BlueGlass Interactive has recently acquired Voltier Digital, a content marketing company specializing in infographics production and data visualization. We all knew infographics and visual aids used to deliver a certain message were becoming more and more popular, but this recent acquisition by BlueGlass to support their strategy to boost their digital offering once again proves this type of products will play a key role in overall content marketing strategy and production.

BlueGlass Interactive, Inc. an Internet marketing company focusing on social media marketing and search engine optimization, will integrate Voltier Digital into their operation, thus expanding their marketing capabilities. All Voltier Digital employees will join BlueGlass and Voltier’s three founders will hold senior roles on BlueGlass’ production and marketing teams.

“It’s hard to express how excited our team is about joining BlueGlass,” said Nicholas Santillo, CEO of Voltier Digital. “We have watched the impressive trajectory BlueGlass has taken since its inception and we are eager to add our team’s experience to an already stellar group of Internet marketing visionaries.”

BlueGlass Interactive Co-founder Chris Winfield described the move as strategic:

“I first started working with the team at Voltier in 2007 and I have always been amazed at their ability to constantly innovate and stay at the forefront of the inbound marketing industry. The need for companies to implement and execute effective content marketing strategies is constantly increasing, so we are thrilled to have one of the leaders in this space become a part of BlueGlass.”

The move is indeed strategic for BlueGlass, as they tap into a content marketing field that is bound to drive more sales in 2012 and more so in the years to come. The acquisition and the value they put on infographic production is confirmed by recent studies, such as the results published by the Custom Content Council,  showing more than 75% of US corporate marketers say they are aggressively (16%) or moderately (62%) shifting spending from traditional marketing to branded-content marketing.

We are already seeing the high use of data visualization products and their high potential of going viral – infographics have become a welcome and powerful addition to most blog posts, press releases, research results articles and pretty much any type of content published online.  Why they work so well? They are fun and colorful and explain in an easy, fact centered and easy to remember way the issue they focus on. And social media users love to share them – no matter what field they tap into, they take sometimes boring or complicated issues and make them fun and engaging.

Have you already included infographics in your content marketing strategy? Were you pleased with the results?

The rise of Twitter as a powerful social media tool as seen its deployment in a wide variety of marketing, journalism, and propaganda campaigns. Recently many companies have also begun to use Twitter as a Public Relations tool. From real time communication to brand reputation, Twitter can be used for public relations, but only if your PR team is wise and careful. Here are three factors to keep in mind:

Twitter creates a real-time dialogue without taking on dangerous newscasts

Almost like having your own global LP Chat software, Twitter creates a running dialogue with the world that can be updated so rapidly it begins to take on characteristics of real time communication. This can be extremely beneficial for time-sensitive events related to product releases, political campaigns, and even international stock market tips. With the world more connected than ever, the ability to spread information efficiently and instantaneously allows companies and public entities to address issues concurrently with network news cycles.

You should Tweet informative links that show that your company is working on the problem

Because Twitter allows you to share links with thousands, even millions of followers, what you say has added importance. Especially given the truncated nature of the message, when using Twitter for PR it’s important to remember to use your tweets wisely. After the 2010 oil spill, BP used their Twitter account to keep people updated about the efforts they were making to contain the leak and protect the coastal inhabitants and ecosystems. Links to reports on their efforts were probably far more effective at conveying information and reducing anger than a press conference full of lawyer-written canned responses.

Be careful not to add fuel to the fire

A recent McDonald’s campaign about new efforts to make their fast food menu healthy backfired when Twitter subscribers began to lampoon the global icon about the quality of its ingredients and health benefits. The campaign quickly became a joke and likely caused damage to the brand. If your company is perceived a certain way, don’t use Twitter to try and reverse that image. You’re setting yourself up for disaster. Twitter is for subtle branding adjustments, not a complete reputation overhaul. Tweets are composed of only 140 characters, but that doesn’t make them any less powerful as satirical weapons.

As you can see, it’s not just marketers who are using Twitter as an online tool. Corporate executives also use it as a PR strategy, and for good reason. Twitter can be a powerful vessel for information, but it must be used wisely and carefully.

