You’d think former President Bill Clinton, master of shameless self-promotion, would know all about hyping himself on Twitter, right? Apparently not! In his famous state of perpetual insecurity, Clinton asks Stephen Colbert, “What if you tweet and nobody tweets back?”

Colbert isn’t just a genius when it comes to self-promotion: he knows how to win attention for other people, too. On last night’s show he didn’t just advise Clinton to start tweeting — he had an account ready!

Fast Company calls this a “giant guerilla marketing stunt”. 83,000 followers on the strength of a single tweet? We might just have to agree. Somebody name this man Pope already! (Not really.)

Just spent amazing time with Colbert!Is he sane? He is cool! #cgiu

— Billy Jeff Clinton (@PrezBillyJeff) April 6, 2013

Oh, and the feed’s bio reads: “I am President William Jefferson Billy Jeff Rodham Clinton. Stephen Colbert is my BFF.” We greatly admire Colbert’s unparalleled ability to make everything all about himself, but most importantly we hope that @PrezBillyJeff follows our 7 hashtag strategy tips. If a tweet falls in the forest…

Today we’re very glad to bring you another guest post by Lindsay Goldwert, a senior program executive at Hotwire PR who jumped into the field after performing editorial duties for New York Daily News, ABCNews.com, CBSNews.com, CourtTV, Glamour and Redbook. Here’s her previous post on writing better pitches.

I won’t lie — the first two months at my new job were an adjustment.

After spending twelve years as a working journalist, I simply did not know how to operate on the other side. The PR industry’s language confused me; I felt like I was starting over, and it was a scary, unsettling feeling. Most painfully, I was mourning the loss of a career path. It hadn’t treated me all that well but, frankly, it was was all I knew.

Then again, I hadn’t been doing much real journalism lately. Wasn’t that why I quit in the first place?

I turned a corner a few weeks ago and, for the first time in many years, I’m experiencing the warm glow of possibility. It’s a good feeling to leave a shrinking, scrambling, panicking field for one that’s growing, experimenting and writing its own rules for success. Ideas are valued. Insight is appreciated. Your time is money. Industry knowledge is gold.

For others who are contemplating a career shift, I offer these reasons why you may feel extremely valued in the PR field (and not just for your media contacts):

Read more

Hashtags aren’t just for tweeters anymore. Now that Vine and Facebook have announced “trending hashtag” features, every social media promo campaign must have a well-chosen hashtag, and yesterday an amusing story reminded us how important the strategy behind these tags can be. Basically, some wise guy tweeted #nowthatcherisdead to announce the passing of former UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher and scared a bunch of Cher fans (calm down, everyone: she’ll be playing Vegas well into the 22nd century).

It all seems very simple, but the fact that Budweiser thought this billboard was OK only two months ago shows us that hashtagging is still a little too complicated for some:

The budweiser ” #taste is ” billboard-hashtag is such an amazing fail. Was someone drinking too many @blackcrown s? twitter.com/adland/status/…

— Adland (@adland) February 17, 2013

Half of the ads that aired during the last Super Bowl had hashtags, but that number should have been 100% because the strategy is no less important today than it was a year ago. And now it’s time to make some helpful suggestions!

Read more

In case you missed it, those dumb “Bing challenge” ads aren’t the only front in Microsoft‘s ongoing war with Google. Over the holiday season the company started the “Scroogled” campaign taking its big competitor to task for…we don’t know, failing to protect customers’ privacy or offer “unbiased search results.”

We thought Microsoft had put the series to bed earlier, but they brought it back to life this week with a couple of spots attacking the Android phone for providing Google with an unfair advantage and, again, collecting users’ private information without their knowledge or consent. It’s all a bit more complicated than that, but the message is clear: Google is evil, because Microsoft would never in a million years use customer data in underhanded ways.

This is more about branding and reputation management than technology or the business practices of tech companies. The campaign is obviously working in some way or the company wouldn’t keep pumping out these ads. But Microsoft casting itself as David to Google’s Goliath? We don’t see that message as a long-term winner. It all makes the runner-up look more than a little desperate.

Full disclosure: we recently Googled a friend from long ago to see what he/she had been up to in recent years and found ourselves confronted by an entire images page filled with mugshots. Is there a point to this sad story? There is! Yesterday our sister site Social Times (follow them on Twitter!) posted an interview on a topic that should be of interest to anyone in PR: the art of online reputation management. The primary lesson stressed by Mike Zammuto, president of rep management firm Reputation Changer, is “fight negative content with more (positive) content.”

What does that mean?

Read more

Our readers may be forgiven for responding to Twitter’s Vine app with a shrug and a “meh.” When we first saw it, we were very skeptical of reports that it was the hot new thing among the kids who’ve apparently grown bored with Facebook and don’t follow politics or tech news closely enough to bother with plain old Twitter.

