awesome

16Share

Sarah Evans is a public relations and new media consultant and speaker at Sevans Strategy. She also authors a PR and social media blog and is the founder of #journchat.

Twitter’s new Lists feature is all the rage right now. There are probably already millions of lists, and that number is growing by the minute (or second). So what are people using all these lists for? Are people creating lists just for the sake of creating lists? Savvy individuals are looking for ways to use lists to further their personal/professional agendas, and while we are all still learning how to harness the power of this new feature, here are a few ideas to get the creative juices flowing.

Let us know in the comments what other ways you’re using Twitter Lists.

1. Industry Peers and Professionals Lists

One way to use Twitter Lists is to keep your finger on the pulse of your industry. Tim O’Reilly (@timoreilly), founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media, for example, created the Gov 2.0 list to accomplish this goal for government tweeters. Once you create your “experts” list, share the link with your peers. (If you’re in a generous mood.) If you have a Twitter (

) network largely made up of industry peers, you’ll save them from reinventing the wheel by creating a public list that everyone can use.

Lists are still new enough that you can be the first to develop an “it” list. In other words, for many industries and topics you could create the de facto list of peers that others follow and reference. A list that garners a large followership means more attention for you and may increase your Twitter followers. Once you create the list, you’ll need to promote it. Add it to a list directory like Listorious for additional opportunities for people to view and follow.

2. Experts Lists

If you’re an expert, recognize other experts. Technology blogger Robert Scoble (@scobleizer) did this with his recent lists like, “most influential in tech,” and “web innovators,” for example. It’s a win both for Robert and for those he recommends. He continues to establish his credibility as a technology thought leader and others benefit from the recognition and online visibility. Many of his lists already have hundreds of followers.

You can also use Twitter Lists to highlight individuals that routinely offer insight, tips, tools, etc. about a particular topic. Do you have certain people you keep on mobile alerts or have a special column for in Tweetdeck (

)? It’s most likely a list in the making. If nothing else, lists like these let people you admire and/or listen to know that you appreciate the content they’re putting out.

3. Recognize and Reward Customers Lists

Lists can be used to promote your clients and/or customers. Depending on your industry, it’s an opportunity for your customers to connect with other like-minded people. You may decide sharing all of your customers on Twitter isn’t right for your business, but you can still take advantage of Twitter Lists to recognize your customers. You could, perhaps, implement a “valued clients of the week” list or run a contest that rewards a certain number of customers with a spot on a special list.

Another way to reward customers is to create a list of your company’s Twitter accounts that offer special deals, discounts, or exclusive announcements.

4. Niche Lists

The New York Times’ City Room crew created the “NYC Street Food Trucks” list for all things street food in New York City. Creating niche category lists can be very helpful for others, so think outside the box. Maybe there’s an audience who would love a list of all celebrities who have graced the cover of Vogue and tweet. Or, perhaps, a list of viral video stars (e.g., @daviddentist) would be useful for some. What niche can you identify that needs a list?

Lists can also be humorous. @daphnebegonia, who happens to be a dog, curates a list of “people I have licked.” It’s a funny idea that offers potential, and a concept that can work for other animal-related entities. I’m hoping for a Sea World, “I met Shamu,” list.

5. Employee Directory Lists

You might have a link to your Twitter account on your website, but don’t forget to make an official employee Twitter List. You should include all official company accounts, along with employees who tweet on behalf of the organization (or if you have a more open culture, you could include any employee that tweets). Mashable (

) has an employee list, as does Twitter.

Share the list internally, too. Not only is this a way to aggregate accounts, it also makes monitoring easier. Think about creative ways you can promote your company’s Twitter list (for example, from the signature line of emails, or on your business cards).

6. Political Campaign Lists

Running for office? Aggregate your supporters or “friends of” the campaign for increased visibility. It’s important to stay connected to constituents, especially during election time (every vote counts!). In fact, go beyond campaign supporters and create an “official” party list, or a list of all the newspapers that have endorsed a candidate.

