optimal and cost efficient TV and OOH advertisement coverage across the country;
Responsibility for revenue increasing BTL activities and product/brand promoting sponsorships;
Supporting the Sales Division in merchandising and sales promoting activities;
Coaching and supporting team members and interns in their professional development;
Cascade company strategies, targets, and priorities down to employees and contribute to identification of Company strategies and priorities;
To plan group’s budget and headcount parallel to department, company and company short and long term strategies, priorities and targets to realize department activities and hire right people in the right time;
Identify group targets in line with department targets, strategies and priorities and individual targets of employees in line with group targets with the participation of the group team and coordinate the implementation of job targets;
Create control mechanisms;
Measure, reward and disciplinary punish the performance toward Company Policies and Values, as well as determine development areas of employee and plan relevant development activities;
Plan development activities on determining employees’ development areas;
Provide workload distribution and accurate job designs in parallel with company strategy, individual competencies and targets of employees;
Identify employee grades and adjust salaries according to the performance results and as required by internal procedures;
Suggest structural changes within group when necessary to provide effective execution of work and business targets in line with department and company targets, strategies and priorities;
Execute group activities in consistent with internal procedures existing in company, confidentiality policy and government legislation;
Improve all existing internal systems when necessary;
Execute line manager’s verbal and written instructions to ensure fulfillment of work duties;
Keeping coordination with the other departments and groups and build relations between top management of the company and group employees;

Deadline for applications submitting – 17.02.2013
The applications should be submitted to: hr@azerfon.az
Applications without the subject Head of Marketing Communicationswill not be considered

Nescafe New Jar reveal on Facebook

noreply@blogger.com (Rafiq Shah) — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 22:15:34 PST

Nescafe Greece managed to make something no one really cares about - a new jar design - into something quite interesting using Facebook. They filled up a big transparent box full of beans and removed a bean for every fan.
I must admit, I've seen similar things before and I'm quite surprised people got involved as I'm not sure I would have had the patience just to see a new coffee jar. But it worked and it shows how Facebook can be used to make really dull things more interesting.

robin1966.blogspot.com

How Much It Actually Costs To Buy One Of Those Times Square Billboards

noreply@blogger.com (Rafiq Shah) — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 15:29:51 PST

instagram

It costs between $1.1 million and $4 million a year if you want to buy one of those flashy, digital or neon billboards that light up New York's Times Square, according to the Wall Street Journal. The owners of 1 Times Square -- the tall tower in the middle of the intersection of Broadway and Seventh Avenue (it's not actually a "square") -- make $23 million a year from the billboards that cover it.

That makes it the most expensive set of billboards in the entire world.
It's relatively cheap, too. A spot in the Super Bowl costs up to $3.8 million, and that only lasts 30 seconds.

Times Square signs don't just get eyeballs from tourist traffic in the square itself. They also make tons of incidental appearances on TV shows.

And every New Year's Eve, of course, much of that investment pays off for Toshiba, TDK, Dunkin Donuts, Anheuser-Busch, Sony and the Dow Jones news ticker, as their signage gets primetime incidental TV exposure all over the world as millions tune in for the ball drop. Here's a graphic the Journal made to show who pays what:

WSJ

originally published @businessinsider
by Jim Edwards

jedwards@businessinsider.com

Best LinkedIn Company Pages of 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Rafiq Shah) — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 02:21:19 PST

These are great examples of how businesses and organizations are using their LinkedIn Company Page to showcase their brand and connect with their target audience in a meaningful way.

Quote from Don Draper

noreply@blogger.com (Rafiq Shah) — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 00:43:36 PST

The Day You Sign a Client Is the Day You Start Losing Them

from Mad Men

About Mad Men

Mad Men is an American dramatic television series created and produced by Matthew Weiner. The series airs on Sunday evenings on the American cable network AMC and is produced by Lionsgate Television. It premiered on July 19, 2007, concluded its fifth season on June 10, 2012, and has been renewed for a sixth season.

Mad Men is set in the 1960s, initially at the fictional Sterling Cooper advertising agency on Madison Avenue in New York City, and later at the newly created firm Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. The focal point of the series is Don Draper (Jon Hamm), creative director at Sterling Cooper and a founding partner at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, and the people in his life, both in and out of the office. The plot focuses on the business of the agencies as well as the personal lives of the characters. As such, it regularly depicts the changing moods and social mores of 1960s America.

Mad Men has received critical acclaim, particularly for its historical authenticity, visual style, costume design, acting, writing, and directing, and has won many awards, including fifteen Emmys and four Golden Globes. It is the first and only basic cable series to win the Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series, winning it in each of its first four seasons in 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011

source

10 Steps to Creating a Successful Public Relations Plan

noreply@blogger.com (Rafiq Shah) — Thu, 22 Nov 2012 23:35:51 PST

Creating a public relations plan takes time, knowledge, and understanding of your company or client needs and wants. Here are some steps to ensure you capture those wants and needs in the plan creation process and that you create a plan that is relevant and useful to your company or client.

Know your company's or client's current situation. This is essential to knowing where the company now stands, where the company is able to go, what the company's market/industry looks like, and what direction the company is headed. This helps to put things in perspective.
Know your resources. This can be a part of the first step, as it is a part of the situational analysis needed to understand where your company or client currently stands. This can help you better build your tactics and strategies while considering the budget, time, and other resource limitations the company or client may have.
Know your objectives and goals. Also essential to the PR plan having success, you must know where the company hopes to go. Like driving with no directions, a PR plan with no goals or objectives is an aimless action with no knowledge of what could come, or even what results are desired. Be sure that the PR plan's objectives are in line with the rest of the company's overall objectives, and ensure that they are clear to all involved.
Know and define your target audience(s). This means that you've defined your target buyer audiences and target media audiences. Each audience will need a different message and a different approach. Knowing these audiences will help you to frame your strategies and tactics so that you can effectively reach the people you hope to reach.
List messages and strategies you will use to reach the target audiences you defined. These should be in line with the goals and objectives listed earlier; if they are not, the plan is already off to a somewhat bad start. Know that your strategies and messages also need to relate to one another, otherwise there is some disconnect happening that needs to be addressed.
Define the tactics you will use to make the strategies you've listed a reality. These tactics will take the messages and strategies listed and make them happen. If, for example, a strategy is to enhance a company's brand awareness, tactics could include community outreach, social media use, press conferences, etc. There first needs to be a strategy defined before tactics can be addressed and assigned to a message.
Create a time-line for implementation. This needs to be realistic but also challenging. Remember that there should be no lapses in the PR plan where press releases are being sent out, events are taking place, or media are being engaged. There needs to be constant reminder to the public that the company is alive and well, and that can be done with constant information being sent out.
Delegate obligations and responsibilities to your team or your client's team to ensure all parts of the PR plan are completed. This helps to ensure that everyone is on board and that everyone knows their own responsibilities and duties. This is crucial to seeing the PR plan come to fruition. This step should be done with everyone involved so that no one feels over-burdened, left out, or given too much responsibility. This can also help to give everyone the feeling of responsibility since the plan was created with everyone together and not just one person's say.
Create measurements of results/ success. To know if your plan is effective, create measurements and benchmarks for the tactics you implement. This is a place for the PR team to gauge the success of the plan and to see if goals were realistic. Creating measurements can also help to show what could have been done with the expertise and estimations of a PR firm or team.
Review the plan after implementation and conclusion of the plan. This is the time when all who helped to create and carry-out the plan can come together and share their thoughts on what went well, what didn't go so well, and what could be done differently in the future. This needs to be done to ensure that future plans have a chance of being successful. This step can help to encourage group members to continue working for the company's success by giving everyone a chance to talk and contribute to the next planing.

