Have you heard of Pinterest? If not, you may want to find a female aged 18-44 to explain it to you before you get too far behind  the growing social media site!

The Pinterest site was launched in March of 2010, but I can even say I didn’t know about it until last fall, which is the timeframe the site started to catch on. However, the invite-only site has now climbed to third in the rankings of social media sites in total number of visitors according to Experian Hitwise. Pinterest falls behind Facebook and Twitter, but has passed LinkedIn and Google+. The site, co-founded by Iowa native Ben Silbermann, can no longer be ignored, especially in the marketing world.

In order to join Pinterest, an invitation is needed. An invitation can be obtained by requesting it from Pinterest or from a friend (which is faster). Log-in then requires going through a Facebook or Twitter account, which allows for postings about new pins to show up in the feeds of the other social media channel.  This connection to Facebook and Twitter is what has made Pinterest take off so quickly.  It automatically finds your friends already on Pinterest – and you can follow all of them with only one click.

What makes Pinterest different than other social media?

Pinterest is an online bulletin board,and users can ‘collect’ items of interest by pinning them to their boards. Images, videos or articles, can be ‘re-pinned’ from other users, uploaded or pinned from any website with the ‘Pin it’ button. The items are pinned with an image, which is linked to a source website, unless it is an uploaded image. The boards are simple, with the image featured on a white background and the text is minimal. The images and simple design are appealing to the eyes of users and it keeps them scrolling down the page, which continues to load pins as the scrolling continues.

From a business standpoint, Pinterest, according to Shareholic, has been driving higher volumes of website referral traffic than Twitter and other social media sites in the past months. Pinning an image, article or video that links directly back to your site will draw followers into visiting your site.

Tips for Businesses:

• Make your site ‘pin-able’. Add a ‘Pin It’ button to the business website, have attractive pictures to pin on your site, rather than just words.
• Build a lifestyle around your brand. Start your own Pinterest site and pin more than just brand items. It makes creates a lifestyle for your brand, makes the brand engaging, more personable and develops more than just a ‘push’ relationship with followers.
• Keep it consistent. Don’t pin a large amount of pins every once and awhile, build it up. Every time something new is pinned it is featured on the Pinterest homepage, so scatter your pinning and the business name will come up more on the homepage.
• Use keywords. In the description bar, insert keywords or use hashtags or include a link back to the original page. Keywords will help the Pin come up in Pinterest searches.
• Create a promotion. Whether it is through a pinning contest or by pinning coupons, followers will take notice and may become more engaged as followers.
• Check out HubSpot’s Ebook: How to Use Pinterest for Business

Pinners to Check Out:

• Drake University: The Drake marketing team has developed their Pinterest account to help showcase the college experience and lifestyle at Drake.
• Panera Bread: Panera is building up their Pinterest site, while dispersing items that drive followers to their site they also pin items to promote a happy, healthy lifestyle. Their contest called #MakeTodayBetter, is a great example of getting followers engaged with the brand.
• Visualities Videography: The videographer does more than showcase their videos, they help suggest ideas for the entire wedding planning along with recipes and gifts.
• Salvation Army Family Stores: Salvation Army, a non-profit, has used their boards to promote the sales of the Family Stores with boards that suggest how to re-purpose items that may be found in their stores.

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A digest of interesting marketing stories.

Google AdWords for Video Goes Beta on YouTube

YouTube has launched its beta version Google AdWords for video. The goal of this new tool is to simplify online video ad campaigns and allow advertisers to use a dynamic, auction-based platform to place and manage ads on YouTube and the Google Display Network. The platform, built on top of AdWords technology, uses the same pipeline to serve ads. Is this something you can use for your business? Take a look at the video on YouTube produced to introduce this service, or read about AdWords for video.

Want Free Publicity? Sign Up With HARO.

If you like to get free editorial coverage for your business, there is a way to monitor requests from editors and reporters. It’s called HARO, or Help A Reporter Out. This service has been around for several years. Here’s how it works once you sign up. Several times a day, five days a week, you receive an email containing 20 to 40 links to descriptions of articles reporters are planning. The reporters are looking for expert content sources. Here are some examples.

