74 of Fortune 500 Use Blogs to Communicate With Customers
Fifteen percent of Fortune 500 companies are blogging, according to a recent study from WOMMA member company Burson-Marsteller. Technology companies were the heaviest bloggers, with the top four industries with blogs listed as: Computers, Office Equipment; Network and Other Communications Equipment; Semiconductors and Other Electrical Components; and Internet Services and Retailing. The study included only external blogs, and indicated a reported 270% increase since Fortune 500 blog tracking began in December 2005. A full 32% of the Fortune 50 have blogs, while the number shrinks to only 2% of the Fortune 451 to 500.Source : womma
vendredi 25 juillet 2008
74 of Fortune 500 companies starting to play ball
samedi 14 juin 2008
Social media lessons learned while humming the Hockey Night in Canada theme song
Closing stats (11pm ET June 9):
5087 members in this Facebook group
9033 total signatures on the petition
That's all in about 3.5 days.
That same day, Peter Cheney of The Globe & Mail called for an interview. I didn't make the cut : CTV stole my thunder by announcing it had secured the rights to the song. I'm consoled by the mention of online petitions at the article's halfway point.
All in all an interesting experience.
At time of writing, we're at 5791 Facebook group members and 9518 petition signatures.
Lessons learned (or confirmed):
- Social media is a potentially powerful communications tool that not only helped this particular campaign take off but builds community. I started to realize that when I read in the petition I'd made available that I was a 'Canadian hero' for my initiative and when the daughter of the song's composer Dolores Claman wrote to thank me on behalf of her mother. I knew it by the time I'd posted those closing stats and taken a last look at the conversations happening on the group wall.
- Facebook works well for popular movements. Particularly those with strong brands and media attention.
- Since I'd limited myself to a Facebook group page, after a few thousand people had joined my group I lost my ability to 'message all' - Facebook caps this feature at 5000 members.
- If I were an unscrupulous marketer, I'd have made my Facebook group a Fan page and would now hold the profiles of close to 6,000 hockey fans in my sweaty little hands. I could start to target within my fanbase according to demographic. If I were an unscrupulous marketer who was banging my head against the wall because I'd mistakenly started a group instead of a Fan page, Facebook could help me with migration.
- Social media lets the 'little guy' get his story out there, for the record. Dolores' Claman's daughter opened a blog to share her family's point of view of how events unfolded after CBC started pointing fingers at Ms. Claman for the breakdown in negotiations. Madeleine Morris also used Facebook to promote her position in various related groups, including mine.
- Canadian hockey fans are a passionate bunch.
jeudi 29 mai 2008
Pour néophytes
The New Influencers is a book for corporate marketers and executives who want to understand and engage with the vast new channels of influence that are emerging online.
It's a book about the people who are using online media to drive what may be the greatest change in market dynamics since television. Internet-based communications platforms like weblogs (blogs) and podcasts are giving individuals the power to reach global audiences without the restrictions of conventional channels or editors. These “social media” are changing markets in dramatic ways.
L'auteur, Paul Gillin, est blogueur, journaliste et consultant média pour des entreprises en TI.
Voici un résumé du contenu.
Voir aussi ses commentaires au sujet des canadiens qu'il a rencontré lors de son passage à Toronto.
Étrangement, son bulletin électronique répertorie ses articles plus efficacement que son blogue.
Social media : those who get it and those who don't
37% (of respondents) said the Internet led them to buy more music than they otherwise might have
39% of online music buyers reach out directly to artists' websites
While offline sources continue to dominate,
56% (of respondents) say they find out about music through various online tools, such as going to a band's or artist's website or streaming samples of songs to their computers
44% of music buyers have done at least one online activity relating to their music purchase, such as going to an artist's or band's website or reading blogs about the artist or band
13% of Internet-using music buyers either post their music to a social networking site such as Facebook or post their own reviews of the music they purchase
That's free promotion, folks. Word of mouth gone exponential.Here's the backstory:
Here's his email:
Hi all,
Just to let you know that I mentioned (ed. note: insert festival name here) in the latest episode of my podcast: http://georgeradio.podomatic.com/entry/2008-04-28T20_29_01-07_00
Is there any way for a podcaster willing to cover the fest to get a PressPass?
