5 Must Top Skills for Today’s Marketing Professional

I originally started my career in public relations before moving into the marketing function. Throughout the years, there are several skills that  I’lve picked up that have been essential to my role. Here are the five key skills that I believe are a must for today’s marketing professional, in no particular order: Continue reading »

New Gig and What’s in Store for the Future

 

In November 2011, I decided to leave my consulting business to join Active Network as director of marketing for the Business Solutions division.  It’s been a busy three months with a launch at the PCMA Convening Leaders conference and acquisition of StarCite, a leading strategic meetings management company. And as you know, my blogging has suffered as a result.

While my new position focuses more on the face-to-face events – attendee management, attendee engagement, SMM and more, I anticipate sharing more insights about the role of marketing, PR and social media. I will also continue to have a vested interest in seeing where event technology - virtual, digital and every iteration in between.

As I settle into my new position, I hope to return to a more regular blogging schedule.  Until then, PR meet Marketing, Marketing meet PR =)

And please note, everything on my blog is my own personal opinion and is not representative of my company’s.

Ten Tips for Virtual Press Conferences

On my other blog, The Virtual Buzz, I wrote a blog post regarding 10 Tips for a Successful Virtual Press Conference. With web conferencing, webcasting, live streaming and virtual event technology, I believe it’s important that PR and marketing practitioners understand how to hold online press conferences.

Please share you thoughts, expriences and comments below on holding/producing a virtual press conference.

Five Tips for Launching a Memorable Start-Up Company

So you’re launching your company in a few weeks. You’re focused on getting the product to work. If you’re one of the lucky ones who was selected to launch and can afford to go to DEMO or Disrupt, you want to make sure that nothing fails. But whether or not it’s debuting at a conference or getting noticed, there are several things that start-up companies can do to prep for a successful launch.
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Social Media for Health Care Professionals

Social media has become increasingly popular for business-to-business and business-to-consumer marketing. I recently did some research on social media by healthcare professionals and wanted to share some of the articles and stats I found in the form of Storify. There are interesting implications in how, as PR and marketing professionals, one would reach and engage with this audience. What are your experiences?

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Three Tips for Crisis Management in a Social Media World

When I first started in public relations, one of the main issues we faced was the rise of corporate websites – if our clients should do it, how and why. And yes – that was many moons ago. Cable television was just emerging so news cycles were more predictable with three broadcast channels and a handful of national newspapers. Dictated by days(sometimes weeks) – not the hours, even minutes of today’s always-on world – PR professionals could more easily craft, confirm and implement crisis management plans on behalf of clients.

Fast forward several years – the rise of CNN, Internet and social media has systematically shrunk the response times for managing crisis. What used to take weeks and days, now requires real-time responses in hours, if not minutes. Otherwise, brands risk seemingly minor issues quickly running out of their control. Here are three tips for managing a crisis in an always-on, social media world.

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Get to Know Your Reporter Better – Three Tips

Media databases, such as Vocus and Cision, are great resources for finding reporters and bloggers who cover specific industries and topics. These databases helped augment the day-to-day research that practitioners did to identify, research and verify the best reporter for that particular news story or company.

While these databases have tremendous amount of information, not all of it is accurate or up-to-date. And this is where the problem begins. For companies and practitioners who rely solely on these resources, they cease to be “pr practitioners” and risk becoming “email spammers” as the pitches will be irrelevant and unwanted. Or much worse, being blacklisted by the very reporters they are seeking to reach.

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