If you are a topic or content expert, or have one in your company, you can respond directly to the reporter. The topic areas include Biotech, Healthcare, Business and Finance, High Tech, Lifestyle and Fitness, Sports, Travel and more. To sign up, visit HARO and click on Become A Source. There are four participation levels, including FREE.

Twitter Ad Revenue of $135.5 Million Expected in 2011

Twitter is looking at a 210 percent increase in global ad revenue in 2011 over 2010. In its first full year of selling advertising (2010) revenues reached $45 million. According to a study by eMarketer, Twitter’s revenue projections for 2013 will reach $400 million. “Since their debut in April 2010, Twitter’s Promoted Products have proven successful in the U.S.,’ said eMarketer principal analyst Debra Aho Williamson.

Corporate America is on a Hiring Binge for Social Media Workers

One billion users on Facebook and Twitter make an appealing audience for many companies. Ragan’s HR Communication reports on an article in The Los Angeles Times, which finds that experts in marketing a company’s name and wares on social network sites are in big demand. The number of social media-related jobs on Monster has surged 75 percent over the last year. About 155 positions are available each month, up from an average of 88 per month a year ago. If you need help in this area, HRB has social media experts on staff who can get you started, integrate your social media with your traditional media, or help you take it to the next level.

Call us at 800-728-2656. Request ext. 121.

I recently read an article about how the social media and PR universe are much like a small town and it resonated with me. IF you are not from a small town, defined as less than 10,000, then perhaps you will not see the connection I do. The social media universe is very much like a small town in that what everyone is trying to do is build a community. Small towns have so many wonderful traits, but they also have some that can be a bit unnerving at times.

I am from Lost Nation, Ia. In its heyday it topped out at 900. I was in the last graduating class as we only had 23 students in my senior class. Believe me, you know everyone and they know you. Some of the similarities that I see between a small town and social community are:

Growing up in a small town, you know almost everyone. They also know everything about you. This transparency is good in many ways, but you are reminded that “word gets around” and the community can quickly learn the bad things someone says or does. Likewise, a company partaking in social media needs to be prepared for customers seeing its dirty laundry along with the good.

In a small town, everyone looks after one another, even if you don’t care that much for each other. There is a bond with communities. I think it is kinda like having a brother or sister. I am an only child and it has always amazed me how my two sons could be picking at each other one minute, but when someone says something or does something against the other they stand together the next minute. Social communities are very similar in this way. The political community is a prime example.

In either a literal or virtual community, you are welcome to join, because we are curious about you. The cost of admission is cheap, especially if you help another member. You are gradually accepted. No matter if you’re considered a “newbie” (even after belonging somewhere for 10 years), you’re still a part of the gang.

However, the thing with gangs is that betrayal is costly. Same with a small town or a virtual community. Betray the group and know that forgiveness comes slowly. Trust is imperative. Companies and organizations need to heed this warning. If a mistake is made, at least own up right away and correct it so everyone can move on.

Ultimately, I think what we are all searching for is a sense of belonging. To belong, one knows your name, your first name. You are not a “Dear Card Holder” or a Sir or Ma’am. Anyone in business, social organizations or school, you need to remember that. We are not faceless beings. We have names. My name is Shelby, I am still from a small town, working in a small city, with two teenage boys and even though my demographics might be interesting to you, my psychographics might be even more so – pay attention.

Remember to connect with folks and create the community you want. We might not all be right for yours, but I bet there are many who are perfect.

No related posts.

You might understand traditional media like the back of your hand.  But when it comes to new or “newer” media channels, you probably have a difficult time discerning where your time and money is best spent.  In fact, the Web 2.0 terms and its growing number of channels will just keep coming before you can figure out what they are, let alone how to use them.

Integrating those new channels with traditional media into a cohesive campaign that reaches the right people at the right time – with the message you want to tell – that’s difficult.

And that’s where we come in.

The goal of using social media is to build a dialog and relationship with an interested audience.  However, the added benefit is that, because of the elements of search engine optimization, using social media can also drive more traffic to your web site – relevant traffic.

Think of each person that clicks from a search term onto your page as a “prospect”.  What do you want that prospect to do?  If you want them to purchase something, you place the item for sale directly on the landing page.  Ca-ching!

If you want to develop a prospect contact list, you might have them sign up for more information, a newsletter or a contact from a sales agent.  Regardless, once you have a name of someone tied to the click, you can make them a part of your customer relationship management (CRM) strategies.

