Tag Archives: content marketing

If cats have nine lives, why can’t our content?

Posted on January 9, 2013 by | 1 Comment
PR Newswire staffers Malcolm Atherton & Natalie Bering are on site at CES 2013.

PR Newswire staffers Malcolm Atherton & Natalie Bering are on site at CES 2013.

The day before the show floor opened CES 2013 booths received their finishing touches and exhibitors descended on Las Vegas. The lesser known fact is that CES is not just more than 1.8 million net square feet of exhibits, but it is also a learning conference with industry and role specific tracks.

Yesterday I was able to attend Women in Advertising: Innovation in Digital Technologies where eight accomplished and powerful women were poised to share their experiences with us. The landscape of the panel spanned from large agencies to small start-ups.

In the course of the discussion, the panelists encouraged us to think about our own messaging. Is our content relevant? How do we get the content to those that matter? What is our story? How do we tell it? I sat in the audience thinking that this is the same conversation that all communication practitioners are having – no matter if you’re in marketing, PR, or at an agency.

What was interesting was the digital perspective. The revolution is not necessarily the technology but how the content is being consumed and how to get where your audience needs you to be. Beth McCabe, VP/Group Director, Social Marketing & Technology, Digitas mentioned that it isn’t always about marketing using the latest and greatest technology but being inspired by it. For example, they have a MakerBot in their office, they are not exactly sure what is going to come of it but they are playing with it to see what it sparks. A Death Star, maybe?

The point that resonated the most for me was how are you making what you’re doing function across platforms? Does it relate and is it seamless? One example was if you are creating a innovative interactive digital board how are you then taking that content to create long tail success for the parts that make the whole? The videos to be used via social channels, and iPad apps for your sales team to leverage, in addition to weaving the assets to tell your story from different vantage points.

Again how are we as communicators supposed to repurpose our content to tell our story to that specific segment of our audience?

An audience question about if gender played a role in how these women create their strategy was answered in an array of strange recounts of being in male dominated fields, but I found the most satisfying answer to be from Kristin Ganong, VP, Digital Strategy and Engagement at Diageo. She acknowledged that gender shapes us, but that her strategy comes from being relevant to her customer needs and their audience.

Audiences in today’s landscape is looking for a personal and targeted experience, which necessitates communicators to meet them where they are on the devices they use with content that matters to them.

We are creating great content, why should it only have one life?

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3 Ways to Capture (& Keep) Audience Attention

Posted on December 27, 2012 by | 6 Comments

Emerging naked from a roaring fire with a baby dragon on your shoulder is one way to get people’s attention. (Thankfully, there are some easier ways to capture your audience’s attention, which we discuss here today.)

Yesterday we published part one of this two-part post on capturing audience attention.  Today, author Ken Dowell offers thoughts on approaches that rely on utility and relevance, rather than diversion, to garner the attention of your organization’s constituents.

Creating great content that will capture attention and truly engage audiences is a new imperative for communicators.   But how exactly do you do that? One approach is to be so brilliant that you can produce staff that is so good an audience will congregate around it.  Since that option isn’t open to most of us we need to think of quality in terms of who it is we want to reach.  You can, for example, be writing on behalf of a accounting standards organization and you know you’re stuff isn’t exactly going to go viral.  But quality in this example means producing content that will be informative to the professional accountant audience who you’re trying to reach.

If you don’t have something that’s of interest, it isn’t going to much matter how you distribute it.  But the definition of what’s of interest is in the hands of the audience and your job in distributing information is in finding the appropriate audience, positioning your content to be discovered by the very people who would find it valuable.

The 3 S’s of content strategy

To do that you need to take into consideration the three S’s of modern content distribution:  search, social and syndication.

Search is still probably the ultimate consumer tool to filter out the noise and go directly to what you want.  In fact a whole industry has been built up around SEO.  And SEO practice became so prevalent that the search engines, led by Google, tweak their algorithms almost weekly to neutralize the practice of manipulating headlines and keywords and links, etc.  What would Google advise?  Create good content and post it on good sites.  Not a bad option.

Social replaces the diverted eyeball approach with the implied endorsement of being recommended by friends, followers or connections.  It’s a kind of discover mechanism that does for content what talking to your friends and acquaintances does for say restaurant recommendations.  My advice here is similar to what it is for search.  Worrying about “optimizing” through use of hashtags or optimum time of day or repetitions is not going to be nearly as important as producing content that your audience is going to want to share.

