This morning I had the pleasure of giving a presentation to an engaged group of people involved with early childhood education and family services at the Augusta Civic Center. Called “Engaged Communities, Growing Small Children,” the conference focused around a book called “The Charismatic Organization, 8 Ways to Grow a Nonprofit,” by Shirley Sagawa. I tied my presentation in to Shirley’s book by talking about how organizations can engage themselves better with their communities through effective communications if they share their stories and newsworthy events on an ongoing basis. Continue Reading »

I am a proud member of the Society of American Travel Writers (www.satw.org) because I have been doing PR for travel and tourism destinations throughout my career, which started back in the last century. I am not a travel writer, but I am a travel publicist, so I am an “Associate” member of this prestigious national organization.

SATW publishes a great newsletter called the SATW Traveler. There is a travel writer named Sandra Friend from Florida who writes a column on professional development and this month’s column is entitled “Build A Better Blog.”  She shared a tip about using the “Networked Blogs”  Application on Facebook in order to share your blog right on your Facebook page.  Since I’ve been writing this blog for several years, and separately maintaining several Facebook pages (for myself personally and for Nancy Marshall Communications), I think it makes a lot of sense to share my blog with my Facebook friends. But the thing I love about the Networked Blogs application is that I can easily see the blogs that my Facebook friends are writing, and see the blogs that they are reading as well!  If you are a blogger, or if you are interested in following the blogs that your friends are following, I encourage you to check out this app. 

Thanks, Sandra Friend!

I met with a client recently who was struggling with ways to come up with ideas for their company’s blog and Facebook pages. They felt that every blog post had to be about something new and newsworthy happening at their company and every Facebook post had to have something worthy of front page news coverage.

I told them that one of the beauties of social media is that it allows public relations people like me or organizations’ representatives to show the human side of the company. I said, “don’t be afraid to share your personality, talk about what you’re doing, what you’re reading and what you find interesting.”

Of course you should post news about new hires, awards, new clients, new projects or other ‘hard’ news items. But your blog readers, or friends and fans on Facebook will also be interested in what books you are reading, what articles you find interesting, and random things happening at your company, like a visitor from out of state or a moose walking through your driveway. Social media is an act of socializing, which includes some ‘chit chat’ about yourself that helps others get to know you better.

How do you think creatively when it comes to brainstorming ideas for content on your blog, tweets on Twittter, or posts on your Facebook page? I’m interested in hearing what you have to say about this topic.

If you are looking to consistently write high quality content and optimize your web pages, then Website Magazine has a guide to help you achieve high rankings in the search engines. I encourage you to read this article.  These recommendations from author John Alexander,  include first researching your key words, writing down the bulleted points you want to make in your article, and then allowing at least 48 hours for your content to ’settle’ before you publish (just as your English teacher in high school encoruaged you to do!). Continue Reading »

Thanks to Sam Brace at the Caliber Group in Tucson, Arizona, for this blog post on social media. The Caliber Group is a member of the agency network that my agency belongs to:  The Alliance of Marketing Communications Agencies.

Social Media Sways the Conversation, by Sam Brace, The Caliber Group

Social media’s multimillion person reach influences our daily conversation.

We have known for several years that participation on social media platforms are growing by the numbers. Social media is also growing in terms of influence, according to the May 10 issue of Time magazine. Continue Reading »

Thanks to Kevin Gove, one of my long-time account executives at Nancy Marshall Communications, for providing this article with tips for successful blogging. Kevin’s article will be featured in our bi-weekly e-newsletter, “The NMC Report,” coming out today. If you haven’t already, please go to our website at www.marshallpr.com and sign up to receive The NMC Report, which is packed with useful (and free!) information about the intersection PR and social media. Continue Reading »

This is going to date me, but when I was a teenager, while spending summers at our cottage on Damariscotta Lake, I used to collect S&H Green Stamps and paste them into the little green stamp books. Then my mom and I would go to Rockland where I could redeem my books full of stamps for “stuff.” I don’t remember what “stuff” I used to get, but back then, it was pretty darn exciting.

This brings me to the subject of fish bait. Rockland used to smell like fish bait. Mainers would say “that smells wicked.” I didn’t talk like a Mainer back then, so I would just say, “Mom, it stinks here!”

Well Rockland has cleaned up its act. It doesn’t smell bad there any more. It is a beautiful town with lots of boats, restaurants, and shopt so visit, not to mention the Farnsworth Art Museum where you can see works by the Wyeth Family and the Maine Lobster Festival where you can eat plenty of my favorite crustacean. Continue Reading »

Thanks to Rich Brooks of Flyte New Media  and to Nicole Ouellette of Breaking Even Communications for this article that was published on Fast Company’s blog about making the social media choices that are  right for you. Some of my clients have asked me recently which social media they should engage in. There is no one clear answer. You need to engage in the online communities where your targeted audience can be found (the expression is to ‘fish where the fsh are,’) and you shouldn’t over-extend yourself. Only get invovled with as many online networks as you can keep up with.  If your goal is to drive traffic to your Web site, then you need to measure how many visitors are going to your site from each online community or network, then measure the effectiveness of your efforts. 

Of course some people engage in social media because it’s fun!  I love to go on to Facebook because it’s an extension of my normal socializing. I don’t really expect to achieve anything from it other than happiness.  If  happiness is your goal, that’s O.K.!

I have had several clients ask me recently if I have some ‘young people’ in my shop who can handle their social media.

OUCH.

I have a problem with this on several levels. Continue Reading »

We publish a monthly e-newsletter called The NMC Report that focuses on the intersection between public relations and the Web. Since my agency was founded in 1991 purely as a public relations firm, and has grown from there into a full-service Web site development, Marketing Communications and Internet Marketing agency, we use our e-newsletter to share our knowledge and expertise with our readers. Continue Reading »