No, but/Yes, and

Seth Goden strikes again. Take a look at this recent blog post, titled “No.”

He doesn’t take a position in this post. But it’s certainly thought-provoking, which was his point, I’m sure. It’s easy to see the allure of saying “no” and standing firm. If you say “yes,” you might lower the bar and have to perform limbolike acrobatics to achieve your

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A recipe for web writing

Those of us who work at an integrated marketing services firm like Bader Rutter are probably used to writing for a variety of mediums, including web. As a blogger, PR professional and content creator, I’ve put together a little recipe for creating delicious web copy — there are just a few but high-quality ingredients, and it might take a pinch of this or a dash of that to make your copy truly great.

Two years ago, I started a food blog and over time, I’ve learned what doesn’t work and what keeps people coming back.

Here are some ingredients — er, guidelines — for excellent web copy:

Start with a base
First and foremost, it needs to be short, attention-grabbing and to the point. One

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Are blogs dying?

Has blogging become a thing of the past? With Facebook and Twitter’s ever-rising popularity do people prefer short snippets of information over “long-form” blog entries? According to a new Pew Research Center study published in The New York Times, the answer depends on who you’re trying to reach.

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Listening still reigns supreme in social media strategy

It’s not a new concept, but it’s still an essential one. To be successful in social media you need audience insights and listening is a great way to get those insights.

We have tackled the topic of listening on this blog before. We’ve even gone so far as recommending Alterian SM2 as our listening vendor of choice. And it’s our working relationship with SM2 that’s made social media monitoring a core service offering for clients.

But, regardless of which listening tools you use, monitoring social channels is a powerful component that helps us provide sound strategic counsel. Monitoring allows us to make more informed decisions about the best way our clients can engage with target audiences.

One of the most interesting things I’ve learned from listening programs is that sometimes the level of conversation in a marketplace or around a brand is low. On the surface this may seem like a reason to ignore the social media space. The exact opposite is true. This often means that with little effort a brand can grab a significant share of voice. Without monitoring we would not know the opportunity exists. Likewise, in an issues management situation you now have data to help assess conversations taking place and decide if the issues management plan that was prepared has to be deployed.

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After Hours: Where passion for sports, writing collide

I grew up in a household where professional and collegiate sports were celebrated year-round. It was football in the fall, basketball in the winter and baseball in the summer. Each of the professional teams in Wisconsin — the Green Bay Packers, Milwaukee Brewers and Milwaukee Bucks — hold a special place in my heart. The Bucks, Milwaukee’s professional basketball team, have always held the top spot in my personal pantheon of Wisconsin sports, though.

If I had my way, I’d be the starting point guard for the Bucks right now. Unfortunately, my 5-foot-11 frame and lack of elite athleticism have prohibited me from reaching that childhood dream. Fortunately, there are many different avenues available for people such as myself who just want to be involved in sports in some capacity. One of those avenues is writing.

I’ve always enjoyed writing. When I’m not tirelessly writing for our clients, I can usually be found pounding away at the keyboard with my latest thoughts on the Bucks. Thanks to great support from my family, friends and co-workers at Bader Rutter, I was able to win a contest to become the official sixth Fan Blogger for the franchise that has been so near and dear to my heart since childhood.

This opportunity has provided me with the platform to share my opinions with the thousands of Bucks fans in the greater Milwaukee area and beyond. My work can be read at www.Bucks.com.

Likeminded in Milwaukee

This morning, Bader Rutter brought our local social media relationships into “real life.” As with any blind date, we did what any modern gal would do — we brought a friend.

Your fearless social media mavens Colleen Grams and I headed to Milwaukee’s East Side for coffee at Rochambo where we met with other professionals for a lively discussion. Likemind is exactly what it sounds like — a group of like-minded people having coffee and talking. There are 35 Likemind groups in cities across the United States as well as groups in Europe, South America, Asia and Australia.

In today’s Milwaukee’s Likemind session, we discussed how to best navigate the increasingly tricky waters of personal versus professional social media. Some highlights:

• The featured speaker, Phil Gerbyshak, shared his experience balancing his day job in technology with his career as an author and blogger.
• Of course, Jeff Larche, gave us all some great advice and examples of how it can all work together for one, honest experience. He recommended Penelope Trunk’s blog for good and over-the-top examples in one place.
• Jamey Shiels’ own blog is a great experiment in personal/professional balance where you can read about how and why he moved to Wordpress, another topic we discussed over coffee today.

What was it like to meet our online friends offline? We found that the people we follow virtually actually look and sound exactly the same in real life — any good brand should aim for that type of consistency.

