Tips and Tools

Just a day after announcing the acquisition of Glide Technologies, NASDAQ OMX has partnered with The Meltwater Group, bringing press release distribution to Meltwater Press’ media contact services. Meltwater has 20,000 customers. With this partnership they will now be able to push their press releases to a million financial contacts, 3,500 websites, and other contacts throughout North America.

The Meltwater Group is also making an appearance on the Mediabistro job board this week. Check it out here.

NASDAQ OMX has acquired Glide Technologies, a British corporate communications and reputation management services company. Glide, which was founded in 2003, will be brought into the NASDAQ OMX Corporate Solutions fold, providing PR and IR pros with an enhanced set of services.

Glide provides media monitoring, measurement, online newsroom creation tools, and other services for campaign execution and assessment. Among its products are Glide Newsroom, Glide Manager, a PR management platform, and GlideIntelligence Social Media for sentiment analysis and monitoring.

This week Dell launched the Corporate Social Media Interactive Assessment, a tool that analyzes how well a company is listening and engaging with audiences, how integrated the listening process is, and how much the company is benefiting from its spending on things like staff. Filling out the survey will generate an infographic with personalized details.

The Assessment grew out of research Dell conducted with Forrester Consulting — Listening and Engaging in the Digital Marketing Age. The study of 200 U.S. marketers at medium and large companies found that many companies are actively using social media (sometimes more than traditional listening methods) for a variety of purposes, including as a feedback generator from consumers. And that information is being used across the business.

Interesting (though fitting) that Dell would launch this tool. More than anything, it reminds other companies of the need to monitor and respond to what’s happening on social media and other channels. Earlier this week, Business Wire and MyMediaInfo released a couple of new monitoring tools that might be of some help in this area.

Remember Quora? Business Insider thinks they might be getting millions in another round of fundraising. Are you (still) using Quora? Should we be using it (again)?

Next week, Klout is introducing some changes to its scoring. According to a post on its blog, Klout’s People Rank is getting a tune up after a three month renovation project. The site says some users could see their scores drop after the changes, but it’s a sacrifice for accuracy.

Cision has introduced Cision Social Publish, a feature that uses the company’s PitchEngine partnership to distribute news across a number of social media platforms and with a variety of different content. The dashboard for the feature includes a Facebook app to publish stories on a company page, unlimited publishing on the PitchEngine site, and the choice to integrate newsfeeds.

And Business Wire announced this week that it has an expanded relationship with the AP. More news y’all!

MSLGroup has launched a proprietary service that will help create branding campaigns targeting influential audiences. The new tool, MSLCamp, was created by the consumer and healthcare practices in MSL’s New York office. It will work with IMMSL 2.0, the firm’s influencer mapping tool.

By conducting “conversation audits” the offering is meant to show what people are talking about and what isn’t coming up in conversation, highlighting opportunities to jump in and make a statement.

Two PR firms have announced new service offerings for clients.

Lewis PR has added four new services, all in the social media area. “Social media for thought leadership” will help B2B marketers establish their expertise in a certain area. “Social media response” keeps an eye on and helps to manage situations that can turn negative. “Social media for events” maximizes an event’s impact with attendees. And “Social media for product marketing” motivates communities and influencers and drives awareness of a company or brand. You can learn more about all of these services here.

And Zelo Public Relations has launched the Communications Audit and Analysis Assessment, which will take a look at past PR efforts to see if the message has come through. The analysis will also compare the message to the company’s business goals. A link in the press release takes visitors to the Zelo corp comms page for more info.

Photo: Scott Eeels/Bloomberg

PRNewser made a trip to the New York Stock Exchange this morning where Warren Buffett, Business Wire chairman and CEO Cathy Baron Tamraz, and the rest of the Business Wire team gathered to ring the opening bell and celebrate 50 years of BW business. (Berkshire Hathaway owns Business Wire.)

The scene on the stock market floor was a frenzy with international media and traders doing their stock market thing. Add to that the excitement over a visit from Buffett and there’s even more chaos. The media was definitely interested in hearing more about his thoughts on taxing the rich and the economy, and the traders treated him like a celebrity, approaching him with pens in hand for an autograph.

After the opening bell, Buffet and Tamraz came down to the floor for photos and interviews with Fox Business, CNN, and other outlets. We tweeted about some of the action from the floor this morning and BusinessWire is tweeting about the events happening at the NYSE today, which includes a luncheon and Q&A with the execs.

Before heading to the stock market floor, we met the Ball State University student, Jenna Marie James, who won the chance to meet Buffett for lunch today. You can click here to watch her winning video entry answering the question “What is the future of PR and communications?” She came to the stock exchange with ukulele in hand.

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Vocus has launched a new version of Help a Reporter Out (HARO) that includes premium features available to users for a fee.

The free version is still available with the same offerings. HARO Premium includes customized and SMS alerts, journalist details, and other features. There’s a breakdown of the different pricing levels and subscription features here. You can also click here for a short clip with Peter Shankman further describing the new HARO Premium.

After a decade in business, 360PR, the 25-person boutique PR firm based in Boston, has announced the launch of a New York City office led by Rob Bratskeir.

CEO and founder Laura Tomasetti subscribes to the belief that size doesn’t matter. Since 2001, the economy has had a couple of low points and she says the conditions have been “exactly right for boutique agencies.” More important to clients is whether their PR firm “can be entrepreneurial, flexible, and nimble,” she told us in a phone conversation today.

Tomasetti has experience working with both larger firms and large companies and said she always wanted to do “big brand work.” That work is possible with a boutique firm, she says. However, she tells us there are some things that 360PR is doing in order to compete with the bigger agencies.

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On October 4, Dale Carnegie & Associates is releasing How to Win Friends & Influence People in the Digital Age, a rewritten version of the bestseller How to Win Friends & Influence People. The book focuses on some of the same issues — communicating and engaging with audiences — but now taking into account digital technologies and social networks.

The original book was released 75 years ago and has sold 30 million copies, according to the press release that came with our copy of the book this morning. Carnegie died in 1955, but his company continues. Brent Cole, a Georgia-based writer, helped with this latest version of the book.

We randomly opened to page 29 and came upon what the book says are “two key insights we often overlook when trying to influence others” in a chapter on the “Essentials of Engagement”:

1. Influence requires more intuition than intellect…
2. Influence requires a gentle hand.

Thoughts to chew on. The new book is available on the Simon & Schuster website.