The key to remember when creating a PR plan is that all plans are going to be unique and different for each company, and even within the same company, they will be different for each plan objective/goal. Do your homework before creating a plan, and be sure that you work closely with the company or client to make the plan a success.

Originaly published @ http://publicrelationsblogger.com/2010/02/10-steps-to-creating-successful-public.html

10 Tips on Writing from David Ogilvy

noreply@blogger.com (Rafiq Shah) — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 00:52:00 PST

“Never write more than two pages on any subject.”

On September 7th, 1982, Ogilvy sent the following internal memo to all agency employees, titled “How to Write”:

The better you write, the higher you go in Ogilvy & Mather. People who think well, write well.
Woolly minded people write woolly memos, woolly letters and woolly speeches.
Good writing is not a natural gift. You have to learn to write well. Here are 10 hints:

1. Read the Roman-Raphaelson book on writing. Read it three times.
2. Write the way you talk. Naturally.
3. Use short words, short sentences and short paragraphs.
4. Never use jargon words like reconceptualize,demassification, attitudinally, judgmentally. They are hallmarks of a pretentious ass.
5. Never write more than two pages on any subject.
6. Check your quotations.
7. Never send a letter or a memo on the day you write it. Read it aloud the next morning — and then edit it.
8. If it is something important, get a colleague to improve it.
9. Before you send your letter or your memo, make sure it is crystal clear what you want the recipient to do.
10. If you want ACTION, don’t write. Go and tell the guy what you want.

by Maria Popova

www.brainpickings.org

Quote from David Ogilvy

noreply@blogger.com (Rafiq Shah) — Thu, 22 Nov 2012 00:35:14 PST

"Like a midwife, I make my living bringing new babies into the world, except that mine are new advertising campaigns."

David Ogilvy

FYI

David Mackenzie Ogilvy, was an advertising executive. He has often been called "The Father of Advertising." In 1962, Time called him "the most sought-after wizard in today's advertising industry."

What is the ROI of Social Media?

noreply@blogger.com (Rafiq Shah) — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 13:01:54 PST

Social media has captured the attention and awe of the marketing world with the promise of increased customer engagement and lower marketing costs. Yet behind the buzz lies the question of how to measure its success. With no standard means of measurement, it is difficult to decipher the value of different platforms and determine the true ROI of social media marketing. To make sense of the situation, MDG Advertising created an eye-opening video based on the findings and figures from its recently-developed infographic. Watch as we feature the facts, factors, methods and metrics that marketers need to know to understand the real return of social media.

US Election night 2012 makes history on Twitter

noreply@blogger.com (Rafiq Shah) — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 00:14:46 PST

Millions of tweets, likes and online posts are the new political lawn signs. From the debates to Tuesday’s election, the country took to social media as the preferred outlet for political commentary for the 2012 general election.

There were 10 million tweets during the first presidential debate, and Twitter’s own election coverage feed @gov said 20 million tweets were posted Tuesday using the #election2012 hashtag, making it the most tweeted political event in US history. As the television networks called the race for President Obama, @gov reported a stunning 327,453 election tweets per minute.

And the most retweeted missive ever came from the @barackobama feed, saying simply “four more years” and attached a TwitPic of the president hugging the First Lady.
As people lined up at the polls on Tuesday, @gov’s #twindex showed that Obama was the most-tweeted-about candidate in every swing state: 40 percent of national tweets to 24 percent for Romney, reversing the trend of recent days.

HootSuite’s 2012 Election Tracker followed 6 million mentions for both Obama and Romney and 44 million Facebook “likes” as polls closed. Also, apparently quantity was more important that quality on Twitter in terms of Twitter buzz. Social media monitoring firm SocialBaker tracked a minute-by-minute “cheer meter” showing Obama mentions outgained Romney mentions, but overall mentions of the two candidates falling off on Election Day.

Adding further proof to the strength of this social media election, a survey by journalism think-tank Pew found that 22 percent of registered voters announced their vote early on a social networking site, and about a third of people between the ages of 18 and 29 offered tweets or Facebook updates with their presidential choices.

For what it’s worth, slightly more Obama than Romney supporters announced their votes on social networks (25 percent to 20 percent), but Pew says the “difference is not statistically significant.”

This article first published in PRdaily.com

Author: Gil Rudawsky - is a former reporter and editor. He heads up the crisis communication and issues management practice at GroundFloor Media in Denver.

5 rules for starting your PR career

noreply@blogger.com (Rafiq Shah) — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 04:59:28 PST

1. Raise your hand. Demonstrate an active interest in the business. As new business opportunities arise, extend yourself to help a team or participate in an internal project. Yes, this may mean extra hours above and beyond existing account work, but it can be very rewarding and give you extra experience. Also, be open to time in another market either in your own country or abroad. The world is more global today than when I started and it is only going to become more so.

2. Be curious. Be a “student” of the media. I have always read up to three newspapers (New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times) each morning, consumed an hour of NPR, and have only missed one episode of “60 Minutes” when there was a national emergency (and programming was pre-empted). Naturally, in recent years I’ve expanded my consumption to blogs (Huffington Post,Politico, and The Daily Beast) along with industry newsletters (PRWeek and The Holmes Report).

3. Step out of your comfort zone. If an account is presented that doesn’t seem to immediately match your skill set, go for it. My first account was for an Israeli computer graphics company that had just listed on Nasdaq. I knew nothing about computer graphic, admittedly little about Israel, and zilch about how Nasdaq was different from the NYSE. I was, after all, an English literature major. Yet that account was a critical learning experience for me.

4. Remember: managers aren’t mind readers. Speak up about your goals, ask for advice, and understand you won’t be handed everything you want but optimally, over time, you’ll get the counsel you need. Careers take time to build.

