When big ideas are “Litl”

A post from Castle VP Hilary Allard, who heads our consumer practice and writes her own food blog

Growing a computer company in Boston’s Back Bay is a big idea. It’s even bigger when the company makes an internet computer, a device intended solely to work with the Web. 

Despite the scope of their innovation, the company is called Litl. And so is the webbook – it’s really cute. See it here.

I learned about them via a tweet promoting a meet-up for local food bloggers organized by BakeSpace.com, a great social networking site for home cooks.

BakeSpace has created a food channel for Litl. Featured recipes display on a “card” on the screen, quick to click through and find inspiration for dinner.

Full disclosure: the event organizers held a random drawing for a guest to receive a Litl, and I won, a happy surprise as I never win anything. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed using it. It gives my family a convenient second online option, allowing my husband to surf the Web on the Litl without all the extra baggage and size of a traditional computer while I use my laptop to write.

As someone at the event pointed out, when you turn the Litl into “easel mode” (the picture flips around when the device is “folded” inside-out), the scroll roll in the base makes it easy to read through recipes when wearing an oven mitt. This configuration also keeps the keyboard away from kitchen hazards like flour.

(I also need to give kudos to Litl’s extraordinary packaging. The product is presented beautifully in what is really a gift box. Even the company’s business cards are made to look like the webbook. And they’re “little.” Nicely done.)

Everyone knows that nothing brings people together like food, and BakeSpace is proving it – they’ve been nominated for a Webby Award this year, competing against the likes of Twitter for “Best Social Network.”

Social Tuesday: advertising, applications, YouTube

Social media and advertising: each influences the other. Learn more about this relationship through Brian Solis’s recent interview.

New tools are being developed every day; it’s easy to get lost among all these applications. Where do you turn when you’re looking to begin a search, and how do you know what is going to get you the results you’re seeking? Check out B.L. Ochman’s list of favorites.

Now, thanks to Verizon FIOS, you’re just one remote control click away from your favorite YouTube videos. Learn how you can stream videos right into your living room.

According to Steve Rubel, PR is about “going to where the conversation is, and adding value to it.”  Twitter is a fantastic place to promote client news. Check out a great list of Twitter tools for PR professionals.

Promoted Tweets: Is it worth managing your reputation?

Twitter announced its initial advertising platform this week. Promoted Tweets give advertisers the capability to place ads over Tweets in real-time, based on key words; ads will hover over the Tweet to stand out.

The ad guy in me loves it. Real-time reminders and brand-building whenever someone mentions “coffee,” for instance. The PR/brand guy in me — well, he’s a little nervous.

Pundits and strategists are burning up the Internet talking about this new reputation management tool. Think of the possibilities, they say — what if Toyota could apologize via a Promoted Tweet to everyone who complained about a technical issue? That’s gold, right?

I’m not so sure. As media consumers, we will get used to advertising on social networks, and we will see additional creative platforms like this one from Twitter as these networks evolve.

As social consumers, we are even starting to welcome targeted advertising — if it’s relevant to my interests or my geography,  I’m cool with the sponsorship. Companies like Shortbord are even thinking of ways to pay me to act as a conduit for sponsors.

But who will drive the reputation management side of Promoted Tweets? The ad folks? Will we see a string of brand-reinforcing but otherwise empty messages in response to a crisis or other negative incident? Will the sponsor Tweets turn into viral fodder — in a bad way?

The issue will be how brands maintain authenticity through a sponsored Tweet in response to a reputation management issue. This opens a whole new path for the public relations world to operate in social media. PR most often is the marketing discipline behind reputation management and crisis communications. Communications firms are used to acting and responding in real-time.

This will be an interesting development to watch. Brands — be aware that your reputation cannot simply be wrapped up in a nice Twitter ad. The public wants some meat on that bone.

Can you find me? Click here.

Writing for the web is changing communications. Every client has a different voice, with a tone and style that must shine through in written materials.

We will always embrace AP style, follow grammar rules and avoid words like “leading” and “robust,” yet we are cognizant that our beautiful prose may not always be the best way to communicate a client’s message. As companies move from being media consumers to media producers, it’s no longer enough to write clearly — whether a press release, speaker abstract, event microsite copy or more — we must write so the content can be found.

Search is a great equalizer, but also a great segregator for those companies that are not writing content with Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search engines in mind. Much like with website copy and behind-the-scenes tools like meta-tags, when we create content for distribution, we must consider both the audience and how they may find it — which is usually through search.

Most news release distribution companies, for example, now offer “Enhanced SEO” tools and other up-sell services. PRWeb was built on the premise of optimizing content for search.

These services aside, there are critical steps to consider when writing anything that will touch the web. If you’re mailing a letter, write it any way you choose; for just about everything else, consider these ideas:

• Keywords: How is your information found? Do you know? You should. Embed those words and phrases into your documents to improve their chances of showing up in search. Also consider the phrases that attract traffic to your competitors’ sites and use those words. Google’s AdWords has great tools for seeing search density of specific terms. 

• Links: Live links allow those perusing your content to find out more, directing people to your site, videos, Facebook page – wherever you want them to go. Don’t include just your website (but do include it!); also focus on landing pages and other places specific to your product or service offering.

• Headlines: For press releases especially, make sure your headline is crystal-clear. Sometimes that’s all that will show up on sites that aggregate news. If it’s vague – no company name included, obscure language used, etc. — no one will read it.

• Your website: Make sure your distributed content also lives on your site. Your inbound site visitors should be able to access your information as easily as those finding it elsewhere.

While this information is fairly basic, it still doesn’t happen as much as it should — which is any time (all the time) content is distributed online. We practice the above for clients with each piece of content we create and distribute. We know these methods work — a client recently experienced the most online inquiries they ever had, following our issuance of a press release written solely for web audiences.

If we can’t find, we can’t read it.

Social Tuesday: personal vs. professional, LinkedIn, small business

When it comes to social media, maybe we all just need to take a page from Coca-Cola’s book and stop over-thinking things. Coke’s recent “Happiness” campaign continues to gain momentum, with YouTube videos receiving more than two million views. Learn how they reached monumental success by simply having fun.

Personal vs. professional branding: should the two mix or stay forever separate? You may not have much of a choice; if you’re engaging online for your company, you might not even realize how much the personal/professional line is blurred. Learn more by reading Brian Solis’ interview with branding expert Dan Schawbel.

While many of us have a LinkedIn account, we may not be using it to its full capabilities. If your company is looking to expand, with 60 million professional profiles, LinkedIn is a great resource. Check out this article by Sharlyn Lauby for tips on using LinkedIn to recruit top talent.

Because of limited internal resources, small businesses can become overwhelmed when developing a marketing strategy. The key is to focus on a few tactics and do them really well. Chris Brogan offers his tips for growing small businesses.

Events remain a powerful marketing tool

At Castle, we’ve always started with the premise that a great event needs to be built from and reinforce the corporate message.

We’ve been fortunate that through all the various economic climates of the past 14 years, our clients continue to believe in the power of events and incentives.

This article, while cautious, also points to the optimism for the events industry.

Events are powerful.

Whether a global sales meeting, 6,000-person convention, 50-person executive meeting, or high achievers travel incentive, there are many ways to reward, motivate and engage staff.

Face time, hand shakes, real in-person conversation, collaborative events — these work for a reason, and these factors continue to fuel our events business.

Keep meeting.