In other words, you can – and should – use Web 2.0 elements in order to gain traffic and ultimately acquire leads that you can then address with BOTH traditional and non-traditional marketing channels.

Examples of Channel Integration

Simple:  A direct mail piece that directs the reader to a landing page of its web site.

More complex:  A postcard printed with a QR (Quick Response) code that the reader can scan with their smartphone in order to go directly to the web landing page through the app on their phone.  The web landing page contains more information and a link to sign up or buy.   This method capitalizes on the technology to take the user directly to the end result they want – quickly – before they can change their mind or be distracted with other things.

Simple:  Start a blog and repurpose your blog content into a periodic newsletter.  Email your newsletter to your email database and post it on your web site.

More complex: Create an event, set up an event page on Facebook, link it to your corporate Facebook page, post it on your web site.  Use Twitter to tweet about your event; embed another tweet with a tiny URL link to a signup page.  Send postcard invitations with a QR code to the signup page.

Your company’s social media activity can also help build your brand credibility, retain website visitors and help with search engine rankings by providing engaging content that can be indexed regularly. Both Facebook and Twitter should be used to routinely communicate new information, products and offers, and to connect with people who are commenting about your company, positively or negatively.  The beauty of social media is also that you can respond – quickly.

Social media must be seen and used as a fully-integrated partner to your traditional marketing efforts.  As a result, there needs to be cooperation and coordination to be certain your brand “voice” is consistent, campaign efforts are properly timed and clear metrics are determined.

Start now!

I suggest you start incorporating Web 2.0 elements into your plan right now.  After all, social media isn’t going away.  According to the Nielsen Co. (2010), Americans spent 23% more time on social networking sites and blogs in 2010 than they did in 2009.  The category has seen — and continues to see — exponential growth.

But that can be intimidating.  What is most important is to have a plan that is manageable to maintain.  Don’t promise a daily blog if that seems daunting; rather, a weekly blog and a tweet or two a day might be reasonable.

To learn more details about social media, download our free whitepaper or email me swest@hrb-ideas.com.

Whether you’re a social media novice or expert, it’s important to remember that the Internet never sleeps. While we may need eight hours of rest before returning to work in pursuit of our blog, Internet marketing and public relations goals, there are millions of Internet users who continue to post content when we hit the hay.

With recent changes in search engines and today’s short attention spans, people are now expected to post and promote new content regularly. While automation tools are helping companies and brands share information around the clock, many employees still feel worn out at the end of the day. It’s a lot of work to consistently post and track content on top of our everyday responsibilities, yet it’s more crucial than ever that we monitor what people are saying about us.

Throughout my internship at HRB, I’ve worked on accounts that have needed immediate attention because someone wasn’t listening. A news release wasn’t posted on time, a complaint from a dissatisfied customer slipped past a Community Manager or a competitor beat a client to the punch. I’ve learned these problems can be prevented if we take the time to monitor the Internet and our social media accounts.

Here are 10 reasons why you should proactively and consistently monitor the brands of your company or client:

1) The Point of Need — Information and research is always changing. People are always talking about the latest news and they expect to be kept in the know. It’s important to satisfy these needs and you can do this by following RSS feeds and writing blogs about client events and industry changes. We’ve done this and we’ve heard good reviews from clients and interns who turn to our site for updates and information and can easily find what they’re looking for. (Just be sure to set up blog categories so your website visitors can easily find what they’re looking for!)

2) The Influencer — In today’s business markets the competition is more fierce than ever. Consumers are overwhelmed by the variety of choices they’re given and they’re willing and ready to remain loyalty with one brand, service or product.

Establishing and actively maintaining a presence on Facebook® and Twitter® may seem trivial, but it’s absolutely necessary because your competitors are all doing it. After a prospective client “Googles®” your company, they will immediately turn to social networking websites to see if you’ve built a presence there to listen and engage with others. If you want to be viewed as an influencer, it only makes sense that you engage in networks or outlets that are influential. And right now, that’s Facebook and Twitter.

3) The Crowd — Bloggers, fans and Internet marketing gurus can all be influencers if they have a strong following. Target them when planning your social media campaign or invite them to guest blog for your company or your client’s company. Be sure to respond to their comments promptly. Check out my Friday blog posts—in particular, this post mentioning my Top PR Reads—to see which crowds I follow online.