Syndication is perhaps less commonly thought of, but it’s a powerful content discovery tool that needs to be considered in determining how you are going to distribute your content.  Specific interest is trumping general interest for information consumers and syndicators that address that need are going to get you where you want to go.  (For example the PR Newswire widget that is deployed on hundreds of Web sites and blogs worldwide delivers to each site only the content that meets their description of what their readers want to see.)

New media, new devices, new tools have opened up new opportunities in marketing and public relations to be publishers and talk with audiences instead of at them   But there’s a crowd of others doing the talking and the listener is more and more fine tuning the message stream.   Only good content available in the right places will get through.

Author Ken Dowell is PR Newswire’s EVP of social media & audience development.

Image via i09.com

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What is Quality Content?

Posted on December 13, 2012 by | 5 Comments

Content-is-King-1-300x169Virtually every discussion of modern public relations and marketing practice will at some point refer to the importance of quality content.  It is the absolute baseline for brand publishing, content marketing, social media messaging and just about any other way that an organization communicates.

The need for quality applies across the board whether the content you are producing is called a press release or a white paper, sponsored content or a blog post.

Quality transcends category.

But what exactly is quality content?  Often that question is answered by what it is not:

  • It’s not spam.
  • It’s not jargon.
  • It’s not solicitous.
  • It’s not laced with tricks to attract search engine algorithms.

The don’ts are easier to point out than the do’s.

If we’re going to define what constitutes quality, let’s start at the simplest level.  Quality content is well written.  That means it’s concise, clear and grammatically correct.  I can’t recall reading anything that was so brilliant I could overlook the typos, mismatched tense and run-on sentences.

Secondly, quality content is honest.  It is honest about what it is and who is writing it.  If it is sponsored content, that is made clear, as is the author or authoring organization.  If someone else’s ideas or someone else’s research is referenced, that too is appropriately attributed.

Beyond that it gets a lot more subjective.

The Google Webmaster Blog talks about “unique, valuable, engaging.”  Other attributes that are cited by various Web authors include useful, relevant, well-researched, credible, and easy to read.

I suggest that good quality content has to be either interesting or informative.  Entertain or educate.  Great quality content does both.

There are many ways to be interesting.  For example, your content can be funny.  Photos and videos can be interesting in ways that are hard to replicate solely with blocks of text.  Great writing, especially if it is in a style and tone that is unique to the author, can in itself be interesting.

Content can be informative to a very broad audience, such as when NASA discusses some new information about the nature of neighboring planets, or to a very small audience, such as information about an innovation in industrial design.   Quality content doesn’t have to be brilliantly original, never-before-heard wisdom.  It can add context or insight to information that is otherwise widely known.  But it has to add to the conversation.

How good is your content?  Try asking yourself whether it is the kind of stuff that you would be interested in reading and why.  If your answer is affirmative, you’re on the right track.

Author Ken Dowell is PR Newswire’s executive vice president of social media & audience development.

Does your content need some fine-tuning?  We have some resources that can help:

Image via 100Kblueprint.com

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Using Multimedia to Power Content Marketing & Tell Stories

Posted on December 12, 2012 by | 3 Comments

Last year, you may have watched State Farm’s PSA about the dangers of deep-frying a turkey. Even though William Shatner added some silliness to the PSA, the campaign proved to be effective, with a decrease in the number of turkey-frying incidents.

It became a successful example of a content marketing campaign many companies will strive to replicate — and now can, with the information provided from last week’s webinar, “Brands as Storytellers: Powering Content Marketing Campaigns through Multimedia,” co-hosted by Online Marketing Institute and PR Newswire.

Kevin Wilk, divisional vice president, PR Newswire’s MultiVu, began the webinar with the discussion of paid, earned and owned media, breaking down the individual media types, and then offered some tips to increase the effectiveness of the content a brand publishes.   Some of his key points included:

  • Paid media is when a brand pays to place ad or content on a channel.
  • Earned media is publicity gained when an influencer promotes a brand.
  • Owned media is when a brand owns a channel.
  • The lines between paid, earned and owned media are blurring.
  • Earned media is gaining importance.
  • More multimedia = more views. Text + photo, video and downloadable files can increase views by up to 9.7 times.
  • Distribute content to different channels to increase earned media, and this will increase in the number of views.

