Breaking Bread Together

Most of us think about the colonists and the Native Americans sharing a feast together around this time of year.  Here are a few things you may not know about the “Thanksgiving” holiday:

• The Native Americans had been in North America for many years before the colonists came, and more than likely they celebrated their own harvest each year, long before 1620, so to call the 1621 celebration the “First Thanksgiving” is a myth in and of itself.

• The first Thanksgiving in 1621 between the colonists and the Native Americans was held sometime between September and November and the feast celebration lasted for 3 days.

• Originally, Thanksgiving was a multicultural community event – it was not just about family.

• The colonists never called themselves pilgrims.

• On November 26, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln announced the 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation hoping to promote a more unified nation after the end of the Civil War. He announced the official Thanksgiving holiday (fourth Thursday in November) in gratitude for a pivotal Union Army victory at Gettysburg that same year.

• For the first Thanksgiving, the colonists did not dress in black (only on Sundays) and they did not wear those funny buckles and shoes your kids draw in school around this time of year.

• Contrary to popular belief, the Puritan colonists were fun people, and they liked to laugh and wear bright colors!

• Corn, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie and cranberries were not on the original menu – however, the colonists may have included cod, eel, clams, lobster and even seal in their feast.

Well, however you celebrate the fourth Thursday of November, Strategies hopes that you enjoy the company of others while you feast on whatever is your delight!

What kind of PR Chemistry Do You Have?

You may be aware that being a PR practitioner requires a bit of chemistry knowledge as well. Public relations professionals work hard every day to glean positive public reaction for their clients. All good chemists know that mixing certain elements creates either a positive or negative reaction, and possibly even an explosion if one isn’t too careful, which would be quite the contrary to most client’s PR goals.

So what makes for the perfect PR chemistry mix for your company?

How Does Using WordPress Help a Corporate Blog with SEO?

We all know the general benefits of having an actively maintained corporate blog … you’ve got dedicated readership; you enhance the company’s thought leadership; reinforce the company’s position as an expert in its space; it helps with search engine rankings; etc. But did you know that there are a number of additional benefits of using, specifically, WordPress for your corporate blog? All for FREE?WordPress is very search-engine friendly for a long list of reasons – here are just a few:

1. WordPress does a fantastic job of automatically linking to new articles. If you add accurate, descriptive links throughout your blog, it’s easy for Google to follow the links and index the content.
2. WordPress notifies search engines directly when new articles are added using a system called Ping-O-Matic. There’s no guarantee, but we’ve seen Google add a blog article to their index within minutes of it being posted because of the fabulous Ping-O-Matic.
3. Listing all the minor technical ways in which WordPress outputs search-engine friendly HTML would take a long time, but the creators of WordPress are big believers in “semantic” code. This basically means code that not only contains the content, but organizes the content in “meaningful” ways. Bam.

Do you use WordPress?

The Psychological Benefits of Making The “List”

We all know everyone has a list; there’s the “A” list for party invites; there’s People Magazine’s Top 50 Beautiful People List and, of course, there’s the Orange County Business Journal’s Top 25 PR Firms List. Strategies is on the Top 25 PR list and has been for over 20 years. How does that make us feel? GREAT! But what does it really mean? Does it build more business? Does it help with employee retention? Does it impact our corporate culture? Yes. Yes. And Yes! I think everyone agrees that it is nice to work in a place that is recognized in the field of specialty that it serves.

For Strategies, we are proud to serve our clients with our marketing communications expertise. We have clients that we have been serving for over 30 years! And that is unusual in any field, especially when you consider our invoices go on an accounting line item as a “vendor.” We are happy to say that our clients consider us a partner, not a vendor. We work hard to become a part of our client companies’ corporate culture, while still maintaining our own unity and uniqueness here at Strategies. We have acquired new clients by getting direct calls as a result of being on the OCBJ Top 25 list, which is a testament to the credibility that OCBJ has built as a go-to news source for Orange County. And we have employee tenure which is over-the-top exceptional in the agency business. This tenure is one of the greatest assets at Strategies, as our client’s receive the continuity of a knowledge base designed around their areas of specialty. We are proud of our group here at Strategies and we look forward to serving the community for many years to come. So what does it mean to make a list? You tell us – we’d love your feedback!

Do you feel LinkedIn or Left Out?

Social media options can overwhelm a company or individual today, and leave you with your head spinning. It seems that social media decisions are leaping out of every corner. Do I really need to have a Facebook page for my company? What if I don’t Tweet? Will a blog make a difference to my sales numbers? And what about LinkedIn? Right. What about LinkedIn? Does a company need a LinkedIn Page in light of other social media options. Yes! Absolutely yes. For many companies, LinkedIn may be the number one social media priority. Why? Because it’s a true business (as opposed to social) vehicle. Designed originally as a static online resume, LinkedIn is a prime interactive networking and employment-seeking site. Companies look at a LinkedIn corporate page to see how your company ranks. And, you never know when a layoff could create a scenario where that personal LinkedIn page might just be a deal-maker on a new position. It’s not that difficult to get your LinkedIn page up and growing. The key is to start today as momentum begins with your page and builds as time goes on. Connecting with more people through groups of interest that you follow can open many doors. Here are a couple of key tips for staying relevant on LinkedIn:

1. Professional-looking Profile
   Keep the profile info professional and interesting. No party pictures or slang lingo. Close-up professional headshots are best.