About the author
Guest post by Nick Jameson. He is a freelance writer specializing in business and marketing

As we usher in the new year, you might have made a wide variety of resolutions related to losing weight, spending less money, or drinking less, but if you own a small business or work as a freelancer, a resolution you might have neglected to make is to build up your online brand. So many times our resolutions are geared toward reducing the negative effects of something, and not increasing the positive effects of something else.

Building a brand online requires a multitude of incremental steps that start with your acknowledgment of the importance of having a clean bill of health. There are a wide variety of services out there, such as ReputationManagers.com, that can help you dispel slander or negative reviews. But when it comes right down to it, you need to proactively manage your image you put out onto the Internet. Here three ways to take control of your online brand:

Use your Facebook fan page to make personal connections with your fans and customers

If you’re a one-man/woman show this is easier, but if you have a big personnel, it’s time for you to designate one person, or even a team, to handle your social media relations. This is a big part of PR now. The position is often called Social Media Director, and this person(s) is responsible for using sites like Facebook to reach out to customers. A Facebook fan page offers an incredible opportunity to create one-to-one friendships with your followers. If you run a business, this could translate to excellent word of mouth. Take, for example, the Southwest Airlines ‘free tickets’ meme that has spread like a wildfire through Facebook.

Tweet it up

Twitter is billed as a micro-blogging site, but it’s also a great way to micro-manage your online perception. A dicey article about you on Huffingtonpost.com can yield hundreds or even thousands of negative comments. Counter this by Tweeting a brief explanation or just something positive to lessen the damage. This should in turn yield a fresh wall of positive Tweets that will be seen as more current than the original article. Twitter is way to stay on the offensive and to be seen as working in real-time communication.

Use viral video to your advantage

In the aftermath of the disastrous BP oil spill, the company took to the TV and the Internet with videos in which the CEO made personal appeals to the public, claiming that the company was going to do everything it could to fix the problem. While the videos might not have convinced everyone, they received thousands of views on YouTube and probably lessened the public outrage over this horrific accident.

There dozens of ways you can approach your company’s online identity, too many to list here. However, they all revolve around the core idea that social media is a storm of energy that can and must be harnessed. Staying active on these sites is an incredible way to evolve your PR strategies and refurbish your online brand.

About the author
Guest post by Nick Jameson. He is a freelance writer specializing in business and marketing

Guest post by Mihaela Lica Butler

One of the most important components of your PR strategy has to be reputation management. Your business and personal success depend by and large on public perception. Reputation is the essence of who or what a business or person is.

Unfortunately for the SME or even some corporate decision makers, not much information exists in simplistic form, there are no real “simple guides to reputation management.” But, the infographic below, provided by KBDS Digital Marketing , does a nice job outlining some do and don’t practices and possible remedies for negatives. An old Chinese proverb roughly states:

“Don’t consider your reputation and you may do anything you like.”

Graphic Courtesy of KBSD Digital Agency

Maybe the most valuable lesson that can be “re-learned” from this graphic is how companies and individuals can get a “so called” exterior vision. Judging for yourself the quantitative view of your reputation may lead to a filtered view. Seeking the advice and feedback of others in your network, even expanding your network for the purpose, can help your reputation in the short and long term. No matter what methods you employ though, it is crucial to listen and respond when customers speak. The social revolution just empowered billions, but it can empower you too.

About the author
Mihaela Lica Butler is an experienced PR professional, senior partner and founder of Pamil Visions PR. She writes about the latest in the PR field at Everything PR and is a widely cited authority on search engine optimization and public relations issues (BBC News, Force for Good, Reuters, Al Jazeera and others). She also occasionally writes for SitePoint, Search Engine Journal, and other online publications. To stay in touch with her latest work, follow her on Twitter.

As web marketers enter into the new year, it’s important we take time to consider what’s right around the corner. Whether you’re a part-time blogger or a salaried employee of an internet marketing agency, so long as your income is connected to technology you’re always going to need to be staying one step ahead. 2012 is set to become a memorable year for online marketers and entrepreneurs, so don’t allow yourself to get behind on the next big things in web marketing. In summary, expect the following to unfold sometime later this year:

Personal App Revolution

First came Siri available on the iPhone. Soon, everyone with a smartphone will have a personal assistant app. These services will partially render traditional SEO obsolete – and at the very least force a rewriting of the rules regarding the value of page rankings.

