Back in the day, press releases were the primary means of communication between business enterprises and the media. However, the advancement of the internet has made the traditional format of a press release less effective as journalists, press members and readers crave small chunks of succinct details that incorporate social media, linking and multimedia to make it more digestible and relevant. Compare this to the multi-page press releases that dominated newsroom fax machines in the past and it’s pretty clear that the way information is assembled and received has changed.

If you’re used to traditional press release formats its evolution to social media press release (SMPR) won’t be too much of a challenge. Knowing what to include and how to format your SMPR will be a big help in securing media and blogger coverage for your brand’s news and happenings.

The basic SMPR parts are:

1. headline
2. secondary headline
3. overview
4. body
5. facts
6. about
7. multimedia links
8. relevant links
9. tags

Each part has been labeled and is featured in a sample SMPR outline to make it easy to follow along.

1. For your headline, state exactly what’s the SMPR is about. This isn’t the place to use jargon or slang. A keyword or two and you’re good to go.

2.The secondary headline isn’t always necessary, but if you want to add a bit more insight and push readers to read the next line then include it. Follow the same guidelines you used in the headline.

Once you’ve built your SMPR you’ll want to distribute it to your media and blog contacts. There are multiple distribution methods for your SMPR. You can email, fax broadcast, post and link on your website or use distribution services. Distribution services typically come in two flavors – paid and free.Services with payment are very costly ranging in prices from $350 to $3500 depending on length, images and circumference, local, regional, national or international. The advantage of a paid service is that media and blog contacts are kept current and you will often receive specific instructions that pertain to how each individual likes to be approached and contacted. Additionally, you receive access to syndicated newswires like the Associated Press, Reuters and others which aren’t typically available through free services. Newswires are the official method of communication used by most to receive news content. If you’re interested in paying for distribution visit PR Newswire or Marketwire to learn more.

Free distribution of your SMPR can take place via a multitude of sites. Each has advantages and disadvantages. Ultimately, it will be up to you to determine which one is the best outlet for you and your brand. Some of the more popular free distribution sites are PRLog, i-Newswire and Press Release Point. You’ll want to research what’s included in the free distribution service and find out what types of flexibility you have with customizing your distribution list. This will help you get your SMPR into the hands of the right people. For instance, if a site informs you that they distribute to all the major national newspapers you should ask if they have distribution points to journalists that focus on specific content like health, technology or finance.

Also, keep in mind that the SMPR above is a sample only. Feel free to tailor your SMPR to fit your brand’s needs. You many need to go bigger or smaller. It’s entirely up to you.

Have you developed a SMPR lately? What have you included? How are you sending it out? Please share with us.

Incorporating video into your website and social media sites is an excellent way to grab the attention of your audience. Just like most of us enjoy reading books with pictures, we also want to see and hear through a movie. With the average person watching 182 online videos each month and YouTube serving more than 1 billion videos each day it’s easy to see that video is a marketing strategy that shouldn’t be overlooked.

Video Topic & Content

The subject that you choose for your video really depends on your brand, audience and industry. You might decide to showcase a news-themed video about a new product launch or maybe create a how-to or information-based video for your audience. Spend some time researching what your audience would like to watch. Let their preference help to guide you as you develop your script and content. Knowing what appeals to your consumers and following suit can help you convert them into brand evangelists.

Script & Filming

Hands down, the best thing about video marketing in 2010 is that you don’t need to hire an expensive agency with copywriters and art directors to put your video together. That’s not to say having Don Draper and his team of Mad Men available at your beck and call is a bad thing. If you have the budget and the time it’s worth exploring. For the rest of us, using a simple handheld or computer cam is more than ample in terms of equipment. Before you launch your video put together a rough script to help focus on what you want to cover. If necessary, use a tripod to keep the camera steady while recording.

Packaging Your Video

Some popular forms of video include testimonials from satisfied customers, highlight products being used in real-life situations, training videos or walk-throughs to simplify complex processes or extend existing content-like presentations. There are many possibilities when it comes to video. What’s important is that you drive traffic to your video. Try to cross-promote or develop a video series that will get your audience involved and keep them coming back for more.

