Bloggabase - How to target the right people

With the clitter clatter of the online world, it can be hard if not nigh on impossible to connect with those who want to connect with you. Exactly, how do you get to meet? Well, "Bloggabase" might be start. What is it? Bloggabase is a new way to bring bloggers and marketers together in a more specific and dynamic way. You sign up as a blogger and you will receive "targeted product review opportunities" which could ultimately lead to an income for your blog. This might not be suitable for all bloggers (myself included) as if you're not at blogging full time it may be annoying to receive emails about subjects that you right about. As Google is looking at the authorship and the subjects rather than links on your blog, they certainly seem to be heading the right direction. But I wonder is it just more SPAM in your inbox. Lorra

Don't be lazy-get that sale

With so many social media monitoring sites like Radian6, google alerts & Collective intellect, it has become apparent just how important online chatter has become.A lot of companies only use these sites in a crisis pr environment, but is that a wasted opportunity?There is such a thing as proactive social media that the Pr professional should not only develop but embrace. You should always be on the lookout for mentions of your business. All you have to do to prove this point tweet to your followers that you are in a particular town and ask what restaurant to go to. Why should business that are in your area not tweet themselves? They can only do this if they are constantly monitoring online chat. Surely, a wasted opportunity if the restaurant themselves did niot promote themselves?I once worked for an insurance company and the one thing that I took away from a solid month of training was: DONT BE AFRAID TO ASK FOR THE BUSINESS!!We went looking for bunkbeds recently, we went to at least 4 furniture shops ready and willing to spend our hard earned cash! NOT ONE of the sales people asked for the sale, none seemed eager, in fact they were the opposite. Two did not even stand when we approached their desk asking about delivery costs.This surely was an indicator that we were willing to buy. The sales people seemed tried and had no interest in our plight - even when the sale was standing right in front of them. I would not be impressed if I was their boss depending on each and every sale.The two lessons here are: 1. MONITOR ONLINE CHATTER 2. DONT BE AFRAID TO ASK FOR THE SALE - BE EAGER, NOT HALF DEAD!We're still looking for the bunkbeds. Anyone willing to prove my point!!Lorra

FLOTUS and her tweets!

In this age of digital media & communications just how important is it that the First Lady Michelle Obama tweets?With just 300,000 followers she is well behind her husband at 28.2 million followers, but in fairmess thats to be expected. Michelle Obama signs her tweets MO as a certain amount of tweets are written by her staff and this is to show what she personally is tweeting. A lot of her "Get moving" campaign is online, with sessions of Questions & Answers on particular subjects.It certainly is making the Office of the President a little softer by association. First Lady Obama is a pro at using social media to help her causes, however, with the good comes the bad.Twitter is so accessable First Lady Obama is reaching people she would normally not be in a position to communicate with. With this broad catch of people comes people who are not necessarily there to talk about her anti obesity campaign but her husband's opponents who also know how to effectively use Twitter. They use it not to talk to her, rather to slam the President and the adminstration through the First Lady.So, although the First Lady is reaching people that would normally not be reached without social media, she has to be aware that there certainly will be tweets from people who do not believe in either the present adminstration or her healthy eating plans. For the most part though, I think it's great. At least she's trying.Lorra

How important is the internet to the business person?

The Chairman/CEO of Starbucks certainly seems to believe it is! With his new comic book, "Howard Schultz: The man behind Starbucks", this is a new & exciting departure for the PR executive. It not only gives extra publicity to the brand (Starbucks) but also makes their leader more human and in this online social age any edge in business is a good edge. This new publication or ones like it can show their leaders in a "softer light" which may translate to the brand in an age when social responsibilty seems to be king with the consumer. As most of us are friends with a certain amount of business online we feel we have a vested interest in not only their brand, but the direction they take. Now, this may only be "pretend" as it's a good way for companies to get consumer buy in and ultimately increase sales it has never been so important to engage in social media and make your brand more appealing to the masses. Blogs and podcasts are another good social way to connect with your audience. The Skys the limit as far as social media & PR goes! Lorra

Has Pinterest more to say than Twitter?

Pinterest is a pin board style photo sharing website that allows users to create and manage theme based posts, for example you can have a "kitchen" board with pictures of all the styles and colours you like - these are known as "pins". You can have as many boards as you like and can share images by re-pining a picture you like. With Twitter, you have the same idea only using letters. You get to "tweet" using 140 characters. And these can be re-tweeted of the reader finds them interesting/funny etc. Pinterest although slow to take off, it seems to have embedded itself into a certain type of internet user. It can be used by anyone - if your interested in cooking you not only can have different boards, Pinterest allows you to see the entire content that you have recently shared, which if you cant find that particular receipe can be handy. If a picture is worth a thousand words, Pinterest can be used in fields never thought possible. There is a new "visual medical encyclopedia" that will use pinterest's pictorial navigation system. Pinterest does seem to have the edge on Twitter - but not by the user numbers. Lorra

How do you rate Google circles?

With all the developments of social networks over the years & the comming & going of sites like BEBO & My Space, can Google circles really last the pace? When Facebook came along, it could be argued that what made it so popular was not only right place - right time (right stage of development) but an ease of use for the end user. With over 600 million users now on Facebook it certainly is a success in the social network field. After facebook came twitter - Jack Deasy's 140 character site, that has become popular both with celebrity & the regular Joe soap. In fact, celebrity status is key on Twitter - Justin Bieber gets 32,000 re-tweets per tweet!! Yes, thats 32 thousand PER tweet. Then came along Google Circles - You certainly have the feeling of more security in that you can open up your circles - you can have a friends circle, family circle etc. etc. but I for one have found that slowly but surely they have introduced un-invited posts, new add banners and everything else you wanted to get away from on Facebook. Now, I know they have to get revenue but I for one liked it the way it was! Lorra

Celebrity PR

As you are all very aware I'm sure, celebrity is these days the holy grail. In the world of PR, things (clients) seems to have shifted considerabley. From the days of Ivy Lee Leadbetter & Edward Bernays and the first heady PR days in Ireland (ESB), Public Relations in general seem to have taken a turn into celebrity, and some might say not for the better either. Now, don't get to cross! If you look at the PR professionals that the general public would hear about I think there's only one........Max Clifford (let's forget his personal problems for the moment). He is as famous, if not more than some of his clients. PR used to be about communicating your message, telling the truth, keeping people informed of a developing situation. Now, of a lot of celebrity PR is about who is pregnant, how much weight have they lost or more importantly put on, who is dating who? Even the fashion industry seems to have taken a back seat to some of these celebrity issues in certain publications. Now, there is obvisoulsy a market for this type of publication and with that happily enough comes a market for PR professionals. As the industry has expanded there certainly are options for the PR graduates of today to specialise in celebrity. Lorra