9 Ways to Engage Bloggers

By Jonathan Rick

Mention the phrase “blogger engagement” to today’s marketer, and you’re likely to get an eager response, followed by self-professed ignorance. “We’d love to do that—we just don’t know how.”

To some, this scenario spells new business. (In part, this explains why many agencies separate their “digital” practice from their traditional ones.) Yet an honest blogger whisperer will let you in on a secret: If you can pitch a reporter, producer, or booker, you can pitch a blogger. After all, bloggers are just people—susceptible to the same relationship-cultivating techniques that every PR pro performs every day.

Indeed, the best way to understand bloggers is to view them as members of the media. Think of blogger engagement as public relations, albeit a new kind. Neither straight reporter nor pure pundit, the blogger is a hybrid creature who observes his own rules.

How Email Signatures Can Brand and Promote Your Organization

By Jonathan Rick

One of the most overlooked opportunities for online marketing also happens to be one of the most ubiquitous: the email “signature.”

One of the first things new employees do is create a “signature block” for their emails. These half-dozen lines or so, consisting of your contact info, plop themselves at the bottom of every email we send. Yet few people put any thought into their e-signature, let alone alter it after it’s set up.

This modus operandi reflects a 1.0 mindset. Let’s upgrade it.

How to Make Your News Clips Delicious

By Jonathan Rick

Last month, TechCrunch reported that the popular bookmarking site, Delicious, is trapped in “purgatory”: Owner Yahoo wants to sell the property, but in a way that protects Yahoo’s proprietary’s technology that Delicious shares with the rest of the purple family. Yet whatever its fate, Delicious continues to offer a service that’s not only superior to the competition but that also should be part of every digital PR toolkit. Here’s why.

The 2.0 Way to Follow-up: It’s Called “Social Networking” for a Reason

By Jonathan Rick

After a conference or happy hour, many people find their pockets stuffed with business cards. If it was a productive event, the next morning you may be unable to pair each card with a face.

For the faces you remember, it’s customary to send off a nice-to-meet-you-hope-to-see-you-again e-mail. Often, the reply is just as trite.

This is the 1.0 way to follow-up: toilsome and monotonous. First, you need to remember what you discussed, then you need to craft a non-cliched missive. Then, when the need arises for a real follow-up, you run into e-mail’s static limitations.

Show Me the Numbers!

By Jonathan Rick

It took a recession, but résumés finally are receiving renewed scrutiny. The ability to embellish and obscure shrinks when one out of every six workers is under or unemployed. More than ever, recruiters want to see accomplishments, not responsibilities; numbers, not adverbs.

Certain professions have it easier than others. If you’re a lobbyist, you cite legislation passed or defeated. If you’re a fundraiser, you count dollars raised. If you’re a political operative, you record a win-loss record.

Alas, if you’re a social media consultant, you probably shun such metrics. Sure, you’ve helped clients tweet and blog, but who among us hasn’t? Sure, you have 10 years of experience, but what have you achieved?

With the ever-growing pool of amateurs marketing themselves as authorities, the need to distinguish the talkers from the doers is urgent. And what better way to draw this distinction than through the crucible of numbers.

The Post-Interview Follow-up Dance

By Jonathan Rick

If ever you’ve interviewed for a job you didn’t get, no doubt you’ve bumped into this unpleasant experience.

You interview, you send a follow-up letter—maybe even with some writing samples or references—and then you wait. A week or so goes by, and you check in, yet hear nothing. Another week passes, and your frustration mounts.

If you’re lucky, eventually you receive a form letter that the position has been filled.

Excuse me, but what the fuck?

Should Your Organization Start a Blog? 8 Questions

By Jonathan Rick

Everyone these days wants a blog. Blogs are known to be the most frequently updated—and thus most visited—facet of Web sites, and often form the crux of an organization’s online impact. Few, however, realize just how time-consuming and difficult blogging is.

Indeed, running a blogging consists not only in penning posts, but also in corralling them from colleagues and possibly guest contributors, editing them, and promoting them—not to mention moderating and responding to comments. As such, when considering a group blog for your organization, the following questions may facilitate a decision.

Want to Appreciate Twitter? Live Tweet a Social Media Conference

By Jonathan Rick

By now, it’s a cliché that Twitter has real-world value. Yet if you really want to appreciate both the usefulness and hipness of microblogging, try participating in a social media conference where live Tweeting is not only encouraged, the Tweets also are displayed on JumboTrons flanking the on-stage speaker.

Blog Posts Are the New Press Releases

By Jonathan Rick

The staple of public relations is the press release. It’s been around forever; follows generally agreed guidelines for format, content, and length; and still succeeds in its objective to publicize the item in question.

And yet, bound by stale conventions that suffocate originality and don’t play well with multimedia, the press release has become obsolete. It’s not that there’s no longer a need to announce big news formally. It’s that there’s a better way to do it than drafting 400 words of boilerplate.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Tweet

By Jonathan Rick

According to TwitterCounter.com, I joined Twitter two years ago. Yet only recently did I join the Twittersphere.

Let me explain. For the most part, I Twittered halfheartedly and sporadically (usually when captive on the metro). For months, I didn’t know how to check replies—or even understand the concept of “re-Tweeting” (RT). I used only Twitter.com, rather than experimenting with any of the dozens of programs that inject Twitter with steroids. In sum, I viewed Twitter the same way I view picture taking: I’d rather be doing the things being Tweeted or photographed, i.e., living rather than recording.