Video Optimization

Here’s the part where we talk about search engine optimization. You can – and should – optimize your videos. Include keywords in your script, the title of your video and tagging. Word on the street is that YouTube will be launching a feature that makes the audio portion of all videos searchable. By optimizing your video scripts now you’ll stand a better chance of having your audio appear in keyword searches. Don’t forget to include keywords in your video title. Just be conscious of keyword overload. You still want people to know what your video is about. Use keywords in moderation.

Upload & Share

Take full advantage of all the video outlets that you have available. Host your videos on your website and include homepage teasers to let people know that you’ve created fresh video content. Upload your videos to all the major sites like YouTube, Vimeo and Viddler. Make your video available in multiple locations and you’ll give yourself a greater opportunity to appear in user-generated searches.

Monitor, Track & Analyze

Once you’ve gotten past creating and uploading your video you’ll want to involve yourself in its metrics. This will help you determine if it’s a success or a failure. Pay attention to the number of views, comments left about your video, revenue spikes and whether the perception of your brand has benefited.

If you need a little video inspiration, check out Erik Qualmann’s Socialnomics video that he put together to launch his new book. This video went viral and helped put Qualmann and his book on the map overnight.

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Get creative, have fun and test out video with your marketing strategy.

Not only are Facebook Pages a great way to promote your brand or service to your customers, but they also serve as excellent platforms to interact with your fans. But, how do you know what’s eliciting a fan response and what’s not? As most Facebook Page admins know, the Page Insight provided by Facebook is fairly limited in terms of data. If you want to get down and dirty you need something more powerful. Thankfully, you can integrate Google Analytics into your Facebook Page for more robust metrics and tracking and you don’t need to be a whiz-kid coder to get it done.

Here’s how:

Step 1.

If you haven’t already, sign-up for a free Google Analytics account. Next, you’ll create a profile for your Facebook Page by using your Facebook Page URL. You would enter http://www.facebook.com/yourFacebookPagename. Once you’ve successfully created your profile the Analytic’s dashboard shows your URL and an Analytic’s profile ID that looks like this:  UA-12345678-9.

Step 2.

Look for your UA number and visit Webdigi to generate an “image” for each Facebook Page that you want to track. The online application has some helpful hints to help you complete the form. After you’ve got your information entered, select the “Generate Code” button.

Grab the code and copy it.

Step 3.

The “Generate Code” button creates a chunk of HMTL that you’ll need to copy and paste into your Facebook Page. This piece of code is the “image” that we referred to in Step 1. The code, or image HTML, needs to be placed on the Page by using a wonderfully handy Facebook application known as Static FBML. Install Static FMBL to your Facebook Page by clicking on the “Add to my Page” link.

Step 4.

Head back to your Facebook Page, choose “Edit page” and scroll down your list of applications to the Static FBML app that you just installed. All you need to do is paste the code into the FBML box. Save and your done. You can create as many custom FBML boxes with code as you need and place them on each “tab” within your Facebook Page that you want to track.

For your Facebook Page Wall, just make your FBML application a box and post it to your wall. Just remember that for each tab that you want to track within your Facebook Page, you’ll need to create a new “image HTML” as instructed in Step 2.

The benefits of adding Google Analytics to your Facebook Page are tremendous. You’ll be able to track:

• the number of unique visitors on your Page by day, week, month and more
• new visitors vs. returning visitors
• what tabs are most popular within your Page
• what keywords do people use to find your Page
• overall Page growth (or decline) over a period of time
• how long are people staying on your Page

Google Analytics can give you a major leg up on understanding more about your visitors so that you can adjust and improve your Facebook Page. This will help you continue efforts that work and alter those that don’t.

Do you use Google Analytics on your Facebook Page? Have you found alternative ways to implement other that what’s been shared here? Share your thoughts with us.

Let’s go marketing with SlideShare! No, you don’t need to be a crazy PowerPoint or Keynote maniac. You just need a basic understanding on how to put together a slide and you’ll be good to go.