Thanks and cheers from Toronto,
George Motoc
podcaster
Luminato in Toronto received his request as follows :
Hi George,
Thanks so much for letting me know about your podcast! And thank you for mentioning Luminato.Yes, I am open to having a podcaster cover the festival. Just let me know what events you are interested in. I will send you a link so you can pinpoint the shows/dates/times you are available for, or interested in, and I will see what I can do for your tickets.
Thanks again George!
Laura Erika Barron
Public Relations Coordinator
LuminatoToronto Festival of Arts & Creativity
George also received a followup email from a second member of the festival's PR staff thanking him for his interest and his patience and reminding him to forward his interview requests.
Professional. Nice. Someone who gets it.
Not everyone does ...
Same request, different reaction, this time from the Ottawa Blues Festival:
Short, curt and to the point, I guess.
Hi George, Please see our media access policy for 2008.
http://www.ottawabluesfest.ca/en/index.php?page=82
Please note: Media representatives that provide proof of affiliation with a known, main-stream media outlet will be given access to the festival site for the day(s) they are assigned to cover the event.
Photo calls for main-stream media representatives will take place each night, 30 minutes before final acts. Access to front-of-stage photo area will be granted ONLY when approved by artist management.
We will NOT begin fielding requests for media access until June 1, 2008. If you are assigned to cover the event by a known, main-stream media outlet, send your request for access to Joe Reilly joe.wavelength@sympatico.ca; state Media Access to Bluesfest as your subject line.
And by the way, when I say the folks at Luminato get it, I'm not kidding. Check out their online 'Share Your Festival' contest.
As for George, nice guy that he is he still plugged one of the Ottawa Blues Festival artists, Adrien Belew, providing a link to his MySpace page. I checked him out. Not bad. Wonder if his music's on iTunes ..
mardi 27 mai 2008
The Shel Holtz Report
One story that stuck with me is the following:
On my walk home from elementary school back in the early 1960s, I frequently stopped at the corner liquor store and bought a one-cent Bazooka bubble gum. The gum was usually great (unless it had gone all hard), but what I really wanted was the Bazooka Joe comic that came with it. One of those comics has stuck with me all these years later. I can’t say why, but it has. In that strip, Joe is walking down the street at night when he encounters a fellow on his hands and knees under a street lamp.
“What are you looking for?” Joe asks.
“A quarter,” the character says.
“Where’d you lose it?” Joe queries.
“Across the street,” comes the reply.
“Why are you looking here?” Joe wonders.
The fellow answers, “The light’s better.”
The insistence that organizations cannot embrace social media for one reason or another is the equivalent of looking for the quarter where the light’s better: Companies prefer the comfort of message control over the messiness of conversation.
source: Shel Holtz
dimanche 25 mai 2008
Hipsters, Scenesters, Artsers and SEO
To sum up his thinking, I present to you his SEO strategy recap :
So, what I’ve done for SEO here is:
- emphasized certain keywords by emboldening them: Montrealer, hipster, geekster, and scenester (as far as I know, I just invented artser, so it doesn’t really count).
- employed those keywords extensively throughout the body of the text
- wrote a post that was longer, rather than short — Google love 1,000+ words, not that this post was that long, but generally, the longer, the better (more to index)
- leveraged internal linking: that’s linking to stuff I want indexed, using anchor text and alt tags so they rank for the keywords I want them to.
- and linked out plenty so that (1) the internal linking doesn’t look spammy, and (2) others notice that I exist and possible link me back either soon or down the line, in the long-tail, after they’ve discovered and followed me for a while
So thanks CT. And thanks to Julien, Rudy and Casey for doing whatcha do. Oh. And for helping me with my Google juice.
Now I just need to fill up this space with a longer post with, oh, say 1000+ words.
If only it weren't so late. If only I weren't so tired.
Shel Holtz at 3e mardi Third Tuesday Montreal Monday May 26th at 6pm. Be there.
lundi 12 mai 2008
Nouveau podcast : Réno-éco, de Moisson Montréal et la CECD
dimanche 6 avril 2008
Website grader
Readability Level: Secondary / High School
Congratulations! This domain is registered for more than one year.