Maria Pergolino, senior director of marketing for Marketo, Inc., followed by introducing six types of visual content that can be used in a content marketing campaign: comics, memes, infographics, photos, videos, and visual note-taking.

  • Comics: They can be used to introduce or transition into other content, e.g.,    introducing a white paper.
  • Memes: They are not only funny, but they can share quotes or a customer case study by including a quote, photo, brand logo, etc. A meme helps tell the story in a condensed way, similar to the function of Twitter. Memes are also easily shared on Facebook, Pinterest, etc. They are a powerful form of marketing.
  • Infographics: They are a little bit harder to utilize. One idea is to use a white paper as the basis of the infographic. Visual content, and not just stats, are important in an infographic, so it needs to be creative and stand out.
  • Photos: They can tell a whole story and, like a meme, can be posted on a photo-sharing website. Photos help viewers get involved in the company’s story.
  • Videos: It is increasingly difficult to improve video quality, as well as use it to tell a story. It is an investment to create a video ($10,000 per minute – but it ranges), and much more expensive than taking a photo. If you decide on creating a video, you need to weave in your story.
  • Visual note-taking: Pergolino mentioned this is one of her favorite types of visual content. It is very engaging. This type of visual content can trigger memories of the topics discussed at an event, meeting, etc. After the event, you can take a picture of the storyboard and post it immediately to your company blog, without having to wait to write up a blog post. Visual note-taking tells a story in a visual and engaging way.

The keys to visual marketing success include: 1) create a compelling story, 2) choose the right type of content, 3) partner with others while telling your story, 4) focus on great design and branding, 5) promote your content strategically.

When promoting your content, use different social channels to tell your story. Use the right content for each channel.

Todd Wheatland, VP of marketing for Kelly Services, began his discussion with “what is driving this change”:

  • Mobile is driving change, because people want content that is quick and easy.
  • Being social is driving change, because people want to share content they think makes them look cool. They also want to consume and not leave the platform providing them with the content.
  • Content needs to work everywhere, e.g., laptop, iPad, cellphone, etc.
  • B2B marketers need to learn how to entertain, because people learn from people, not companies.
  • There is content inflation – the volume of content is increasing dramatically. However, you need to find a balance between expensive video content and a good story.
  • The sharing of video content on mobile devices has doubled.
  • There has been an increase in the amount of online video consumed, and the average length of B2B videos has decreased. People are watching videos to be entertained — keep videos short.
  • Trends in video marketing include the use of humor and case studies (people buy from people – relate to a human story).
  • There has been an increase in video content on landing pages.
  • Don’t skip on costs when making videos – it is a showcase for your company’s products and services.

Interesting Facts

  • The number of companies with YouTube channels increased by 39 percent in the last year.
  • There are six types of Facebook posts, but image posts get 20 times more engagement.
  • LinkedIn Today, which shows daily trending news and shared content, prioritizes heavily. When tweeting from LinkedIn, every RT counts as one LinkedIn “like.” This will help your news trend.

Wilk then concluded the webinar by giving an example of a successful campaign created by Multivu for Apple Vacations. He explained it is a perfect convergence of paid, earned, and owned media using one platform. In addition, it can be easily found on search engines and the content can be shared on different channels. You can view the campaign here: www.multivu.com/players/English/51242-ap…

The webinar ended with a Q&A. Here is some of the info shared during the Q&A:

  • B2B means businesses selling to businesses. B2C is businesses selling to consumers.
  • If your company decides to produce a video, keep the video under two minutes. There is a higher abandonment rate (the point viewers stop watching) after two minutes. You can test the abandonment rate for your videos by creating videos with different time lengths.
  • The best way to make sure your content is mobile-friendly is by testing it. Load your content and see. Also, there are sites like YouTube that make your content mobile-friendly.
  • The goal for a company using social media is to establish a presence on the social networking site and keep people coming back.
  • Video content should not be telling people how awesome your company is, but needs to be engaging and entertaining to your audience. The cheapest way is to have a “talking head,” but you need to be unique and entertain. You can have a “talking head,” but should add another dimension that is more entertaining.
  • Don’t create accounts if you are not creating videos, posting images, etc. It doesn’t look good to create an account and then not post to it.
  • When using images for your content marketing campaign, you can use iStock (purchase images) or grab from your company’s material. Stay away from images that don’t belong to you, and include images your company is comfortable with you using.