If you’re a political reporter or blogger, create a private list of all candidates you’re tracking to keep tabs on their tweets more easily. (This same principal could be applied by journalists or bloggers to any beat, not just politics.)

7. Location-Based Lists

Create a list of everyone in your city/town who tweets. Or create a list of city and/or state employees who tweet. If your mayor, village manager, school district board members and others are on Twitter, group them together to create a resource for others in your area.

This idea can work in an official capacity as well. If you’re in charge of a municipality’s website, aggregate the feeds from these lists for your official website to offer real-time updates to your citizens.

8. Event Attendees and Live-Tweeters Lists

Hosting an upcoming event? Encourage people to submit their Twitter IDs when they register. Share the list pre-conference and encourage people to connect. Don’t forget to update the list during the conference. You could also create a list of all speakers or sponsors for a conference to share with attendees, who can then familiarize themselves with the conference lineup and supporters before they get there.

Creating a special list of those live-tweeting events can make it easier for people not able to attend to follow the action without worrying about the noise created by extraneous hashtag conversations or spammers.

9. Self-Serving Lists

Lists can help you out, too. If you’re out of work, for example, you could create a list of company or recruiter accounts to monitor for job postings. Or if you need to stay current on a topic for work, you could create a list of companies or bloggers active on that subject.

Just the act of taking the time to research a comprehensive (and accurate) list will help you as much as the information that will come through from tweets. And if you decide to share your list, it could have the potential to garner a large following, which can boost your online credibility.

10. Promote Your Affiliation Lists

Twitter Lists may also be good for promoting or listing your affiliations. Collegiate alumni associations, for example, are constantly looking for ways to keep people engaged, enter the “University XYZ Alumni List.” This concept works for any group, organization, association, etc.

Journalists, bloggers, promoters, and others could also create a list of affiliations as a way to disclose potential conflicts of interest. A public relations professional, for example, could create a list of their clients as a way to let followers know which of their tweets may exhibit a conflict of interest.

How do you creatively harness the power of public Twitter Lists? Please share in the comments.

More Twitter Lists resources from Mashable:

- HOW TO: Use Twitter Lists
- Twitter Lists: Frequently Asked Questions and Strategies
- 4 Ways News Organizations are Using Twitter Lists
- Twitter Lists: Journalism Becomes a Real-Time Job

Hopefully Twitter lists will make it easier for people starting out on Twitter to better appreciate the relevance of the network.

Have you taken to Twitter lists?

There is absolutely no way I’ll be able to make this relevant to tech. But I’m posting it anyway. Our Governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger, vetoed a California legislative finance bill – AB 1176. The letter is terse and to the point. And the first letter of each line in paragraphs 2-3 are even terser and more to the point.

Schwarzeneggers battles with the state legislature are epic. But this just goes way beyond epic. It’s something for the history books.

I wish I had the time to do this kind of thing in my posts here on TechCrunch.

See the SF Chronicle for all the quotes and denials.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled programing.

classic

I just watched the final episode of the BBC’s Seven Ages of Rock and I absolutely loved every minute of it.  

A series like this will always invite debate around artists excluded and included.

The final episode of the series was titled ‘What the world is waiting for’ - British Indie Rock. 

The program aptly started in Manchester, the birth place for many notable English bands.  The episode started in 1983 with The Smiths.  

While I have no issue with The Smiths, I do think the episode should have started a couple of years earlier in 1979 with Joy Division.

According to Wikipedia,  ‘Joy Division has influenced bands ranging from contemporaries U2 and The Cure to post-punk revival artists such asInterpol, Bloc Party and Editors.[69]’ 

The Wikipedia entry goes on to include that ‘in 2005, Joy Division were inducted along with New Order into the UK Music Hall of Fame.[74]’

As well, Joy Division was signed to Factory Records, an indie label.  

While appearing to tick all the boxes to be in an episode about British Indie Music, why wasn’t Joy Division included?

Check out all the artists that were included in the Seven Ages of Rock below.  

Question:  Who would you include or exclude from the line up?

