"We have been fortunate enough to have worked over the past nine months with Francis Moran and Associates to deliver virtual CMO services for our company, and so far it has been highly effective. With this relationship, we get access to a level of experience and expertise which would be unaffordable to us if we were to hire a full-time equivalent." Dave McIlhagga, Founder and CEO
"When I hired Francis Moran to lead our marketing efforts in 2011, I had very high expectations. We needed to completely rebuild our marketing from the ground up. Francis and his team not only met those high expectations but exceeded them. He brought a very high level of strategic thinking, professionalism and creativity to our organization that will be felt for many years to come in our quest to build a successful IT company."
Marty Hilsenteger, Founder and CEO
For some time now, our major pro bono client here at inmedia has been the Ottawa-based charity Help Lesotho. Although we originally became aware of this group because of my personal connection to Lesotho, where I spent five highly formative pre-teen years, we have stuck with the organization because we are in awe of the dedication and passion of its volunteers and supporters and, most of all, of the clear impact they are having every day on the lives and futures of the young people of Lesotho with whom they work.
Help Lesotho has just released a new video that documents this impact in the words and life experiences of a few of its young leaders and others. Lesotho’s situation is complex and often seems overwhelming and even irredeemable. But the voices you will hear in this video are testament to the human spirit, to the audacity of hope, as U.S. presidential aspirant Barrack Obama has put it, and to the tenacity of Help Lesotho and the young people who benefit from its programming. One life at a time, one group of young people at a time, one school at a time, new skills and leadership are being developed. It is in this way that a person, a group, a village and, eventually, an entire nation, will heal and grow.
Since writing my last post about social networking and PR, I have learned about recent social networking tie-ins involving two of the world’s leading business publications, Fast Company and Business Week.
Fast Company kicked things off earlier this month, with company president, Edward Sussman, stating that it was “the first major media website to tackle the following problem: Can a business publication blend journalism and online community to create something better than either by itself?”
And then there was this week’s news that Business Week is partnering up with LinkedIn, the popular networking site for business professionals.
Both deals show a keen interest on the part of major media to broaden their horizons to include social networking. Great to see this kind of positive response from the top tier of the media sector.
This morning’s Bulldog Reporter Daily Dog newsletter, a daily missive that shares PR news, views and tools, had an interesting article about online newsrooms and shares some anecdotes about companies that are good examples (Apple) and bad examples (Dell) of how to provide your media information online. The piece is an interesting companion to my post from yesterday and indeed drives home the importance of providing valuable, relevant and timely information to the media through your web site.
Last week, I wrote about the basic materials that, when combined with your media kit, will provide the media with all of the components that they need in order to cover your company, with or without your input. In addition to having these materials at the ready, in the hands of your agency, it’s best to house all of these components along with your media kit in an online newsroom on your web site. Here are our recommendations to a best practices approach for building and maintaining your online newsroom:
a clear link to it from the front page of the corporate web site (and clear navigation back to the home page once you’re in the newsroom);
a one-paragraph corporate overview on the landing page, full contact information and further links to:
corporate backgrounder, executive biographies, product descriptions and other support materials (essentially the contents of a media kit). This section can also include good quality jpegs of the company logo, and head shots of executives;
current and archived news releases;
media coverage published on other sites or for which you have obtained a license to post on your own site. In the former, the link should open in a new window; in the latter, it should open a PDF page within the site.
We have recently launched several clients that have done a great job of following these guidelines on their own web sites: Essential Life Data and Singletouch. Visit their sites and see if there are any improvements that you could make to your company’s site, based on the guidelines above.
By Francis Moran Ottawa technology entrepreneurs were reminded again this morning that India is the world’s second-fastest growing market encompassing 1.1 billion consumers, 300 million of them middle class and about 500 million of them under 25, and that with a confluence of manpower, money and a can-d0 attitude, it’s a market most technology companies […]
By Linda Forrest At the outset of an engagement with a new client, we have a checklist of materials that we need to develop for the media and analysts to whom we are about to roll out the company, in order for these influencers to gain a comprehensive understanding of the company and its offerings. […]
By Danny Sullivan Supported by the recent news of AOL’s acquisition of popular social networking site Bebo for $850 million, it is clear that the phenomenon continues to be considered an influential and valuable market segment. And there is little doubt that social networking represents a significant new marketing channel for consumer-oriented products companies. Indeed, […]
By Linda Forrest Arguably one of the least favourite tasks that we PR folks must do is database maintenance, ensuring that media and analyst contacts and corresponding contact information (phone number, fax, email, address, etc.) are kept up to date. This is one of those “invisible to the client” tasks that we undertake on your […]
By Danny Sullivan I’ve been approached by a few companies over the past few weeks, all of whom were offering some PR tool or another designed to make the life of the PR consultant that little bit easier. Often at first glance, these tools seem to offer some snazzy new features, but after you sit […]
By Francis Moran There’s an ongoing debate in my household, where both adults work in technology marketing, about whether I’m a geek or not. I maintain that since I don’t build technology, I merely enthusiastically embrace it, this makes me an early adopter rather than a geek. (In fact, I recently ordered the vanity license […]
By Jill Pyle Last week, I wrote about evaluating editorial calendar opportunities. This week, I’d like to share some tips related to inquiring about editorial calendar opportunities. If you’re unfamiliar with what an editorial calendar is, you can read Linda’s editorial calendar primer. Once you’ve evaluated the list of available editorial calendar opportunities and created […]
By inmedia Under the banner “The Death of Print,” Gawker today reported the filing by Ziff Davis Media for bankruptcy protection. Ziff Davis is responsible for PC Magazine, among other gaming and technology titles. Upon reviewing the filing and the coverage this news has received so far, we’re relieved to see that not all the […]
It’s Summertime…and the Networking is Easy? | THE MERRAINE BRAIN : [...] In fact, summer is perhaps one of the times least used to network, yet at the same time has shown to be the most productive time to network. People tend to be in a brighter mood compared to during the gloomy winters-especially where I am from in England! Networking needs to be fun and not approached as another chore, like mowing the lawn. (http://francis-moran.com/marketing-strategy/social-media-strategy-why-meeting-in-the-real-world-matt...) [...]
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Traditional Marketing is Dead – Long Live Bikini Waxer Marketing | Scalexl : [...] pointed out by Alexandra Reid on the Francis Moran website content marketing is becoming more and more like journalism. So, it is not just about the content, [...]
It’s Summertime…and the Networking is Easy? | THE MERRAINE BRAIN : [...] In fact, summer is perhaps one of the times least used to network, yet at the same time has shown to be the most productive time to network. People tend to be in a brighter mood compared to during the gloomy winters-especially where I am from in England! Networking needs to be fun and not approached as another chore, like mowing the lawn. (http://francis-moran.com/marketing-strategy/social-media-strategy-why-meeting-in-the-real-world-matt...) [...]