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It’s an honor to guest post for Praecere. Public relations has changed dramatically in the last few years, and Praecere is at the forefront of this evolution.

Blogging has become an essential part of marketing and PR. It supports lead generation, provides engaging content needed for social media and search engine optimization, establishes a company as a thought leader in its industry, and can be used as a tool to get media attention.

If your blog can deliver content your prospects find interesting, informative, and entertaining, they’ll see you as a trusted source of information – an advisor, an industry leader.  If all things are equal when choosing between two companies, the prospect will likely choose the company with a great blog.

In fact, in the DemandGen and Genius.com report titled “Inside the Mind of the B2B Buyer” 66% of people say “consistent and relevant communication provided by both sales and marketing organizations was a key influence” in choosing the company they ultimately made a purchase from.

Any business can set itself apart with good blogging, no matter the industry or how boring you think your business is. I’ve put a list together that can help freshen up your blog. Please add to the list in comments.

1. Define Your Purpose

Before you start your blog, answer these questions: Who is your audience? Who is the competition for your audience? What is the focus of your blog? What goals are you trying to achieve? Have you set metrics for measuring those goals?

Did you notice most of those questions revolve around your audience? The blog shouldn’t be about your company as much as it should be about your customers and prospects. A successful blog is a resource for your audience. The purpose of your blog should be how it engages and interests that audience.

2. Create a Blog Calendar

To build and maintain a following on your blog, it must be consistent. Ideally you want at least three blogs every week; the more the merrier. Place them live at the same time every day. For example, plan to publish a blog every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday at 9 a.m. Put together a calendar and schedule blog posts, otherwise it won’t get done.

3. Mix and Mash

Brainstorm a variety of topics around your industry and company. Create short and long posts. Have meaty posts with lots of information and others that are less serious. Move beyond the written word with photos, infographics, charts, videos, and presentations.

4. Stir Conversation

To engage readers, you want them to participate in the conversation. Write many of your blogs as if you are having a conversation and want people to respond. A blog shouldn’t be a soap box, but rather a two-way conversation with each reader. Don’t fill in all the blanks; sometimes leave a post undone and ask for the reader’s participation.

5. Compelling Headlines

As people judge a book by its cover, they judge a blog post by its headline. Don’t underestimate how important a good title is; it may be the most important part of your post. A few tried and true headlines include numbered lists (5 Reasons …,  7 Ways …,  etc.), how-to posts (How to Survive Prison), why’s (Why Richard Branson’s 5 Tips to Success are only 4.5), surprising headlines and odd analogies.

6. Share Everything

If you your blog can’t be easily shared online, then you are wasting an opportunity. Make sure you have social share buttons and RSS feeds near every blog post.  [Ed. Note: new Praecere site coming soon with these features!]

7. Guest Bloggers

Guest bloggers can extend your network, add credibility from third parties, and provide a fresh, new perspective to your blog. Contact respected people in your industry and invite them to guest blog on your site. Always offer to provide a link back to their site. Those links not only help send visitors to their site, but also with SEO through quality link building. Also look for opportunities to guest post on other blogs.

8. Blog in Real Time

Keep an eye on current events and news, especially around your industry. Write a blog post to respond to news and how it relates to your industry. Praecere does a great job with these types of posts. They can show up quickly on the first page of Google as more people search for that trending topic. You can also use real-time, newsy posts with the media. Pitch them on doing a story about that subject and send them a link to your blog.

9. It’s the Appetizer for Lead Gen

A good blog post massages a viewer and warms them up to your services or products. The right calls to action placed on those pages can drive significant leads. Good calls to action on blogs might be a newsletter sign-up, RSS feed sign up, a download of a free whitepaper, etc.

These are just a few ideas to make a great blog. Any other ideas that have worked for you?

Dan Bischoff is the Director of Communications at Lendio, a company helping entrepreneurs and startups succeed through obtaining the right business loans and funding. Previously he was the VP of PRMarketing.com and the online PR manager at SEO.com. He has been a journalist and editor in various media outlets – including the Associated Press, The Salem Statesman Journal, the Deseret News and the Park Record. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/danbischoff.

9 Ways to Overhaul Your Corporate Blog is a post from: Public Relations Firm PR Blog

Praecere President Babak Zafarnia Interviewed on CNN’s Situation Room is a post from: Public Relations Firm PR Blog

So your business is doing well with PR techniques.  Your PR director, in no particular order, has:

• Followed tweets carefully and responded to inquiries.