Episodes

	Title	Genre	Main artist(s)	Original BBC air date	Origin of Title
1	The Birth of Rock	Blues-rock	Jimi Hendrix	May_19">19 May 2007	The first episode in the series
-	My Generation	The Birth of Rock	The Rolling Stones The Who Cream	17 December 2007 (no BBC broadcast, on VH1 Classic only)	Song by The Who, from their first album (1965)
2	White Light, White Heat	Art rock	Pink Floyd The Velvet Underground David Bowie	26 May 2007	Song by The Velvet Underground, from their second album (1968)
3	Blank Generation	Punk rock	The Ramones Sex Pistols The Clash Patti Smith	2 June 2007	Song by The Voidoids, from their first album (1976)
4	Never Say Die	Heavy metal	Black Sabbath Ozzy Osbourne Iron Maiden Judas Priest Metallica	9 June 2007	Song by Black Sabbath, from their eighth album (1978)
5	We Are the Champions	Stadium rock	Queen The Police Bruce Springsteen	16 June 2007	Song by Queen, from News of the World (1977)
6	Left of the Dial	US Alternative rock	Nirvana R.E.M.	23 June 2007	Song by the Replacements, from Tim (1985)
7	What the World Is Waiting For	British Indie rock	The Smiths The Stone Roses Oasis Blur	30 June 2007	Song by the Stone Roses, released as a double A-side with Fools Gold.

10 ways of using Posterous at work or home

Posterous is one of those web apps that comes along and brightens up the world. It is a gift that keeps on giving. And here’s why: it’s flexible, and it’s really easy to use.

The core USP that underpins Posterous is the ability to post content quickly from a range of sources. To create posts you can use the bookmarklet, email, or the Posterous web editor. It's about the fastest way of publishing content to the web and I for one love it.

So how can you use Posterous to get the best out of it? I have a few ideas...

A personal blog

I’ve fallen in and out of love with blogging on many occasions but it has never been so easy to maintain a personal blog. While Posterous doesn’t yet cater for indie publishers, it is the perfect tool for lapsed or wannabe bloggers.

A collaborative blog

Posterous caters for multiple authors, who can all contribute posts and comments, and will receive notifications once new content is published. If blogging feels like too much effort then why not invite like-minded friends or colleagues to get in on the act? 

A private blog

I’ve been working on a new startup recently and we thought it would be a good idea to start a private group blog. We use Posterous to share ideas relating to the launch plans, PR and marketing strategies, event planning, networking, branding, and design / user testing. Posterous helps compile and collate our ideas, as well as bookmarking interesting things we see elsewhere.

A rich bookmarking tool

Online bookmarking tools like Delicious are great discovery engines but I was never quite bitten by the bookmarking bug. Storing headlines and links doesn’t quite do it for me, even when supplemented with notes and tags. Posterous allows you to easily upload, store, tag and view videos, images, text, files and audio. As such I personally use it as a kind of interactive scrapbook, where I compile random Youtube videos, Flickr images, and links to websites that I want to keep a note of. Rich bookmarking has come of age.

An image host for your existing blog / website

Flickr is a beautiful creature but I’ve found Posterous to be a little bit quicker to use for those times when you just want to upload an image and grab the link. All you need to do is email image attachments and Posterous will publish them. It will also send you an email to with a link to that specific post, allowing you to grab the image URL to use on your blog (using Posterous as the image host). Better still, Posterous will send your image uploads directly to your Flickr account if you want it to.

A conduit to publishing content all over the web

Following on from the last point, Posterous allows you to automatically distribute them to other sites (e.g. Wordpress, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, etc). As such it can be used as a hub to push out your content onto multiple sites. 

A PR / cuttings file

I don’t think it’s particularly cool to replicate and republish third party blog articles in full on the web, but a private Posterous blog could be a good way of creating an interactive PR folder. It will help you to easily store articles, clippings and links.