5. Take notes. Dan Edelman taught me the importance of taking notes at meetings. Not only does it demonstrate active engagement during the meeting itself, but also it ensures that follow-up activities don’t deviate from what was actually discussed. I recently found a “Dan-o-gram” (one of Dan’s famous memos) from a 2001 meeting with Ernest Gallo. Ernest was 96 and Dan was 81, and they had known one another over the years from when Dan oversaw the California Wines account. Following our meeting, Dan sent an extraordinarily detailed memo that captured the conversation and then led to a variety of strategies and ideas for consideration. A reinforcing lesson of the power of notes.

Using these rules won’t just enable you to start your career right, they are critical to sustaining and maintaining your career’s path in a changing world.

Matthew Harrington is the global chief operating officer at Edelman. This story first appeared on Edelman.com.

The Future of Advertising

noreply@blogger.com (Rafiq Shah) — Sun, 04 Nov 2012 23:05:55 PST

The Future of Advertising, APA, 17/02/09 from John V Willshire

The 10 worst nightmares for a PR professional

noreply@blogger.com (Rafiq Shah) — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 03:32:08 PDT

This story first appeared on PR Daily last October. It became one of the most popular stories on the site in 2011.

PR pros are not easily scared, but these horrifying acts are sure to raise the hair on the neck of even the toughest PR cookie. We wouldn’t wish these PR nightmares on our worst enemy.

1. You mail merge a pitch to the wrong media list.

2. Your big placement is canned due to a huge breaking news.

3. A press release is issued with the CEO’s name misspelled and all the URLs are dead.

4. You wake to find a cover story featuring all your competitors.

5. Crisis, crisis, crisis and no prepared plan of attack.

6. No media show up for your press conference or media event.

7. You accidentally share a personal tweet on the corporate account.

8. You lose cell/Internet service; what is a PR pro without access?

9. An expensive PR stunt results in zero coverage.

10. You have the wrong addresses listed on a media tour and your spokesperson is late to every interview.

source

ACU alum tells about her PR career

noreply@blogger.com (Rafiq Shah) — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 22:00:29 PDT

Abilene Christian University graduate and deputy managing director of the Lotte Group in South Korea, speaks during the 20th Anniversary Gutenberg Celebration at ACU's Bob and Shirley Hunter Welcome Center on Thursday, October 18, 2012. Chin was also honored during the event for her work in public relations.

Distinguished Abilene Christian University alum Lovey Chin gave a luncheon talk Thursday that was chock-full of advice on how to succeed in the PR business while really, really trying.

Chin was guest speaker before the Abilene Public Relations Organization at ACU's Hunter Welcome Center. Hours later she was to accept the university's prestigious Gutenberg Award. This accolade recognizes distinguished professional achievements of graduates of ACU's Journalism and Mass Communication program.

Chin, a 2000 graduate of ACU, also spoke at that dinner at the Welcome Center.

"Be very clear about the company you want to work for," Chin told her audience of about 30, many of them students.

Her own example: As an ACU freshman she read in Fortune magazine that General Electric was the most admired company in the world. This stirred an unshakable resolve in her that G.E. was the only company she would start working for. So she set out on a campaign of trying to snare an internship with the company, even though she'd been told it hired only Ivy League students.
In a campaign almost of attrition, the way she described it, Chin started calling every other day, and eventually a secretary she had repeatedly called, she wangled a promise of five minutes with a G.E. executive. Instead, he said he'd ask only one question: "Why should I hire you."

Laughingly, she said she wouldn't necessarily recommend her reply, but it worked.

"If you don't hire me, I will work for your competitor, and you will be sorry!"

Once her foot was in the door, Chin said, she made another resolve with herself, to perform the smallest task perfectly, whether it be making photocopies or brewing and serving coffee. She actually studied that best way to pour coffee, in addition to the best way to make the hot beverage, she said.

Her diligence and exacting standards swiftly led to greater responsibilities, and perks that she hardly thought possible for an intern, such as a fully furnished apartment cleaned every Monday.

The Singapore native currently works as Vice Managing Director of Global Marketing for Lotte Group — Dachong Communications in South Korea, a post previously unheard of for a woman and a person her age, she said.

Chin previously worked for Leo Burnett in Hong Kong working with Proctor & Gamble Greater China; J. Walter Thompson working with world-renowned clients such as Rolex, BMW, Macy's, Kraft, Unilever, Nestle, Dove, Hewlett-Packard and Nokia; MTV Networks Asia; American Express International; and General Electric for Asia Pacific.

Among her other advice:

Take leadership roles while in college. At ACU. she served as president of the international students organization, which strengthened her resume, she said.

"Figure a way to do things differently. Stand out from the crowd." Something that worked for her was sending her application package, including a CD, to the home address of the company official she was contacting, she said.

"Be nice to everyone." A huge Asian air show she once worked attracted 1,500 journalists, plus their camera and sound crew members, Chin related. She wrote follow-up letters to the journalists and their sound and camera people, she said. As a result, she gets stories for her clients published, even after the journalists move on. The sound and camera people bring their new journalists around to her, she said.

"Please pitch stories when you really have stories." The public relations person's job involves also educating clients about this. Pitching only legitimate stories builds crucial credibility, she said.

"Small details count." Chin recalled how appreciative journalists were at an outside event where temperatures were about 95 degrees, and she made sure they had iced water available.

Helping journalists with small details that help them file their stores quickly and accurately is very important, she said.

Embrace tasks that you don't find particularly enjoyable, but are necessary to get the job done.

Seek out mentors, and don't be afraid to approach them in a courteous, thoughtful way.

Travel a lot, because it opens your worldview.

Before embarking on a master of business administration program, work a few years. It not only provides a better perspective on the business world, it also enhances possibilities for financing the degree, such as employee-paid tuition and scholarships.

Own up to mistakes quickly. The words "I'm sorry" can work wonders, Chin said, (But don't make the same mistake twice, she added.)

Don't be afraid to stand up for yourself if you don't think you're treated fairly. If you don't, you'll likely miss out, she said.

By Jerry Daniel Reed

Photo: Eric J. Shelton/Reporter-News
© 2012 Abilene Reporter-News.

13 Tips To Sharpen Your Communication Skills in 2013

noreply@blogger.com (Rafiq Shah) — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 22:01:34 PDT

There is a distinct buzz in the air during the final quarter of the year. In the PR community, this growing sound is our nagging reminder to sit down and think about new business, budgets, cuts and strategies for 2013.

We’re no different, so our team looked at our own best practices to empower you with 13 tips to make you a better communicator in 2013.

13. Commit to commenting. Stop being a social media voyeur. Be active by liking and commenting on posts you read. The comments can be as interesting as the posts; many people read them and they’re a good way to make connections.

