5 Lessons PR Can Learn from Valentine’s Day

In the world of public relations, the calendar means everything. Not only do our calendars tell us which tasks should take highest priority at any given moment, but also keep us from forgetting historically or culturally significant dates that might help draw some much desired attention to a client’s message. On that note, just in time for Valentine’s Day, here are five lessons PR professionals might learn from the favored holiday of florists.

1. One person’s Hallmark holiday is another person’s Christmas. Valentine’s Day might be for amateurs, but imagine how many relationships and marriages might not have been born but for Feb. 14. When it comes to calendar dates, no anniversary or holiday tie-in is too small or obscure for a good PR professional to leverage on behalf of a client in need of coverage.

Sarah Lacy Launches PandoDaily: PR Takeaways

I was thrilled to see Sarah Lacy (@sarahcuda) launch PandoDaily (@PandoDaily) today. We, at InkHouse, have been following Sarah from the business journals of the Valley to BusinessWeek to TechCrunch (as well as her book writing along the way) and are thrilled to see her launching her own venture. Since I read the rumors last month, I’ve been eager to see the official launch. Read Lacy’s post about why she started PandoDaily for the full story, but here are the important takeaways for PR people:

• The focus is startups. Lacy’s goal is “To be the site-of-record for that startup root-system and everything that springs up from it, cycle-after-cycle.”
• There will be three full-time writers. Two are yet-to-be-named, and the other is Trevor Gilbert.

Content Marketing: What Music Can Say About a Company

Educate or entertain. These are the two most basic rules for content marketing: how to get people to pay attention to you, to listen, to learn, to reply, to like you or whatever it is you’re selling – whether it’s an idea, a service or a widget.

Most often, we think of words as the medium. Increasingly, we use video. Pictures also have taken on new significance through tagging on Facebook (which helps optimize your news feed and put the content in front of more friends).

But thanks to new streaming and sharing platforms such as Spotify – music is another opportunity to educate and entertain. For example, I love what @Time magazine did earlier this month as part of its Person of the Year issue, offering a playlist on protest songs as part of its coverage, giving another dimension to a story in the same way an infographic might.

2011 Blog Wrap-Up: A Look Back at the Year in PR

As we wrap up another busy year, we thought it would be interesting to take a few moments and look back through what happened in the world of PR and social media. From content inspiration, to embargo issues, and exciting new outlets to share company stories, we highlight a few of our favorite blog posts from 2011.

What to Blog About

You’ve started a blog: a small step effort-wise and a giant leap towards social media immersion. Now, what do you write about? Blogging continued to grow in popularity this year and we offered some tips to get the ball rolling here.

Once Upon a Time There Lived a Plot: The Importance of Storytelling

What George Costanza Can Teach Us About Content Creation

Classic antihero George Costanza has taught us many valuable life lessons – chief among them that you can still find a parking spot in the city if you apply yourself. But for those of us in content creation fields, he’s given career tips, too. Let me explain what I mean, because George is clearly the gift that keeps on giving. By the way, Happy Festivus, everyone!

There’s a well-known scene in “The Ticket” episode where George and Jerry pitch their sitcom idea to NBC for a second time. Having been dismissed by the network the week before because of George’s insistence that the show be about nothing, the two friends return with the opposite tack – with George leading the way. “Story is the foundation of all entertainment,” he tells NBC executive Russell Dalrymple. “You must have a good story; otherwise, it’s just masturbation.”

Should the Law Treat Bloggers Like Journalists?

This week, a US District Court judge in Portland, Oregon told the self-described investigative blogger Crystal Cox that one of her posts appeared to be defamatory and she would either have to prove that her claims were accurate (which could only be done by revealing a source with the company she was attacking) or pay a $2.5 million fine.

“This should matter to everyone who writes on the Internet,” she told Seattle Weekly, adding that the judgment could impact bloggers everywhere.

Indeed, it should. With more than 150 million blogs in existence today—including this one, the two I personally write, those whose guidance and editorial support InkHouse provides—what is surprising is not that a blogger has been slapped with a fine, but that it isn’t happening more.

Questions for Blog Guru Don Martelli of Technorati

Don Martelli is the executive editor for Technorati, an Internet search engine for blogs which also measures a blog’s authority and influence within its content category. Writers can apply to publish on Technorati original news content, opinion pieces, trending topics and breaking stories in the area of technology, entertainment, business, politics, lifestyle, videos, sports, lifestyle and women’s issues.

We asked Don a few questions over Facebook.

Q: What do you do at Technorati?

A: It’s my job to work with the publisher to shape the editorial focus of the site; help develop promotional opportunities with brands; and develop and continue to hone some of the governing policies of our writer’s community. From an editorial perspective, I work closely with our editorial team to edit and publish anywhere between 40-60 articles per day. I also act as the community manager for the site, helping writers learn our editorial policies, manage our content management system, provide post topic ideas, etc.