In 2000 the Cluetrain Manifesto stated, “Companies need to listen carefully to their employees and their market.  Corporate firewalls have kept smart employees in and smart markets out. It’s going to cause real pain to tear those walls down. But the result will be a new kind of conversation. And it will be the most [...]

One of the positive aspects of doing PR and marketing online is that there is a wealth of information available.  Pretty much everything can be tracked. This makes it possible to measure outcomes, not just outputs. Back in the  summer a bunch of very smart PR and research folk met in Barcelona to discuss PR [...]

The availability of easy online publishing tools has given everyone a voice and the power to reach an audience. This can be a very positive thing, what with fans, evangelists and brand ambassadors helping to spread the word. On the other hand it opens the door to greater risk and the need for constant vigilance, [...]

For three years or so savvy companies and organizations have been experimenting with how to become a social brand. They’ve experimented with social media campaigns and activities, mostly in the marketing and PR arena.  Some have been dragged into social CRM by their customers As we approach the end of 2010 and head into the [...]

ClickThroughs #2 trend is that email and social will get more integrated. “As email open rates continue to decline some marketers are left watching this powerful resource diminish, wondering how they can reignite this audience.” Email firms like Constant Contact have certainly seen this trend and are jumping on it hard.  They have added many [...]

Another 2011 trend predicted by ClickThrough has PR implications: Many companies have excellent existing content in PDFs, brochures, PowerPoints and offline video that can be converted to digital assets, put online and filtered into the social web. One way to do this is to publish your content on social platforms like Scribd, Slideshare, Docstoc and [...]

EyeforTravel published their 2011 Trends and their number one pick is the increasing need to integrate social content and activity on your corporate website. As budget freezes start to thaw, it’s time for them (companies) to consider how to integrate social media functionality, for example, incorporating the power of Facebook comment boxes on site to [...]

Last week I wrote that for a company to successfully integrate social media with their  PR activities they have to listen, learn and respond.  @HughesPR asked if it is that simple Listening is not hard these days.  There are now over 200 tools that can help you gather the conversations. The next step is not [...]

This time last year I put branded content on my list of PR trends to watch in 2010. This trend definitely found traction in 2010 – content spend was at 33 percent of marketing budgets, up 11% from 2008. According to the Meltwater Future of Content report content marketing strategies are at the forefront of [...]

In 2000 the Cluetrain Manifesto made some predictions about how the Internet would change communication, behavior and, as a result, how we do business. “Companies need to listen carefully to their employees and their market.  Corporate firewalls have kept smart employees in and smart markets out. It’s going to cause real pain to tear those [...]