Adam Sherk

AUGUST 11, 2010

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk NBC Targets Local Markets on the New Digg by Adam Sherk on August 11, 2010 Through branded profiles and the personalized “My News” feature on the new Digg, publishers are hoping that building up followers who view them as a preferred or trusted source will enable them to reach a larger number of users on a regular basis.

Digg 166

Digg Marketing News Press Release 166

Adam Sherk

JUNE 15, 2010

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk News Sites on Twitter: Who is Making the Most Impact? by Adam Sherk on June 15, 2010 I have done several posts on news organizations and Facebook recently so I thought it was time to switch things up and look at Twitter again. There is of course much more to the social media universe than just The Bobbsey Twins.

News 165

News Sites Twitter Digg 165

Adam Sherk

MAY 4, 2010

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk NBA Playoff Teams Ranked by Facebook Page Engagement by Adam Sherk on May 4, 2010 So Lebron and Kobe may (or may not) be heading towards a much-hyped NBA Finals matchup, but the real question on fans’ minds is: Which NBA playoff teams have the most user engagement on their Facebook Pages?

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Team Engagement Facebook Press Release 165

Adam Sherk

APRIL 13, 2010

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk 25 Major News Sites Ranked by Page Speed by Adam Sherk on April 13, 2010 Now that site speed is officially a Google ranking factor, site performance and page load time are important for SEO as well as usability. So how well do major news sites perform in these areas? To get a basic idea I ran Page Speed , the open source Firefox/Firebug add-on that Google recommends, on the home page of 25 news sites.

Sites 161

Sites News Yahoo Journal 161

Adam Sherk

AUGUST 16, 2010

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk JVC Facebook Page Sweepstakes a Big Success. But Does it Violate Facebook Guidelines? by Adam Sherk on August 16, 2010 Over on All Facebook there is an interesting post on how JVC USA is using a “Like it to Win it” sweepstakes to rapidly build up fans and drive frequent engagement on the JVC Facebook Page.

RFI 156

RFI Guidelines Facebook Press Release 156

Adam Sherk

JANUARY 26, 2010

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk Social Media Super Bowl: Which Team Has More Reach? by Adam Sherk on January 26, 2010 So the Indianapolis Colts and New Orleans Saints will meet in Miami for Super Bowl XLIV. NFL analysts and sports writers now have two weeks to dissect the matchup, talk about players and schemes and come up with good storylines.

Team 150

Team Social Media Digg Press Release 150

Adam Sherk

APRIL 26, 2010

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk An Early Look at Facebook Open Graph Protocol Integration on News Sites by Adam Sherk on April 26, 2010 There has been a lot of news and reaction around Facebook’s new additions to the Facebook Platform: Social Plugins, the Open Graph protocol and the Graph API. News and content sites are a natural fit for participation and Facebook is encouraging news site adoption by showcasing sites that are already experimenting with it.

News 149

News Module Widget Facebook 149

Adam Sherk

JANUARY 11, 2010

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk PEJ Study Shows Print Still Primary Source of Original News Reporting by Adam Sherk on January 11, 2010 The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism released a study today of the modern news ecosystem, examining a week of news activity in Baltimore, MD. You can get the details from the study itself but I wanted to point out a couple things that caught my attention.

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Study News Press Release Report 147

Adam Sherk

NOVEMBER 9, 2010

The discussion around my post on press release buzzwords has brought my attention to a variety of resources on language and writing, the latest being a new book called Wordcatcher. Long before getting involved in marketing communications I was a kid who grew up loving stories and more specifically words. The stories found in books, articles, songs, poems – you name it – have an amazing ability to conjure up entirely new worlds around us.

Press Release 146

Press Release News Publishing Study 146

Adam Sherk

MARCH 16, 2010

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk Real-time Search Optimization for News Sites by Adam Sherk on March 16, 2010 The major search engines are making real-time search a priority, resulting in good visibility opportunities for news sites especially for breaking news. Google, Bing and Yahoo are all experimenting with various forms of real-time results now and making deals with Twitter, Facebook and other social sites.

Sites 143

Sites News Yahoo Engineering 143

Adam Sherk

JULY 13, 2010

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk Paywalls, Media Coverage and User Access: What’s a PR Pro to Do? by Adam Sherk on July 13, 2010 Being the savvy, well-connected PR pro that you are, you just helped bring about a great piece of editorial coverage in a major media outlet. The client is thrilled, you’ve won the praise and envy of your colleagues, all is well…except that online the article is behind a paywall so hardly anyone will ever see it.

Press Release 141

Press Release SEO News Survey 141

Adam Sherk

SEPTEMBER 13, 2010

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk Pew Research News Survey: Findings on Search Engines, Social Networks and Twitter by Adam Sherk on September 13, 2010 The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press has published the results of its latest survey on news consumption and related topics. The content on search engines and social media gets a little lost among all the stats and charts so I thought I’d summarize that data here.

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Survey Social Networking Engineering Research 140

Adam Sherk

OCTOBER 15, 2010

What gets more traction for publishers: content shared on Facebook or Twitter? According to the Social Media Sharing Trends 2010 report from SocialTwist, Facebook dominates content sharing among social media sites but links shared on Twitter have a much higher click-through rate. SocialTwist examined content shared with its Tell-a-Friend widget from August 2009 to July 2010.