12. Give before you ask. No matter what service you provide, even the well-intentioned invitation can be seen as a demand for time, effort, and attention. Take this tip from Chris Sacca, advisor to some of the top social media companies, ”If you’re insightful and helpful, people will want to be around you.”

11. Refine your elevator pitch. How? Practice, edit, repeat. If you pitch TV stations you know assignment editors are willing to listen, but you’d better be able to get your point across fast! Call five assignment desks, and chances are, you’ll hone your pitch quickly.

10. Subscribe to industry newsletters and READ THEM. PR/communications newsletters such as CommPRO.Biz, MediaBistro, Smart Brief on Social Media and Ragan’s PR Daily offer helpful suggestions for improving your written and verbal communication skills and keep you up on industry trends. You might recognize a misstep you consistently make, such as avoiding an overused word.

9. Get involved with an industry organization. Don’t just attend events – join a committee, serve on the board, or simply volunteer your time as you can. Be sure not to limit yourself to PR/IR groups.

8. Learn more about the offerings of your service providers. OK, this one may be a bit self-serving, but don’t shoot the messenger. Many PR-related service providers are constantly advancing their catalog of offerings, providing free reporting, or creating complementary products to go along with the services they’re most known for. Take the meeting and find out what else they offer for you to maximize your relationship.

7. Have an SEO discussion with your web team, your wire vendors and your content creators. If one conversation isn’t enough, have however many it takes for you to understand search engine optimization (SEO) basics and start using these strategies to improve the visibility of content you produce for the web.

6. Take a class or seminar. Many schools and professional societies offer continuing education classes at a low cost, and some even offer free sessions. Consider classes in photography, advanced web technology or web design. You can even brush up with a business writing or grammar class.

5. Attend a journalism conference. The price tag of some PR conferences can be off-putting. Directly across the aisle our industry peers are putting together great and pertinent programming at a fraction of the cost. Check out conferences organized by the Online News Association, Society of Professional Journalists or one of the journalists-of-color member organizations like NABJ, the National Association of Black Journalists. You’ll learn a lot and make some new contacts while you are at it.

4. Share your experiences. If you have no time to sit on a board or a committee, offer to speak at one of their programs on a topic you know matches the interests of their members. In PR groups, speakers on the topics of social media, measurement, crisis communications, media relations and brand strategy are highly sought after!

3. Invite a blogger out for coffee. If you don’t work with bloggers, meet up with an editor, producer or member of the Twitteratti who you value having a relationship with. Even if they can’t meet face to face, the check-in email is a nice gesture and way to keep a relationship top of mind even if you’ve moved on to cover new areas.

2. Be an active listener. Multi-tasking, while great in so many ways, contributes immensely to our eclipsed attention spans. Make an effort to listen more closely. Practice by playing a prerecorded webinar and not clicking away; or watching or listening to an on-air personality you don’t agree with and resisting the urge to turn away or blurt out. Just listen. If you improve your listening skills you might pick up the other half of what most people don’t hear when someone is speaking.

1. Immerse yourself in mobile. Mobile marketing is the future, but the future is today. To leverage this market for you and your clients you need to use it. Download news apps and visit the mobile rendered pages of your favorite brands. Then make sure your own messaging is mobile friendly.

By Raschanda Hall, Global Media Relations Manager, Business Wire/Chicago

Baku PR Experience brings together world's best PR specialists

noreply@blogger.com (Rafiq Shah) — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 21:46:48 PDT

The world's best PR specialists are ready to cooperate with Azerbaijan in the area of PR, P World director general Kosta Petrov said at the Baku PR Experience event in Baku today.

"A company's reputation can be gained through sound PR activity, taking into account the human factor which plays an important role in this process," Princess Diana's former private secretary and author of the bestseller Shadows of a Princess, Patrick Jephson told the audience.
Jephson also shared his professional experience with the royal family, particularly Princess Diana, as well as the most important aspects in the implementation of PR-activities.

The most anticipated business event in Azerbaijan was held at the Hilton hotel. The world's best PR experts, including Donald Steel, former Chief Communications Advisor at BBC, Philip Dewhurst, former PR-director at Gazprom and Jonathan Wilson, lecturer at Greenwich University in the UK, a specialist in communication and advertising .

PR Experience is the biggest PR event in Europe. More than 2000 delegates participated in it in Belgrade, Zagreb, Dubai, Prague and Moscow in 2012. This event is being held in Azerbaijan for the first time.

The P World company based in the UAE is organising the Baku PR Experience in partnership with Synergy Partnerships and the Azerbaijani Youth Fund. Mirror newspaper, Trend International News Agency, Boutique Magazine, biznesinfo.az and mak.az are the event's media partners.

PlayStation commercial

noreply@blogger.com (Rafiq Shah) — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 20:53:17 PDT

Vivir en estado play

Extra Card (designs)

noreply@blogger.com (Rafiq Shah) — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 05:08:52 PDT

Azerbaijan Industry Bank for the first time in Azerbaijan banking system has successfully implemented new plastic card payment system.

The unique features of the system:
- For the first time all transactions via card will be reflected automatically online
- in addition to regular credit card features, the card gives you opportunity to make partial and interest free payment;
- card usage allow you to earn bonuses, which can be picked or spend unlimited;
- To control not only bank and credit card account but all bank operations as well;
- After the notification of the bank branch there will be the possibility to make payment for credit card debts automatically from the current account
- Also card can be issued to withdraw cash from any ATM both inside and outside the country 365 days a year, to make easily utility and communication payments.

Creative design and concept by Art Grup.

350 Social Networking site address

noreply@blogger.com (Rafiq Shah) — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 23:49:31 PDT

In the past several years, some networks have thrived, some vanished, while hundreds of new ones appeared. It has become a huge area to follow, and this article illustrates this well: a collection of over 350 social networking sites.

Books

Americabookshelf.com – One of the largest book exchange clubs across the US.

BooksConnect – A book sharing community site connecting readers, authors, publishers, librarians and booksellers.

BookCrossing.com – A community of users from over 130 countries who exchange books with each other at public places like cafes, parks etc.

Bookhopper.co.uk – Free community for UK residents to share used books with each other.

Bookins.com – Book sharing website that enables members to exchange used books with each other in real time.

BookMooch.com – An interesting concept where users can exchange books with others through points. Users gain points when they give books to others.

Booksalescout.com – Online community of users allowing them to sell books in the US.

Bookswim.com – Book borrowing service with free shipping for registered website.

ConnectViaBooks – A social networking site connecting book lovers and enabling them to discover other similar interests.

GoodReads – GoodReads is a book reader’s community enabling members to review, share books they have been reading.

PaperBackSwap.com – Users can share books amongst each other and only pay for the delivery charges.

