Social Tuesday

We’ve offered tips for spurring creative ideas for blog posts before: write about a question that you, yourself, would like an answer to, take pictures (or post older ones), interview someone of interest, etc. But if you’ve used up these ideas and are left wanting more, Chris Brogan comes to your rescue.

If you’re not participating in social media, then there won’t be any negative comments or conversations, and you will remain in complete control, right? Wrong. Without participation, there will still be conversations, but those conversations just won’t be guided or “shepherded” by you. Read more about what some companies are doing with negative comments.

New year, new ideas! Sounds easy enough, but often, even if you have many brilliant minds at your company, creativity is lacking. Why? Many reasons: the old way is easier, people are scared or boared or unmotivated. Whatever the culprit, it’s time to kick up the creativity and make your company more competitive and exciting. B.L. Ochman has some tips. Need more ideas? Be sure to check out how Castle puts our employees’ brains to work with our “Thing” contest.  

Nestle is the latest company to use virtual goods on social networks to build up an already established brand. Personally, we don’t need additional reasons to buy Nestle Toll House products, but Nestle is giving us some. The campaign was a huge success, inserting branded cookies into the catalogs of Facebook applications that resulted in more than 4,300 photos. Click here for examples on how other companies are utilizing these online campaigns.

Meeting planners on the rise

U.S. News & World Report names meeting planners as one of 50 top careers for 2010: http://www.usnews.com/money/careers/articles/2009/12/28/meeting-planner.html.

We couldn’t agree more!

Social Tuesday: resolutions, bloggers, B2B

Happy New Year! We’re sure many businesses are looking forward to a fresh start in 2010. So have you made a resolution for your company? If not, Joe Kiefer has some suggestions.

Blogger relations have become an essential piece of our overall media outreach strategy. But if you’re looking for someone to take an interest in and spread the word about your company or client’s company, simply sending an email to every blogger you can find and hoping to get a bite is not going to yield the right results. You’ll be lucky if your email is even read before it’s deleted. So how do you get on a blogger’s good side? Chris Brogan has some ideas.

We’ve all seen pages of colorful graphs and charts detailing social media efforts, demographics and results. They look important and clearly a lot of work went into creating them, but are we overcomplicating things? B.L. Ochman thinks that maybe we are. Read her post in which a managing partner in the Domino’s franchises (and social media superstar) insists that simply, “it’s about creating unexpected customer experiences.”

Many people and companies assume that social media efforts are for business-to-consumer companies only. This is not true, as social media can absolutely bring value to B2B as well. You might be surprised to read a recent report that breaks down the social media activities of these different types of companies.

Just the Stats

For digital and media consumption stat geeks, Nielsen released a boatload of them at CES.

Among the findings are:

• TV homes with DVR and HD capabilities – big numbers already and sure to grow.
• 115 million homes with a TV, 223 million mobile phone owners
• 61 million mobile web users (wow, that seems high)
• Blackberry Curve tops smartphone list
• We’re each on Facebook six hours a month
• Half of us own Dell computers (Lenovo in my household)
• XBox users spend the most time on their systems (Wii and PS3 for us)
• Only 49 million MP3 households

Read more here: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=120071

Online Travel Industry Innovations & Search Marketing

Attending Online Travel Industry Innovations & Search Marketing on Jan. 12?

Fewer than 20 seats remain.

http://sempoboston.eventbrite.com/?ref=estw

Land of the Free

PR firms have an abundance of free services to supplement, and sometimes replace, what have long been paid services.

HARO took ProfNet’s paid subscription model and made a free, ad-supported media leads service. 

Various wire services now exist to distribute news online at no charge.

Free media database services are emerging, like Journalisted in the UK.

What’s next in the land of the free? What services do PR agencies pay for, either for themselves or on behalf of clients, that are ripe for a free competitive offering? Will existing services evolve to offer tiered services?

I think 2010 may be a year where PR firms take a hard look at costly legacy services and move toward free or lower cost alternatives.

Happy Holidays from The Castle Group

Be Peaceful

Critical holiday questions

As we head into the holiday season, it’s clear there is still work to be done in the communications world, as you’ll see from the pressing questions below.

We’ll ask you, dear readers, to help answer Lila’s urgent questions. (And if you have a few to add, we’ll see if we can get those to the big guy as well.)

Yes, Lila, there is a Santa Claus, and it looks like he needs a PR department.

Letter from Lila to Santa, 12-21-09

Dear Santa—

Is it fun to live in the snow all the time?  Do you ever have time to play? What is you’re favrite thing to do when you’re working? How do you see evreyone at one time? Have you ever not gaven someone a present? How do you stay dry if it’s snowing when you are on you’re slay? How is Rodolph’s nose light enough in the dark? How tall are elfs? How many raindeer do you have? What time do you start dlifering presnts? Do you ever go on vacation? How long does it take to dlifer presents? How long are elfs ears? How can you bring a lot of peresents to houses? Do you have any pets? Do you celerbrate any other holidays? Do you have any kids? Who is your best friend? What dose Mrs. Clause do? How many people were nice this year and how many were naughty this year? Do you ever have to go to the bathroom when you are delivering presents and how do you go?

Love,

Lila

Boston Rising CEO search

Our client Boston Rising is searching for a new CEO.

Boston Rising is a start-up fund and grantmaking organization focused on fighting poverty in Boston.

Inspired by the Robin Hood Foundation, the Harlem Children’s Zone, and new approaches to empowering individuals and communities to chart their own paths out of poverty, Boston Rising will invest in the most innovative and effective strategies to break the cycle of poverty in Boston while engaging the next generation of philanthropists in the issues of economic inequality and urban poverty.
 
The Eos Foundation team is incubating Boston Rising along with a distinguished and committed group of business and civic leaders who comprise the Boston Rising Advisory Committee. In addition, Boston Rising benefits from the guidance of five national experts who, as Eos Fellows, are working closely to shape the initiative.

Boston Rising is seeking an entrepreneurial and passionate leader to serve as its first Chief Executive Officer. This exceptional CEO will lead all aspects of Boston Rising from its current start-up state to achieving its vision of an organization that will transform the fight on poverty across the city of Boston and serve as a national model. Please visit their Opportunities page to learn more.

Ad Age poll

Ad Age has a new poll asking if  companies will come out of a defensive stance in 2010, especially with regard to marketing investment?

http://adage.com/poll?poll_id=191

We’re hoping the answer is yes — so far, it seems budgets and interest are increasing for 2010 marketing programs.