One thing we will say: it’s somewhat difficult to create truly interesting content with Vine! There’s a real art to it, as you can see by our failure to convey the awesomeness of these massive koi pond goldfish on our first attempt:

Those are some big goldfish. vine.co/v/bdYUY0Y5MHM

— Patrick Coffee (@PatrickCoffee) March 16, 2013

At any rate, this week’s numbers should give the haters pause: Vine has achieved the #1 app spot on the iTunes store just six months after its release. In other words, get familiar with this little app as soon as you can, because your clients will start asking about it if they haven’t already.

What’s to know that we haven’t already reported?

Read more

Today we bring you a guest post via Sheldon Levine. Levine is community manager for Marketwired/Sysomos, an innovative social intelligence company offering global news distribution and reporting services as well as state-of-the-art social media monitoring and analytics powered by Sysomos. Marketwired and Cision recently partnered to allow Cision customers to connect with media, influencers and customers through Marketwired’s distribution channels.

With thousands of news releases being distributed every day, PR pros are constantly looking for opportunities to reach a broader audience and drive more views. Incorporating multimedia is one of the most effective ways to accomplish this goal — especially when some sources credit multimedia embeds for traffic bumps of up to 77%.

Perhaps we can, armed with this knowledge, officially declare text-only press releases as a thing of the past. We know visual storytelling is a critical pillar in any effective communication strategy. Just look at how brands continue to invest in image-driven social networks like Instagram, Pinterest and Tumblr. At Marketwired, we believe this best practice shouldn’t be limited to social media. Creating multimedia –photos, video, audio, or infographics, for starters – is a smart PR tactic. As an added bonus, the fresh content can be shared on blogs or across social channels, thereby spreading a release’s main messages even further.

Whether we’re considering products, food or information, we consume with our eyes. Multimedia often offers the extra “sizzle” journalists and bloggers are looking for in their content, and in some cases such releases become stories in their own right. Here are five tips to make your multimedia press releases “pop”:

Read more

We know it’s something of a stereotype that traditional and especially print media tend to take their time in arriving at/commenting on a hot story. Such is the case with The New York Times, which made waves this weekend by reporting on a phenomenon that PR and marketing folk already know quite well: paid or sponsored content.

We’re not saying that the many talented reporters at the Times have ignored the trend until now; this Media Decoder post regarding The Atlantic‘s Scientology advertorial scandal mentions the fact that BuzzFeed, The Huffington Post and other top web publishers already maintain sponsored content sections. But the weekend’s article does seem to be the first time the Times has deemed such content worthy of comment in print.

Read more

Today in News That Has Absolutely Nothing to Do with PR, we are pleasantly surprised to learn that, despite all the millions spent on eHarmony‘s “algorithm of love” (which presumably had something to do with “figuring out” all those gay people), Americans most commonly name Walmart as the place where they met “the one” — or someone who looks, at first glance, like he or she might eventually become “the one.”

A report in Psychology Today last month found that Walmart is indeed the spot most often cited by Americans who post “missed connections” notes on Craigslist. The article’s author thinks it’s a bad thing that “Americans are selecting heterosexual partners with no regard for compatibility” and even subtitled his piece “A desperate America seeks love at Walmart.”

We guess that buzz-killing sentiment could be true. We only mention the story because we find it hilarious and we think it should inspire a great CSR campaign from Walmart, a company that’s always trying to counteract “unfair” media coverage or some sort of PR “disaster” that no real American knows of or cares about. For a tagline, we’re thinking of something like: “You Think We’re a Heartless Corporation That Treats Its Employees Terribly, Uses Its Considerable Leverage to Put Other Retailers out of Business and Conducts Shady Business Down in Mexico, but We’re Really All About Love.”

What, too heavy-handed?

Today we are sad to announce that Prince Harry will probably never again amuse us with tales of drugged-up strip poker that double as viral marketing for Las Vegas tourism. He probably won’t have to leave his world of privilege behind for another “apology tour” in Afghanistan or simultaneously fend off the paparazzi and the Taliban, either.

According to The Telegraph, the young prince has finally found his missing piece — a “personal secretary” who will double as Mr. Bad News Ginger’s “right hand man” and just happens to be both a military veteran and a communications professional at finance-focused firm RLM Finsbury.

This lucky chap, who goes by the incredible name Edward Lane Fox (and may or may not have been voiced by George Clooney), will begin this challenging assignment right after the Prince returns from a “US tour” seen as crucial to the rebuilding of his reputation. Wait, did Harry ever have a good reputation? Most importantly, what will he do on his stateside jaunt? Click through for our best guesses:

Read more