Pazap.com – A book trade engine for students to buy and sell old books.

Read It Swap It – A free service that allows users to exchange books with others.

Revish – Revish is another community for book lovers, letting them review their favorite books, group up, or simply tell the world what they’re currently reading.

Shelfari – Shelfari is a popular social networking service for book lovers.

Socialbib – Book swapping network between students.

Business Networking & Professionals

AdvisorGarage – It is an online directory of advisers who are willing to assist budding entrepreneurs.

ArtBreak – ArtBreak is an artist community for sharing and selling artwork.

Blogtronix – Blogtronix promotes corporate social networking, enterprise 2.0 and wikis.

Commutal – Commutal is an online sharing platform for businesses to create media rooms, participate in domestic groups and share event happenings with each other.

CompanyLoop – An online co-working community for global businesses.

ConnectBeam – Connectbeam offers social networking specially designed for corporate users.

Decorati – An interior designer community enabling users to post items for sale and for exchange.

DoMyStuff – A good site for working professionals looking to find online assistants.

Doostang – An invite only career community for professionals.

Fast Pitch – It is a quickly growing business networking community in corporate world. Its online provides users with a one-stop shop network to market their business.

iKarma Inc. – iKarma is a specialist in providing customer feedback for organizations and professionals.

ImageKind – ImageKind is a community and marketplace for professional artists.

Jambo – Jambo lets you connect with your neighborhood friends.

Jigsaw – An online business card networking directory for users to establish contacts with each other. Each business card is listed with an email id and a contact number.

Konnects – Konnects enables members to create their own professional networking communities.

Lawyrs – A professional social networking community for lawyers.

Linkedin – LinkedIn is a professional social networking website for business users, one of the most popular such sites out there. Some aspects of it are free, but many are paid.

mediabistro.com – mediabistro.com is for professionals in content or creative industry.

Pairup.com – Pairup connects business travelers assisting them to travel together.

Ryze.com – A site for establishing new connections and growing networks. Connections for jobs, building career and making sales.

Spoke.com – Spoke offers access to business network of over 40 million people worldwide.

Visible Path – Visible Path helps organizations to integrate social networking into their existing tools.

WebCrossing Neighbors – It provides a private label social network with personal spaces and user groups.

XING – XING is a networking directory of business contacts powering relationships between business professionals allowing users to connect with each other.

Family

Amiglia – A family networking service enabling users to connect to family members by publishing and sharing family trees, photos etc.

CafeMom – CafeMom is a social networking site for mothers to connect and share thoughts with each other.

Cingo – Cingo users connect with each other to organize their family life.

CommonGate – A social networking platform that enables users to create their own social network for their friends, family or organization.

Family 2.0 – Family 2.0 helps you create your own family social network, you can add family members, send personalized emails and create event alerts.

Famiva – A premier social network to connect with family members and relatives in a secure environment.

Famster – A private secure social network for family members.

Geni.com – An exciting social networking site enabling members to create their family tree. Although it’s a relatively new site, it has grown tremendously fast, and has hundreds of thousands of users.

Genoom – Genoom creates a meeting place for its site users. They can create a family network by inviting their relatives and discover their past memories.

Kincafe – An ideal social network for families to connect with their beloved ones.

Kinzin – Kinzin is an online meeting place for families to share family events, photos, stories and recipes.

MayasMoM – A family networking site for parents.

Minti – A collaborative parenting site.

MomJunction – MomJunction allows mothers to find reliable answers to questions, create private spaces with friends and build communities.

MothersClick – MothersClick connects mothers in a neighborhood with each and provides parenting advice to them.

myfamily.com – An excellent way to connect with your family members.

OneGreatFamily.com – An online shared database with combined knowledge and data at a single place.

OurStory.com – OurStory enables users to share stories of their families with others.

Parentography – A social network offering advice and advice for families.

The Family Post – A sharing network for communication with family members.

Friends

43 Things – A tagging based social networking site. Users create accounts and list a number of goals or hopes and these are parsed based on similarity to goals of other users.

Amitize.com – Amitize is a worldwide friendship network.

aSmallWorld – aSmallWorld is a private online community designed for individuals who would like to connect, re-connect to share similar thoughts with each other.

Badoo.Com – Badoo is a dynamic multi-lingual social networking site with innovative photo and video features that allows its users worldwide to gain an instant mass audience and interact both locally and globally.

Bebo – Bebo is a hugely popular site (especially in the UK), and similar in philosophy to MySpace. It allows users to communicate with their friends in multiple ways including blogging, sending messages and posting pictures.

Eons – An online gathering place for the elderly; most of the users are over the age of 50 years.

Facebook.com – Facebook is a social networking phenomenon connection people with their friends, family and other users with similar interests.

Faceparty – A UK based community social networking website. It started for youngsters but has now risen to popularity among all age groups.

Flingr – Flingr allows users to connect with all categories of friends – colleagues, college mates and school buddies.

Friendster – It is a popular global social network for finding new friends and developing friendships as well as searching old friends.

hi5 – Hi5 is a prominent social networking service in India with over 40 million users. However, Hi5 has recently experienced an upsurge beyond India and has shown increasing popularity in EU too.

Lovento – Lovento allows you to discover news friends and also find information about latest events.

Multiply.com – Multiply is a social networking website providing easy way to share digital media which includes photos, videos and music.

Mycool – Mycool enables members to find and share their interests with special groups.

MySpace.com – MySpace is an interactive social networking website consisting of personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, music and videos. It’s currently the biggest social networking site out there, and while it might not be the most advanced one, the users seem to love its simplicity.

NetFriendships.com – A comprehensive social networking site enabling users to make new online friends and discover old ones.

Netlog – A social community of more than 20 million young Europeans.

Orkut – Orkut is a social networking service owned by Google. It enables users to meet new friends and create communities.

Passado – Passado is Europe’s no.1 re-union website connecting members with friends from school to workplace.

Piczo – Piczo offers safe social networking environment to youngster around the world. Piczo users can design their personal website with photos, videos etc. and share it with their friends.

Plazes – A social networking website for connecting with local users.

Pownce.com – Pownce is a mix of social networking and microblogging. It enables users to send messages, files, events and links with each other.

ProfileHeaven.com – A UK based social networking site for teenagers.

reunion.com – A leading online service for discovering old friends, classmates and family members.

Vox.com – Vox is a social blogging service where users share their ideas, photos, videos with family and friends.

Xanga – Xanga is one of the biggest social networking platforms with features of sharing photos, photos and videos.

XuQa – An online college social networking site with poker gaming features.

Hobbies & Interests

ActionProfiles.com – It is social networking community for sports and action. The features of the website are profiles of users with photographs and videos, reviews of products and job discussion boards.

