With Cyber Monday fast approaching online business owners have to be asking themselves whether they are ready for the potential traffic and sales or do they even believe that small online businesses truly see spikes during this time?
Cyber Monday started out as a marketing term hyped by ecommerce store Shop.org. Is it a myth, or something more? (more…)
The widget. It’s that useful, colorful, interactive and usually free scrap of code that’s appearing on more and more web sites, blogs and Facebook pages everywhere. Sometimes also known as a badge, an applet or a module, the widget is designed to provide visitors to your site with useful information or even a little entertainment. It may take the form of a profile, photo slideshow, or on-screen tool such as clocks, calendars or local weather. It may also be used for ecommerce, for news feeds, or even to promote your blog or website or someone else’s. (more…)
Format is critical to a good SMR. It all starts with a good headline and intro paragraph, of course: clear, concise and full of keywords (to make it SEO friendly). And another way they differ from the traditional news release? Bullet points. That’s right, SMRs emphasize just the facts of your story using a series of bullet points. A second section should offer a convenient list of bulleted quotes from pre-approved sources (execs, experts inside or outside your company). Let editors choose what they want to use – and make it easy for them. (more…)
Some call it a Social Media Release, or a New Media Release. It’s not brand new (first introduced three or four years ago), but with the exponential rise in social networking tools, online video and audio capabilities, etc. – it is perhaps an idea whose time has come. Ready for prime time. The dawn of PR 2.0.
The social media release (SMR) is mostly the standard press release – evolved. That is, it complements traditional releases by taking full advantage of online social and multimedia tools: embeddable photos, video and audio (mp3s or podcasts), as well as links to blogging platforms, microblogging (Twitter, Tumblr), RSS feeds/news aggregators, tags (Technorati), bookmarks (del. icio .us), and communities (Digg, Reddit). Social and professional networking is another huge plus with SMRs that make it easy to post in Facebook, Bebo, MySpace, LinkedIn or discussion forums such as Google Groups and elsewhere. (more…)
The term “RSS” stands for Really Simple Syndication: you see it everywhere on the Web – look for that bright orange icon (we’ve modified it a little with the Aplus.net colors for our blog – to the right). RSS is a handy tool for subscribing to, or publishing, regularly updated content on blogs, Web sites and multimedia. You’ll also sometimes see “Atom” listed, an alternative and rival Web feed format.
If you aren’t already taking advantage of RSS/Atom feeds, you should be. They’re an incredibly efficient way to check for updates on your favorite sites and keep up with topics of interest to you. I use RSS to keep up with news about a neighborhood in New Orleans, my hobby of listening to acid jazz and similar music genres, and industry mentions of my company, Aplus.net. A friend of mine keeps track of leading trends in SEO. (more…)