Most important social media tool: Listening

I have a whiteboard in my office where I keep track of our client to-do’s as well as upcoming meetings and engagements. Out of eight items on the list right now, seven are related to the buzz-worthy topic of social media. As you well know, plenty of content exists today on the subject — books, articles, tweets, YouTube videos, Wikipedia entries, you name it.

Because of this trend, many of our clients are eager to know more: “What is it? Where do I start? How do I apply these principles in our markets? What kind of results can I expect?”

But before we map out a social media plan as part of a larger marketing communications effort, our strategic counsel holds that the first step in any social media engagement should always be listening.

Why listen?

• To identify who’s talking about our companies, brands, products and services
• To discover what they’re saying
• To learn how influential they are
• To see how fast the word is spreading (or if it’s spreading)
• To add value to competitive research
• To better inform our communications plans moving forward

To be sure you’re going about this the right way, there are a plethora of free tools that can help you identify a broad range of conversation levels — TweetScan, BackType, BoardReader, BlogPulse, Google Insights, Technorati, and Google Trends to name a few.

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Is the death of the corporate Web site near?

There’s been considerable discussion over the last year or so about the concept of “killing” the corporate Web site. What the heck does that mean, anyway? There are still plenty of companies out there that haven’t established their first beach head on the Web, and now there’s talk about those very same Web sites being obsolete?

These discussions are centered on the very prominent theme in 2009 of social media. The public’s perception of a company’s products and services is heavily influenced by conversations taking place outside the walls of the company.

You can no longer rely on a single asset to provide the online voice for your organization if you expect it to compete with the potentially high levels of “chatter” (some voices in a void, some heavily influential) in the social media ecosystem. The impact and utility of that single corporate Web site — if used alone — may be smaller than you think.

The thinking behind this is that for many, the traditional corporate Web presence is a relatively static, frozen-in-time snapshot of an organization.

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Digital marketing lesson from Sir Alex

(Photo courtesy Austino Suide)Anyone who knows me is aware that I am a soccer fanatic. I still play after 30 years, albeit a bit slower in the over 30 league on Friday nights.

The team I follow is Manchester United. Okay, so it is not too hard to be a fan as, after all, they are one of the most successful teams in the world lead by the most successful coach, Sir Alex Ferguson. I recently read a book about him called, Sir Alex: The Story of 21 Remarkable Years at United. I couldn’t help but relate some of his experience managing one of the world’s biggest sports brands with digital marketing.

I walked away with one key message from the book — focus. An unrelenting focus, specifically on winning, is what has made Sir Alex a success. The David Beckhams and the Christiano Ronaldos will come and go but his tight focus on winning is constant. This has meant ignoring or eliminating the distractions, like star players, that even slightly get in the way of focusing on the ultimate goal.

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Marcom A to Z — A for Associated Press

A client recently asked if the Associated Press has gained influence and prominence as a result of shrinking newsroom budgets and staffs at media outlets across the country, and what effect that might have on our PR strategy. Here’s my response.

Like most businesses, media outlets have seen income drop in the last year. With fewer companies funding large advertising programs, and consumers and businesses getting their news via non-traditional sources such as online news sites, blogs, etc., outlets have balanced the budget by cutting staff (along with other fixes: decreasing the size of their print format, providing content only online, closing all together). To keep papers full, they’ve secured additional content from the AP and other syndicated sources.

Undeniably, the AP’s influence has grown. Look at any daily newspaper’s Web site or Yahoo! News — chock full of AP articles. So what effect might this have on your PR strategy?

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Sharing your story through social media

Many people mistakenly believe the only people using Twitter and Facebook are teenagers, college kids and celebrities who desperately want to be trend-setters and thought-provokers. While these audiences are heavy users of these mega-social media outlets, don’t let the stereotypes fool you. If you get on the sites and do some digging, you might be surprised who you find.

For example, Gilmer Dairy Farm, located in Lamar County, Alabama, is not only in the business of milking cows, but is also an avid tweeter and blogger. The dairy’s tweets range in content, from updates on putting the cows out to pasture, to promoting June Dairy Month, to joining other tweeples (as they are called) in a weekly discussion about agriculture (#agchat). A recent blog post addressed the current economic situation the dairy industry is facing, and demonstrated the farm’s dedication to providing healthy products for our country — no matter what obstacles they may be facing.

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The corporate awakening toward social media

The exponential rise in interest in social media is pressuring businesses to sit up and pay attention. And it’s happening fast. Not only is there a significant number of mainstream media reporting on this phenomenon, but it seems the lion’s share of bloggers and micro-bloggers with their sights trained on corporate America are also espousing the virtues of facilitating a dialogue with customers.

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