A project / client management tool

Basecamp is one of the best low-cost tools for coordinating projects with clients but it has a few limitations. A private Posterous blog may help extend Basecamp. Invite clients to brainstorming and bookmarking sessions, or to share files and other project assets. 

A research tool

Researching a project? Posterous can be useful whether you’re doing this individually or as part of a team. You can share and store documents, spreadsheets, pictures, braindumps and rich bookmarks.

A videoblog or podcasting channel

Posterous can host video, so you can create a series of generic or subject-specific videos. It will push out your videos to YouTube and other platforms if you tell it to. And it will also embed videos from third party video sites, should you wish to aggregate them from elsewhere. Audioheads can also use Posterous as a podcasting platform, which can be subscribed to via iTunes.

To immediately start your Posterous blog simply email post@posterous.com. Use the subject line as your headline. If you attach an image or other file it should make sense of it. You will receive an email after your post is published, after which you can log in and customise your new blog. Easy!

Chris Lake is editor in chief at Econsultancy, entrepreneur and long-term internet fiend. Follow him on Twitter or connect via Linkedin.

This is feedback you take on board ...

 

 

Sir Timothy John “Tim” Berners-Lee

, credited

for inventing this little thing called the World Wide Web, has joined Twitter

in a move that could potentially rip a hole in the time/space continuum.

The British computer scientist, engineer and MIT professor apparently signed up for Twitter yesterday just before he entered into a conversation

with Tim O’Reilly on stage at the Web 2.0 Summit.

The man uses Tweetie

and thinks either the app or the Twitter website has a confusing user interface

. Since Berners-Lee is also the Director of Web standards organization World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), that’s telling.

(Hat tip to Tom Raftery

)

get widgetminimize

CrunchBase Information

Tim Berners-Lee

 

Website:

w3c.org

graduate of Oxford University, England, in 1989, Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, an internet-based hypermedia initiative for global information sharing while at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory. He wrote the first web… Learn More

Twitter

 

Website:	twitter.com
Location:	San Francisco, California, United States
Founded:	March 21, 2006
Funding:	$155M

Twitter, founded by Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams in March 2006… Learn More

Information provided by CrunchBase

Through my trusty Google reader, I came across this great post by Chris Brogan.

I remember the days when PR text books taught how to write an office memo.  Therefore, I'm always interested to see how we are taking traditional 'memo writing' skills and using the core principles to adapt to the online environment.

Marketing offline events online is when the rubber hits the road and when the 'what I ate for breakie' tweet potentially leads to something greater.

How to Market an Offline Event Online

On Friday, I’ll be in New York City, with Julien Smith , David Maister, and Charlie Green, to hold the Trust Summit at the Harvard Club in Manhattan (proper dress requested, please- no jeans or sneakers). In getting ready for this, I realized that things have changed in the world of inviting folks to an event. I thought this might prove useful in understanding how social tools can come together to bring the physical experience onto the web, and back again.

One note of caution: go gently when promoting. In the new world, that line between “hey, good to know” and “man, you’re annoying” is pretty thin and easy to step over.

How to Market a Real Time Event

Always a URL. Always

If you’re going to wire up people and connect them to an event in the real world, you need a web page of some kind or another. People need all the details. They need some kind of intangible tangible that they can pass around to point out what’s what. Give them a web page.

If it’s just a one-off, use an event system like Eventbrite. If you’re going to do this over and over, consider setting up pages on your own website of choice, and then maybe double-up with an Eventbrite to manage the signup.

Extend onto Event Sites

Here’s where you can really get things moving. If you want this event to really spread, use sites like Upcoming.org and Eventful, to name a few. If you’ve got a Facebook group, put up an event notification there. If you’ve got a LinkedIn group, and the event matches, put it up there, too.

Status, Status, Status

Without being “that guy” (and never forget, I mean this for either gender), mentioning your event is easy across your Twitter, your Facebook, your LinkedIn status, and all the other social sites that make sense to promote. A word of caution: this gets close to what feels like carpet-bombing, so go gently. In fact, out in front of such a promotional effort, make sure you’re doing your good deeds and promoting others, and sharing other good information. People don’t like a tireless self-promoter, but they don’t mind someone who shares the good stuff, even when some of it’s their own.

