What I think you shouldn’t have missed last week…

There is no better way to start the week then reading last week’s best business, marketing and PR pieces! So let’s kick this week off with a few reading recommendations!

Guest blogger Lena West explores The Unfortunate Burden of Poor Social Media Examples on LipSticking, discussing how bad examples seem to weigh a lot more than the overwhelmingly numerous good examples of businesses using social media.

Do you know what the difference between reach, outreach and reaching out is? Liz Strauss explains it in a great piece, stressing the importance of reaching out and connecting with someone, building a valuable relationship.

Once again proving there are things to be learned and to be successfully applied to your business virtually anywhere, Karen Swim shares 5 Sweet Business Lessons from the Cake Boss.

Have you ever had trouble convincing your clients to try something new, nontraditional and harder to explain? Pia Mara Finkell has experienced such a situation and has come up with Five Ways to get Traditional Clients Onboard with Untraditional Methods which she shares on the Buzz Bin.

Paying attention to what has changed in your customer’s lives is always a great way to determining how to better market your products and services. Drew McLellan explains this simple but smart marketing process in his piece about a deodorant brand’s smart marketing.

For some of you, the fact that asking the right questions is critical might sound a bit like a cliche. Yet businesses sometimes focus on finding answers without first asking the important questions. When it comes to SEO and marketing, Mat McGee of Small Business Search Marketing has pinned down the 7 Questions Small Businesses Should be Asking.

Although it started as a response to a Mashable article on the future of public relations, in Future of public relations and social media – the truth according to Mashable, Stuart Bruce has thoroughly explained what’s currently important in the PR practice of today and what won’t exactly change in the future.

PR and Marketing can sometimes end up by seeming exhausting to any practitioner, regardless of age. It is a fast paced world and keeping up with it can be difficult. Tod Defren described 5 Steps to Dealing with the Relentless Pace of Marketing.

Weekly Roundup on Travel Tweaks

Visit Rio de Janeiro, One of the Top Destinations in South America

Top 5 Romantic Things to Do in Tokyo

Rise in US Travel Demand Leads to Higher Peak-day Surcharges

Top Three Things to Do in Belize

Top 7 Honeymoon Attractions in Macau

My articles on Everything PR

ACP Reinstates PR, Makes Veteran Editor Deborah Thomas its Public Face

Ellam Tam Became PR Newswire’s Services Representative in the Palestinian Territories

Coaching Program for Fashion and Product Designers by Lisa Elia Public Relations

Alterian Appoints Christian Wright Chief Solutions Officer, Managed Services

Leading Under Pressure, New Book on Crisis Management and Leadership

Porter Public Relations Offers Affordable Marketing services to Companies on a Budget

CareerBuilder: One-Third of Employers Use Social Media to Promote Their Organizations

NetLine Corporation Acquires All About Sales, Inc

LATINA Style Magazine Includes Verizon in its List of Best Companies for Latinas to Work For

PR Daily webinar – The basics: How to produce a social media news release

Yellow Pages Launches £5000 Online Video Challenge

Black Swan featuring Natalie Portman, a Different Type of Movie about Dancing [video]

PR News’ PR People Awards Call For Entries

What I think you shouldn’t have missed last week…

It’s been a rich week in the online world in what usefull business, PR and Marketing tips are involved. Here are a few must reads for you to kick start the week with:

Lip-sticking blog’s guest writer Chloe Spencer explains Why Teens Are Addicted to Facebook.

A scandal raising once again well known issues – is the media biased? how far should you go when a journalist has published something partially true about yourself? are journalists in the business of half-truths? Oracle CEO to Fortune Reporter: ‘Hey Jerk…your job is telling half-truths’ via PR Newswire.

Thinking of turning your blog into a book? Then you should read about Barbara Swafford’s experience on Blogging without a Blog.

5 Not-So-Easy Steps to Manage Your Brand Online, an insightful post from Brian Solis on listening, engaging social media users and managing online brands.

Fair warning from Ben Yoskovitz (Instigator Blog): Scratching Your Own Itch May be Detrimental to Your Startup’s Health!

