Make the Leap: Media Rooms, Twitter Metrics, Power of One

It’s been a month filled with massive proposals, social media overload and new staff at our agency (Growth is good – and hopefully, contagious!) But this will be the week the blog becomes robust again.  To start the week, some links of note:

Media Rooms / Press Sites / Newsrooms

No matter what you call them, your company better have one and it better be relevant to ensure your story is told and told well. It is a statement of the obvious to say that journalists find their information online. Oftentimes, as I’ve experienced with several clients, stories are written and published purely off what they find online. This post on Press Area Usability is a good one with some scientific data on what journalists look for – and great points on what you need to include. All summarized with ‘Why spend a fortune on outbound PR (trying to pitch journalists) when you neglect simple steps to increase the effectiveness of inbound PR (satisfying journalists who visit your website)?’ As one journalist succinctly stated “It behooves the company to make their website easier to use. You immediately begin to hate the company when it’s not.”

One isn’t the loneliest number

If microblogging has brought us anything, it has helped many a communicator return to their concise roots. It makes me miss the days of :15 second broadcast stories and :5 second teases. Here’s a great list from Dan Santow of phrases that can be replaced with one word.

Twitter Metrics

Speaking of the microblogging platform at everyone’s fingertips these days – once people embrace it they often wonder, what about the metrics? (congrats btw to our client Tucanos Brazilian Grill, which is embracing Twitter to communicate with Boise as they prepare to open their new restaurant. Check out the team @SLOldham, @Mr_Tucanos, @HeathShepard). David Smith’s post on Online Metrics Insider is worth checking out – “There are two major things that you can do right now via Twitter from a metrics standpoint. The first is, measure what is happening with your tweets. The second is, what is the noise about your clients?“

Tweets are Public!

If you haven’t learned already that social media is just that – social! (and usually very public) take a lesson from this Ketchum PR VP – oops! This isn’t just something that happened to an anonymous national PR pro, but locally – some communicators are forgetting that the lines between public and private commentary are blurred and/or completely gone. Hmmmmm… that sounds like a blog post waiting to happen!

Emphasize possiblities, not limitations

Inspiring words and guidance from the agency minds nationwide on ‘Surviving 2009: 7 Management Lessons for Agencies from Past Recessions’

Here’s to a challenging, yet rewarding, 2009 for everyone

- Jess