This time of year, Twitter and Google searches capture innumerable complaints and questions about the flu. Luckily, new research established by Google and Johns Hopkins University claim this online buzz is a good thing. By using aggregate flu-related terms, you can now analyze social media trends to track and predict flu outbreaks. (more…)
There was a time when clients were attracted to telemarketing and media ads, or outbound marketing. Like banging heads against a wall, merchants paid big money to disseminate product and service information, shouting from the rooftops, with hopes that customers and investors soon would respond. The “if you build it, they will come” attitude. To marketers who are still banging away, this is a wake-up call.
We are increasingly inundated with messaging, causing information overload and the “tune out effect.” That’s why, moving forward into 2013, inbound marketing is the hot strategy for garnering attention. Likely a familiar practice for PR pros, this means spending less money on pay-per-clicks and more time creating engaging online content and conversations. The idea is to draw customers to your virtual doorstep without directly spending money or being pushy with your message. (more...)
The evolution of Health 2.0 in our data-driven world calls for a shift in the way health organizations connect with their target audiences. On a global scale, there is enormous potential to make an impact through digital communications tool and technologies. Before making a change, however, it is necessary to understand who is saying what, and where the conversations – or lack thereof – are happening.
For our most recent initiative of tracking and scrutinizing online conversations in the spirit of improved public health, we focused on the issue of childhood obesity. In the U.S., experts say 42 percent of people will be obese by 2030. But many people don’t realize this isn’t just an American problem—it’s a problem across the world. Our team collaborated with our partners around the world on an exciting one-month survey of seven countries, looking at how the digital conversation on child obesity stacked up in Argentina, Australia, India, Portugal, the U.K., Mexico and the U.S.
Today, Spectrum and GLOBALHealthPR are thrilled to release an infographic chock-full of the data we found—and what it means for public health professionals, advocates and communicators. Here’s just a taste (pun intended) of our insights (full details can be found here):
There is no easy way to say this, so I am just going to come out and say it: public relations is complicated.
I’m a PR professional (and have been for a while now) and I have to say that what I do on a daily basis is far more complex and multi-leveled than the work PR professionals did 10 or 20 years ago. To illustrate this point, let’s take a look at what I do during the course of a single day in PR.
During this year’s Social Media Week in Chicago, Spectrum had the chance to sit in with some of the city’s most online-savvy chefs, foodies and restaurateurs in a session called Dining Social, hosted by Chicago magazine. We’ve whipped up our “recipe” for dining social with some of Chicago’s best, which includes the top ingredients and directions for making digital work in the restaurant realm.
Also-if you’re looking for some insights from the District’s great digital foodies, head on over to D.C.’s Social Media Club event “I’m Only on Twitter for the Food Trucks” tomorrow, Wednesday, October 19 at 6:30pm. You’ll get to hear from @LobstertruckDC , @CurbsideCupcake and @BigCheeseTruck on how they’ve made social media work for their businesses.
Now, back to our delicious recipe for dining social:
Ingredients
The Associated Press says the world’s first Twitterview was conducted in 2009
between ABC’s @GStephanopoulos and U.S. Senator @SenJohnMcCain. Others say there were earlier Twitterviews conducted as “long ago” as late 2008. Either way, in the past few years, we’ve seen the Twitterview crop up as another powerful digital media tactic for public relations campaigns.
