Public relations is increasingly about online visibility. That’s why PR firms today must know how to combine the disciplines of public relations, social media, SEO and web design in a single offering to better serve their clients. That’s how we do it at the Idea Grove.
It used to be so simple. Public relations was all about getting the news media to take notice of what our companies were doing; so we delivered press kits, arranged interviews, and doled out exclusives in effort to get our messages heard.
Then along came the Internet. And web design. And Google, Facebook and Twitter. And blogging, analytics and metadata. As soon as we get our heads around one idea, another one comes along. And doesn’t it seem like the boss wants to try them all — right now?
The boss is right about one thing: Today’s increasingly borderless and transparent information environment demands that customers and potential customers have full, whenever/wherever access to compelling content about our companies and their offerings. Still, though, sometimes there’s a new-product launch, a new CEO, or a funding announcement that really calls out for some traditional, For Immediate Release PR. Continue Reading
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times … .” Were it written today, it could be about one of our favorite things: storytelling.
For generations, journalists have been among our society’s most important storytellers. Their recent struggles are well known, and 2011 was another miserable year. An estimated 3,775 newspaper journalists were laid off or took buyouts over the course of the year, up from the 2,970 downsized a year earlier. And those numbers don’t come close to the ones from the industry’s dark days of 2008-09, when more than 30,000 newsroom positions were eliminated. Continue Reading
Amid the celebrations of the season, we want to take time to thank everyone involved during 2011 in bringing so much good fortune to the Idea Grove.
With unprecedented support from our clients, the Idea Grove had a truly transformative year. We added five new faces to the roster and moved to larger quarters — not once, but twice! Continue Reading
Joe Pulizzi of the Content Marketing Institute just came to town to remind us that content marketing is not only here to stay, it’s been here for a long time.
As members of the Social Media Club of Dallas tweeted busily, Pulizzi introduced them to The Furrow, the quarterly journal of agriculture published in 12 languages and distributed in 40 countries by Deere & Company. It debuted in 1895.
“Brands have been publishers for a long, long time,” he said, before introducing a free 1905 recipe book featuring recipes for Jell-O. “We can do a lot of what media companies can do, and sometimes we can do it better.”
The key difference between the media and the marketers, he said, has been their monetizing method. While media companies look for advertising, marketers seek new customers. “Everything else is the same,” he said. Continue Reading