• Cultivated and engaged Facebook users to raise brand awareness.

• Built good, trusted relationships with key reporters and bloggers covering your industry.

• Found publicity opportunities outside your industry, broadening your business profile.

• Created a witty newsletter format, distributed on a regular schedule to keep your core business base updated on latest news.

• Used other cool online tactics to keep precious positive buzz going.

Now ask yourself, what do these actions have in common?  They all involve digital communications, either via tweets, status updates, emails, phone calls (digital these days), and apps.  Definitely the right way to go, but here’s a revolutionary idea missing from the mix:

The handwritten note.

Yes, sometimes it’s necessary to go analog in PR, and actually take pen to paper to achieve your goals.  As nice as it is for a client or customer to receive informative and interesting electronic updates, the time your business spends in writing a personal note will also go a long way in generating positive PR.  Word-of-mouth is still an essential tactic in the PR playbook, regardless of what new digital platform happens to be the next bit thing.

Don’t believe us?  Ask yourself this: if you ever received a handwritten “thank you for your business, Jill/John,” you probably remembered it for a long time afterward, and remarked positively about it to friends and relatives.  Publicists toil hard for that kind of client and customer support, so never doubt the power of handwritten notes in your grand digital/global/influencer/stakeholder/let’s-conquer-the-world PR strategy.

The Power of Handwritten Notes is a post from: Public Relations Firm PR Blog

Mashable has a great post today about the music industry’s looming trial against LimeWire, the file distribution service they accuse of illegally distributing digital music.  When you have a lawsuit with hundreds of millions of dollars at stake, it’s no longer a matter of “if” but “when” the proceedings will get heavy media attention.

We’ve written here and here about how tone deaf the music industry’s PR strategy is.  Not only do the heavy-handed statements alienate consumers, they also show incredible contempt for technological advancement, a trend the music industry has famously ignored at its own collective peril.

But, even if the music industry understood the power of positive and persuasive PR, can we assume that their publicists are coordinating messaging with their legal teams?  Probably not, as the Mashable article shows.  The plaintiffs’ prime argument basically amounts to “technology is evil.”  The best comment to the article so far is this:

Corporate titans and captains of industry, know this – if your media team and legal team aren’t coordinating, and litigation PR doesn’t have a special place in your set of business priorities, you’re only hurting your bottom-line.

Corporate and Litigation PR Must Sing in Tune is a post from: Public Relations Firm PR Blog

www.lendio.com/blog/brand-early-and-brand-often-cause-youll-need-to/

The article discusses branding for start-ups, and why it’s every bit as important as securing that first loan.  Very honored to be invited by Lendio to blog, and hope you enjoy the article!

Guest Blogging Today at Lendio.com is a post from: Public Relations Firm PR Blog

Litigation PR plays a big role in the school of obtuse PR, and offers perspective in understanding what’s about to unfold.  When major corporate entities file lawsuits, smart public statements help advance the case in the court of public opinion.  Not-so-smart public statements, conversely, can hamper public attitudes.

We’ve written before about how record labels are, ahem, tone deaf to consumer sentiment and public perception of mindless business practices.  And they’re about to step in it all over again.

Background: Amazon has stolen the fickle tech spotlight by announcing its new cloud drive music service.  Basically, people can now store digital music on an Amazon.com account and stream songs to integrated devices.  This allows potentially limitless music storage, compared to the hard drive confines of a computer or portable music player.

In truth, Amazon’s move isn’t revolutionary technology; rather, it’s a smart assessment of consumer preferences and leverage of wireless bandwidth.  We’d argue that the shift from cassettes to CDs was way more important, as that transition represented a dramatic boost in enjoying audio quality.

Regardless, the music industry seems ready to fight tooth and nail against advancements and technological trends.  Here are choice music executive quotes on Amazon’s cloud:

• “Keeping legal options open.”

• “The locker service that Amazon is proposing is unlicensed by Sony Music.”

• “It sounds like legalized murder to me.” (Seriously?!?)

In other words, the record labels seem ready to bellow: “We will sue Amazon, as scorched-earth litigation PR is in our collective genome.”  Instead of such statements, what if the RIAA, on behalf of the record labels, simply said:

“Cloud music is an interesting technology development.  We’ll keep our eye on it.”

See that?  Framing the industry’s official position as passively interested in no way compromises litigation potential.  Such a statement certainly helps avoid negative headlines and mistaken context as the cloud music media narrative gains momentum.  Better to be a bit mysterious and noncommittal in this case, as opposed to playing the oppressive tactic of “let’s sue ‘em into oblivion.”