4) The Competitor — It’s wise to follow, acknowledge and learn from your competitors. They can be huge motivators when it comes to learning about the needs of your mutual target audience.

The goal in using social media isn’t to blab about your own brand, but to create social capital, or a representation of your brand’s “social currency” via online and offline conversations, reciprocity and relationships. We use metrics to determine who’s influential, who we should be following and how we can be unique in our own campaigns.

5) The Crisis — Reading social media updates around the clock helps HRB anticipate, manage and be transparent about PR crises experienced by our own clients and others in our industry. Bottom line: Ignoring crises shows that your agency is disconnected from your audience and may be incapable of dealing with problems head-on.

6) The Campaign Impact — Be sure to measure your ROI and determine if your campaigns are working. Many social media platforms have built-in analytics tools, so educate your team members and your clients about how they work and what they can show you about your clients’ growth and sales progress.

Also, if you’re getting a lot of comments, responses or “Likes” on your blogs or social media pages, this is a great opportunity to showcase your brand’s expertise. Respond quickly and engage with your audience. After all, you can never really be sure who your audience is, and a prospective client may be listening!

7) The Question/Inquiry — As stated above, make sure that your client or your client’s account manager(s) respond quickly and completely to questions and inquiries. These may be posted directly in your news feeds or profile pages, or as direct messages via e-mail or a “Contact Us” form. This can be easy if you designate one person, such as a Public Relations Director or company spokesperson, to respond to such issues.

For the last six months, I’ve been responsible for responding to all questions, comments and concerns about HRB that are posted daily on the company’s social media sites. Sometimes it’s hard to respond to everyone in a timely manner, but it’s been really interesting to see which posts generate the most traffic to our website and which “fans” end up becoming clients.
The Problem — Problems are easier to solve when you know: a) that they exist and b) why they’re occurring. Do a little research if you’re getting negative comments or your followers aren’t responding to your social media engagement tactics.

9) The Compliments — Everyone loves to be complimented. Link to your competitors’ social media pages, blog articles and websites on your company’s own social networks to show you’re not full of yourself. Your company may think you’re a leader in your industry, but so do all of your competitors. Show them a little SEO love. Create Twitter lists, as I’ve done for HRB, to follow, acknowledge and compliment them by re-tweeting their tweets.

10) The Complaints — As I’ve stated in previous blogs, listening is the new marketing. Create e-mail alerts that can be sent to you each time someone posts a comment on your social media pages, and if it’s a complaint, quell that individual’s anger by opening up an honest dialogue. Focus on the positives, not the negatives, and take the conversation offline if it requires further attention or a response from a manager. If you truly listen to outside complaints, you have a unique opportunity to learn and change, showing that your company or client is attentive and understanding.

These are just the ways I proactively manage brands. What tactics do you use on behalf of your company or clients?

Yesterday during a meeting with HRB’s CEO, I learned a great deal about why some agencies are failing without the help of the economy. According to Jim, the main reason is because they don’t market their brand using the “funnel technique.” This is a tactic we have been using for our marketing, search engine optimization (SEO) and advertising projects and telling our clients about to help them grow their business and improve their services.

The funnel technique involves three simple steps:

1) Determining a brand‘s mission and goals (putting ideas into the funnel)

2) Choosing the best strategic approach for marketing and promoting the brand (weeding out research and ideas so only the best ideas begin to flow through the funnel)

3) Actively engaging/re-engaging with customers and key prospects on behalf of the brand’s mission and goals (creating brand loyalty via a smooth transition between initial offers, additional services and added values).

At HRB, we are very careful to select only the best ideas to put into the funnel. We inspire team members to seek out new advertising venues, read new publications and avoid recycled content. We don’t use the economy as an excuse for failure, but rather as a challenge and opportunity to own an industry and trump competitors by pushing our creative juices to the limit. And it’s because of this attitude that our client retention numbers and our clients’ customer retention numbers are high—everyone’s hungry for fresh insight to throw into the funnel and the funneling process itself .

Throughout my internship I have used the funnel technique everyday. Whether I’m strategizing new ways to keep HRB’s audience and customers engaged in our blog, social media marketing platforms, website or growing portfolio, my job is to help promote the HRB brand and let people know that our ideas are revolutionary.