Arts community – Arts community provides a dynamic community experience by providing extensive listing of exhibitions, events and openings.

BeGreen – BeGreen is a community that aims to generate environmental awareness for users.

beRecruited – beRecruited is a dedicated online community for sportpersons and coaches.

BottleTalk – BottleTalk is a wine lover’s community making it easy for members to share their drinking experiences.

CarGurus – An automobile community website enabling users to post car reviews, photos and share opinions.

Change – Change is a nonprofit social networking website that connects like minded users and allows them to exchange information.

ChangingThePresent – A nonprofit fund raising community with membership of over 400 nonprofits.

ChickAdvisor – ChickAdvisor is a sharing community for women users.

CircleUp – CircleUp is one of the best community website connecting users to groups, clubs for knowledge sharing, information exchange.

Coastr – Coastr connects beer lovers with each other.

ColShare – ColShare is a community for people who have hobby of collecting items like coins, stamps etc.

coRank – A rating community for users to share interesting information on internet.

DailyStrength – A huge community of over 500 groups dealing with health issues and various medical challenges.

Dundoo – Dundoo enables users to create image collages out of social networking profile. A big amount of ads on the site somewhat diminishes the overall impression.

Flixster – Flixster is a community for movie lovers.

FuelEmpire – FuelEmpire brings automobile enthusiasts together at one place.

GirlSense – A community for girls to promote their fashion designs & creations.

Greenvoice – An online networking platform for people who are conscious about the environment, who want to inform each other on environmental issues and create a difference.

iYomu – iYomu is an adult social networking website and it allows users to search for site members who have similar interests or for business needs.

Motortopia – Motortopia is community for automobile lovers. It consists of passionate lovers of bikes, planes, cars and boats etc.

MyCatSpace – MyCatSpace is a community for lovers of cats passionate to share experiences of their cats with others.

MyDogSpace – MyDogSpace users can share their dog pictures, write blog posts about dogs and communicate with other dog lovers, all in a very lovely community.

Uniteddogs – A social networking website for dog owners. The dog owners can creae profiles of their dogs, create blogs and share their thoughts.

vSocial – vSocial is a video based social networking platform allowing content owners, site operators to deliver the message online with video.

Language

15+ Language Communities

Media (Photo, Video & Audio)

25+ Video Sharing Services

30+ Photo Sharing Services

20+ Music Sharing Services

Buzdeo – Buzdeo provides secure video sharing service with friends and family.

Fotki – A photo sharing service enabling users to connect with friends.

Fotolog – A big online photo sharing community.

Music

Asoboo – Asoboo is a sharing network for cultural artists from around the world.

BandChemistry – A network for musicians uniting music bands all over.

BandWagon – BandWagon is a music community website for music fans to manage their web pages, profiles, videos and music.

CrackSpace – A common place for fans of hip-hop music.

Moob – A dedicated community of hip-hop fans.

MOG – An online community powering site members to discover music and music lovers.

Mobile

CrackBerry – A community dedicated to BlackBerry users.

Dodgeball – A New York based service facilitating social interactions through mobile phones.

Friendstribe.com – A mobile phone based social networking site.

GotZapp – A mobile social network for sharing images, audio and graphics with your friends’ mobile phones.

Groovr – An ultimate mobile social networking site for staying connected with friends. It is compatible with iPhone.

Jaiku – Jaiku is essentially a microblogging service with an SMS gateway, very similar to Twitter. They’ve recently been acquired by Google.

Loopt – Loopt is a cool mobile based friend locator website. It uses GPS to show its users the location of friends by updating maps on mobile handset.

Mixxer – Mixxer enables users to content on their mobile with site members.

Mobango – A mobile community service powering users to search for user generated music content, videos and other data.

Mozes – Mozes enables members to connect & socialize with each other through mobile phones.

Partysync – Partysync helps users to interact with people using mobiles.

Peepsnation – Peepsnation allows users with similar interests to connect with each other on location basis.

Rabble – A location based social networking service for mobile phone users.

Socialight – Socialight is a mobile based social networking site where users share their travel experiences with other mobile users.

Wattpad – A mobile phone social networking platform allowing users to discover, read and share their stories with each others.

Shopping

18 Sites for Social Shopping and Deals

3LUXE – A community generated product research site.

AgentB – A common place to find out the best shopping deals on internet.

bringsome.com – A global goods delivery platform enabling community members to assist each other with access to best items from across the world.

boxedup.com – Boxedup.com users add their favorite products to their list and share it with others.

CoWorkersAds – An online marketplace listing allowing site members to discover and sell items among coworkers community.

iliketotallyloveit.com – A user generated marketplace where users submit cool products.

MyItThings.com – A user generated magazine for shopping.

MyStore.com – A social market place for buyers and sellers.

Productwiki.com – ProductWiki is a common place for users to share information about consumer products.

RedFlagDeals.com – RedFlagDeals.com is Canada’s most popular shopping community which offers huge discounts to site users.

Sale Grab – SaleGrab is a social shopping site for best sales and discount deals.

Shoppero – Shoppero offers profit sharing to site users for writing product reviews.

Smashing Darling – A collaborative market place connecting buyers and sellers at one place.

Social BookMarking

50+ Social Bookmarking Sites

Students

AlumWire – AlumWire has been created to assist college students, alumni with professional opportunities.

B4Class – A social network for high school and college students.

Campusbug – A college student social networking website.

CampusRank – CampusRank members select and rate their old school friends and group them into various categories.

College.com – An online community for college students.

CollegeMedium.com – A student classifieds website for buying and selling items, jobs search etc.

College Tonight – A great place to meet fellow college students and alumni.

DormItem.com – A local classifieds listings for schools in various cities.

Graduates.com – A social networking site assisting graduate school students to stay in touch post completion of course.

Half.com – A leading student market place for buying and selling textbooks at discounted prices.

iHipo – An international community for college students and business professionals looking for networking opportunities.

LocalSchools – A networking site connecting students with local US colleges and universities.

Pazap.com – A student trading site for buying and selling on-campus books with other students.

Quizilla – Quizilla is a social network for young teens.

RateMyProfessor.com – RateMyProfessor connects students aspiring to study similar courses by assisting each other.

Student.com – Student.com is a big online community for college students, high school students and teens with around 1,000,000 members.

Studentbid.com – Studentbid.com is a student market place for sales and purchase of items without any fees.

StudentSN.com – A social network allowing users to create home pages with contact information, personal information and photo albums.

Uloop.com – Uloop allows students to trade textbooks, promote community events and do host of other activities.

Travel & Locals

Amicoz.com – Amicoz is slightly different from conventional social networking sites; it doesn’t have some of the common features found on socnets. It is dedicated to assist users in sharing their travel experiences, nothing more, nothing less.