A great question coming from Amber Naslund – Are You Sure You Want That Social Media Job?

Shouldn’t social media be about the people boosting its power? Yet most social media platforms are in the bad habit of hunting down power users (who act as evangelits, driving hordes of traffic and attentions). Alex Cristache debates it in Social Media’s new creed: Power from the people.

Weekly Roundup on Travel Tweeks

Ed Stafford, First Man to Hike the Full Length of the Amazon River
This is a story about dedication, endurance and love for hiking and the wild outdoors. It took Ed Stafford a little over two years to complete the 4,000 mile hike along the Amazon River, from its source to its mouth,making him the first man in the entire world to succeed in such a challenging travel plan. He started his hike in Peru, back in April 2008 and finished it yesterday at Maruda Beach, Brazil.
More

Roatan Island, Honduras: Scuba Diving Paradise
Welcome to the astonishing Roatan Island, Honduras, the largest of all Bay Islands and dream destination for scuba divers across the world.
More

My articles on Everything PR

Absolutely Public Relations’ big fail in the challenging world of social media

Mia Farrow States Naomi Campbell’s Uncut Diamond Story Is Inaccurate

Carole White Agrees with Mia Farrow: Naomi Campbell lied

Apple Exec Mark Papermaster Leaves because of iPhone Antennagate

Tropical Storms Mess up BP Oil Well Sealing Plans yet again

New Jackie Evancho YouTube Viral Boosts America’s Got Talent Popularity [video]

comScore Twitter Worldwide Report: Indonesia, Brazil and Venezuela Score Top Growth

US PR Spending Rebounds, Set to hit USD 4.4 billion by 2014

Small Business Owners Continue Education to Expand Skill Set

2010 PRWeek Awards, Recognizing Excellence in Public Relations

Oprah Winfrey Hires Rosy O’Donnell on Her Soon to Come Cable TV Channel

Obama’s New PR Strategy: Send More Illegal Immigrants Home

Levi Johnston, from Dating Sarah Palin’s Daugther to Getting TV Reality Show

Scott Pilgrim vs The World Under-performs this Weekend, Proving Reviewers Wrong

Have an awesome week and see you all next Monday!

The Businessmagnet.co.uk solution

In troubled economic times when companies assassinate their marketing and advertising budgets, you’d expect companies in this industry to talk about how there’s no business and loss is lurking along their way. Yet in this very time and day, Businssmagnet.co.uk, online business directory from the UK, reported steady growth, a solid influx of new customers and a great, strengthened relationship with companies already working with them. I wanted to know more about their approach to business, as it is driving them up, right through the rough economic clutter. Lee Cheesman (see photo), Businessmagnet.co.uk Director was kind enough to answer a few questions.

While advertising budgets are being grossly cut down, Businessmagnet keeps growing. What’s your secret recipe?

Whilst we have seen a different trend throughout the advertising industry, we have been surprised by the number of businesses that have taken a proactive approach with the current economic situation, many businesses actually increasing their advertising spend, especially within the online sector. We too have taken a proactive approach to ensuring that our Directory is as streamlined and effective as ever. We have increased our web prominence and introduced a better system to keep our contact frequent with our customers.

Why is a directory listing a better option than other forms of online advertising?

A directory is quite a broad term that encapsulates many types of online advertising, there are so many things to look out for when advertising on the internet, some directories ticking all the plus points some completely missing the point. If a directory starts out by thinking they are going to be the next big search engine or is naïve enough to believe they will be used over some of the big names, Google, Yahoo etc… then they are starting out with the wrong attitude. The core focus has to be around the current aforementioned big names. How can we harness that traffic, those customers…those searchers. When a directory starts to realise the potential for tapping into this resource, it is then the directory becomes a viable advertising platform.

What should a company expect after starting to work with Businessmagnet in terms of results?

Results vary depending on spend, but on the whole, valid, qualified leads are a cert. We record all activity on our directory and are one of only a few who are registered with ABCE, a website statistics auditing body. We supply the tools to collaborate enquiries via Businessmagnet and are always able to reconcile our statistics with customer log files. A result doesn’t always necessarily mean money, sometimes we talk about results in the search engines we achieve for customers. We only utilize the organic or natural results in the search engines as they are proven to be more widely used than the CPC (cost per click) advertisements….Google actually said this themselves.