You can follow these presenters on Twitter:

Kevin Wilk: @MultiVu

Maria Pergolino: @InboundMarketer

Todd Wheatland: @toddwheatland

Access the archived webinar here: Brands as Storytellers

Author Polina Opelbaum is an editor with ProfNet.

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A 6 Step Plan to Maximize Content Marketing with Agile Engagement

Posted on December 3, 2012 by | Leave a comment

cm marketing paperThe bad news first: The sheer momentum with which the two phenomena are evolving today is swamping many marketing departments. It turns out that generating enough high value content in ways that are meaningful to multiple social audiences is a monumental challenge in today’s always-on media world.

The good news? Owned and earned media were born to leverage off one another – and their combined impact often proves to be far greater than the sum of their parts. Successful PR professionals work toward a self-renewing “virtuous cycle” in which owned media is published by a brand, audiences play it forward as earned media, and the amplification continues as these ripples spread throughout the social sphere.

And there’s even more good news: owned media is not limited solely to the videos, white papers, tweets and other content you produce; it also includes the multimedia platforms you’ve creatively designed to host that stream of brand messaging, as well as the communities you’ve built and diligently maintained around your messaging. With these multiple manifestations of owned media comes a greater resulting opportunity for earning media.

We’ve just published a new white paper titled “Content Marketing: A Six Step Plan for Agile Engagement” designed to help you get your arms around earned media opportunities and incorporating the agile engagement construct into your communications plans. We hope you enjoy the  paper, and invite your feedback in the comments below!

Link: Content Marketing: A Six Step Plan for Agile Engagement

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Online Video: Integral to PR & Content Marketing

Posted on November 29, 2012 by | 1 Comment

Earlier this week, we released the results of a study of press releases and rich media. For those that missed the post, press releases that include video and other multimedia assets generate almost ten times more views than plain text message garner.  (See: Press Releases With Multimedia Get More Views)

At the Monaco Media Summit,  David Levin, CEO of PR Newswire’s parent company, UBM, was interviewed by Beet TV (“Online Video is Multi-Million Dollar PR Biz for London’s UBM“) on the subject of content marketing and video.   The video clip of the interview at the top of this post offers some great perspective on the role (and effectiveness) of video in PR and content marketing campaigns.   Specifically, Levin discusses how we’re syndicating customers’ videos via our network of thousands of Web sites and providing tools to “socialize” video campaigns.

If you’ve thought that video was a one-trick pony named YouTube, it’s time to think again.  Fact is, video content is wildly popular.  Early roadblocks to consumption, such as incompatible formats, bandwidth constraints and high barriers to entry, have largely fallen by the wayside.  We’re streaming video on our phones while we wait for the train these days.  The format is not just one our audiences enjoy – it’s one they expect.

And YouTube? It’s the second largest search engine in the world, behind its parent, Google.  Integration between the two is already tight, and is becoming even more seamless.   Video is becoming ubiquitous.  Is this medium embedded into your content planning and PR campaigns?

Need some help getting started with video for your organization?  We have a free white paper titled “Building Brand Engagement Through Online Video” that will provides some great guidance and tips.

Sarah Skerik is PR Newswire’s vice president of social media.

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Storytelling and today’s media environments

Posted on November 7, 2012 by | 1 Comment

Our organizations are full of stories which can attract and engage our audiences.  Shifting the strategy to incorporate storytelling can be a challenge, however, as is the case with content creation generally.

In this video, our CEO, Ninan Chacko, discusses the emergence of content marketing as a powerful discipline allowing brands to become true storytellers. He takes a look at the range of assets currently being used by PR and marketing professionals and the digital tools used to help illustrate and spread their messages far and wide across platforms, networks and search engines.

“The audience  is living across this broader landscape.  They aren’t solely present in paid media,” noted Ninan, in follow on comments about the changes in the media landscape, and the opportunities these changes afford communicators.

We think you’ll find his comments to be thought-provoking.   And if it’s been a while since you’ve thought about how different types of content and distribution strategies can build audience for your organization’s stories, take a quick look at this overview of press release distribution and other types of content syndication.

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Content Marketing Case Study: It Sure Looks Like PR to Me

Posted on October 29, 2012 by | 5 Comments

Wordstream’s infographic that supported their campaign generated fantastic results for them. (Click on the image to see the full size version.)

