Top Five Reasons to Write a Press Release

An optimized press release as a part of your online marketing strategy can generate a lot of buzz about your business. Apart from giving a boost to your SEO initiatives (more traffic and valuable backlinks to your site), press releases (PR) helps to build up your brand reputation.

Below are five reasons to write a press release:

• Press releases make your members realize that they are associated with something important.
• When you send some newsworthy information frequently through a press release, then people start recognizing your brand name and look upto you a source of information. For instance, if you are in printing business and come up with information like latest events technologies and new trends related to printing industry then in a period of time people will visit your site for latest updates.
• You may launch a new product and explain its features and functions on your site but your visitors, clients or prospects may never get to know about it. A well-written and optimized press release can be a perfect launch-pad to reveal you’re the latest news.
• When you get your name in print for useful and informative news or announcements, then you are often viewed as a pioneer or expert in your field.
• “Out of sight, out of mind” rule is true for all times. The more people see or read your name, more influence you have in your business community.

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Twitter’s Increasing Popularity -- Google Accounts on Twitter

The astonishing growth of twitter users – 1382% in the last six months speaks volumes about its popularity. Everybody is getting on twitter to define their focus and spell out their thoughts. Social media has reduced the gap between the company and the consumers. Who has thought or expected to talk directly with any celebrity or CEO of any company and get heard. But social networking sites like Twitter had made it possible. Now people can interact directly with their favourite celebrity on Twitter.The famous twitter accounts include @BarackObama, @britneyspears, @DellOutlet, @Zappos, etc.

The new entrant in the list of twitterers is @Google. Google has joined the Twitter bandwagon and decided to share their updates and information with its followers. Read the entire list of Google accounts on Twitter here:

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Hacking - A Serious Offence

We all know about hacking and heard many stories about hackers cracking into your system and stealing your secrets. But what if the hacker is one of your trusted source – maybe your server administrator. Recently one of my friends, Carlos Andrade (@cpvr) had to bear the loss and suffering due to hacking. Last month, his server administrator broke into their email accounts, robbed them of their data, domain names, hosting account and even worst, and deleted their backups.

Carlos and his company virtualpetlist were completely broken and shattered. They lost their data, listings, rankings and valuable community members. It is very hard to see your years of hardwork go in vain. But it was only his sheer determination to win back his lost glory that pushed him to start from scratch again. He started his forum for virtual pet list lovers again. And now actively using social media, specially twitter to spread the word about the ill effects hacking had on their site and winning new followers each day.

Hacking is a serious offence and we should all stand united to fight against it.

Read more on his story.

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Has Twitter Taken a Lead Over Other News Channels?

Social media has infiltrated every aspect of our lives. Now we live, breathe and eat social media, but still cannot get enough of it. Social media channels like Twitter has become a trustworthy source of news.

A Recent example is that of Iran Election crisis, when Twitter was more active than CNN to provide live updates – news and information over the situation. Iranians used the power of Twitter to unite against the unfair elections results, crisis and violence that spilled out on streets.

Now people do not check CNN website or news channel to check latest updates about any event or happening but turn towards Twitter to know more. When news of Michael Jackson’s death spread out, before switching on TV, I checked Twitter to find the truth. I guess it is rightly argued that Twitter is the CNN Avatar of the new generation.

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Twitter Tips - Beginners Guide to Twitter

1. Create your profile on Twitter and fill in your profile, because people tend to read your bio before following you.
2. Use the “Find People” link to find your friends or people who have interests similar to yours, or are in the same field.
3. Add your twitter profile on your blog or website, and ask your visitors to follow you on twitter.
4. If you have your profile on Facebook, then ask people in your network to connect with you on Twitter.
5. Add your friends from other social media sites to your twitter network.
6. Never forget to thank people who follow you. This is the basic courtesy rule to be used on any social media platform.
7. Find a topic that is informative and interesting and tweet it.
8. Along with tweeting useful links, try to share ideas, ask questions and answer questions asked by other people.
9. Send direct messages to your followers to stay in touch with them. Don’t only focus on growing your network; maintain your network as well.
10. It’s a nice strategy to write “please retweet” at the end of your tweet, it increases the chances of your message to be retweeted.
11. If you want your post to be re-tweeted by others, make sure RT @your name fit well within 140 characters.
12. Tweet like Your grandma's listening: Twitter is public, so do not hurt others, be polite and take care of spelling.

If you think I have missed out any point, then please feel free to write comment. I'll update your points to this post.

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Difference between SMO and SMM

Some people might be confused over these two phrases Social Media Optimization (SMO) and Social Media Marketing (SMM). They may not be clear about how these two marketing techniques are different from each other.

Social Media Optimization

SMO is the process of optimizing a website so that social media users can easily spread its content through social media platforms. In other words, it involves on-page optimization techniques to improve the design and usability of the website that guides users to spread it on social media websites. You might have seen “Del.icio.us”, "Digg it”, “Stumbleupon”, or “Tweet this” links on various sites. It is one of the techniques that give a direct and easy way to users to submit it on social sites.

Social Media Marketing

SMM is a wider term and involves creation and distribution of content through social media websites. It is a process of promoting or pushing your business through word of mouth called viral marketing. In contrast to SMO, it includes off page activity like creating and submitting link bait in the form of compelling content to attract links, participating in forums, blogs, online communities or spreading a viral video by putting it on YouTube.

Let us take a very simple example to explain this pull vs push marketing. You can use all your ideas, creativity and colors to make a beautiful painting that has the potential to attract millions of people. This can be related to SMO, where you make your website search engine and social media friendly that helps in SMM. But success of the painting will depend on how you promote your painting, i.e. how to let people know that your painting exists. This goes for SMM, where you promote your site, services or products through social media platforms.

I would love to hear if my explanation makes sense to you. Feel free to tweet it, digg it or share it on other social media sites.

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Social Media Success Stories

According to the “The ROI on Social Media Marketing” report by Aberdeen group, 63% of the companies plan to increase their social media marketing budgets in 2009. Here I am discussing social media success stories of two companies who make it big using social media platforms.

An online shoe store Zappos was in business for 10 years, but was suddenly seen all over the Internet. It happened because they were using social media as their PR machine. With a aim to position themselves as the online service leader and build customer service oriented culture, Zappos started using Twitter, blogs, Facebook, MySpace and Youtube. As a result, Zappos grossed over $800 million in merchandise sales in 2007, and is growing every day. CEO Tony Hseih actively uses Tweeter to connect with their customers personally and deeply. Nearly 400 employees use twitter to communicate and keep in touch with each other. Read more ....

Stormhoek Winery, a South African vineyard was introduced in the UK in 2003, but very soon they ran into trouble when their UK partner Orbital declared bankruptcy. Not only they had to deal with financial crisis but they had to re-establish their business as well. They adopted innovative approach to wine marketing and started marketing their wine business through blog in 2005, rather than using traditional advertising channels. Stormhoek has a group Facebook, a video channel on YouTube and an RSS feed that enable readers to stay current with the latest news on the blog. Within two years, Stormhoek had grown from 1 million wine business to 10 million business. In 2006, Stormhoek was awarded with the prestigious “Drinks Business Magazine Award” for “Best Consumer Campaign”. Read more

If you find this article interesting and informative then tweet it, digg it or share it with your friends.

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