Citizenbay – Citizenbay is a user community for discovering local information.

CityTherapy – CityTherapy is an easy way to find and share places of interest (restaurant, bars) in Europe.

CouchSurfing – A global travel network connecting travelers with local communities.

fatdoor.com – A fun and an interactive way to connect with the folks from your neighborhood online.

Going.com – A fun way to interact with people locally.

iloho – An online travel community with similarity to social bookmarking services like digg.

MatchActivity – A site connecting people on the basis of their activities. Users can find things to do and join people in their area.

Matador – A travel based social network with an integrated blogging service.

myTripbook.com – myTripbook.com is a place for people who want to share their travel experiences through photos, videos and blogging with others.

OurFaves – OurFaves is a community of urban savvy folks who enjoy the Toronto city and find out cool places to hang out at.

Outside.in – A nice way to explore local communities to keep track with neighborhood news.

Rummble – Rummble enables users to discover as well as share places of interest in your neighborhood.

TravBuddy – TravBuddy is a cool site for sharing travel experiences, finding new travel friends or reading travel reviews of fellow friends.

Travellerspoint – An international meeting point for worldwide travelers.

TravelTogether – A travel based social networking service enabling users to share travel plans, travel deals and experiences.

tribe.net – Tribe.net is one of the easiest ways to connect with people for finding a restaurant, a killer apartment, a gentle dentist or a hiking friend.

TripUp – A travel community site for finding travel information and planning for trips.

Triporama- Triporama provides an easy way to plan and collaborate on group trips.

VibeAgent – VibeAgent is a site about hotel reviews, travel meta-search and social networking.

WAYN – A social networking website uniting world wide travelers.

WeExplore – WeExplore provides an online platform for volunteers and travelers from all over the globe.

Wikitravel – Wikitravel is dedicated project for creating a trusted, up-to-date travel guide. It has over 16,641 travel destination guides maintained and written by Wikitravellers from around the world.

Zoodango – Zoodango is a website enabling users to connect with urban professionals either online or face-to-face at local venues.

by Daksh Sharma / Mashable

What’s Your Personal PR Plan?

noreply@blogger.com (Rafiq Shah) — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 22:21:07 PDT

With the rise of blogging and social media, individuals have more opportunities than ever to brand and promote themselves. What are you doing to brand and promote yourself today? Do you have a personal PR plan? When I take a look at some of the best-known people in the media, marketing and public relations sectors, I can’t help but notice how awesome they are at self-promotion. Is this luck? I think not. I think this is a commitment to a personal PR plan, whether formal or informal, to help them position themselves as experts in their particular areas.

What can you do to put yourself on a path to building your personal brand around your areas of expertise?

Step One: Objectives

I’ve always liked the S.M.A.R.T. approach to developing objectives. While the acronym varies from person to person, S.M.A.R.T. objectives for me are Specific, Measureable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-Based. In other words, a S.M.A.R.T. objective might look like this:

Be recognized as an expert in personal branding by senior-level marketers by the end of 2010, speaking at three industry conferences and having an article published in three reputable trade publications around my area of personal branding expertise.

You should be as specific as possible about your objective(s) for your personal PR plan. What do you want to get for all the hard work you’ll put into the process? What is the expected outcome? If possible, is there a value you can tie to your objective, such as secure $500,000 in consulting engagements?

Strategies: Where the Rubber Hits the Road

Like any PR program, what strategies can you use to achieve our objective(s)? Using the example above, my strategies might include positioning myself as an expert with conference organizers, engaging trade journalists in a discussion about my expertise, or there may be work that comes before that, like publishing a book or white paper to showcase my expertise. Another strategy might be to commission a study on the state of personal branding today, and publishing a white paper on the “10 Things You Need to Know About Personal Branding”. While these are actually tactics, they tie into the key strategy of positioning yourself as an expert, in order to meet your objective.

Be creative with your strategies. What can you do that nobody else is doing? Can you develop a website that helps people evaluate their current personal branding level? Can you help an expert determine their greatest area of opportunity through a 1/2 hour interview session? What can you do to rise above the noise?

Tactics and Timing

What work needs to be accomplished, by when, in order for you to meet your objectives within the time frame you’ve set? What milestones can you set along the way to keep things on track? For the example above, my first milestone might be to identify all the conferences and industry events that would be a potential target for me. Or, I might want to research and identify media outlets that accept contributed articles. List out each step in the process for each defined tactic. This stage might also include an assessment of your available resources. You might need help in meeting your goals, such as hiring a copywriter or using a website developer to create your expert site or you can buy ready websites from Go Daddy just for $ 2.0.

Measurement

How will you evaluate your progress and your overall success? Everything can be measured. Perhaps you’ll want to measure traffic generated to your website, requests for consultations, or the sheer volume of press mentions you generate for your efforts. Once you decide how you’ll measure your results, you can determine how frequently you’ll assess your progress. By measuring your progress, you’ll be able to make adjustments along the way to ensure you’re on track to hit your objectives.

Re-Planning

Upon conclusion of your plan, you’ll want to review the results and determine what worked (or what didn’t). Based on your experience going through this once, you’ll be in a better position to set even clearer objectives for your next program. Put your new plan together on the heels of your last one, while all the information is still fresh at hand. By consistently working on developing your personal brand, you’ll increase your value to your organization and better position yourself for new opportunities.

Additional Suggestions for Personal Branding

If you’re reading this post for specific ideas about things you can do to generate awareness and recognition for yourself as an expert, here are a few tactics that seem to be working for many of the best-known experts in media, marketing and PR:

Start with a blog – everything starts with a blog. You may see established bloggers ditching their blog for new life streaming endeavors, but I don’t think this is the way to go. I see life streaming as an extension of the suggestions I offer here. You should commit to blogging about your expertise, providing a large base of knowledge from which you can draw from to position yourself as an expert. Consider my own situation. Many of you didn’t know who Jeremy Porter was before I started the Journalistics blog. While our audience is nowhere near the size of more-established blogs, it’s still more than 10 times what it was before the blog.

Get social – I’ve found the best way to expand my audience and extend the reach of my expertise is to leverage social media for self-promotion. In reality, I’m promoting this blog, but as a byproduct, I’m branding myself as an expert. Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook are powerful tools for expanding your audience and driving more traffic back to your blog (remember the first bullet). This is why I suggest starting with the blog (though in truth, I started with Twitter). Provide value to your audience, in the form of useful, educational or otherwise interesting content, and they will reward you by spreading the word about your content.

Get quoted – once you’ve been doing the first two for a while, you’ll be surprised how frequently you get quoted on other blogs and websites. You’ll be invited to guest blog, and you might even get a regular column in a trade publication (I have been fortunate to find these opportunities since launching the blog in March). If the requests don’t come pouring in, consider reaching out to other bloggers and websites to offer to write a post or article for them. You’ll be surprised how many will say “yes.”

