How bad is it for journalists? This bad...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Who is listening to you? You might be surprised

Image
That takes some effort to listen and be aware of what the opportunities actually are but if you ignore them you do so at at your own peril. Throughout my career as a professional communicator I come across clients who are absolutely sure they know who their audience is. Invariably they are wrong.Let me give you an example. Many years ago I counseled a semiconductor company that had a great business selling components to Apple for the iPod. They sold almost 30 percent of all their product to Apple. They knew that Apple was never going away. In our research into the effectiveness of their content we found what seemed to be a discrepancy. We knew that there were multiple product groups that the client’s technology would fit, but they were focused only on the iPod team. We told them they needed to start a focus on development teams. They responded, “We know who to talk to, you just concentrate on putting out press releases.” Six months later, at a trade show, two Apple team managers came ...
Read more

SEO: it should be about who, not how many

What's missing from most company websites, or at least what is craftfully hidden, is that very reason for being. Companies hire SEO consultants who have absolutely no understanding of the market for the companies' products and just jam the web traffic with random hits from spiders, which makes everyone feel good until you look at the sales figures for the year. This week I've been getting bombarded with SEO consultants wanting to link their sites to New Tech Press .  I've dutifully gone to their sites to see what they are all about and have been thoroughly disappointed in what I see.  They are filled with poorly written, unconnected, bland content that provides absolutely no value to their audiences.  They are designed only to drive search traffic. What makes it all the worse is some of these sites are for well-known corporations.  And, no, I won't tell you who. I understand the value of good SEO.  It's important to give people making rando...
Read more

It's not that social is failing business. Business just isn't doing it.

Image
They are creating 20th century content, stuffing it into web 2.0 sites and putting links to social platforms so lots of people can see how god-awful their stuff is. When I was a young journalist, I worked for the managing editor from Hell.  I'd write a story, turn it in, he'd cuss under his breath, crumple it up and say, "Do it again."   He'd never tell me what was wrong with it, because he said he really didn't know, so he gave me no good direction.  I went through that for 18 months and was on the verge of being fired every month.  Talk about a gaunlet.  But after those 18 months I started to see what he saw and my copy started getting better.  Much better.  And I could explain what made a story good or bad, which came in handy for new reporters who started to go through the gauntlet.  Because I could help them, they became better faster, which made the paper better overall.  I went from becoming a crappy...
Read more