Is Businessmagnet a better fit for certain types of companies? Or do your services work regardless of industry segment?

The highly qualified leads we generate can be tailored to specific industries, however, manufacturing and industrial related companies seem to reap the benefits to the extreme, gaining those all important orders which can lead to hundreds of thousands in revenues. We have many different types of business advertising on our Business Directory, all are happy with our service which proves we can deliver the goods to any type of business.

What’s next for Businessmagnet? Any new features or expansions coming soon?

We are always implementing new features on the Directory, its almost a daily occurrence. We are always expanding and have been since 2004, taking on new staff, increasing the directories content. We feel we have the infrastructure just right now, but watch out for a new site freshen up late summer.

Disclosure: While Businessmagnet.co.uk is not one of my clients, they do advertise on WoBM. When researching who they were before starting our collaboration, I ran accross their press release announcing steady growth and wanted to find out how exactly they managed to achieve it. Hence the interview, hope you’ve enjoyed it

Guest post by Hasan Shirazi, Logoinn

The significance of a unique logo for the purpose of marketing and branding of a company or its product is not hidden from anyone. Having a perfect logo could be the ultimate wish of any business owner who knows the real importance of visual identity. However, many a time, due to lack of knowledge or some other factors, business owners do some common logo design mistakes while building their business brand. These mistakes eventually develop a wrong brand image, and then a business has to face decline even when all other branding elements are fine. In this article, we have pointed out 5 common logo design mistakes most commonly made by business owners.

Not hiring a professional designer to do the job

On the surface you might think that designing a logo is not a complicated task. You may assume that nearly anyone with some taste and artistic inclinations can design a logo for you. However, reality is quite different. Designing a business logo is not a work of new or pastime amateurs.

While seeking a logo designer, you need to understand that getting a logo designed by a professional and experienced logo designer does matter. Logos which are designed by non-professionals are usually unable to portray the right message. Therefore, hiring a professional is fundamental when it comes to ensuring that you obtain the most attractive and the most effective logo for your business.

Failing to describe the purpose of the business

Many businesses struggle in building a unique brand identity with a weak or vague logo that portrays a different image than what the company is actually about. When it comes to the relationship issue between your logo and your business, you need to pay attention to target marketing. Not only does your logo need to illustrate what your business is all about it also needs to be designed in a manner to attract the attention of the niche market that contains those consumers who will be most interested in what your business offers.

Over-crowding the logo with too many design elements

Logos with a simple design never go out of fashion. Whereas, complexity in your logo kills your brand image. Too many colors, complicated images and unreadable fonts make your logo hard to process and visually unattractive.

Hence, when selecting a logo design for your business, keep in mind that a clean, simple, and uncluttered look normally is the best selection and the best choice for your business operation.

With a simple and uncluttered logo you will find that consumers will more readily connect with your business. A quicker, sounder connection will increase the number of customers or clients that your firm or company will do business with both in the short and the long term.

Failing to provide resizable formats for different media

Resizability or scalability refers to the manner in which your logo can be effectively resized for all the available marketing and advertising media. If you are like most business owners, you will use your logo in a number of different ways. As a consequence, you need to have a logo that can be utilized in a variety of different sizes.

Unfortunately, not all logos are scalable in an appropriate manner. Certain logos simply do not look good when they are shifted into different sizes for different purposes. Therefore, while designing it, make sure it will look great in all sizes wherever you will use it.

Having poor black & white logo versions

Beyond attractiveness of the color scheme that you will use in your logo, you will also want to consider the black and white aspect for using your logo on the media where you cannot use it in full colors. For example, when you need to send a letterhead to your client.

You logo should have an ability to grab the viewer’s attention even in black and white. Therefore, with other tasks of defining colors, fonts and design, you should also focus on the black and white version of your logo.

