Rethink the Press Release, Says PR Newswire |  |
- Rethink the Press Release, Says PR Newswire
- Twitter Acquires, Shuts Down A/B Mobile Testing Service Clutch.io
- Read “Team Turnarounds” to Win at the Game of Business
| Rethink the Press Release, Says PR Newswire Posted: 18 Aug 2012 11:00 AM PDT
Marketing and communications provider PRNewswire knows the times have changed, and the company is rolling with the times. The company, which offers press release distribution and online visibility services, focuses several of its products on the small business market. Journalists … and the Rest of Your Audience Small businesses are seeing the benefit of online PR beyond the traditional press release. Sarah Skerik, PR Newswire's vice president of social media, declares:
Skerik explains that the audience for a press release has grown with the popularity of social media. Media journalists are still a potential audience. But recognize that how they deliver content has changed, also, and so should your approach when crafting your release:
Emerging media (blogs, Twitter, Google+ and more), she says, is also an audience for a press release these days. This includes those social media influencers who might not be journalists, but with a simple tweet can amplify your news to thousands. Potential customers can find your release directly through the search engines or on other sites, as well, since they’re already online researching brands like yours. So think of the press release as a direct outreach tool, as well. What the New Press Release Does for Small Businesses The neat thing about press releases is that they equalize the playing field for small, medium, and large businesses. PR Newswire provides press release distribution, media outreach, and other online marketing tools to every sized business, so small biz benefits most by being able to access the same tools as larger counterparts. Getting covered in the Wall Street Journal is still, of course, gold for any business, but Skerik encourages businesses to consider redefining what constitutes success in distributing a press release online. Social media can help amplify your message, as can a solo blogger who stumbles across your news and shares it with his or her readers. Whatever metrics you choose to analyze, make sure to set them up within your press release, creating trackable calls to action you can measure. What PR Newswire Does for Small Business Says Michael Crumley, Senior Manager of PR Newswire’s SME Program:
PR Newswire offers a self-service tool to small businesses called iReach. With it, small businesses can enable their search engine optimized news to be shared in social networks such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn and be seen on the largest news sites like Yahoo!, MSN and AOL. PR Newswire also manages a small business portal called PRToolkit designed to educate small business owners on PR and online marketing. * * * * * This article is part of a series highlighting key players in the Small Business Influencer Awards. This site has a content-partnership relationship with PRNewswire, and offers readers a discount on PRNewswire through an affiliate relationship. From Small Business Trends |
| Twitter Acquires, Shuts Down A/B Mobile Testing Service Clutch.io Posted: 18 Aug 2012 08:00 AM PDT Mobile apps are pretty essential for social media sites like Twitter, which has already made some company acquisitions to improve its service and mobile offerings. This week, the microblogging site acquired the IP of mobile testing service Clutch.io.
The service will shut down in November, with the two founders joining the team at Twitter. The Clutch.io founders announced in a blog post that they will now be focusing their efforts on Twitter's product on a larger scale. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Clutch.io users will have until November to port their data from Clutch.io's hosted service. However, over the coming weeks, Clutch.io says it will provide everything users need to transfer their data and run Clutch.io on their own servers. The service is no longer taking on new customers. Though Twitter already has a strong mobile presence, with dedicated apps for all major devices and mobile operating systems, the acquisition could help Twitter improve the usability and uniformity of its current mobile apps, as well as helping to create updates more regularly. So even for businesses that aren't affected by the closure of Clutch.io, this news could still impact the way companies use mobile technology to interact with consumers. Clutch.io is a service that provides A/B testing for both iOS and Android mobile apps. The service aims to help developers choose the best way to present data to their users by allowing them to test whether one feature of an app may garner better results than a second feature. For example, users could test whether a button that says "free sign up" receives more clicks than a button that says "register." Clutch.io is just the most recent of many purchases made by Twitter over the past year. Other recent acquisitions include Twitter client TweetDeck, blogging platform Posterous, and social news provider Summify. Since the majority of Twitter's user base has access to the social media platform via mobile apps, it makes sense that the company would attempt to strengthen its mobile offerings through acquisitions like Clutch.io. From Small Business Trends |
| Read “Team Turnarounds” to Win at the Game of Business Posted: 18 Aug 2012 05:00 AM PDT
This is a great book to read over the next few weeks or months with the fall sports season approaching. But Team Turnaounds doesn't just use team sports as examples, they also have quite a few business examples, as well. After all, a business is nothing more than a group of people working together – as a team. In Team Turnarounds the authors discuss the key parallels between business and sports. One parallel, for example, is that each requires a committed leader; someone who is willing to stand up and tell the truth to the larger organization. This message often takes the form of something like this, "You're really not that good" and then "We can be better." The Authors Bring Sports Psychology to the World of Business Joe Frontiera and Daniel Leidl co-manage Meno Consulting, a firm that focuses on culture turnaround, team development and leadership development. Both hold PhDs in sports psychology from West Virginia University, where they serve as adjunct professors in the Leadership Studies program. You can also read their articles "On Leadership" in The Washington Post. It's no surprise that the authors' experience in sports psychology resonates with business leaders. Both sports and business are judged on performance. And Team Turnarounds explores how business and sports leaders motivate their teams toward a common goal. Put the 6 Steps to Success to Work for Your Team In their many interviews with business and sports leaders, Frontiera and Leidl uncovered six key steps that teams have to take to go from worst to first:
Arguably, the most powerful chapter of the book is Chapter 7, where the authors offer a very thorough workbook or playbook that you can use with your team to create your own turnaround. Why Team Turnarounds Appeals to a Sports Dummy Team Turnarounds really spoke to me and I'm a self-proclaimed sports dummy. I only follow two football teams; my hometown Steelers and Penn State (well, at least until all that mess happened, now I need distance). But in both of these circumstances, I can say that I've watched these teams play not because of the sport, per se, but because of all the things that Frontiera and Leidl talk about in Team Turnarounds. This book appealed to me because it drilled down into those subtle aspects of any organizations' success and it gave me a toolkit that I can use to engage and enroll all the teams that I'm a part of. I also think this book is ideal for those business owners (like me) who are an integral part of virtual teams where you take the lead sometimes and then you follow other times. I found the insight and advice in this book invaluable in helping me motivate and manage the teams I participate in. You Don’t Need to be Failing to Take on Team Turnarounds I'd recommend Team Turnarounds as a business book that you read for yourself and share with your associates and team members. This isn't a book for failing organizations, it's a book for any organization that requires the contribution of more than one person. It's often said that none of us reaches success on our own; success comes on the heels of those who came before us and those who work with us. Team Turnarounds is certainly the playbook you'll want to use to win the game of business. From Small Business Trends |
Gone are the days of typing a press release, making a few copies of it and physically mailing it to journalists, in the hopes they’ll cover your news in a less-than-timely manner. Today, press releases have become a piece of the online content marketing strategy. You don’t have to have a PR Department to issue press releases, either. Businesses of all sizes — from solo entrepreneurial startups to the Fortune 100 — are taking advantage of press releases.
Are you finding yourself part of a failing team and wondering "Now what?" You'll want to check out | You are subscribed to email updates from Small Business News, Tips, Advice - Small Business Trends To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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