SlideShare is a business social media site that lets users share documents, presentations and PDFs. More than 25 million people visit SlideShare each month and that makes it a hot spot to showcase your brand, products and services. Something many people might might not know is that SlideShare is more than just slides. There are a ton of other features that make it a fantastic tool to incorporate into your social media strategy.

By the way, SlideShare can help you build some big time valuable links back to your site. SlideShare permits you to place links in your slideshows that connect back to your website. Excellent (saying that in my best impersonation of a Wayne ‘s World voice).

Links from credible sources give your website lift in the search rankings. This means that you have the potential to appear at the top of Google’s search results and that means more people will see you first and before your competition. Google loves SlideShare and sites that are similar to it (think Squidoo, Wikipedia, etc.) because they share useful information and command influence and that is the gold standard for Google.

Now that we have a little background on SlideShare, let’s explore how we can harness its power and make it your own personal social media and marketing machine.

1. Optimize Your Slides

Time for your daily dose of SEO. The stuff is everywhere, including SlideShare. When you put together your slides/files use keywords in the title and use them in the summary. Just remember that you don’t have much space, so choose your words wisely. On that same note, make sure you tag your slides with plenty of relevant words so that users can find your content during searches.

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2. Get Creative With Content

Maybe you already know what SlideShare is and the only challenge you’re facing is trying to figure out what the heck to put into your slide show. Here’s a sprinkle of creative suggestions to get your juices flowing:

• Put together a how-to tutorial
• Assemble a case study with captivating visuals
• Use your blogs and articles by taking key points and designing a presentation
• Capture images from an event and share
• Take existing presentations and upload them

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3. The Company Slide

Don’t let the blood, sweat and tears you’ve put into your slideshow go to waste. Always include a company slide at the end of each and every presentation and file. A website URL is fine, but try making the slide more personal. Include a few sentences about who you are and what you do. Make sure to leave your contact information so that visitors can get in touch.

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4. Enter the Contest

In 2009, SlideShare partnered up with Adobe and conducted the World’s Best Presentation Contest. A sack of cool prizes like were presented: first place received a MacBook Pro, second place snatched an Amazon Kindle DX and third place nabbed an iPhone 3G. The kind folks at Adobe pushed out copies of Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro to the winners of the category prizes. Sounds pretty sweet, right?

With only 3,721 entries, most folks had a pretty decent chance of winning something, not to mention the publicity and recognition that was generated too. Watch for the 2010 contest and submit your slideshow. Great marketing and fantastic social media exposure!

Here’s the 2009 winner:

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5. Social Media Connections

SlideShare isn’t the only place where you can view SlideShare presentations. Hop on over to LinkedIn and load their SlideShare application into your profile. It integrates your existing presentations into your LinkedIn account and gives you the opportunity to market to a larger audience. Same thing goes for Facebook. Take advantage of the Facebook SlideShare application and sync up your presentations so friends and fans can view.

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6. Widget Your Slides

Use what you have to promote your slideshows. Grab the code for a SlideShare widget and embed it into your website’s homepage or blog.

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7. Social Media Posting

At the bottom of every SlideShare presentation is a social media bar that enables you to share your content with the world. Use the bar and use it often. Every time you upload new files and presentations, make sure to send out a message to alert your social network that you’ve got something fresh to share.

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8. Start A Group

Create a group that’s exclusive to your brand and advertise your product or services. Groups can be used to interact with customers over the web and you can receive instant feedback and commentary from them regarding your presentations.

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9. Promote Through PR

Include a hyperlink and mention to your slideshow on all your press releases and blog posts, even in your email signature. The more exposure you can give to your slideshow, the better chance it has of being viewed.

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10. Add Some Audio

Multimedia that stimulates the sense of sight and sound is much more interesting for any viewer. Integrate some sound into your presentation with Slidecasting. A slideshow with sound can be a better way to touch on key points that might not fit on a single slide.

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11. Launch A Channel

SlideShare offers businesses an option to set-up ‘branded microsites’, or company channels, on SlideShare. Channels are customized projects and can be developed with SlideShare based on budget and preferences. Check out some of the newest channels and contact SlideShare for details on how to get started.

