Martha Stewart Living - PRNewser

More Brands That Jumped on the Avatar Bandwagon (or Should Have)

Patrick Coffee — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 17:29:05 +0000

Yesterday we posted on Bud Light‘s well-timed decision to offer Facebook fans its own variation on the very viral Human Rights Campaign marriage equality avatar. Now we’d like to showcase some other examples of brands that were, if not quite “bold”, at least attuned to news trends — and the interests of their target audiences. Here are some more branded variations on the avatar:

Equal artificial sweetener: We can’t confirm that the brand itself created this one, but if they didn’t then they certainly missed out on a great opportunity.

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Pinterest and Punchfork: A Food PR Dream Team

Patrick Coffee — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 12:03:55 +0000

Last week brought news of the first acquisition for Pinterest, the newest big player in the social media/promotion game. The company’s first get is a recipe bookmarking site called Punchfork (haha), and we feel like the two might just be a perfect pair.

We’ve all noted how Pinterest provided new life to visually-oriented lifestyle magazines like Martha Stewart Living, Cooking Light and Real Simple. What do these titles have in common? Recipes–lots of ‘em, presented in impeccable style.

According to Wired, Punchfork made a name for itself by “pull[ing] recipes from popular food blogs”, organizing them in a Pinterest-inspired layout and allowing users to search by item and filter by factors like ingredients or dietary needs.

The Punchfork site will soon shut down; its founder and CEO has already moved to Pinterest and will devote his future time to ensuring that the pin site remains the king of online recipes.

Our take? This acquisition reinforces the fact that any and every food-related property–be it a cooking site like Serious Eats, a major magazine like Southern Living or a top restaurant/chef that occasionally shares recipes–needs to get on Pinterest, pronto. In fact, we feel confident in saying that even the finest restaurants could benefit from sharing some simple how-tos with the public.

In other words, PR pros with food industry clients should take note. Oh, and while we’re on the topic, here are our 12 Pinterest Tips from Magazine Pros.

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6 SEO Content Tips You May Have Missed

Patrick Coffee — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 15:05:22 +0000

Every PR pro has heard the news: The future of public relations is all about “brand journalism“, which is all about content, content, content. Of course, the quality of said content is paramount, because if readers don’t get your company/client’s message then the words themselves won’t be worth much in the end.

But search engine optimization also plays a big role in the art of content creation. If pages don’t show up near the top of relevant Google searches, then their value will be limited.

Now for a tiny bit of shameless self promotion: As Mediabistro employees, we recently had the opportunity to take one of our company’s courses on SEO best practices. We thought we were fairly familiar with SEO, but we learned a few techniques that go beyond the usual “include key words and phrases”, and we thought we’d share six tips that we would have missed otherwise.

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Figuring Out Where to Pitch Your Stories

Patrick Coffee — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 18:20:43 +0000

This week brings another helpful post from our friends at Muck Rack: This one is all about how to figure out which magazines and blogs will be most receptive to your pitches (we know from experience how difficult the process can be).

The individual mentioned in the post was recently involved in user testing sessions for the product he needs to promote, so the following list of tips is especially relevant to brands with upcoming product testing sessions–but it could also apply to those with established customer/fanbases. You know, the kind of brand loyalists who wouldn’t mind having you contact them for input.

Essentially, the tips boil down to figuring out which publications the members of your target audience read most often. This may involve contacting said audience members directly—but that’s usually less stressful than the pitch process, right? The steps:

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Martha Stewart, Hipster Queen?

Patrick Coffee — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 15:58:49 +0000

If we were drawing up a profile of the world’s most passionate Martha Stewart fan, we probably wouldn’t include details like tattoos, punk rock and artisanal pickling.

Yet the reigning queen of domesticity seems to have acquired a few admirers on the underside of the pop culture spectrum—the number of under-34’s visiting her main website jumped 40% each month this year. A fascinating profile in this weekend’s The New York Times finds a slew of young(er) creative types living the post-collegiate dream in the East Village, all inspired by Stewart’s “emphasis on craftsmanship and perfectionism.”

Martha Stewart Living editor in chief Pilar Guzman is all over this newly discovered lifestyle trend, proclaiming his readership to be “the intersection between Colonial Williamsburg and Williamsburg, Brooklyn”. And our home borough does indeed appear to have birthed a few Stewart-themed “meet-up groups” for knitters, cooks and DIY interior decorators.

(Just to clarify: the fact that we live there doesn’t make us one of those people.)

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Print Mags Are Back on Top…of Pinterest

Patrick Coffee — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 11:53:50 +0000

You may have heard the news that the public’s long, sordid love affair with print magazines — those prime drivers of the recycling/waste management industry — has come to an end. And yet, scruffy upstarts like Martha Stewart Living, Real Simple and Better Homes and Gardens seem to have gained a new lease on life by way of a fancy new social media site called Pinterest. Sound familiar?

Let’s review the numbers: Social media analytics experts ZoomSphere tell us that print mags occupy at least 15 of the top 50 spots in the fast-growing Pinterest brand hierarchy, with Real Simple currently sitting pretty at number 3. How do they do it? Visualization. These magazines’ art directors know the game and play it well; anyone who has ever read a Real Simple recipe on an iPad can confirm that it’s a lovely, eminently shareable thing.

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Revolving Door: ‘Washington Journal,’ ‘Wired,’ and More

Tonya Garcia — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 15:47:27 +0000

Here are this week’s media highlights from Mediabistro’s Revolving Door Newsletter:

Lauren Torlone has been named producer at Washington Journal. She had been producer at Fox News Channel.

Maya Draisin has been named associate publisher, marketing at Wired. She had been brand and strategy director there.

Noah Davis has been named associate editor at Business Insider’s The Wire. He had been contributing founder at SportsNewser.

Pilar Guzman has been named editor-in-chief at Martha Stewart Living. She had been co-founder at Momfilter.com.

Click here to receive mediabistro.com’s Revolving Door Newsletter via email.

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