Email Marketing

Do you maintain an email list? Don’t forget to drop a gentle note of your event into there, too. Again, the goal is subtlety and just a gentle pointer to your URL.

Flickr and YouTube

Want to amp up your event’s pre-buzz as well as give it some love on the day of the event? Here are two things: use photos and videos for pre-event invites and promos. Then, encourage people to take photos and videos AT the event. If at all possible, make it easy for the folks who might be into making media to have something to take photos and make movies about. (A side note: if you’re bothering to throw an event with a lot of web presence, use a tag – metadata – to denote the event, for people’s blog posts, for Flickr and YouTube, and for Twitter. For instance, we’ll use #trustsummit for our event in NYC.)

Blog Posts Matter

You can do much worse than to find local bloggers and bloggers who care about the subject matter to cover the event, should they find it useful. If you’ve a budget to do so, invite some to attend in exchange for blogging anything that might be of interest to them. Realize that in the new world, bloggers are rarely obligated to do whatever you ask, and yet, if you make it interesting and worthwhile, folks love to tell a story.

Getting a few posts out about the event ahead of time, and/or after give you a lot more traction and appreciation before and after. Again, make sure the event’s worthy of coverage. If it’s just a straight product pitch or the like, that’s tricky to justify.

Twitter on the Day Of the Event

To me, Twitter’s the magic sauce in making your NEXT event really light up. It’s too late for your event by the time folks start tweeting about it, but it’s a great way to really warm up your future events. If people are tweeting that they’re having a fun time, that they’re learning, that there are still a few hours to get down to the event and have fun, magic can happy. That’s why Twitter’s the Serendipity Engine.

What else? How else are you promoting offline events in the online world? Share your best ideas here.

ShareThis

-->

While the one to many dynamic of social media makes it a channel with a slippery slope, I'm growing tired of the mindset that its twitter's fault an individual is in hot water for communicating sensitive information.

What social media demands is the individual exercise a greater level of self responsibility.  I think the premise of twitter winning out over self responsibility is getting tired.

Much like a drunk driver can't use their drunkenness as a defense for dangerous driving, I don't think twitter or any social media site should bare the brunt of abuse when it comes to poor decision making.

When describing the level of risk in smoking cigarettes, it has often been said that one cigarette is one too many.   For some individuals, it may be that one tweet is one too many.

What do you think - is self responsibility going out of style?  Or is it simply that the media is still intoxicated with the hype surrounding social media?

 

 

Checkout the Globe & Mail story below:

The growing move to put a muzzle on Twitter

Turns out Rosebud was Shrek's Sled: A Public Relations Drama in 140 Characters.

Hollywood studios are reportedly beginning to ban actors from talking about upcoming movies on Twitter and other social networks lest they give away plot secrets. Major entertainment institutions have been scrambling to develop Twitter policies, trying to ward off the potentially disastrous consequences of celebrities speaking for themselves, even if it is only two-and-a-half sentences at a time.

Sports leagues were among the first institutions to realize the potential public relations minefield created by tweeting players. After several big-name athletes tweeted everything from unannounced trades to criticism of coaches, both the NFL and the NBA enacted Twitter policies. Among other things, the policies prohibit players from tweeting during games. Nonetheless, reporters and sports fans alike monitor players' Twitter feeds closely, looking for the early scoop on information that would otherwise have been disclosed in a sterile press release, if at all.

In the latest case of Twitter-phobia, DreamWorks has reportedly asked stars in its employ to avoid disclosing information on social networking sites such as Twitter. The move affects celebrities such as Mike Myers and Cameron Diaz, who, reports say, were contractually obliged to refrain from tweeting about the upcoming instalment of the Shrek series. Disney is rumoured to be asking the same from its stable of stars. Whether any positive impact from such a move is offset by backlash from Twitter loyalists remains to be seen.

