Publishing Content: How Much Is Too Little Or Too Much?

Chris Brogan says the more you post, the more traffic you get. Julien Smith sees it differently. He says writing fewer posts can drive more traffic. Considering they co-authored the book Trust Agents together, some people might assume they'd be on the same page about this topic. But they aren't. They're both a little bit right, and both a whole lot wrong. They're writing about what works for them. How often should you...

Considering Fan Campaigns: Days Of Our Lives

As the concept of "anything, anytime, any device" has taken hold, not all television programming has fared very well. Daytime soap operas were among the hardest hit.The average ratings have fallen from a 6.2 million viewer average in 1990 to about 2 million in 2010. In fact, not a single new soap opera has been created since 1999 and the six that remained at the end of last year consistently live on the bubble. Even...

Marketing And Innovation: 10 Names To Rethink Marketing

I'm going to let you in on an ugly truth about business communication. Every time a social media expert claims marketing is dead or a public relations professional says PR should never answer to marketing, another colony of honey bees dies. That's right. It isn't a mere coincidence that the honey bee problem started sometime in 2004. That was the same year people started making a mess out of communication by sharing...

Incentivizing Behavior: How Algorithms Kill Good Ideas

The newest bright and shiny object at the center of social network news is undoubtedly Quora, which is a question and answer network that reached 164,00 unique visitors in December (and likely doubled in January). But all that might be for naught. According to TechCrunch, Quora wants to develop an algorithm to measure online rank and user quality. Good luck with that. It's a mistake. While algorithms can be useful, they...

Haunting Professionals: Public Relations Vs. Propaganda

A little less than two weeks remain before I begin teaching Writing For Public Relations at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. I've served as an instructor for just over a decade, and I've found that every year brings a new set of challenges for working public relations professionals as well as those intending to enter the field. This year, more than any other, there is one challenge in particular that haunts me. Bruce...

Motivating Buyers: A Social Media Blind Spot

IBM recently released a study, “Inside the Midmarket: A 2011 Perspective” (PDF), that details the shift of midsized businesses from a recessionary mindset to one of recovery. Specifically, more firms are looking to be innovative and customer focused as opposed to cost-reduction focused. In 2009, more than half of medium-sized business firms were consumed by reducing costs and increasing efficiencies. Today, customer...

Ending Discrimination: The Remedy Is Education

Of all people recognizing, remembering, or rekindling the spirit of Martin Luther King Jr. today, most will call up and call upon a single speech, binding his ideas to a singular effort even if his compassion branched out much further than most Americans imagine today. But there are are few, who by chance or acute recollection, will remember other ideas that reached even deeper into his convictions and challenged this...

Ranking Content: Fresh Content Providers, Fourth Quarter

This is the fourth and final quarter that Copywrite, Ink. has published a snapshot of its year-long experiment called the Fresh Content Project, which puts popularity to the test. We tracked more than 250 blogs, daily, and picked a single standout post per day (with weekend posts spilling into Monday). There is no algorithm. It's a human decision-making process, one that considers content and context.If you have missed...

Going Viral: Why Word-Of-Mouth Works Better

Companies still ask on a regular basis, especially as it pertains to online marketing. "Can you make our [blank] go viral?"The easy answer? YES! However, it takes a much more practiced hand to explain what the client doesn't want to hear. They don't really want to "go viral" because the intent of viral marketing is nothing more than maximum exposure in the shortest amount of time possible. It is seldom tied to any other...

Flipping The Scale: Influencers Are The Most Influenced

You've all read about all the gimmicks. Heard all the pitches. And taken in the all the analysis. Almost everyone points to the same conclusion. If you want to succeed in social media, you need to find influencers. Right? WRONG. Most experts, agencies, and scoring systems aren't leading companies to influencers. They are leading companies to people who are among the most influenced. Sure, this might not be true in...

Manifesting Creativity: Innovative Employees

“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” — Steve Jobs.Simply stated, in business, innovation is an idea that translates into a good or service that people value en masse. It does not have to be a new idea. In fact, the original Latin word meant to renew or change the values onto which a system is based. Businessweek semi-understood the concept when it listed the 20 most important inventions for...