A blog post on search engine authority SEOMoz titled “How I Got a Link from the Wall Street Journal” offers some real instruction for PR pros on linking content – and public relations outputs – with measurable, top-line business results.

It’s worth noting that the author of the post – and the content marketing campaign discussed – is Larry Kim, the founder and CTO of Wordstream, a search marketing firm.  (There’s another link for you, Larry – I know you’re counting.)  In short, he is a data-driven quant, C-suite denizen and SEO guru.  And within his case study is some very important guidance for public relations pros.

Think strategically (and holistically) about online pickup.

The first lesson to be derived from Larry’s post is this:  PR should think more deliberately about the value to be had for the organizations we’re promoting in the online mentions and “pick up” we generate — and not just in terms of PR outcomes.   In this day and age, the content we publish digitally can provide a variety of benefits to an organization.  The content, for example, can be mapped your customers’ buying process by your marketing team, and re-purposed.  And the content can generate potent search engine visibility – if you manage the language and linking correctly.  Optimizing press releases and other content can certainly help, however, it’s important to think beyond one granular message, and think instead in terms of how messages can improve web site search rank and provide content that aids potential customers as they make buying decisions.

Defining SEO benefits

What do I mean by “good link” and “significant SEO benefits”?  Search engine optimization is the art and science of fine tuning a web site’s content (among other things) so it shows up on the first page of search results for specific, targeted keywords and phrases.

A “good link” is one that includes one of those target terms, and links back to related pages on your web site.   Here’s how Larry defined his objective of garnering a “good link” from the WSJ.

“Real, editorial links from the WSJ. But not just any link. Ideally, links in an article that:

  • In some way mentioned WordStream (my company) so that we could get a bit of media exposure out of this effort
  • Links to both our homepage and contained to a deep page on our site with relevant anchor text.“

Now, as we all know, the sort of placement Larry in talking about – real, editorial placement – is right in PR’s wheelhouse.   How many of us are working with our web marketing teams and thinking about search terms and deep links when we’re developing our PR campaigns and planning our tactics?  Anecdotally, from the many conversations I’ve had with PR teams over the years, I’m going to venture to guess that the answer to that question is “Not many.”

A good link from a high-profile, high-authority news site – whether it’s the Wall St. Journal or an important niche publication – can provide lift in search rankings for your web site, which is a proven driver of business results, as well as fuel for social conversations.   The content we publish, and the results it generates across the enterprise – is all connected.

Newsworthy content & a good news hook

As one continues reading Larry’s post, it reads more-and more like a modern guide on how to get more PR pick up. He emphasized the need for newsworthy, unique content that was written for the WSJ readership, not a bunch of search experts.

Further on in the case, Larry also addresses the vital necessity of a solid news hook, and how he went about identifying the hook for his “content marketing” campaign.

Finally, by now we know that press releases with multimedia generate better results than plain text.  Larry knows the power of visuals too, and made an infographic central to his campaign.

This *really* sounds like PR now, doesn’t it?

The importance of high-value links & a new definition of “pick up”

I’m prepared to argue that generating high-value links from credible media and blogs should be a key goal of many PR campaigns.   This is a new facet to that old standard in our business – achieving editorial “pick up,” and it’s one that our peers in marketing are really good at measuring.  The teams who manage web marking, in particular, generally have really good insight into the performance of different web site content in terms of the generation of qualified traffic and leads, conversion rate and search rank.   There’s no reason why the content PR deploys can’t be tweaked in order to work in tandem with other content deployed by the organization.  This ‘tweaking’ isn’t onerous.  It just requires a little collaboration with the web marketing team, getting organized, and then being sure to use target terms in PR content, and linking those terms to relevant web site pages. In addition to synching publishing strategies, the same should also be done for measurement at well.  It’s not unreasonable to imagine a scenario in which a press release, for example, is measured in terms of resulting high-value media links, leads generated and search marketing value.

Borrowing a few pages from Larry’s playbook is a good idea for PR.  Simply put, we can leverage the press releases and other content we produce, publish and syndicate to impact far more than the goals set for the PR department and the outcomes the organization usually expect from the public relations team.

Author Sarah Skerik is PR Newswire’s vice president of social media and has written extensively on how public relations, content marketing and search intersect.

