Three Tips on How to Pitch Bloggers

With my sub focus on virtual events, I’ve been receiving media pitches to attend these type of events. Inviting media and bloggers to attend your event – whether virtual or physical – is a great way to drive awareness of your event.

The challenge? Attending any event takes time out of a busy schedule and away from billable work. Like any media pitch, you have to clearly outline the benefits to entice the blogger or reporter to take time out to attend. This can be a keynote from a industry expert who rarely speaks, details of a research report being revealed for the first time or seeing how producers are using these solutions in innovative ways. Continue reading »

PR Blunders from Politics – Sarah Palin, Anthony Weiner and John Edwards

Over the past week, I’ve seen the stories develop over Sarah Palin’s interesting take on history, Anthony Weiner’s unfortunate pictures on Twitter, and the indictment of John Edwards. In each of these cases, I’m seeing classic PR mistakes that these two seasoned politicians (and yes, Sarah is a politician at heart) make. Here is my top five list of where these folks went wrong:

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Top Five Tips for Breaking into Public Relations

by heraldpost via flickr

I recently met with a young woman who was seeking advice on how to break into the public relations field. Like many people graduating college over the past couple of years, she returned home and took the first job presented to her. So what would be the best way for her to get started in the PR field? Here are the five tips I gave her: Continue reading »

Build Your Business with an “Army of Entrepreneurs™”

I’m a strong believer that a great company is one that empowers its employees. I’m happy to present a byline by Jennifer Prosek , CEO of CJP Communications and the author of Army of Entrepreneurs™: Create an Engaged and Empowered Workforce for Exceptional Business Growth. In this post, Jennifer highlights her three-step process for getting your army ready. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook. Continue reading »

Tips and Strategies for Marketing Your Virtual Event Roundtable

On Thursday, March 31, 2011 at 1 pm PT, I am moderating a Focus roundtable discussion on how marketers can develop and implement marketing campaigns that can drive awareness for their virtual events and attract audiences. Michelle Bruno, Bruno Group Signature Events, and Shannon Ryan, Adviser, Virtual Events, Focus, will also participate on this roundtable.

We’ll address topics such as:

1) When, why and how to leverage social media for your virtual event
2) Strategies to convert registrants into audience members on the day of the virtual event
3) Collaborate with partners, customers and employees to spread the word of mouth

Here are ways you can join the conversation before or during the roundtable:

•  
  • -  submit your own question with FocusMarketingRT as a topic
  • - on Twitter using the hashtag #FocusRT
  • - send questions to me via Twitter (@csalomonlee)
  • - leaving a comment below

WHERE:
Toll-free Dial-In Number: (866) 951-1151
International Dial-In Number: (201) 590-2255
Conference # : 4999006

5 Ways to Storify Your PR and Marketing Efforts

Though I just received my invite to Storify, I am very impressed with the power that this content curation tool can provide for marketing and public relations. It’s simple and easy to use, a must for today’s busy professional. And a single story can have multiple contributors.

Still in beta with invites given out occasionally, Storify has great potential for marketing and public relations. Here are five ways Storify can help your efforts:

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Getting Noticed by Industry Analysts

By Litandmore via Flickr

There was a recent discussion on Focus regarding how start-up companies can get noticed by Gartner analysts. One misconception is that you have to be a paid customer of the top analyst firms – Gartner, Forrester, Altimeter, etc. – in order to meet and brief analysts about your company. In addition to my response to the question, I’m including an overview of what you should do before, during and after a briefing.

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