2. Refresh your status update – at least weekly – best if done daily
   Doing this keeps profiles front and center with connections. Staying active means movement. It shows involvement. Share interesting content. Find Groups that will lead you to connections in your field.

3. Search Connection Opportunities
   Find people you know. You never know when a connection could lead to a new, and exciting employment opportunity.

LinkedIn is a key way to stay connected without leaving your desk. Whether for a new hire, a new account, or a new job, LinkedIn is your connection.

Top 100 Free Social Media and Marketing Resources of 2012

Here are some great free resources to use for your marketing efforts - enjoy!

1. Social Media:http://changetheworld.tradepub.com/category/marketing-advertising-and-promotion-social-media/899/2. Internet Marketing:http://changetheworld.tradepub.com/category/advertising-and-promotion-internet-marketing/896/3. Demand and Lead Generation:http://changetheworld.tradepub.com/category/marketing-advertising-promotion-demand-and-lead-generation/893/4. Email marketing:http://changetheworld.tradepub.com/category/advertising-and-promotion-email-marketing/895/5. Search Engine Optimization:http://changetheworld.tradepub.com/category/marketing-advertising-and-promotion-search-engine-optimization/898/

Do you have Klout?

So what the heck is this Klout score everyone’s talking about in social media? Here’s a quick overview to keep you in the loop. A Klout score is a single number that represents the aggregation of multiple pieces of data about your social media activity. For example these are some of the signals that Klout measures:

Twitter:

• Retweets: Retweets increase your influence by exposing your content to extended follower networks.

• Mentions: People seeking your attention by mentioning RAIhome is a strong signal of influence. Klout also takes into account the differences in types of mentions, including “via” and “cc.”

• List Memberships: Being included on lists curated by other users demonstrates areas of influence.

• Followers: Follower count is one factor in your Score, but Klout heavily favors engagement over size of audience.

• Replies: Replies show that you are consistently engaging your network with quality content.

Facebook:

• Mentions: A mention of your name in a post indicates an effort to engage with you directly.

• Likes: The simplest action that shows engagement with the content you create.

• Comments: As a reaction to content you share, comments also reflect direct engagement by your network.

• Subscribers: Subscriber count is a more persistent measure of influence that grows over time.

• Wall Posts: Posts to your wall indicate both influence and engagement.

• Friends: Friend count measures the reach of your network but is less important than how your network engages with your content.

A Klout score includes all of your social media communities: Google+; YouTube; Instagram; etc. So check it out at www.klout.com and get engaged!

The Blogging Blog

So what do I want to blog about? What could be better than – blogging. The number of people blogging has fallen off significantly in recent years and there’s one reason. Because blogging is not a good tool? NO, because successful blogging is hard! Anyone can hold forth on their ideas on a blank page, but to get others to care to read that page is another matter. A lot of people who just wanted to get something off their chest have fallen away, but the number of serious, interesting and dedicated blogs is growing. There’s a million things to learn about good blogging, but recently we posted on Facebook (strategiesadpr) an interesting blog post by Blog Tyrant entitled “Three Problems that Make Me Leave Your Blog in Three Seconds.” Here’s some of what he said in a nutshell:

1. People leave your blog if they see that no one is commenting. He advises changing the default text from “0 comments” to something less pejorative like “comments enjoyed”. Encourage comments by asking questions. And (very cool idea) start a “buddy” group of fellow bloggers who leave comments on your blog in exchange for you leaving comments on theirs.
2. Don’t mutilate your blog theme or make it hard to navigate. Get a custom theme designed, get a logo designed at least, choose a simple, mostly white theme, and don’t edit it yourself unless you make it perfect. Make sure your theme enhances your blog brand.
3. The most serious problem according to Blog Tyrant is no original ideas. He says when a blog has nothing new to offer people know it in a second. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Just present your ideas in a new, fresh way. Find an angle on your topic. When Strategies does a corporate blog it’s great because we have people to call on who are experts in their field so their advice is original. Brand yourself in a way that supports your unique angle. Our client Emerson Rosemount Analytical doesn’t call its blog Rosemount or Emerson. It’s called Analytic Expert, which reinforces their brand. The Blog Tyrant also says to not only find out what your blogging competitors are doing, also find out what they’re NOT doing and do that.

This is a good place to start. To read the entire post click here. There’s much more to learn about driving traffic to your blog, but we’ll talk about that in a future post.The thing that often stops companies from blogging is the fact that no one on the staff has the time and energy to handle the blog. And yet blogs need to be personal. At Strategies, we help create corporate blogs, getting input from individual staff members on their area of expertise, and crafting posts in their voice. Each post is personal, but the responsibility doesn’t fall on a single staffer. It’s a great strategy and can turn social media skeptics into enthusiastic bloggers.