Currently viewing the tag: "social media"

On LinkedIn’s 10th birthday – 10 tips to optimize your page

On May 8, 2013 By

It’s hard to believe that everyone’s favorite professional networking site is celebrating its 10th birthday. But, unlike your probably awkward 10-year old tripping over their own feet and trying to figure out who they want to be when they grow up, LinkedIn –at 225 million users– has firmly established its place in the social media [...]

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The Human Aspect of Social Media and Guidelines for Handling a Crisis

On April 18, 2013 By

Watching the aftermath of the Boston Marathon tragedy really hit home for me. Boston was  the place I called home for 11 years. I have family and close friends who live there. As a proud graduate of Boston University, I remember enjoying sunny afternoons on Patriots’ Day cheering on the valiant runners as [...]

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A Beginner’s Guide to Twitter

On February 12, 2013 By

I’m still amazed at how many CEOs and executives are still not on social media. Even more shocking is the percentage of people who are on social media who have no idea how to use it. I found myself making social [...]

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When is public relations more than PR?

On December 19, 2012 By

Public relations has been at the heart of Sterling Communications since our founding in 1989. Relating to the public, in case it hasn’t become obvious this decade, requires far more than mere “PR.”

Public relations — at least to our high-tech and cleantech clients — has grown far beyond press releases about new products, [...]

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8 Steps to Optimize Your Content for Search and Social

On November 15, 2012 By

“Advertising is just renting the space. Content marketing is owning it.” — Arnie Kuenn

More and more, businesses are seeing the value of content marketing as an advertising tool and a way to position themselves as thought leaders in their respective industries. Content is the currency of the web. Buyers need content [...]

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How Social Media Became THE Destination for Election 2012 Predictions and PR Lessons

On November 7, 2012 By

The 2008 US Presidential Election may have been referred to as the “social media election” but that was then, and this year’s election campaign season was unlike any before it.

Four years ago, 1.8 million tweets were sent on Election Day. But now, in 2012, there [...]

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The Silence of the Cougars

On November 1, 2012 By

Last week, Washington State University football coach Mike Leach publicly banned his players from using Twitter. When asked what prompted the decision, the notoriously blunt coach’s reply was, “Because I decided to, that’s what prompted that.”

Now, as a WSU alumna and die-hard Cougar football fan, far be it [...]

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The Gap: Manifestly Smart in Dousing a PR Fire

On October 24, 2012 By

Gap, Inc. neatly sidestepped a potential PR nightmare last week when it pulled a controversial T-shirt from its stores. Native American groups pointed out that the T-shirt printed with the slogan “Manifest Destiny” celebrated a belief espoused by 19th century American settlers that served as justification [...]

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When Hashtags #Fail

On October 9, 2012 By

At $100 – $120K a pop, a promoted hashtag is a terrible thing to screw up. Yet, it happens more often than you might think. Companies start out with the well-intentioned idea of promoting a benefit of their brand, only to have their hashtag “hijacked” by tweeps sharing negative sentiments, usually driving more engagement and [...]

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Content Marketing: The Hero’s Journey

On September 21, 2012 By

We’ve all heard time and time again that in marketing, “Content is King.” Here rather, content is [insert your favorite superhero].

At last week’s Digital Marketing Conference, keynote speakers Brian Clark and Sonia Simone touched on important points to remember when creating content for brands. The conference, which focused on [...]

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Why Social Media Doesn’t Begin and End with Sales

On September 5, 2012 By

I’m still shocked every time I hear social media managers talk about measuring ROI based on new sales. I wasn’t aware that Facebook and Twitter were sales tools. That’s not to say that they can’t help generate more leads, but if you’re looking for a quick fix, you’re in the wrong place. [...]

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Growing Twitter Follower Numbers The Right Way: Focus on Quality vs. Quantity

On August 29, 2012 By

I like the phrase “growing your Twitter followers,” because it gives me a mental image of a social-media farmer cultivating a new crop of followers — carefully watering and fertilizing them with the right amount of content and engagement. Admittedly, this image is silly, and probably created by too much caffeine and [...]

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Penny Wise, Pound Foolish

On August 21, 2012 By

Some companies really don’t get that we live in a connected digital age where a single customer’s voice can do substantive long-term damage to your brand. Last week’s social media fireball around Kaitlynn Fisher’s court case made it painfully apparent that Progressive Insurance is anything but. In [...]

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Transparency in Social Media: Google’s Elimination of Anonymity on YouTube

On August 14, 2012 By

“Horror is the removal of masks.”

This quote from Robert Bloch, famed author of Psycho, particularly rings true with Google’s recent decision to prevent YouTube users from being able to hide behind aliases and instead have them disclose their full names when making comments on the [...]

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Olympic-Sized Media Gaffes Part II: How to be a Good Spokesperson

On August 9, 2012 By

Amidst unparalleled worldwide media attention, some of the athletes of the London 2012 Olympic games have been sending misguided Tweets, giving awkward interviews, and appearing on camera totally unprepared. These gold-medal media gaffes have proven that while some people are natural-born athletes, few are natural-born spokespeople.