The best place to start is probably the most obvious. What exactly is a Twitter list? A Twitter list is a feature that allows you to organize your followers into lists, or groups. It’s a great way to organize fellow tweeters into manageable categories for easy access. Getting started with building a list is very simple. There are a few helpful things that are worth knowing before you begin creating your lists. Once you’ve got some of the basics down, you’ll be ready to use them as promotional tools to expand your marketing efforts.

Let’s start with some ground rules:

1. 1. Lists can be private or public.
2. 2. Twitter users can have up to 20 lists.
3. 3. Each list can have a maximum of 500 listees.
4. 4. List names can’t begin with a numerical character.
5. 5. You don’t have to follow someone to include them in a list.

Pretty straightforward. Making a list is a snap too. Click on your Twitter profile sidebar, select ‘New List’ and start adding. Look for the ‘lists’ button next to any profile, click and you’re done. A new listee has been integrated. Pretty simple. Now on to the purpose of this post!

Spy Games

Well, maybe it’s not quite spying – more like monitoring, or secretly listening. By creating a list that includes your competition, or similar brands, products and services, you can keep tab on trending topics and discussions. Tracking other tweeters is a great way to learn more about industry challenges and how others are facing them, as well as gain insight and a few tips on customer and client care. All of this is easily accomplished with a private list (remember, you don’t have to follow someone to add them to a list).

List Optimization

SEO is everywhere, including Twitter lists. Giving your public Twitter lists appropriate and optimized names can position them at the top of the search engine results pages. So, put some careful thought behind what you’d like to name your Twitter list. Make absolutely certain that once you’ve decided on a delightful keyword combo you don’t change your mind. Reason being is that once you change the name of your list, the URL of the Twitter list changes too. If that happens, you’ll lose the tweeters following that list.

Creative Juices Are Sticky

Developing a list for your profile doesn’t mean that it has to specifically relate to your business in every aspect. Why not spice things up by developing lists with a twist. First of all, it’s unexpected and second, you’re allowing yourself the opportunity to expand and engage with new tweeters. Building a list that sticks with tweeters and that’s shared with others drives traffic to you.

For instance, Jacob Cass’ Twitter profile, @justcreative, is aimed at graphic designers. His list, No Blab Just Design Links, is in the Top 140 Twitter lists followed. It ranks as number 51 with 1,025 followers. It’s a fun list and the name of it states exactly what it does.

Keep It Relevant

Think of your Twitter lists as extensions of who you are. Use them to build out and express what you can’t say in less than 140 characters. As your follower base grows, so do their interests in discovering more about you. Compiling meaningful and purposeful lists that continue to keep followers engaged and that are related to their interests will position you as a credible and respected resource.

Share On Your Web & Blog

Put your list in the limelight with a Twitter widget. Go to the Goodie stash on Twitter and customize your List Widget. Choose the colors, size, featured list and a title and catchy caption. You can do a test run to see how the widget will appear to users before you grab the code to install on your website. Place the List Widget in a conspicuous place and start promoting.

Shameless Promotion

There’s no reason why you shouldn’t broadcast your newly created list directly to your fellow followers. After all, they’re following you because they connect with who you are and what you’re sharing. Schedule a tweet or two and share your list for others to follow and enjoy. Just send out your tweet using the following format: @<username>/<listname>

Get Listed

Don’t forget to visit Listorious and add your lists to their directory. Listorious was created by Sawhorse Media to keep track of the growing number of Twitter lists that have been created and that are being created. This is also a great place to explore for ideas on assembling your own lists. When you add your list make sure to make use of the ‘tags’ feature so that Listorious users can find your list by subject and follow you through Twitter.

Toot Your Own Horn

Depending on what your list is about, when you build it, don’t forget to include yourself.

Added Exposure

When you’re added to someone’s list, it’s flattering. You’re being recognized as someone that’s sharing good information and it brands you as a resource. In turn, that makes you more credible, which is always a good thing. Starting a list of your own and adding specific people to follow has the same effect on them. It expands your circle of influence and builds up your network.

What lists are you currently following? What makes them standout? Share your thoughts and comments below.