News Will Get the Clicks

With the advent of voice activated searches underway, pay-per-click is slowly going to subside into oblivion. The dwindling sources of PPC revenue will come almost entirely from news seekers and others attempting to retrieve recent information immediately, making constant updating a top priority.

Infographics Will Spread the Word

Infographics are a relatively new Internet-based media phenomenon in which highly detailed information is delivered by-way of an equally detailed graphic. They’re perfect for being linked to, sent via mobile text, and ultimately for online entities to market themselves.

QR Couponing

Now that the majority of mobile users in the U.S. use smartphones, which include barcode scanners, expect QR codes to finally take off as a legitimate form of online advertising. QR couponing will particularly become effective, further breaking down the wall that separates online advertising from its real world products and sales.

Flash Abandonment

In late 2011, Adobe announced they were halting development of their mobile version of Flash. Expect more and more online entities to depart from the platform altogether. This is for the simple fact that Flash is unsuitable for smartphones and even more unsuitable for tablets.

Before you sit down and start planning your 2012 online marketing strategy, it’s critical that you do your best to see what’s around the corner first. It’ll save you time spent playing catch up, as well as provide you with “first wave” time that others in your field won’t have the luxury of possessing. Be one of the first to act on the upcoming internet marketing trends of this year and expect to be rewarded because of it.

About the author
Guest post by Nick Jameson. He is a freelance writer specializing in business and marketing

Dale Carnege’s influential 1936 self-help book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, proudly sits on many PR professional’s bookshelves and in the Kindle queue’s of the digital library of many SEO services. The copy is usually in pristine and proper condition – because it has never been opened or touched since purchase. While playing a great prop in the professional business arsenal, it gets read as often as The Prince by politicians or The Art of War by generals.

If you are curious as to how the book applies to the current social media landscape, there are six guidelines the book gives to make people like you. Here they are with the proper social media advice to accompany them for our modern, networked times:

Become Genuinely Interested in Other People

While most people view social networking as a selfish, indulgent, and sometimes vain experience, you can get to know people intimately by following their posts. Get to know their personality by actively engaging them in content they post and not straying off of their interests when sending them messages

Smile

Too often people post about what is going wrong in their lives. The fact is that no one wants to get dragged down when checking out Facebook and Twitter. Make sure to keep your posts positive so you don’t lose followers, friends, subscribers, and friends.

Remember that a person’s name is, to that person, the sweetest and most important sound in any language

Fake aliases are far too common on social networking sites. If you are going by an obscure, inside-joke ridden nickname and want to effectively network, you should consider changing your Twitter handle or Facebook profile back to what’s on your driver’s license.

Be a Good Listener

You shouldn’t use social media platforms to monopolize conversations. If you are littering the   Facebook News Feed with pointless posts, people are going to grow weary and either not follow you or not take anything you say seriously.

Talk in Terms of the Other Person’s Interests

If you are commenting on someone’s content post, do not try to veer the subject towards another topic. They posted for genuine discussion and by delivering you will score rep points.

Make the Other Person Feel Important

Instead of waiting for people to post or send you messages, actively go out and do it yourself. There is no bigger endorphin releaser than seeing a new notification, receiving a Twitter mention, or getting a DM.

By following Dale Carnege’s classic steps and just tweaking them ever so slightly, you will be on your way to winning more friends and influencing more people. This will ultimately lead to more business, better social networks, and a more fulfilling life full of variety and conversation.

About the author
Guest post by Nick Jameson. He is a freelance writer specializing in business and marketing

Guest post by Mihaela Lica Butler

In developing your communications methods and network, there’s no doubt you’ve been faced with the dilemma, “To what extent do we try and automate the process?” As technology progresses, the fine line between human mechanics and digital automation sometimes becomes blurred. And then a great chasm between them presents itself – your message lost to overdone mechanization.

Any communicator simply has to automate aspects of their marketing and outreach efforts, but the balance between personal resource and marketing machinery has to be maintained. You have already experienced this, the first time an incensed reporter for the New York  Times flamed you or an account exec, the last time a client’s message was tossed aside offhand.

The infographic below from HubSpot, may re-acquaint you with a balance any company should employ.

