Would the Real Holly Dawson Please Stand Up?

May 9th, 2013 | Holly Dawson | 15 Comments

Have you ever had that dream, where you walk into a room full of people and realize with horror it contains everyone you have ever known?

All the jostling, incongruous parts of your life flash before you, as your brain speeds through the consequences of this squeamish event – the secrets, deceptions, indiscretions, and embarrassments that will be exposed.

Image: DavidDennisPhotos.com via Flickr, CC 2.0

But then you wake up.

That room, however, does exist. It’s called the Internet.

email

print

Digg Digg

Filed under Career, Communication, Guest Posts | Tags: chameleon strategy, facebook, online persona, Twitter, William James | Comments (15)

Public Relations: The Two Sides of Information Access

May 6th, 2013 | Kirk Hazlett | 3 Comments

Boston and the world recently got an unfortunate and disturbing lesson on and reminder of the power…and the perils…of information access.

The power lay in the ability of friends, family, loved ones and casual acquaintances from every corner of the earth to connect, comfort, and console each other each time new information was communicated about the unfolding events. And the media, for most part, did a commendable job of providing much-needed updates.

The perils lay in the ability of anyone, anywhere…at any time…to acquire information that, sadly, could be used to inflict harm on others. While I continue to wish that all my fellow beings would only devote their lives to activities that are beneficial to mankind, I’m enough of a realist to know that this isn’t going to happen.

This realization got me thinking about our responsibilities as public relations professionals to communicate…to provide advice and counsel…to clients or employers so that they might better inform their many stakeholders. In particular, the Public Relations Society of America‘s Code of Ethics addresses the “Free Flow of Information,” saying that the public relations professional will “maintain the integrity of relationships with the media, government officials, and the public.”

Filed under Communication, Guest Posts, Kirk Hazlett, Media, Public Relations | Tags: counseling, crisis communication, information access, public information | Comments (3)

Finding Keywords: The First Step to Blogging Success

May 2nd, 2013 | Guest Contributor | 26 Comments

Guest post by Sean McGinnis

I’ve been a web marketer for a long, long time. Having built my first web site (DVD Verdict) in April 1999 and managed one of the larger SEO teams in the country from 2006 to 2009, it’s safe to say I’ve seen many changes in web marketing over time.

Interestingly enough, there is one thing that has never changed – not one lick over the previous 14 years – and that is keyword research.

Finding keywords is one of the most important (and most overlooked) aspects of web marketing. I’m not going to try to convince you why doing keyword research is important. That’s a blog post for another day.

Today, I want to help you find the right keywords. Let’s dig right in.