A Financial Times article from Friday, March 26 (online subscriber edition here; free PDF version here), noted that global advertising spending is set to rise 4 percent in 2011, as the advertising, PR and marketing industries start to see a surge in client confidence, revenues and overall re-emergence of the world’s economies. What I found particularly interesting was the note in the third paragraph of the article which explains that even with a strong overall global ad spending growth, the total 2011 global ad spending will still below 2006 levels, which is right about the time the US and UK—which are the world’s top spender on advertising, marketing and PR budgets—saw a drastic uptick in overall corporate market and stock values. Continue reading
Monthly Archives: March 2010
Like, duh! Ten Tips to Totally Rock Your Internship
You got in the door! You landed that dream internship that will be a glowing addition to your resume. So now that you’re hired, don’t forget to try not to get fired.
Here are ten tips to keeping your internship…even excelling at it. This should be common sense, but I’m sad to report some people just don’t get it. Continue reading
Why We Have Such a Crush on Twitter (and Not On Facebook)
It’s no secret PR professionals have an unhealthy relationship with Twitter. Despite the existence of countless other social networking platforms, including Facebook (which actually has much higher numbers than Twitter), people working in PR seem to naturally gravitate towards the micro-blogging service more than anything else. We give out our Twitter handles at networking events and print them on our business cards, which is especially interesting considering LinkedIn is probably the most professional social media platform out there. However, professionalism doesn’t have everything to do with it- Twitter is as much for creating friendships as it is for forming business relationships. So why are all of us flacks such hopeless (and I mean hopeless) Twitter fiends? Continue reading
Job Performance Review
I feel like an adult. I recently had my first job performance review in my PR career. The only other job performance review I’ve had was as a resident assistant in college. Those were intense and formal. Surprising right? I was required to evaluate my strengths, weaknesses, what areas I’d like to improve on and goals I’d like to achieve. I did very well in past reviews and as a PR pro, it’s not like I’m a stranger to evaluations so why was I dreading this review? Continue reading
The Evolution of An Unemployed
It’s interesting to see how being unemployed has become this evolving subculture I’m currently surrounded by. To see how everyone deals with it, the process, the evolution:
Stage 1: The first two months you are almost refreshed. You are excited, feel motivated. You spend tons of time exploring, walking every street in the city and just thinking. You shop all the shops and see all the sites.
Stage 2: Then you’ve walked every street there is. The funds start to run low. Ramen remakes its way into your life. You stop going out in the day so you don’t spend money. Happy hours, entering contests and dating for free meals becomes your new religion. You start reading up on creative ways to save/spend money and learn to love the term “recessionista”. You make up fun ways to answer the question, “what do you do?” (Personally, my favorite answer is “I’m on a PR hiatus.”) Continue reading
The Nitty Gritty: Email Tracking
Following a comment left on Keith’s post from last week regarding email analytics I received a number of questions (public and private) regarding the simple use of the tools already available to us to track email opens (and forwards, number of views, etc.) this seemed like an ideal time to introduce a new (and hopefully semi-regular feature) on the nitty-gritty of using technology to your business advantage.
You may be asking yourself, “Why should I care? I’m a flack, erm PR Pro – let the techies handle that stuff (or we don’t care about analytics on our emails).”
Perhaps true. But if you’re in a small agency you may not have techs around to really handle this or they never thought to apply analytics to emails because they simply don’t know our business and don’t know what questions to ask. Continue reading
The Inner Turmoil of a SM User VS. Marketer
Working in the social media space, I can safely say that overall I understand the marketing perks of Twitter, Facebook, etc. Sure I participate in these sites as part of my job and as marketing research, but at the end of the day I’m also a user.
Originally I fought tooth and nail against signing up for Twitter because at the time I didn’t see a need for it. I kept wondering, “Who is going to care what I have to say?” Obviously I have changed my tune, and decided to just dive into the world of Twitter once I found my niche. Still, I primarily use it solely for work.
Lately, however, my social media conundrum is with Foursquare. As a marketer, I know I should be using it; as a consumer, I just don’t care. Continue reading
How dare you denounce the gods!?
A recent tweet by a friend of mine struck me. She said something along the lines of “just because I don’t agree with So-And-So (big name social media guru) doesn’t mean I need to get privately burned via direct message.”
I approached her via DM explaining how every once in a while, I’d like to respectfully disagree with some of these PR and social media professionals we have collectively dubbed “gods.” Respectfully disagree as I would do with anyone else. But why haven’t I? Why can’t I?
Because: I would literally be stoned to death via 140 characters at a time by an overwhelmingly loyal band of lemmings. Yeah, I said it. Continue reading
Crowdsourcing social media measurement definitions
Recently the Web Analytics Association announced it published social media measurement definitions on which it wanted the public to comment. I bet y’all realized I’d be excited about this since I’ve been so adamant about crowdsourcing (and not!) in the past.
I am eager to see how this works out and whether many in the social media community contribute thoughts to this. We all claim to be experts and have opinions on just about everything we possibly can, and this is an amazing opportunity to come up with definitions that are not forced upon us but that we create ourselves. Continue reading
Geolocation 2.0: Check into Your Purchases
As you leave the office and breeze through your post-workday errands you check prices, scan the purchasing list to be sure nothing is missed and, of course, you check in at your chosen bottle of Kraft dressing or package of Gillette razors. Makes perfect sense, right?
Geolocation is a growing trend with many checking into their offices, residences and local haunts on platforms such as FourSquare, Gowalla and Loopt. But checking into your favorite product is a bit different. Unique? Yes. A bit much to digest? Yes. The next wave of geolocation? Undoubtedly. Continue reading