Digital Marketing And Social Media PR – The Future Buzz

Most online marketers don’t stop to consider the technology behind what lets them reach audiences. So today, we thought it would be fun to explore an introduction to something you’ve probably never thought about: how online advertising delivery works.

Read a great post recently at Twist Image on selling 2.0 – letting the customer do the communicating. Mitch writes on the great strategy used by e-commerce sites for empowering consumers to be vocal about products and what they like and don’t directly on the same page as the product.

Amazon comes to mind as a site that does this extremely well. When making a purchase (which is pretty frequently as I’m addicted to reading) I always read the consumer reviews there, especially when it comes to new authors. The consumer reviews always tell the real story about the product. And everyone knows it, I am willing to bet a heat-map of an Amazon product page shows consumers spending more time reading reviews than the publisher copy someone painstakingly drafted.

Why is this? Simple – we know the publisher copy is going to gush praise. While it is worthwhile in getting someone’s attention and providing them an intro, what provides real value in a consumer site that is unfamiliar territory with a potential new visitor is other consumer’s opinions and thoughts. It is social proofing.

image credit: bbsc30 via flickr

I receieve a decent amount of reader questions via email. I always take time to give a response, as generally email questions are quick one-offs, and I’m happy to answer.

Once in awhile I get an email question asking for detailed, specific advice and seeking a more in-depth response. When that happens, I give the writer two options:

1) I can answer the question in an open-format for all my readers to see and get value from. In this case I can either give detailed advice to your company if you’re willing to let me disclose your company name and issues publicly, or I can tackle the question from a general perspective and keep your company name private (unfortunately with this method, I can never be as thorough with an answer).

In something which is hard to witness as both a PR professional and writer, thousands of journalists around the country at major newspapers are being laid off or offered severance packages to quit. You’ve probably read local stories in whatever area of the country you’re in about downsizing and layoffs at your major daily of choice. You may have also seen your local community newspapers closing their doors.

I have written previously on how newspapers have much to learn about the web (and they do), and how local community newspapers need to evolve, but let’s not focus on the people making the decisions who have unfortunately ignored the writing on the wall. Let’s focus instead on the journalists, and all people who write for a living.

I used to be into the DJ thing in my college days, prior to finding my passions of web marketing and writing original music. The other day, however, I was pondering the things I did as a DJ to promote myself to gain a following and gigs. It was mostly in-person networking and building connections [...]

Your small business website is the most valuable tool in your arsenal to sell your companies’ services. If it is too complex, disorganized or inarticulate, it communicates those things about your business to the world. And yet daily I see examples of small businesses with websites that have broken links, no clear contact information and [...]