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Content We Love: Survey Reveals Favorite James Bond Car

Posted on October 26, 2012 by | 1 Comment

Hello there! Welcome to a new feature here on Beyond PR!   On “Content We Love,” a team of our content specialists will be be showcasing some of the great content distributed through our channels.   Our content specialists are up for the task: they spend a lot of time with the press releases and other content our customers create, proof reading and formatting it, suggesting targeted distribution strategy and offering SEO advice.   In Content We Love, we’re going to shine the spotlight on the press releases and other messages that stood out to us, and we’ll tell you why. We hope you find the releases enjoyable and the insights gained from discussing them enlightening. 

Content We Love: Survey Reveals Favorite James Bond Car of All Time

This release is near and dear to my heart for a number of reasons– James Bond and vintage cars? (Just add chocolate and I’m a goner!) Starting at the very top…

Survey Reveals Favorite James Bond Car of All Time
Pithy headline— short, direct, and includes exactly what you need to know. Survey? Check. James Bond? Check. Car!?! Tell me more!

Sub-headlines are brilliant things to include. Why? Every release has a message. Agree? But how do you cram this news into a short headline and include all the important information!? Ah-ha! The sub-headline!

Next, my inner-geek is excited by the links in the first paragraph. To break it down:  SEO isn’t scary and though it sounds innately complicated, it’s easy to make your releases a scrumptious meal for the search engine spiders. (Search engine spiders, you ask? Fun name for the how the content is found on the internet) Maybe you’ve poured over our press release SEO tips, maybe you’ve never looked at it, but it is 100% in your favor to include these things. But why?

Take me as your example of the “writing for a human”tactic.  If I’m reading information about what your company is doing, the results I’m seeing, the new product, the awesome survey in regards to a gorgeous vintage car, I want more!  Give me a link right there in the first paragraph? Aw, thanks! And guess what; you just made it easier for me to go to the website! You just made a connection (a ‘web’ on the web, if you will).  So how does that help you in SEO? Well you just created a release for a person, so the search-engine spiders respond to it as such. It connects in the cyber world to your website. It associates new content with existing content. Spiders love their webs. Congratulations, you just boosted SEO!

Last, but certainly not least, is my favorite thing to see in a release — social media!

There in the first paragraph is a link with a clear definition for Facebook. Do you use facebook? Do you want to connect to an ever broader audience using the channels you already have?  “In a Facebook poll….” is how the sentence starts. The company is not only utilizing the public platform of social media to further their presence, they are giving you a reason to invest time and investigate.

Should you start creating surveys and polls necessarily? Completely up to you. Here at PR Newswire, we love the word “engage” for a reason. It goes beyond the connection between your audience and you– it sets the relationship! So get engaged with your readers by way of your content!

Take a look at the rest of this release—and it’s ok if you google Aston Martins like I did to oogle over the beautiful cars.

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/survey-reveals-favorite-james-bond-car-of-all-time-174139391.html

Author Emily Nelson is a Customer Content Specialist for PR Newswire. Follow her adventures on www.bellesandawhistle.wordpress.com or on twitter www.twitter.com/emilyannnelson

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Earned Media Expertise: Meet the Earnies Judges!

Posted on October 25, 2012 by | Leave a comment

For the 2012 edition of the Earnies,  we have put together a stellar panel of judges, drawing from social media, content marketing and public relations.   The judges hail from equally varied posts – practitioners, agencies and media are all represented.

The Earnies awards recognize individuals and organizations for outstanding efforts in the area of earned media executed across social media. For our second year of the Earnies, we’ve added more categories to give you even more opportunities to show off your successful campaigns.

Without further ado, because this group really doesn’t need embellishment, meet the 2012 Earnies judges!

Deirdre Breakenridge (@dbreakenridge)

Deirdre K. Breakenridge is Chief Executive Officer at Pure Performance Communications. A veteran in PR and marketing, Breakenridge has counseled senior level executives at companies including the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, Empire Today, Hershey’s, JVC, Kraft and the World Bank.

Breakenridge is the author of five Financial Times books. Her most recent book, “Social Media and Public Relations: Eight New Practices for the PR Professional,” was published in May 2012 and is available in print and all digital formats. Her other books include, “Putting the Public Back in Public Relations,”  “PR 2.0, New Media, New Tools, New Audiences,” “The New PR Toolkit” and “Cyberbranding: Brand Building in the Digital Economy.”

