The weekly digital news hasn’t exactly been, well, weekly, for some time.  Our apologies, but between the Thanksgiving holiday and client work, the 360PR team has been busy focusing on current campaigns, wrapping up past initiatives and planning for the New Year.  That’s why we’re bringing you three digital news stories that deal with what’s recently happened, what’s currently going on, and what’s on deck in the social media world.  We found the CNN piece on web trends particularly interesting.  What are you looking forward to in 2010?  Feel free to share your thoughts (or New Year’s resolutions) in the comments section!

AllFacebook “The 5 Fastest Growing Brands on Facebook for Black Friday” – While you were sleeping off your tryptophan coma, several brands were gaining serious recognition due to the post-Thanksgiving day shopping hysteria.  This article proves that a brands’ Facebook presence can boost sales.

MediaPost “100 Ways To Measure Social Media” – in PR, metrics definitely matter.  Newspapers have circulations and broadcast segments provide viewership, but how do you show the fruits of your labor when it comes to Twitter, Facebook and blogs?  This piece is a must-read for any PR pro.

CNN “10 Web Trends to Watch in 2010″ – Now’s your chance to get ahead of the curve.  This piece by the genius behind Mashable, Pete Cashmore, contains terms you’ve likely never heard.  Cloud computing, anyone?  Get a jump on what’s projected to be hot come January, and set yourself up for social media success.

Filed under: Internet, Measurement, Social Media by SkyeMcIntyre - 2 Comments →

I’m heading to the West Coast next month to the Society of New Communications Research‘s annual NewComm Forum.  Besides being excited about tagging on a weekend in wine country, I can’t wait to sit in on the conference sessions. 

I’m joining Susan Getgood on her panel covering Blogger Relations, along with other SNCR award honorees from the blogger relations category.  NewComm Forum 2009 will feature sessions on the culture of Facebook, a social media measurement “master class” with Katie Paine, a “Twitterville” session with Laura Fitton (a.k.a. Twitter/Pistachio), a social media crisis communications session, and roundtables on social media management best practices and other hot topics.

Check out the full agenda.  SNCR is on the cutting-edge of all things social media - I learned a ton going to their fall conference in Boston.  If you’re budgeting time out of the office and travel this year, NewComm Forum is one of the best tickets to keep on your short list.

You can also participate in SNCR’s annual Tribalization of Business Study on the use of communities and social media in business.  All who participate get an early, free copy of the results.

Filed under: Blogger Relations, Digital PR, Events and Conferences, Industry Organizations, Internet, Measurement, Social Media by LauraTomasetti - 3 Comments →

I’m optimistic about 2009.  I’m encouraged by the number of clients, some of whom have been with us several years and others new, who are asking how they can best leverage PR moving into 2009.  I don’t see PR budgets going away, but I do see those dollars having to work harder and smarter.

New Year’s Resolution #1:  Know the full scope of marketing for your clients.  If you’re not part of cross-functional planning already, ask what promotions are planned, what’s happening online, in the channel, etc.   What are the key periods Sales is focusing on and what are the potential pain points?

While agencies have talked a good “integrated marketing” game for years, PR still often seems to be siloed.  CMOs can’t afford that right now – they need all marketing streams to come together and to amplify and leverage each other.  I’m not suggesting that every promotion is PR-able, or that in every ad or SEO campaign lives a potentially broader campaign with implications for PR, but if you don’t ask you can’t add value – and opportunities could be missed.

New Year’s Resolution #2:  Make PR actionable.  Awareness has to convert to action at some point, immediately or as part of a stepped approach - driving traffic online or to retail, getting consumers to download a coupon or join a community or make a recommendation to a friend (just a few examples).

New Year’s Resolution #3:  Be accountable.  Now more than ever, there’s a need to measure PR’s impact, and there are a growing suite of tools to help.  We’ve been very pleased with Radian6, for example, which enables us to measure social media activity (including the number of comments about a brand or topic in a given period).  That’s just one example.  Beyond the tools, the key is dedicating staffing resources at the start of a campaign to measure every step of the way – not just as a wind-up, when the campaign is wrapping.

It’s going to be some time before we see an economic turnaround.  In the meantime, we can focus on what we can control – making sure PR operates smarter, asking the right questions, and is both actionable and accountable.  Those are the three resolutions I’m starting with (the list of personal ones is much longer and I’m not sure as achievable).  I’d love to hear others.

Filed under: 360 Public Relations, Consumer Marketing, Measurement, PR Industry by LauraTomasetti - 3 Comments →

Monitoring and measuring PR is a constantly evolving part of our day-to-day life here at 360 and one that depends heavily on a number of variables including the client and the project itself. Another key variable is the tools – websites and services – that make monitoring and providing metrics possible. There are a number of advanced monitoring and measurement services available, like Cymfony , Nielsen or Visible Technologies . We rely on resources such as social media monitoring service Cision , Radian6 , and CustomScoop , and also tap into a variety of free tools, such as TweetBeep , Google News/Blog Search, Google Trends , Compete.com , Quantcast.com , and Alexa.com , among a number of others.I was delighted to hear about the launch of a shiny new tool, Dataopedia.com , which just launched this month and aggregates many of the free measurement (not monitoring) services we use into one site, streamlining the process of gathering web metrics and other info about a particular site or blog. Instead of going to each of these sites individually, you can, for the most part, visit just one! Dataopedia pulls info from Alexa, Compete, Quantcast to show site traffic as well as provides Google Page Rank and info from social media sites like YouTube, Twitter, Google News, and Technorati to illustrate popularity, among other sources. For some reason the "Tour" video for the site wasn’t working for me, but if you want to learn more about the specifics, click here or visit www.dataopedia.com ….

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Filed under: Internet, Measurement, PR Industry, Social Media by EliciaBasoli - 7 Comments →