Guest post by Mike Patterson

In the age of instant communications, the wrong information can make or break a company. Information is essential in generating the exposure and market placement of any successful firm. Public relations (PR) professionals are key to initiating the hype and image a company needs to get noticed. In order to properly do their job, PR departments must understand the nature of the business they represent, the products the company produces and the overall philosophy of the firm for which they work.

One element that often eludes PR personnel or consultants is the basic tenet of business. Undergraduate programs cover the dissemination of information and the spin that needs to be generated to promote an organization or an event. They often fall short of teaching business principles, which are the driving force of business itself. Continue reading

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Stats Squared is a Twitter analytics tool that was born out of Indianapolis Startup Weekend.  If you are unfamiliar with Startup Weekend, the premise is that you have 56 hours to build a viable business, and if you can – go live with the business/product. Stats Squared won the 4th annual Indianapolis Startup Weekend and 1st ever Indianapolis Startup Weekend Battle. They are now part of 16 cities vying to win the Global Startup Battle — you can vote for them here: http://bit.ly/votestatssquared. This team from Indianapolis has some serious steam built up around an extremely useful product.

The Twitter analytics tool they’ve created focuses plain and simple on Twitter links. Front and center is CTR and link maturation on those links.  The idea was born out of the needs of two of the founders (Ryan Cox and Brandon Corbin) along with the recent article Randfish from SEOmoz entitled:  Calculating and Improving your Twitter Click-Through Rate. “How can personal users, social media marketers, advertising agencies and big business better utilize an analytics tool to get down to the important stuff – traffic,” said one of the founders Ryan Cox.  ”I had to manage some 20 accounts both personal, professional and more my clients — and it was a chore to grab the data for all of the blog links, online marketing initiatives, campaigns, etc..  I needed something that gave me all of that information in one frame, and let me even peak in on my competitors or other digital marketers and see what they were doing and if it was working,” Ryan went on. Continue reading

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There are a few ways to handle competition. You can be civil and friendly and help each other out while focusing most of your effort on getting new customers and making sure existing ones stay on board. Or you can play the tough competitor card, hunt for mistakes, real or not, and point fingers every time you can. While I believe professionals in any field should educate potential buyers when it comes to scams of all kinds, when it’s matters of opinion we’re talking about, pointing fingers is not the way.

But if you did indulge in saying how evil and deceiving a competitor was because they did such and such, make sure you stick to what you claimed to believe. Try not to forget about it and give a thumbs-up example from the same range, but coming from a smaller player that you don’t feel is a threat and would like to take under your wing. While people momentarily forget, they tend to remember negative statements, especially when you’re the one to remind them of it all.

Let’s take an example. Industry publication X says industry publication Y is a loser for publishing a top based on the wrong metrics, just because X does not like the metrics, valid as they might be to others. A few months pass by and industry publication X promotes a different top from industry publication Z, based on the same metrics. The tops cover aspects of the same area of business and what’s irrelevant for one, is always irrelevant for the other.

Why is that wrong? If you pose as defender of all things pure in your field, make sure you don’t change your mind later. It makes you look spineless or scared and a genuine mud thrower, whichever it is, it affects your image, it shatters your reputation and credibility as a reliable expert/source in the field. Taking stands does draw attention to you, lots of eyes turning to see who you’re speaking against. They will look again when you abruptly change your mind and cheer for the other side!

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