Conclusion

Because your logo is such an integral part of the marketing, advertising and promoting of your business, you need to undertake a research about your logo to make sure it will be as effective and as appropriate as possible. By taking care of these mistakes that I’ve pointed out, you will be able to make the most appropriate decision as to what you should avoid in your approach of choice to designing a logo.

What I think you shouldn’t have missed last week…

Our weekly roundup has been MIA for quite a while now. But we’re back with 5 great articles I stumbled across last week. I’ll make it short and sweet and as always invite you to add to the list!

A great way to learn is to find out what you should never ever do, no matter who does it and thinks it’s cool. Darren Rowse of Problogger came up with a top of the worlds’ 10 worst strategies to promote your blog.

When you send an invitation to a party, people expect to show up and join the fun. Not to first submit a form and then get a second approval to attend the party. Karen Swim perfectly explained how this situation applies to social media in general and Twitter in particular.

There are some words or phrases that we hear on a daily (or should I say hourly?) basis. We’re so used to them, that we sometime believe just hearing them is enough to know what they mean. Open source is one of those phrases. Before starting to use it and other related terms, read this list of definitions published by Seth Godin.

Readers’ attention is hard to get and even harder to mentain. We are in a rush, a little bored and sometimes lazy. So grab words, as explained by Alex Cristache of Blogsessive, are always a great way to make sure we read a piece you’ve wrote.

Bloggers are a growing force when it comes to PR and Marketing. That is why a lot of companies and agencies what them to cover their stories. But bad pitches are common, so here’s another article on how to pitch bloggers from the VallyPRBlog.

Hope you like this week’s articles! Till next week, feel free to share your own findings

What I think you shouldn’t have missed last week…

Welcome to a new and sunny edition of our Monday reading list. I’ll start with something a little differnent today, an entry for this month “What I learned from” group writing project, lessons from a sidewalk. And it’s Brad Shorr’s entry, talking about sales lessons learned while pounding the pavement, it’s downsides and the many pluses of newer technologies.

Jonathan Fields has some adivice for you if you want to be a better speaker – go commando! What does that mean? It meand improvising, creating on the fly and coming up with a very real speech.

Jean Murray of Home Biz Notes talks about a rather sensitive issue: what to do when your spouse doesn’t support your work? Read her article for some great tips on how to get them on your side.

John Bell of the Digital Influence Mapping Project talked explained the difference between paid media, earned media and word of mouth, in the context of what brands want.

Shirazz Data thinks social networking has really nailed customer satisfaction. The next task on its to do list? Customer loyalty. Read his entry to get an idea of how to make the transition.

And to chear you up for this week, here’s an amazingly funny entry from Jaffe Juice: click to see how Michelangelo’s David would look after spending too much time in the US . And Ian Lurie’s explanation of why SEO is just like bacon!

The internet is a really dizzingly large place, I’m sure I’ve missed a couple of great articles. Let’s share them in the comment box!

What I think you shouldn’t have missed last week…

The first week of spring is officially here and we have some chirpy blog posts for you to read. How you find them as inspiring and energizing as a sunny spring day.

Drew McLellan shared some amazing marketing insight after learnign a few tricks from a dog whisperer. Now that I’ve read the lessons, Drew, could you be so kind as to teleport the dog whisperer here, I think I need some help with my lab!

The newest, coolest thing when going to a conference is to live tweet it. So how exactly do you effectively present to a room full of tweeting birds? The answer comes from Tamar Weinberg on Pistachio.

Do you want a custom design for your blog? I know I did and my dream came true. But before you imlement this project of yours, please stop to consider a few issues explained by Alex Cristache of Blogsessive.

Stuart Bruce discussed PR, SEO and the fact that public relations, while employing quite a lot of search engine optimization, is not really about SEO, it’s about reputation.

We’re all obsessing about elevator pitches. While doing so, Frances Cole Jones, guest writer at Women on Business, point out that we overlook the importance of the FAQ page and the great results such a page can deliver.

What do you do when you want to launch a new product or service and have no idea what customers would think of it? Daniel Secareanu suggest the simplest and best solution: ask your customers.

You’ve all seen your share of teasers before something new hits the market. Michael Martine of Remarkablogger shows us how to get an audience drooling for a blog that doesn’t exist yet. His approach seems a lot more effective than a criptic add!