 

 

PAULA ABDUL

It was no secret to most American Idol fans that Paula Abdul - one of the show's original judges - might not stick around with the show much longer. The TV and music star was caught up in a fight with the show's producers over a new contract. But this summer, when news broke that Ms. Abdul would not be returning to the show, the million or so followers of her Twitter feed were the first to know. Ms. Abdul announced her departure from the show on the microblog first, and the media had already run with the news well before American Idol's producers could confirm it or respond.

 

 

CHARLES VILLANUEVA

During a basketball game against the Boston Celtics last season, Milwaukee Bucks star Charlie Villanueva decided that halftime of a tied game was the best time to post a Twitter update. Even though the Bucks eventually won, Mr. Villanueva's coach thought he should keep his mind on the game not on the Net, and told the NBA forward not to do it again. The Villanueva post came at a time when a growing number of athletes were joining the service, eventually forcing leagues such as the NBA and the NFL to institute official Twitter policies.

 

 

ALLEN IVERSON

Usually, parties in a contentious trade discussion like to keep the details of their talks secret. Not NBA superstar Allen Iverson. For months, rumours swirled about where the guard might end up playing during the 2009-2010 season. After a while, though, reporters could turn to Mr. Iverson's own Twitter feed for the latest news, as he began posting updates about his workouts with a new team, the Memphis Grizzlies. Eventually, Mr. Iverson broke the news of his move to Memphis well before the Grizzlies did.

 

 

RYAN SEACREST

Ben Silverman flew into the U.S. TV network NBC two years ago as co-chairman with a mandate for change. However, by the summer of 2009, NBC was still struggling, many of Mr. Silverman's show ideas had flopped, and the entertainment head was on his way out. Corporations usually go to great lengths to massage news of axed executives. In this case, the story broke with a thud, thanks to American Idol host Ryan Seacrest. Mr. Seacrest, a friend of Mr. Silverman, announced the departure on Twitter. With more than two million followers, Mr. Seacrest spread the news faster than any NBC press release.

Saying sweet tweet	Hollywood isn't the only industry trying to control what its high-profile employees are saying online. Many other sectors already have Twitter policies, most notably in the sports world.
NBA	Shaquille O'Neal may be the most-followed athlete on Twitter, but basketball star Charlie Villanueva inadvertently became the microblogging site's public face last March when he posted a message on the site during halftime of a game. This season, the NBA came up with a league Twitter policy. It bans players from using cellphones and other communication devices from 45 minutes before a game starts until it ends. Individual teams are free to implement stricter rules.
Professional tennis	Players at the U.S. Open this summer were greeted with a warning and a set of rules relating to Twitter use. The rules state that no athlete should use the site during a match. They also warn that certain posts sent before a competition could be seen as "insider information," such as an athlete Twittering about a bad knee. Andy Roddick called the rules lame - in a post on his Twitter page.
The Washington Post	Raju Narisetti, one of the paper's managing editors, closed his Twitter account last month after complaints about a post he wrote about health care reform that some considered biased. "We can incur all sorts of federal deficits for wars and what not," read one post. "But we have to promise not to increase it by $1 for health care reform? Sad." That prompted the Post to speed up production of its policy for using social networking and media sites. "Post journalists must refrain from writing, tweeting or posting anything - including photographs or video - that could be perceived as reflecting political racial, sexist, religious or other bias or favoritism that could be used to tarnish our journalistic credibility," the guidelines state.

Solid post for social media communicators when seeking to construct a content strategy.  It shows social media ain't rocket science and that a little common sense goes a long way.

5 Tips for Creating an Effective Content Marketing Strategy

View comments6 Comments and 89 Reactions | Posted by Michelle Bowles on Oct 15th, 2009 in Blog Marketing, Blogging, MIMA Seminars, Marketing PR Conferences, Online Marketing

 

It’s difficult to find much value in content with no strategy behind it. Without a content strategy plan, your intended audience is unlikely to find your copy, let alone read it.

During the MIMA Summit last week, the importance of a content marketing strategy was the topic of a session presented by Rachel Lovinger of Razorfish.