New leads, the two way conversation in the new digital age, straight out selling, it’s crucial to know when and where, how much, you can employ mechanized marketing techniques and tools. As we said, you already know this. For more information about “messaging” and the new marketing method, you may also want to read this post on integrated marketing, or consulting the publications at ELOQUA on mechanize marketing strategies.

About the author
Mihaela Lica Butler is an experienced PR professional, senior partner and founder of Pamil Visions PR. She writes about the latest in the PR field at Everything PR and is a widely cited authority on search engine optimization and public relations issues (BBC News, Force for Good, Reuters, Al Jazeera and others). She also occasionally writes for SitePoint, Search Engine Journal, and other online publications. To stay in touch with her latest work, follow heron Twitter.

When introducing potential customers to a product or service, PR professionals know they need to focus on benefits. Features are there to create some sort of gain for those who purchase whatever a company or individual is selling. Ideally, when a new product or service is launched, those behind it think in terms of benefits, be it real ones or just apparent ones – making people feel cool when they need to is just as much of a benefit as helping them grow their business.

We do consider benefits, and those clearly stated, to be a way to help sell more, increase brand awareness and get all the recognition a company deserves. Simply put, benefits return benefits – monetary gain, image boosts, new opportunities. Therefore, to become successful, you need to help your customers become successful. 

A happy customer  makes for a good review and a few recommendations. A successful customer, recognized as such by the industry or the entire world, that makes for a successful company, plenty of reviews and plenty more buying customers.

A big success that is directly linked to your product or service is quite the stroke of luck, the gold mine every company and their PR team dreams of. But it’s not really something you can focus on, is it? You cannot just review your customers and think about who has the biggest chances of becoming successful. So what can you do?

First of all, make sure you think in terms of success when you launch something – product or service. A useful product that helps reduce costs and saves time means more of a client’s resources invested in making themselves a hit. More so if your product is instrumental to their success.

It happens – a piece of software helps create another one that becomes world renown. This 14 year old that took a startup to stardom is not a unique case.

The second thing you need to consider is that you must be able to identify success related to your products. You have to keep an eye on your customers and their achievements and determine which were given a helping hand by your product and services. Taking their spotlight is not your best move, but pointing out you got them there is a great tactic. The caveat is that you must be tactful about it and not try to make it all about you. In the end, it is really about that customer that was smart enough to turn your product or service into something awesome!

Success stories are convincing. The fame associated with someone quickly becoming known to the world can be easily turned into future benefits, simply because we all like to think we could be a great success, if only we had the right tools and the right state of mind. Potential buyers need to know you’ll help them solve their problems, but they also love to know you could change their lives in certain circumstances, help them achieve everything they wanted.

The truth is, with the right product or service, targeting the right customers, you actually can! The right technology can help a struggling business get ahead of their competition and make it big. The right advice can help another position themselves better, identify opportunities and run a profitable business. The right equipment can certainly make the differece at times!

Success is something every business should desire for their customers. It leads to the provider’s own success. It is not so much a dream to catch naive potential buyers with, it’s a desireable possibility we all hope for and work towards.

Now, over to you – what products or services helped you succeed? Who are those brilliant people that showed you the way to your dream? Who did you help achieve greatness? Let’s talk!

Guest post by Nick Deyong

In today’s world, everything happens at breakneck speed and, to offer a clumsy version of an often-used expression, “we’re too busy gazing off in to the distance to notice what’s right in front of us”. Or something to that effect.

The same can be said when considering the practice of marketing; amidst all the promotion to the wider world it is easy to overlook a key stakeholder group – internal colleagues and suppliers. A curious occurrence, when it is clear that without employees operations would grind to a halt.

Not just that, but without enthusiastic staff who are fully behind the task at hand, know exactly what their role is and how important they are to the business, all the clever marketing in the world would ultimately prove futile. You see, employees are a company’s greatest ambassadors – treat them well and they will pass on this positivity to future customers and staff in a way that is wholly more honest and authentic than any advertising campaign.

Then there’s other highly desirable by-products of a happy and focused workforce – better recruitment and retention, greater productivity, increased profits. All these are a CEO’s dream and can easily be achieved through moulding the manpower’s mindset.