Google rankings involve a lot of things. It’s a secret recipe everyone’s after. And one of the reason no one has discovered it yet is that it’s learning and adapting to new tricks. Aaron Wall noticed a new trend: Google started placing heavy emphasis on branding.

When organizing an event, keeping the audience interested and excited about it is critical. Barbara Rozgonyi shares 9 ways to keep events alive with social media.

And we’re closing this week’s edition with a business puzzle from Corina Saceanu. Where’s the money?

What great posts have you run across last week? Please share them in the comment box!

What I think you shouldn’t have missed last week…

Happy Monday everyone! A new week has just started and I bring you a fresh reading list. Hope you find these articles useful and that you add your own findings in the comment box.

Motivation is paramount no matter what you do or where you do it (home or in the office). Jean Murray of Home Biz Notes has put up a list of 7 ways to stay motivated.

We all tend to distort the truth: when we clean up because parents come to visit (I do this extremely often), when we’re asked to say the first thing that comes to our mind, yet we stop to think. We have our reasons for it, but we all do it. This leads to Nami Dunfords simple conclusion: all customers are liars.

What should you do to build your brand? Apparently, it only takes 3 steps to knit it. That’s Drew McLellan’s recipe.

Mig of eWritings takes os back to traditional SEO. And she’s teaching us a little more about the Meta description tag. You know, those few lines that appear under your link on Google search result pages!

Do you think some people are difficult? They might think the very same about you! Barbara Rozgonyi shows us how to deal with such people by being one of them.

Brad Shorr uses silly wordplays to explain sales. More specifically the difference between spending and investing.

That’s all for today! Ejoy the new week and see you next Monday!

What I think you shouldn’t have missed last week…

This week’s edition is short and sweet. Not because I didn’t find enough interesting articles (there were about 9), but yoursturly has yet to learn that leaving 60 tabs open in Firefox is not the safest way to keep said interesting articles and not lose them if FF was to, say, crash…

So I give you the three articles I actually saved in this post’s draft

You might have already seen this one, I’ve certainly ran into it a few times, but just in case: John Jantsch entry on how to raise the price of free. Must read, so use your bookmarks, learn from my mistakes

If you’re interested in learning more about search engine marketing, Josh Klein’s entry on process and framework is also a must read. It will help you better understand what SEM it’s all about and build your very first strategy.

With the jobs market in a full recession, here are some findings that might help: what recent hires recommend to job seekers. This is only a part of a larger survey published on Web Strategy, find out more on Jeremiah Owyang’s full list of posts.

Hope you’ve enjoyed this weeks short version of the monday roundup. As I did miss a lot, please share your interesting reads in the comment box

What I think you shouldn’t have missed last week…

Welcome to a new edition of our almost-weekly reading roundup. First of all, I’d like to wish you Happy Monday! Hope your week is as bright as today’s sun, keep busy but don’t stress out, but before anything else, try reading the posts I’ve run across!

Tanya Maslach, guest writer on Women on Business gives businesses a new perspective: a few great lessons they could learn from Hollywood.

Liz Strauss, in her “Visible Authenticity” series, identifies 10 blogger best practices we should use when extending our reach.

We’ve all heard of sucessful blogger pitches, of results and of how we should adapt our message to each of the persons we contact. If you really want to see how it’s done, Tod Defren of PR Squared has published a great case study showing how exactly one should write to fit the profile and background of each blogger they contact.

Regardless of their field, ailing businesses have some common issues. Karen Swim of Words for Hire has identified 5 of the common problems businesses on a falling trend seem to be caught up in.

Mary Schmidt, a guest author on Lip-Sticking, has come up with a funny list of things to do when you want your emailes automatically ignored.

And to finish this week’s roundup on a funny note, I recommend Ian Lurie’s Geek Guide to Problem Solving, or otherwise put, 10 ways to think for yourself.

What did I miss? No matter how hard I try, I definitely can’t read all the great posts published in a week. So please tell me what you’ve come across and let’s all share our findings!

Have a lovely week!