For this week’s 5 Tips post, I’ve translated some of Rachel’s valuable points into actionable steps for creating an effective content marketing strategy.

1. Discover
In a nutshell, do your homework:

• Research competitors’ content. Whether you’re launching a blog, website or email campaign, determine what information is already out there and how it’s presented. How can you distinguish yourself?
• Concept your voice based on audience and type of content. If you’re providing quick tips and human interest pieces for consumers, your content voice will likely be more conversational. Are you offering in-depth, research-driven articles for a B2B audience? Your voice should be reflect that.
• Define the clear goals and message of your content. By failing to do so, you’ll have a difficult time building a solid readership. You also risk confusing the readers you do attract.

2. Design
Step 2 is all about planning—making sure all the “i’s” have been dotted and the “t’s” have been crossed:

• Determine responsibilities. Before deploying a content marketing plan, ensure that you’ve outlined who will be the keeper of the content. If you aren’t able to hire a dedicated resource, it’s essential to appoint someone to incorporate content maintenance into his or her current responsibilities. Content maintenance could also entail tasking each employee to contribute one piece of content per month.
• Organize content. Is your content logically located on your site in a central place? Is it easy to search for a particular topic? If your readers have a difficult time navigating through your site to find useful content, they’re not likely to stick around for very long.

3. Build
With Steps 1 and 2 complete, you’re ready to start putting the wheels in motion:

• Plan a style guide. Include as much information as possible regarding everything from tone and voice to target word count. Provide best practices for optimizing content and writing checklists.
• Create a copy deck. A copy deck is essentially a roadmap for your content pages, including text, graphics, advertising and links. It can be developed in stages, starting with writing a few paragraphs to describe the content.

4. Deploy
With the first 3 steps in place, a content marketing strategy is finally ready for deployment:

• Maintain. It’s crucial to have a plan in place to continuously update content. Outdated content will quickly turn readers away. Plus, a stagnant site won’t do you any favors when it comes to search engines.
• Monitor. Leverage analytics tools to gauge what worked best and what failed. Look for patterns in the most popular types of content—i.e., checklists, charts, case studies. You can analyze virtually any variable, from optimal article length to most popular type of headline.

5. Adjust
The final step to creating an effective content marketing strategy is ongoing:

• Respond. No content marketing strategy is perfect. Based on analytics reports, continuously tweak your content efforts to maximize results.

What steps would you add to create an effective content marketing strategy?

Tobacco is one of the most regulated industries in Australia.  I can't think of another industry that's the target of million dollar advertising campaigns designed to shock people not to use the product.

Its odd watching  footage of 1980's sporting events or older movies and seeing how prominent the tobacco advertising was.

While I'm not a lawyer and have no understanding of tobacco based advertising regulations, is it a violation of Australian law if a person creates a tobacco fanpage on Facebook or positively promotes their enjoyment of tobacco on Twitter?

This may be a question for the lazy web, but where's the line that divides tobacco advertising violations and freedom of speech?

How do you regulate who creates a tobacco based fan page?

Checkout this post on ABC.net.au:

 

Big tobacco infiltrates social network sites

By Louisa Rebgetz

Posted 3 hours 15 minutes ago

 

Front of a Facebook member's homepage, September 2009. (ABC News)

There are concerns big tobacco companies are using social networking sites like Facebook to sell more cigarettes.

University of Sydney PHD student Becky Freeman says strict rules for print and television advertising are forcing tobacco companies to develop marketing strategies online.

Ms Freeman is voicing her concerns at the Oceania Tobacco Control Conference in Darwin today.

She says "fan groups" for big companies have been set up on Facebook.

"Were those groups started up by the manufacturers of those brands or were they simply started up by fans of those products?" she said.

"I think what we need to have in Australia is required disclosure from tobacco companies on where they are spending their advertising money.

"We have no idea. They are not required to report it."

Tags: drug-use, nicotine, advertising, internet, australia, nt, darwin-0800