Tag : Social Media
I spent last weekend at the International Quilt Festival in Houston – a total feast for my senses! Approximately 50,000 people cross through the doors of the George R. Brown Convention center (it’s not your Grandma’s quilt show), so there’s no doubt that it’s a major challenge for exhibitors at any tradeshow to rise above noise (literally and figuratively) and gain the attention of attendees. Every booth has something unique to offer, of course, but imagine trying convey this when you also have a language barrier to overcome!
Here are some of the fun ways I noticed exhibitors were trying to get their product noticed.
With a little less than 30 days until Black Friday, you may still be thinking about your PR and Marketing strategy for the approaching holidays. The truth of the matter is that you’re already behind the 8-ball.
A recent research report by Yesmail Interactive shows that many brands haven’t properly aligned their marketing activities (PR and social media included) to meet consumer shopping habits. The result: missed opportunities to gain and convert consumer attention into sales.
Don’t panic. There’s still time to get some cleaver ideas together.

If your company doesn’t have a blog yet, you might be wondering if you’re missing out on the latest and greatest business generator, or whether you’re just smarter than the average bear and avoiding a pitfall. (Click on “Blog” and there’s nothing there = pitfall.) There’s a plethora of free content out there in the world these days; your blog needs to be stand up to the competition. Sloppy and irrelevant have no place in the blogosphere, so think before you give that 22 year old intern the job.

Personal branding is not a new concept, and yet one cannot pick up an entrepreneurial or business magazine without stumbling across it. Why all this recent popularity? What has happened to put personal branding on everyone’s lips?
I was reminded this weekend of the power of film. Film has the ability to personalize a business, help build or strengthen your brand, share a story, create awareness for a need, illicit emotion, bring about change, and create action. As a small business owner, isn’t this something you are trying to do every day? Think about how effective a short video could be on highlighting a special business focus, or punching up blog entry, or highlighting the emotion and activity of an event.
In a recent Harvard Business Review piece, the author, a well-known social media strategist who oversees, among others, the famous twitter brand of Shaquille O’Neal (@Shaq), begs one simple question that’s, well, not-so-simple. Paraphrasing: “How do I monetize social media? And if I can’t, why bother?” This question couldn’t come at a better time. With the recent launch of Google+, being lauded as the latest and greatest in an already saturated field, I find myself, a social media fan, beginning to wonder what the hell I’m doing and why.
It’s true. There are lots of people out there that still don’t get Twitter. I know a few of them, and my hunch is you do, too. And you may be inclined to fall into the trap I often do; the “let me explain this to you one more time” trap where before long you…
Social media continues to grow globally in terms of adoption, usage, interest and impact in a massive way. It’s undeniably changing the way that content and information work particularly in terms of the publishing of consumer opinion. This has transformed the way that consumers relate to brands and the way that brands should operate, driving direct interaction, transparency and a more consultative approach.
Content is king…and this applies to the good ‘ol PR tool known as the press release—or as I call it, the news release. Earlier this year while sitting in the Austin Content Marketing Tweetup ‘hot seat’ with my PRC colleague-in-crime LuAnn Glowacz, it was discovered we didn’t see eye-to-eye on the press release being alive…