Breakenridge is an adjunct professor at NYU, and she speaks nationally and internationally on the topics of PR, marketing and social media communications. She was the keynote speaker at The Social Conference 2012 in Amsterdam, the PRSA Southwest District Conference in Tulsa Oklahoma, and the Canadian Public Relations Society Annual Conference in Victoria, BC.  In 2011, she delivered the keynote address for the Maine Public Relations Counsel (MPRC), and presented the keynote at Visa Championships / USA Gymnastics Conference.  Breakenridge has also presented at BlogWorld, Social Media Congress, the Public Relations Institute of Australia (PRIA), and the Marketing Executives Networking Group (MENG).

Breakenridge is a member of PRSA and has served on the Board of NJ/PRSA and the New Jersey Advertising Club. Top Rank named Breakenridge among the 25 Women that Rock Social Media and Traackr recognized Breakenridge among the top 10 PR 2.0 Influencer in 2012.

Breakenridge blogs about PR 2.0 strategies and is the co-founder of #PRStudChat, a dynamic Twitter discussion scheduled monthly for PR students, educators and PR pros.

Tim Moore (@TimMoore)

Tim has spoken to thousands of people internationally about using social media in their work, in all sorts and sizes of businesses. As an analyst, his online influence assessments, strategy maps and implementation of best practices have helped numerous companies drastically improve their monetary conversions.

Tim is author of the forthcoming book “Hype Is Dead,” currently serves as SVP/Social Business Architect at Maximum, and is the CEO and lead singer of CrushIQ. He has been engaged in technology consulting for nearly 20 years and is frequently requested to share his honest assessments and digital evaluations, via his addictive delivery style, with companies at events internationally. He is also called upon regularly as a social media reference by the likes of ABC News, AT&T, CNN, The New York Times Company and many others. He is certified by the Social Media Academy and is addicted to Karaoke.

Tim’s comedy writing/actor credits include The Late Show with David Letterman, Late Night with ConanO’Brien, SNL and The Onion SportsDome.

Joe Pulizzi (@JuntaJoe)

Joe Pulizzi is a leading author, speaker and strategist for content marketing. Joe is first and foremost a content marketing evangelist, and founded the Content Marketing Institute (a division of Z Squared Media, a 2012 Inc 500 Company), which includes the largest in-person content marketing event, Content Marketing World as well as Chief Content Officer magazine, the leading magazine for content marketers. Joe is also co-author of  Get Content Get Customers (McGraw-Hill), recognized as THE handbook for content marketing, as well as Managing Content Marketing: The Real-World Guide for Creating Passionate Subscribers to Your Brand.

Awarded “Custom Media Innovator of the Year” by American Business Media, Voted Who’s Who in Media Business by BtoB Magazine, Folio: 40, and recognized as the Most Influential Content Strategist via Lavacon,  Joe travels around North America and Europe  talking to marketers and business owners about how they are indeed publishers, and what they need to do about it.

Joe writes one of the most popular content marketing blogs in the world and is overly passionate about the color orange.

Michael Sebastian (@MSebastian)

Michael Sebastian is the founding editor of PR Daily.

He has also held a variety of editorial roles at Ragan Communications, including staff writer and online community manager.  Prior to joining Ragan Communications, Michael was a newspaper reporter, freelance music writer, and editorial assistant.

Michael lives in Chicago with his wife. In his spare time, he enjoys reading and eating pie. He’s also afraid of bears and lightning.

Want to know more about Michael? Send him an email: michaels@ragan.com.

Tim Washer (@TimWasher)

Tim Washer is Senior Manager of Social Media at Cisco. His social media work has been covered by Advertising Age, ADWEEK, NPR and The New York Times. He’s presented at SXSWi, The Wall Street Journal Digital Download and Harvard Business School. He holds an MBA from the University of Texas.

Tim’s comedy writing/actor credits include The Late Show with David Letterman, Late Night with ConanO’Brien, SNL and The Onion SportsDome.

YOU.  (Yes.  You.  Reading this.  Right now.)

Guess what! You’re an Earnies judge, too!  After our panel of experts picks the finalists from the entries,  the final decision on the winner will be made by YOU.  And a few thousand of your peers.  Because the final round of judging is crowdsourced!  Thanks in advance for voting!

The entry deadline for the Earnies is November 16th 2012.   To enter, review the categories and then submit your entries from our site.  Here’s the link:  Earnies Categories & Entries!

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