I think it’s so easy for me to promote this marketing technique because I believe in it. Recently I’ve been asked to spearhead the organizational and branding process for HRB’s seminar series, and I’ve had to strategize everything from advertising outlets to the presentation schedule and speaking topics to which customers and prospects we are going to target. I will need to think about the individual pieces that go into planning a seminar as well as how the pieces all fit together and continue to flow through HRB’s brand funnel.

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Like my colleagues, I am motivated and excited to start the research for this project. So far I have compiled everyone’s ideas into a six-page strategic plan. My next steps will include:

1) Creating checklists for the steps we’ll be taking to plan and execute each 2011 seminar

2) Creating a master editorial calendar

3) Creating contact and media lists

4) Writing and posting weekly polls on our blog, Facebook® page, Twitter® stream, various advertising outlets and Web services.

The goal here is to research industry trends as well as the behaviors and thoughts of our audience, clients and prospective seminar registrants to determine what events/speaking topics they would like to attend, how HRB can improve about its seminar series and process, and how to continue engaging with the community. Simply being organized and having good research and ideas isn’t enough, though. Everything needs to tie together and flow smoothly through the funnel.

To quote Seth Godin in his recent blog, “Understanding the Funnel,” “Embracing the funnel changes the way you treat people. And treating different people differently is what consumers demand.” That’s what we hope to do and inspire our clients to do by offering our expertise in these seminars. Care to join us?

There’s a new Web service and iPhone® app called Path that’s been catching people’s attention. At its core, it’s very similar to other photo sharing services that you might have seen before, but with one key difference: they’ve decided to limit users to having 50 friends.

This seems counter intuitive at a glance, because the common goal of social media sites is to grow their user base to as large as possible and worry about monetization later. On Path, it’s up to you to determine who you want to have receiving your updates. In that same vein, it’s up to your friends to decide whether or not they want you to be a recipient of their updates. You can have up to 50 people that you send to and up to 50 people sending to you (these are separate lists so you can, in theory, interact with up to 100 different people).

They did put effort into making a nice looking app.

The artificial 50 friend cap and the accompanying media buzz about it has already generated a large amount of hype and controversy around this new service. I’m going to try to weed through most of that in an effort to understand what this means for those that actually decide to use Path.

I’m going to start by bringing up the obvious: other services don’t force anyone to friend/follow other people because they simply give you that option. People that find themselves overwhelmed with updates just need to take a look at their friends list and decide who they don’t want to continue following anymore in an effort to reduce the flood of messages that they couldn’t care less about.

Twitter® actually has functionality built-in to determine whether or not updates sent in reply to another person are included in your list of updates. You might have one friend that has 1,000 follows and another that has 10, but you’re still going to see their global updates. This makes it so that what you receive relies on their posting habit and not their number of followers. Facebook® acts in the same way. Users decide whose wall they want to write on or if they want to make a global status update for their friends to see. This option provides built-in functionality for determining what kind of updates you want to see in your list of updates.

So who might want to use this?

If you’re not pleased at how frequently particular friends are posting updates about stuff you couldn’t be bothered with; I’m sorry to say that Path is still going to make it possible for them to continue to do so. The real potential way for Path to survive is that public figures that use their Twitter and/or Facebook to speak to a larger audience can decide to separate their personal life from their public life by migrating their personal life over to Path. This is the primary reason why the “tech celebs” are generating hype around Path; they can now use the large user-base of Twitter and Facebook for publicity, and use Path for their real group of friends. Don’t think that this is special though, because this can be accomplished by using any second-tier social media service.

People that don’t really have that need to separate the two groups (or only have one type of person they talk to online to begin with) won’t really see any point in trying to get their friends to sign up for yet another service when Twitter, Facebook, Flickr®, Instagram®, etc. give you the power to decide how many people you want to be a friend of or follow, and they also give you the functionality for reducing the amount of updates that don’t pertain to you or your interests.

Social media is not a matter of how many followers or posts someone has, but rather, it’s the content and quality of those posts that get people to actually read them. Path seems to have gotten publicity by adjusting something that’s going to leave many of their users nonplussed in the end, and it’s because of these factors that I’m not the only one seeing the “hook” to Path as pointless.

