commbasics

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...

We live in a world that lacks both barriers and trust. While the rest of the world watches and shares what the corporate world and press produce, most of the producers are still trying to put some level of control on it. That is not going to change. Someone has to stand up and tackle the problem from a different angle. In our last post in this series I stated that earned content isn't a sure thing no matter how much effort and cost you put into it.  That's because earned content -- news coverage that is beneficial to your cause, product or company -- has too many variable in the form of timing, resources within the news community and the interest of the general reading public.  Because of that confluence of variables, most companies don't approach public relations strategically but keep it in the tactical menu.  That's also why most PR efforts fail to impress the people that pay for them.  That is not to say that earned media cannot be a strat...

We've looked at content for purchase content, owned content and social content in the previous posts and we're getting close to the end of our series.  Today we look at the reality and difficulty of earned content. This is why earned media is so valuable. The chart indicates relative costs and effort that go into the various forms of content and how the market audience views those various forms. Paid content (advertising) is the most expensive of all media and requires the least amount of effort but is the least trustworthy .  Owned content costs less and takes about more effort but us not viewed with the same level of suspicion, generally because there is a level of human contact involved.  Social content takes more effort but even less cost than owned because you can do it even without a website. Social begins to cross the trust barrier because objective third parties may have the opportunity to state their position... if social is done right.  ...

Penton Publishing, Electronic Design's parent company, is ceasing print operations, making them the first electronics trade press publisher, historically print-based to go entirely electronic.  UBM, Hearst, Advantage Media, etc. still have some print pubs.  The good news is, no one loses their jobs... except for the printers. Penton has come a long way since the media revolution began.  They were one of the last to "get" social and have become one of the better users.

Thanls Scott Adams!

Just got off the phone with Alix Paultre who has left his editorial director position at Advantage Media ( ECN ) to take a marketing position at Globetek, a privately held player in the power supply industry. What makes this an unusual move is that there is no downsizing at Advantage.  Globetek made a direct offer to Paultre, who cut his journalistic teeth on power supplies, "out of the blue," according to Paultre.  Chris Warner, current executive editor, will be taking over Paultre's duties for the time being. Paultre said this opportunity gives him an opportunity to take what he has learned about the changing media landscape and practices and put them into practice in a growing company.  We can probably expect to see Alix's fingerprints on several social media outreaches for the company.

 We come now to a discussion of earned media, which we will attack in two parts.  Today were going to look at search results as earned media.  We've touched on this in earlier discussions.  Not all search results are earned media, especially if you've paid for placement, but they can be considered earned if you've put the effort into making your content accessible through proper SEO practices.    One of the main ingredients in proper earned media is effort.  Earned media takes more effort to get than paid or owned media, but is an order of magnitude more valuable than the others because people tend to trust it.  As I've said earlier, the aspects of search that can be paid for (keywords, SEO gaming and outright pay for placement) have lessened the value, but if done right, it can be very beneficial to your communications program.  For now.  A few months ago, Google announced that it was changing the way in approa...