by Shannon Paul on March 6, 2009
Tweet Ghostwriting has been a common practice in PR since its inception, but it has no place in a blog. I started thinking about this a lot recently after reading Beth Harte’s post on the subject and a subsequent conversation on Twitter with Dave Fleet. Ghostwriting — letters, announcements, speeches, memoirs, presentations became a way [...]
by Shannon Paul on January 8, 2009
Tweet Best practices are great when they provide guidelines — but they generally make terrible laws. Theory can only take us so far in the real world and sometimes upping our game means trusting our instincts to get things done. To illustrate my point, I chose to share a video clip with you here after [...]
by Shannon Paul on January 4, 2009
Tweet Since so many blogs have called for the death of everything from press releases to the PR industry-at-large and embargoes, I would like to jump on the bandwagon and begin 2009 by calling for the death of social media tools. Allow me to clarify: I am NOT calling for the death of social networks, [...]
by Shannon Paul on December 20, 2008
Tweet Different social networks appeal to different people for different reasons. The two obvious giants when it comes to social media are MySpace and Facebook. A user’s preference for either network may speak to the differences in many other interests and online behaviors, but determining exactly where the similarities and differences lie could mean the [...]
by Shannon Paul on November 29, 2008
Tweet Lately, I’ve tried to stop thinking like a marketer, or a PR professional, and I’ve started thinking more like an anthropologist when it comes to reaching out to people in social networks. I haven’t completely done away with my marketer/PR hat and I’m not recommending you do away with yours either, since you’ll likely [...]
by Shannon Paul on November 19, 2008
Tweet It’s true, integrating social media into communication strategies puts the focus back on the public. It’s no longer just about the media. Last week I gave a presentation on social media to the Central Michigan chapter of the Public Relations Society of America (CMPRSA). I was the first speaker of the day, and I [...]
by Shannon Paul on October 31, 2008
Tweet Don’t let anyone fool you. Companies want social media engagement, most just aren’t willing to do the internal work aimed at bringing down the barriers to transparency in order to make that happen. Most of us know someone that desperately longs to be in a relationship, yet they remain hopelessly single because they refuse [...]
by Shannon Paul on October 24, 2008
Tweet Influencers are usually pretty easy to spot, so why do so many companies still insist on building their own social networks? This month started off with a bit of a downer for social media evangelists everywhere when Gartner released the results of a study that indicated a 50 percent failure rate of all social [...]
by Shannon Paul on October 8, 2008
Tweet Even if a potential employer discovers you on LinkedIn, most of them will still ask you to send along your resume. In this scenario, sending my resume may seem silly, especially if you consider the additional information that LinkedIn profiles include that resumes don’t; like contacts in my professional network and recommendations from past [...]
by Shannon Paul on October 6, 2008
Tweet A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post about social -vs- marketplace motivation based on a presentation from Francois Gossieaux and Lois Kelly from Beeline Labs. At that time I promised to return to their Tribalization of Business study and that’s exactly what I plan to do with this post. Beeline Labs’ Tribalization [...]