Go speak – if you do a good job on these other bullets, people might just want to meet you in the real world. You’ll have to be more proactive here, but you should be able to find regional (and some national) events to speak at. If you’re not a powerful public speaker, consider going after panel discussions first. You no doubt can add value on a panel about your area of expertise. I have recently seen entry-level 20-somethings start to position themselves as “gurus” by pitching themselves for panel discussions.

Publish something of value – in addition to your blog posts, consider authoring an ebook or real book about your expertise. It’s not as difficult as it might sound (nor as easy as you think it might be), but you’ll be glad you did. Think of all the various gurus you follow on Twitter or see at conferences; they have all written at least one book. I haven’t, but this is next on my list, once I come up with a good topic.

Help people – the best way you can position yourself as an expert is to share your knowledge and help others. If you give your ideas away for free, you’ll reach a lot more people – and they’ll start to think of you as the expert in your particular niche. Always be asking yourself, “What do I know that would help this person? How can I help them get ahead or improve the performance of their programs?” It might be as simple as making an introduction for them to somebody in your network they want to meet. Pay it forward and hope for the best.

Why You Need to Protect Your Clients With a Social Media #Crisis Plan

noreply@blogger.com (Rafiq Shah) — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 07:24:59 PDT

Author: Melissa Agnes

With the continuous rise in social media activity, and more and more brands learning the advantages of building real connections with their clients and prospects online, we can now say with certainty that social media marketing is here to stay.

However, with the sweet comes the sour and many companies and organizations are not preparing for – or even realizing that along with these great opportunities exists great risk. Risk that can destroy a brand in minimal time. Risk that, without the right social media crisis plan, leaves every company and organization highly vulnerable.

Whether you’re currently active on social media or not, and no matter the brand’s type, size or industry, social media crises are a reality that can strike any brand at any time – and the only thing we can usually anticipate is that one will strike when it’s least expected. Whether it be with the launch of a hopeful campaign, due to an employee’s mistake, technical errors… it need not matter. The only thing that matters when you find yourself in the midst of a social media crisis are two things:

Your response time
Your response strategy

Let me give you an example.

A couple months ago I received a call bright and early from a Real Estate Investment Trust (Reit) in a panic.

Note: For those of you who are unfamiliar with Reits, a Reit is a public company that invests in commercial and industrial real estate, selling units (their version of shares) to investors.

This particular Reit called me in a panic when they found themselves faced with a social media crisis that was quickly dominating the online space.

The crisis

A building adjacent to one of the Reit’s buildings, in the heart of downtown Montreal, was under suspicion and risk of collapsing. Now, since this building was not actually touching my client’s building, neither their property nor their tenants were actually in any risk of being harmed. However, somehow, somewhere the media got it wrong and it was being announced across media channels, blogs, University bulletin boards and Twitter (the building at risk had a University as a tenant, who’s students were wildly tweeting their interpretation of the situation) and all news being reported and tweeted stated that it was my client’s building that was about to collapse.

Being a public company who depends on their unit price and investors, having a faulty building in their portfolio is not something that helps business or unit price.

Remember what I said about counting on a social media crisis to happen at the worst possible time? Well the President of this Reit happened to be in the car with a potential investor as the news was breaking on the radio. That’s when I got the call!

As their media relations representative was handling the crisis on traditional media outlets, I was called in to handle the social media and online side of the crisis.

My biggest challenge

Since the Reit was quick to react by calling me in, I knew that correcting the rumors wouldn’t be as hard as it potentially could have been. It would take quick and strategic work, but it was possible. The real challenge was the fact that my new client had not yet set themselves up with a social media presence. (Remember when I said a social media crisis can strike whether your company is active or present on social media or not?!)

Since much of the attacks were being made on Twitter, it was crucial that they be responded to on Twitter. Within half an hour’s time my team had the Reit set up with a Twitter account, had a hashtag campaign selected and had all tweets with this hashtag being streamed on the home page of the Reit’s corporate website, making sure that:

1) All clients, stakeholders and the media looking to the company’s website for news and updates would immediately find it.

2) All those looking to Twitter were finding answers and being properly informed.

With a number of other social media crisis management strategies put into place, and their staff briefed and quickly trained on their particular roles within the crisis, the rumors were put to rest and the whole crisis was resolved in record time.

So what were the end results of this chaotic social media crisis?

Due to the fact that this Reit had not yet established a social media presence OR a social media crisis plan, the best move they made was following their gut and calling me onto the scene as soon as they were made aware of the looming threats. Due to their fast response and the social media crisis management plan we immediately put into place, within an hour and a half from the time I got the initial call we had:

- The media outlets (both traditional and online) picking up the truth about the situation and reporting it accordingly.

- All tenants and stakeholders receiving up-to-date news and updates regarding the crisis as it broke in real-time via a Twitter stream, hashtag campaign and RSS subscription.

- Interviews being held by the media where the Reit’s executives had the chance to personally alert tenants and stakeholders of the actions that were being taken, assuring them that no tenant or building was in harm’s way.

- Not only did the Reit’s unit price not decrease, but within 24 hours it actually increased by $0.01!

“Once all the dust had settled we received letters of thanks from several tenants for how we handled the situation, our Chairmen personally thanked our president and several key executive members, and our other employees were impressed at the professional manner in which things were dealt with – to the point of giving our Operations staff an ovation at a company wrap up meeting.” – Dan Oana, V.P. of marketing at BTB Reit

Take-aways

So what can you take away from this social media crisis and implement into your own clients’ social media crisis plan?

- A social media crisis can strike at any time, without warning – whether you’re active on social media or not.

- The quicker you are to respond, the better. The longer you wait, the more the crisis builds a momentum and spirals out of control.

- Build your social media presence before you find yourself faced with an attack.

- Respond to the crisis on the same channel that it broke out on.

- Keep your clients, stakeholders and the media updated in real-time. Even if there’s no new news to announce, keep them in the loop.

A social media crisis is a reality that should be taken very seriously. By taking the proper measures to prepare and protect your clients from a social media attack before they find themselves faced with one, you eliminate many of the threats and potential damage social media crises can have on a company’s reputation and bottom line.

Are you prepared to protect your clients with a social media crisis management plan, and if not, why not?

Melissa Agnes is a social media crisis manager, consultant and speaker. She helps brands and organizations prepare and protect themselves with the right social media crisis plan, and offers on-call emergency, crisis management services, daily social media crisis management blog for more insightful posts on all aspects of social media crises and protecting your company or organization against them. You can also connect with Melissa on Facebook and Twitter.