FeedBurner before and after the update (just look at those statistics!)

The concept of subscribing to Web content first started to take off with the widespread adoption of the RSS Feed in 2005 and 2006. These feeds were capable of containing text, images, audio, videos, assorted files and information describing each entry (even GPS coordinates).

This new found technology lead to people wanting to accomplish many different things. As a result, website designers had to adhere to numerous different types of logic and naming schemes just to get their content available to those that wanted it. Unsurprisingly, everyone rejoiced when FeedBurner opened to the public to alleviate these headaches and more.

FeedBurner made it possible for websites to provide a single feed that’s programmed and maintained in the way that they prefer that’s then automatically published out to the world in a way that universally available and fully accessible. This single service was great in it’s own right, but people wanted more and wanted to know more about how people are accessing their content.

FeedBurner proceeded to add features that allowed users to easily save, share, and subscribe to their favorite sites. For the publishers, they added analytics and instantaneous distribution of their content. The high level of activity and large user-base caught Google’s attention, and they ended up acquiring FeedBurner for $100 million. This was exciting news at the time, but Google seemed to have put them on the back burner. That is, until this latest update.

So what did they change?

They're serious when they claim that it's real-time data.

In traditional Google fashion, they focused on improving speed, granularity of information, and providing real-time data. Here’s a quote from their announcement:

“You can for the first time get stats on how much traffic your feed items are receiving from Twitter, as well as feed reading platforms like Google Reader in one place. Again, all within seconds of posting your content. Ping? Pong! Yep. That fast.”

I must admit, the novelty of seeing the graph update continuously right in front of my face with the latest information hasn’t worn off yet. The visual aesthetic has also been revamped to fit in with Google’s other services. You can opt-in to access the beta by clicking on the “Try out the NEW (beta) version!” at the top of the FeedBurner page, but it isn’t all good for early adopters.

This is still a beta, and unlike many of Google’s services that are in beta for years at a time, this one actually seems to deserve the title. A link to access to original design replaces the link that you click to try out the beta, and this is a key feature due to the fact that many essential features are not present in the new beta. You will have to switch back-and-forth to access any kind of feed and/or service management. This beta only addresses the analytics portion of FeedBurner. With that in mind, it’s probably worth checking out to see where they’re taking the service.

If you and your clients are interested in applying search engine optimization (SEO) to your blogging, user data and mobile communications efforts, then this blog is a must-read.

Not only have we been reading some interesting news about trends in blogging and blog optimization, but we’re learning how and why there will soon be a major shift in the way companies acquire user data and present their brand via mobile applications.

Technorati’s 2010 State of the Blogosphere Report Discusses New Trends in Blogging

The significant growth of mobile blogging is a key trend that Technorati® noticed and analyzed this year in its sixth annual blogosphere report.  Taking a deeper dive into the behaviors of the entire blogosphere (with a focus on female bloggers), this year’s topics included: brands embracing social media, traditional media vs. social media, brands working with bloggers, monetization, smartphone and tablet usage, the importance of Twitter® and Facebook®, niche blogging and changes within the blogosphere over 2010.

Like to Make Your Blog Content More Searchable? Optimize it!

If you are not applying strong SEO techniques to the content of your blog, there’s an app for that—an online service, actually. It’s called Scribe®. Scribe analyzes your natural, reader-focused content and tells you how to gently tweak it to spoon feed search engines based on 15 SEO best practices. It actually provides you with a numerical percentage rating for your optimization and shows you how to improve your SEO results. You can select from a variety of subscription and feature options.

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Why There Will be a Shift From Buying Impressions to Acquiring User Data

Zephrin Lasker is the CEO and co-founder of Pontiflex®, a digital Cost Per Lead generation company. His company asserts that trends in media consumption and media buying have got to change to increase the effectiveness and growth of advertising efforts. Since this also improves SEO results and given there has been such a profound change in the way people consume media, it stands to reason that marketers need to recalibrate the approach they take to their branding campaigns.

In a recent article he wrote for MediaPost®, 4 Trends That Will Shape Q4, Year Beyond, he claims that, to date, branding campaigns have relied on broadcasting a message to a universe of anonymous people. Marketers have traditionally purchased impressions—on TV, radio or the Internet for their online banners. But that’s an approach that’s not relevant in a user-centric world. He makes some very good points here. 

