Paul Bradshaw, senior lecturer of online journalism and magazines at Birmingham City University, said the most basic tools that students should know how to use are Wordpress for blogging and site building, Twitter for live updates, Facebook for posting articles or videos, Delicious for bookmarking, Flickr for photos or videos, and YouTube for video. All of these can be used from the field with a smart phone or laptop.

The biggest problem is that once these students get out of school the game will have changed again.  Probably the best tool they can be taught is how to track the evolution of PR and Social Media and be ready to learn something new on a regular basis.

However there is no doubt about the need to have these skills today and tomorrow.

By: Guest Blogger Jodie Clements
So… Ya mamma told ya never to play with the traffic, eh? Times have changed.

If you are a start up, here are 4 free ways to market your business in order to gain more company awareness, generate more web traffic and ultimately, snag that all-important sales inquiry phone call that’ll hopefully pay for all that new and expensive office furniture you have just had to fork out for:

Industry Directories.
Whatever industry you are working in, you can be sure as damned it that there are industry directories with lists and lists of companies in your field. Get moving and get OUT there. Register your company on every relevant industry directory you can find. Not only will you find out more about the competition and potential business partners, but you’ll get instant visibility, not to mention branding and potential new business.

Blogs & Blurbs
If you are part of an industry, you are able to provide value to someone wanting to know more about your industry and its players and, maybe even gain a client or three in the process. You have value sitting right there in your head. Write it down. Post it on industry blogs, boards, online forums, etc. The possible posting opportunities go on and on…and they will eventually create awareness and web traffic.

Social Media
Hello? May I remind you that this IS the dawning of the ‘death of anonymous’… There’s NO WAY you can beat it, so you might as well join it. It’s all out there, just waiting for you to add your virtual footprint. If you are not there, you literally do not exist in today’s online world. Social media is the ‘name of the fame’. I am talking Facebook, Linked In, Twitter, MySpace and who knows what else will be invented in the time it takes you to return a library book. If you have a business, get yourself a profile. Start adding content, create value…and remember; “If you write it… they will come…”

Newsletters
This is not an obvious one… but I personally find it one of the best ways to make a name for yourself. Sign up to every single newsletter relevant to your field. Start reading. Start talking on the feedback threads… start giving input as in industry professional in your field of expertise. Make sure each input includes a web link to your site. Again, more awareness, more presence, more credibility and more branding… all leading to more web traffic… you get the picture. You’ll also get to know many people in your industry, which will eventually create new leads.

A Word of Caution:
Just one thing – do be careful. If you start it, you should keep it up. Make sure the person doing this in your company knows all the facts, understands the company message you want to project and is consistent with their input and that message.

Written by Jodie Clements
Marketing Communications Consultant & Marketing Writer
jodie@012.net.il

“Each week in 2009 on Mastercom blog, I will add: a new post presenting a blogger from a new country + its blog> a new spot on the worldwide map> a new flag. So hopefully I will cover 52 countries during 2009.Who can participate?If you are a blogger (about about marketing, advertising, communication, viral marketing, design) and the flag of your country is not in, please feel free to contact me to participate or request to join this group on Facebook.Below you can search a blog about marketing, advertising, communication, viral marketing, design and its blogger just by clicking on the flag you are interested in.You can either click on a flag to see the info about the blog and its blogger or use the the map by clicking the wanted location to see the post or read all the posts here.”

One of the interesting blogs is not an analyst but rather a promotion for the Gartner book on Hypecycles: MASTERING THE HYPE CYCLE : How to Choose the Right Innovation at the Right Time discussing the use of Hype Cycles.

One interesting use of the blog is Mark Driver who used the blog to encourage participation in one of his upcoming sessions at the Web Innovation Conference:

“Do you have questions related to the sessions I’m hosting at the Web Innovation Conference this week? Put them in the comments here and I will try to address them during the Q&A portion of the session or as a followup blog post after the session.”

Carter held a very interesting email interview with Andrew Spender, Gartner’s VP of Corporate Communications which reveals the current official answers to your questions about how this is going to work….

The results of the IIAR Survey foreshadows several things about the future of the Big Analyst Groups:

1. Being the most important/influential analyst group is not always as important as being relevant.
2. The little guys (SMBs) are tired of being ignored or priced out of the market with the current subscriber model of the big analyst firms. Red Monk and their analysts are high on the lists probably because they follow their credo: “If you’re used to dealing with analyst firms that nickel and dime you, or ask you to pay for every insight, RedMonk will be a pleasant surprise. We share our learning freely, making our content available at no cost. We give back to variety of communities with both time and money, and always have time to help the little guy. When we say we’re different, we’re not kidding.” Another company with the same principles: “One of the founding principles of Macehiter Ward-Dutton was that in order to reach our goal of being a leading advisory company in our space, we needed to be able to reach as many people as possible with our ideas and findings – and that meant finding ways to make our work as “open” as possible. Consequently we decided that all our core research reports should be made available, free-of-charge, to anyone who subscribes to our site.

I believe that this is the future of Analyst Groups and I think that the big guys need to start paying attention….

Your comments are welcome.

“Coordinating communications across multiple disciplines, to different constituencies and from different area’s of the company and still seem congruent at the end of the day is also sometimes a feat. When it works, it is a charm, when it doesn’t…you wonder if we all work for the same company. Not only do you have message issues can conflict, you have executive issues…..and conflict.” http://www.johnsimonds.com/2008/03/analyst-relations-at-a-big-company/