Google PageRank: 4
0-3: New sites or sites with very minimal links
4-5: Popular sites with a fair amount of inbound links
6: Very popular sites that have hundreds of links, many of them quality links
7-10: Usually media brands (NYTimes.com), big companies or A-list bloggers.
Google Indexed Pages: 356
Last Google Crawl Date: April 02, 2008 @ 06:10 AM
Traffic Rank: Top 17.74%
Inbound Links: 3,093
samedi 29 mars 2008
Douglas Institute : Making great use of social media
The Douglas is a world-class institute, affiliated with McGill University and the World Health Organisation, which treats people suffering from mental illness and offers them hope and cure. Its teams of specialists and researchers continually advance scientific knowledge, integrate it into patient care, and share it with the community to increase awareness and thereby eliminate stigma around mental illness.
According to the website:
Douglas blogs must meet one of the following objectives:
Educate the public about mental health issues to demystify mental illness.
Share knowledge about mental health (in care, research or teaching) with workers and scientists in the health field.
lundi 24 mars 2008
Blogging : Making the world a small place
dimanche 13 janvier 2008
Article of the day : Local realtors reach out to new clients with blogs
I've often thought that I might eventually try my hand at real estate. A couple of years ago, I went house hunting and visited about 75 of them before finding the perfect home (ok, I'm picky). I had a blast scouring MLS listings, checking out foundations and rooftops, imagining potential and scoping out neighbourhoods. Then I flash back to the amazement I felt as a ten year old, that the real estate agent presenting an offer on my family cottage was at our house at midnight. Crazy.
samedi 12 janvier 2008
Article du jour : Don't Let Blogs Pop A Firm's Reputation
Le timing est excellent. J'en parlerai mardi, au panel organisé par la SQPRP.
À retenir:
Chris Baskind, publisher of Lighter Footstep, reviewed Yingling's note and added it to the article, which triggered several reader responses. He liked that Yingling identified herself; many PR agents write anonymously, a practice Baskind finds dishonest.
mercredi 9 janvier 2008
Practicing what one preaches : YULBlog
Part of me is fighting the urge, desperately wanting to attend tonight's YULBlog meetup.
The second part of me is reminding the first part of me of what a great monthly gathering of Montreal bloggers it is. Of what a great time is certain to be had by all. Of the people that'll be there and who I want (and at times need) to talk to.
samedi 17 novembre 2007
Blogue du Jour : GM-Volt.com
Rank: 68,166
jeudi 15 novembre 2007
Social media training : Dave Fleet's new wiki
samedi 8 septembre 2007
Blogroll adjustment : Fleet Street
You can now find him at Fleet Street PR (dot) com
A true gentleman (not to mention a mad marathoner), it's sweet of him to give me the credit for inspiring the rebranding of his blog, but combine that name with that accent and the choice is obvious.
Happy reading!
vendredi 7 septembre 2007
La rentrée
Une fin de semaine de travail avec bon mélange de plaisir en perspective. Quelle joie retrouver les amis autour d'une table lors de ces dernières belles soirées d'été, dans le jardin chez nous!
Tel qu'espéré, je ressens les vibrations de plus en plus frénétiques des médias sociaux à Montréal depuis mon retour. On en parle plus fréquemment qu'il y a même 3-4 mois. Les collègues m'approchent pour se renseigner. Même ceux qui, il y a de ça quelques mois seulement, étaient sur leurs gardes face à tout ce qui ressemblait à blogue/podcast/Facebook/ Twitter et al. ne semblent plus nier l'influence grandissante du phénomène et cherchent à en savoir plus.
On me solicite maintenant en tant que conférencière. Super, ça.
En parlant de conférenciers, Infopresse en fait venir un grand. Chris Anderson, auteur de l'incontournable The Long Tail, sera à Montréal le 9 octobre prochain.
Détails ici. Si vous avez les sous, ça vaut la peine.
Geek Dinner, Mitch Joel? On ne peut faire autrement que se croiser les doigts. Et merci d'avance, en passant, pour celui pour Tod Maffin - ça devrait être génial.