Mobile Apps are Growing Rapidly, But Good User Experience is a Must

Did you know that a new online study conducted by Harris Interactive and commissioned by EffectiveUI in October found that the majority of mobile phone users who download and use applications choose them based on good recommendations and user experience? That’s news to the companies and organizations who are releasing them. They’re assuming that people are downloading and using their applications based on their opinion of the brand name. So where is the disconnect happening?

According to Rebecca Flavin, CEO of EffectiveUI, “Mobile applications are the sure fire way to extend a brand. It’s time for organizations to understand how to fully leverage the mobile channel and optimize a user-center approach to drive adoption, as well as reinforce and drive brand loyalty.” Read this article from the Bulldog Reporter about why 40 percent of mobile app users are disappointed with the current apps from their favorite brands.

What are your thoughts about these studies? I’d love to hear your opinions in the comments section below.

Throughout the last few weeks I’ve been busy working on a variety of projects for HRB’s portfolio. Not only do I get to work for a diverse pool of clients in a variety of industries but my work is billable.

How many interns get to have real work on day one of their internship?

I’m not only encouraged to be creative at HRB, but I’m expected to think outside the box on any project I complete. It’s becoming quite clear to me that PR is really about the ingenious ways that you build relationships with the public.

Start small, think big. It’s a marathon, not a race.

I recently finished my second media report for a client that incorporated clippings from three different press releases we sent out the last two months. The first time I created this report for the client it nearly took me three days to create a template, compile and organize the clippings, determine the advertising and PR values and bind the reports. This is partly because HRB lost many of its marketing materials in the Flood of 2008 and I had to create my own templates and system for collecting this information.

These hurdles were a blessing in disguise, though. They taught me be to be organized and efficient. The second time around, I had my system down pat and was able to quickly compile the clippings and organize the information in a spreadsheet.

I’ve also been doing a lot of copywriting. I wrote a few articles for a client’s quarterly newsletter and was really able to strengthen my research, interview and writing skills. For another client I was given the responsibility of writing a consumer article—from start to finish. This was definitely a challenge for me as I’ve never written any copy that was specifically geared toward the consumer audience. My supervisor gave me some guidance and I learned that these types of articles can’t be too “cute” or too “sales-driven.” I finally finished the rough draft, but it took weeks of research, interviewing, reading, editing and re-editing. We hope to have the article submitted to the publication next week.

On the strategic branding side, I was asked to submit ideas for a communication audit and a social media marketing campaign. These tasks really helped me consider branding from a company perspective. Posting updates and creating contests from the perspective of a $2 million brand is far different from posting funny messages on my friends’ Facebook® walls. When you think strategically for a company brand, I’ve learned it’s not just about who you are, but why you matter and how you’re different. Audiences aren’t going to engage your brand or product if you can’t offer them anything in return. At the very least, a new communication plan should incorporate some serious research on competitors, why audiences might be ignoring their brand and how the company can modify their product offering to address consumer needs. Otherwise the message will continue to be as screwed up as Hogan’s goat!

HRB launched two websites recently and I was responsible for cross-checking the development site with the clients’ needs and requirements. I usually read through old service reports before I jump into this kind of task. It helps me match where the client started when they hired us with where they wanted to go. My job was to make sure we fulfilled their needs and that there were not any copy or layout errors. In order to stay organized and focused, I created Word documents noting what was missing or incorrectly laid out.

I think my internship has also taught me to be proactive. When I’m waiting on a project I don’t just sit around and surf the Web. I keep myself busy. Sometimes this means catching up on blogs I subscribe to in my Google Reader®. Other times I spend my lunch hour reading case studies and trade articles to educate myself about different industries. I experiment with the Google Keyword tool, research our competitors’ media kits, review archived company files to learn about the HRB brand, or reach out to local businesses and PR pros about industry and networking events.

Next week I’m looking forward to working on a new account for a college based in Illinois. I’m also excited to start working on another client’s new positioning line. I previously created a brand archetypes report for this company when they told us they needed to determine their strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats. We helped them identify their brand advocate and unique relevant values and now we’re going to focus on expanding their client base. Stay tuned!