Last week we took a look at some of [...]

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Corporate Social Media Isn’t for Interns…

On July 27, 2012 By

 …and 7 Quick Tips to Help the Right People Run It

Few businesses would argue against having a presence on social media. Unfortunately, far too many organizations — even in high-tech or cleantech industries — treat social media as a marketing afterthought. How do we know? In new business meetings over the past [...]

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Agile Engagement, from the Mouths of the Experts

On July 19, 2012 By

I have long considered the concept of agile engagement, and what it means to me as a PR professional increasingly moving into the social media realm. As time goes on, it becomes a larger part of my day-to-day role.  So, it was with great interest that I listened in on a recent PR [...]

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11 Tips to Bore People Stupid Using Social Media

On July 13, 2012 By

I think we’re well past the point of convincing companies they should maintain a presence on popular social media sites. There’s even consensus that companies should attempt to be strategic about their efforts by mapping their tactics to corporate goals. However, there still seems to be debate on whether it’s OK for companies [...]

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What is Integrated Marketing?

On June 29, 2012 By

As if there weren’t already enough ambiguity in our line of work (seriously, how many times have friends or family members asked you, “so, what do you do, exactly?”), PR has evolved so much over recent years that PR professionals themselves are hotly debating what exactly defines this profession nowadays.

While our job [...]

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Facebook Is Not a Free Lunch

On June 26, 2012 By

I am not a Facebook customer. I am a Facebook user. That’s a distinction that many of the 900 million people with profiles on the site seem to forget. Facebook’s customers are the companies that pay to advertise on the site. We, the great unwashed 900M, are Facebook’s by-product that they serve up to advertisers [...]

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Will Your Sweepstakes Win You Committed Followers, or Fair-weather Fans?

On April 27, 2012 By

Last Friday, I caught tweets by two environmental reporters who seemed to cast a jaundiced eye on a sweepstakes launched by the Obama re-election campaign. The competition offers people that complete an online registration form the chance to win a ticket to a dinner attended by the president and [...]

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Sound Off Podcast: Social Media Privacy in the Workplace

On April 19, 2012 By

Sterling Communications Account Supervisor Scott Smith sits down for a chat with colleagues Tiffany Bryant, Jordan Hubert, and Lisette Rauwendaal, to discuss how many companies are increasingly evaluating potential job candidates, and current employees, by evaluating content on their Facebook, Twitter and other social network pages. In [...]

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Hunting the Creative

On April 11, 2012 By

Here at Sterling Communications, we’re always discussing creative communications, be it advertisements, PR campaigns, media responses and the like. And, since we’ve recently joined the social media phenomenon that is Pinterest, we figured, what better place to share the creative campaigns we come across? Add a little friendly competition to [...]

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Pinterest: the Next Social Media Frontier

On March 1, 2012 By

By now most brands have (or at least attempted) a presence on Facebook and Twitter. And many companies have added sites such as Delicious, YouTube, Flickr and LinkedIn to their social media repertoire. But what new social medium has risen so [...]

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Battle of the Sexes: Social Media

On February 2, 2012 By

With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, I’ve been thinking about how men and women differ. Specifically, I was curious about how men and women interact through social media. What are the differences? In my quest for answers, I pulled some research to show a few basic trends in how men [...]

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Running “Deep,” Instead of Running Away

On December 22, 2011 By

“Chevy Runs Deep”

When GM auto company Chevrolet introduced this new slogan late last year, few knew exactly what it meant. According to Chevy’s advertising agency – Goodby, Silverstein & Partners – “Chevy Runs Deep” is meant to be used in such a way that it will solve past marketing problems faced [...]

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Social Media: The New Destination for Endorsements

On November 8, 2011 By

Elizabeth Olsen reminds you what film acting can be….

What movie critic said this? Wait, this endorsement actually comes from actor Alec Baldwin – in a tweet! And, the first time I saw this wasn’t even on Twitter, but in a print ad for the new movie, Martha [...]

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The Role of Social Media in Activism

On October 25, 2011 By

We all know that the creation of the Internet and social networking sites have exponentially increased our ability to disseminate information; after all, they are real time mass information distribution networks, but they have also increased our ability to organize. Social media played an important role in the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings, [...]

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Occupy: the Media

On October 20, 2011 By

Over the past few weeks, I have been watching the Occupy Movement stories with interest, and maybe a little annoyance, after having been harassed in Reno by a mob of Occupiers this past weekend. But whatever my personal view on this, I am grateful for the First Amendment, which grants us [...]

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Halloween Goes Social

On October 18, 2011 By

With the proliferation of social media, gone are the days of thumbing through a newspaper to find out about Halloween events, or browsing through a store to come up with ideas for a costume. People are flocking to Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites more than ever to decide not only [...]

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