Big Record Labels Ready to Rain on Amazon’s Cloud is a post from: Public Relations Firm PR Blog

Of course, one might hope fractals can predict patterns in media coverage.  Wishful thinking… right?  Maybe not.

• Four years ago, Oprah Winfrey fielded allegations that the school she funded in South Africa was physically abusing students.  Oprah apologized and promised reforms.

• One year ago, Wyclef Jean fielded allegations that his Haiti charity had questionable accounting practices.  Wyclef (sort of) apologized and promised reforms.

• And the latest – Madonna is fielding allegations that the school she funded in Malawi is now defunct due to unethical management and cost overruns.  Madonna (you guessed it) quasi-apologized and (sort of) promised reforms.

If you’re a celebrity and wish to start your own overseas charity, how do you break this miserable crisis PR failure pattern?  Certainly not an easy thing to do, but one thing is clear: before you get started, have a respected third party – who’s a trusted authority on legal and ethical charity practices – validate and support your charity before you launch your operation.  Now that’s a PR tactic worth repeating.  Just sayin’…

The Fractal Theory of Crisis Management and Public Relations is a post from: Public Relations Firm PR Blog

We’ve written before about what MySpace might have done to save itself, at least with aggressive PR steps.  But, if the site’s numbers are dropping this quickly, all that’s left is what PR playbook News Corporation must run as MySpace’s parent company.

For starters, it’s unlikely News Corp will get caught up publicly on the cost issue.  Yes, $580 million – what News Corp paid for MySpace – could have bought lots of tickets to recent Fox film studio turkeys.  But for a company whose quarterly profits recently doubled to $254 million, it certainly can absorb the loss over time.

So if the numbers aren’t the biggest sting, then maybe the stigma associated with MySpace’s awful and cheesy reputation is what hurts most… right?  Nope, wrong on that account too.  News Corp’s red-headed stepchild Fox certainly isn’t shy about promoting the lowest of low-brown content.  Just look at how Fox Cable Networks’ 75% ownership of the National Geographic Channel has polluted that otherwise globally respected brand.

And of course, c’mon News Corp – calling MySpace the “premier lifestyle and social-networking site” – really??  Ditch this language, please.

Maybe all that’s left is for News Corp simply to own up that the entire transaction was a debacle, revel in the absurdity of the whole thing and move on – such an admission might humanize a notoriously unhumanizable CEO.  And that’s the winning PR strategy.

For Parent Companies, Some Kids Just Can’t Leave the House is a post from: Public Relations Firm PR Blog

http://prdaily.com/Main/Articles/7430.aspx

http://linkd.in/ibXOxY

Our work on behalf of our client, the Society of American Travel Writers, was profiled on Travel Industry Wire:

http://bit.ly/dQ7cmk

The Stamford Advocate interview where we offer advice on Fairfield University’s crisis management of a sex scandal:

http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/local/article/Experts-say-Fairfield-U-avoids-black-eye-in-972282.php

The ABA Journal interview where we offer law firms advice on social media strategies, along with a hard dose of managed expectations:

http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/social_media_or_snake_oil/

Praecere in the News is a post from: Public Relations Firm PR Blog

The point is that while a 140-character-or-less apology may seem superficial, it’s quickly growing as today’s mea culpa standard.  But, that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be treated with the same care and attention one would normally employ when apologizing.

For example, a grown adult wouldn’t shout or sing an apology, right?  After all, yelling “I’M SO SORRY” really comes across as shrill.  That’s why proper tone is essential to crafting a Twitter apology.

Unfortunately for WNBA player Cappie Poindexter, shouting an apology was the best she could muster after she exclaimed on Twitter that the unbelievably tragic Japan earthquake and tsunami were signs that “God was tired of the way [the Japanese] treated their own people in there [sic] own country.”  (Here’s an excellent summary of this PR disaster.)

After the resulting outcry, Poindexter offered her Twitter apology:

Unfortunately, her decision to take to Twitter in such a rambling, incoherent, grammar-nightmare rant – AND IN ALL CAPS – actually makes her come across as insincere and mouthing words because she got caught, not because she feels remorse.

Apologies, an integral part of crisis management, are all about showing true contrition.  If you can’t show real regret in 140 characters, then Twitter’s not the place to repent.

The Art – and Ugliness – of the Twitter Apology is a post from: Public Relations Firm PR Blog