So, how can an organisation instil such an attitude in its workforce? Firstly, there’s education – ensure that every employee knows what the business’s objectives are and how they can help to achieve them. Too often, staff simply clock-in, do their bit (and nothing more) and clock-out without ever having an idea of the bigger picture. Staff working in silos without consideration of what is happening around them or beyond their office door is potentially very harmful to a company as it breeds inefficiency, selfishness and a lack of co-operation amongst colleagues.

Secondly, there are incentives. If a rallying call to arms doesn’t motivate, then maybe a chance to win a luxury cruise will? Material, yes, but also highly effective as many a company will testify. But it shouldn’t just be all about sales – if someone’s contributed towards some form of success, whatever it may be, then even something as small as a gift voucher through the post can spur an employee on for months to come.

On a grander scale, motivation and incentive programmes can inspire staff; whether through once-in-a-lifetime experiences for teams or individual reward packages for high achievers. Even with such beneficial enterprises, however, there are pitfalls to look out for, namely, that staff forgets why the incentive is there in the first place – to achieve within their role. Instead, employees can become so pre-occupied with ‘winning’ the next prize that it’s to the detriment of other colleagues and morale begins to suffer – thus having the reverse effect of what was initially intended.

About the author
Nick Deyong is the managing director of NDL Group, a prize promotion agency that delivers incentive and motivation schemes for customers and employees, as well as events, partnerships and digital services. Nick set up NDL Group in 1997 with the goal of creating a great place to work that provides solutions to clients based on expert delivery and service.

CEOs are fired or forced to resign. It happens, as in business, as well as in private life, some relationships are not bound to last forever. Even Steve Jobs, who will always be one of the archetypes for CEOs for a long time from now, severed his connections with Apple at a certain point.

Being fired or having rumors spread about having been forced to leave a company is a crisis for a professional’s personal brand. Other potential employers will be influenced by some other player’s decision to fire their CEO and not want to hire that very same person to lead their company. So how one handles their personal brand while and after being fired is not something that should be taken lightly.

I had a conversation on this topic with a CEO that left a tech company very suddenly, and the details of the event were never fully talked about. At least not in the open! The person in question was commenting on the Yahoo – Carol Bartz breakup and said that was the way to do it: let everyone know what’s going on instead of protecting the interests of a company that just got rid or you. I asked why they had taken a different approach and the answer was that immediately after the event, they were unable to separate their own interests from those of the former employer. 

My opinion is that once you are fired, your interests and goals are the only ones that count. You have been fired and when word gets out, you will have a reasonably hard time finding a new job, unless you have a good explanation, backed up by somewhat verifiable facts to back you up. Taking a strong stand and explaining your reasons would certainly help your brand of a competent professional.

But there are caveats, as in everything that has to do with communication. First of all, it does matter who has the stronger voice and who’s got more trust. In most cases, the media is one of the sources of information, but actually your ex-team, your partners and clients are as good of a reference. If they believe you, they might vouch for you and help spread the information you need to ensure your brand is still bright and attractive in the end. Secondly, the tone is paramount. A fired CEO having they say on a matter needs to appear honest, smart and with a good sense of business. If the opposite happens, you’d be labeled vindictive and getting a new job will be worse. Third issue you need to keep in mind is that the audience you’re addressing needs to be thought of as a small world. Not all companies will hire hot shot CEOs and the medium and big ones in a market and those connected to it are not so many. They are a handful and their opinion is the one that matters, the rest of the world might be buzzing about you, it still does not matter.

So should a fired CEO take the stand and speak their mind? They should certainly give it a try if they are not at fault in any way. If their performance was less than impressive and they cannot prove it all happened despite their inhuman, best possible effort, it’s better to lay low and let it all pass. In most cases, companies don’t make a fuss about it, they just announce a new CEO and move on to the next order of business. So if the beehive is quiet and relax, one needs to carefully consider their actions before taking a stick and poking it. Also true, a company would not have much to gain from a public scandal involving a former CEO, so their retaliation to your attack might not be strong or might not come.

If you’re still wondering what to do in such a situation, the road to your answer is simple: remember your interests and objectives. See how you can best go about obtaining everything you want. If exposing the short mindedness and errors of your former employers helps, then do it. Talk to the audience that interests you – potential employers or the whole world. Then get ready to face any storm that might trouble your personal brand.

Photo source