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Twitter Content Widget Facebook 138

Adam Sherk

JANUARY 19, 2010

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk Alicia Keys Facebook Page: I’d Sign Up if She Asked Me All Cool by Adam Sherk on January 19, 2010 Want to use your Facebook Page to build out your mailing list? Alicia Keys knows how to do it. Users who go to the “Sign Up” tab on her Facebook Page get a personal appeal from Alicia Keys herself, extolling the virtues of her mailing list.

Press Release 138

Press Release Facebook Syndication Blogroll 138

Adam Sherk

DECEMBER 8, 2010

The results of the Vocus 2011 PR Planning Survey are out and the number of organizations that plan to focus more on SEO and social media has declined. In this year’s survey 51% of the respondents indicated that they would focus more on SEO in 2011, down from 57% in 2011. And the number of organizations that stated they would focus less on SEO increased from 4% to 6%: While these are small changes I find the trend discouraging.

Vocus 136

Vocus SEO Organization Social Media 136

Adam Sherk

AUGUST 4, 2010

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk News Sites on the New Digg: Who is Active, Who is Gaining Followers? by Adam Sherk on August 4, 2010 The new Digg has gotten a lot of attention for the opportunities it creates for publishers (see ReadWriteWeb and BlueGlass for details). First and foremost is the ability to create official profiles and automatically submit content, which publishers are hoping will turn Digg into a friendlier place for mainstream media.

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Digg Sites News Activities 134

Adam Sherk

JANUARY 6, 2010

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk Newsweek on Tumblr: Good Effort, Needs More Engagement by Adam Sherk on January 6, 2010 Awareness of Newsweek’s Tumblr site has been increasing of late. It’s actually been around for a while but Newsweek seems to have been giving it more attention over the past few months. I like it.

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Tumblr Engagement Press Release Syndication 131

Adam Sherk

JANUARY 14, 2010

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk Help Haiti: News Sites Promote Ways to Donate by Adam Sherk on January 14, 2010 As the devastation and human tragedy caused by the Haiti earthquake grows, people are flocking to the news media for information, and more importantly to learn ways that they can help. I’ve been impressed by how much attention the media has given to promoting ways that people can make donations.

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News Sites Digg Press Release 129

Adam Sherk

JANUARY 28, 2010

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk 10 Quotes on the Apple iPad and the Business of News by Adam Sherk on January 28, 2010 Now that the first wave in the Apple iPad crazy-a-thon has past, I thought I’d do a quick round-up of what people are saying about the iPad from the perspective of the news media. You can view this in the spirit of Robert Scoble’s To create or curate?

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iPad Apple News iPhone 129

Adam Sherk

DECEMBER 1, 2010

In reading a post on Google Operating System about the Most Shared section on Google News I found it interesting that a press release from NASA was among the leaders. I checked today and it is still at the top of the list for the week: Press releases tend to be the ugly stepsister when it comes to Google News visibility but here’s a sign that they do sometimes get traction from users.

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Press Release News Google System 127

Adam Sherk

DECEMBER 20, 2010

Another year has passed and that means it is time for marketing blogs to do their obligatory top posts of the year roundups. Despite the cliché I like reading them because it is a good way to discover things I may have missed during the year. And on my own blog I’m certainly curious to know which posts brought in the most traffic this year. So yes I’m joining the club.

Sports 126

Sports News SEO Press Release 126

Adam Sherk

JANUARY 20, 2010

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk Top 10 Reasons The New York Times is Really Putting up a Paywall by Adam Sherk on January 20, 2010 Today The New York Times made it official that they will be introducing a metered model starting in 2011. There is additional information in the NYTco press release , and Jim Romenesko and others have published the staff memo.

Press Release 126

Press Release Digg News SEO 126

Adam Sherk

DECEMBER 15, 2010

This is a guest post from Christian Arno , founder of Lingo24 , a global translation service. I asked Christian to provide some tips for publishers looking to expand their presence in international markets. – Adam. To reach an overseas readership online publishers must ensure that they properly localize their content. Here are a few issues to consider when localizing an online newspaper or magazine.

Publishing 124

Publishing Tips Syndication Resources 124

Adam Sherk

JANUARY 21, 2010

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk Journalist Social Media Usage Increases, Concerns About Reliability of Information by Adam Sherk on January 21, 2010 Yesterday Cision released the results of their Social Media and Online Usage Study, a survey of social media usage by print and Web journalists. Conducted with Don Bates of George Washington University, the study measures the journalists’ use of and attitudes toward social media for researching and reporting st

Social Media 122

Social Media Press Release Microblogging Survey 122

Adam Sherk

SEPTEMBER 10, 2010

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk Why the News Business Isn’t Profitable by Guest on September 10, 2010 This is a guest post from Aaron Goldman , author of Everything I Know about Marketing I Learned from Google. Aaron is doing a blog tour in support of the book launch (covering 30 blogs in 10 days), which I thought was an interesting concept.

News 121

News Press Release Survey SEO 121

Adam Sherk

FEBRUARY 17, 2010

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk Google Buzz and News Sites: Good Potential But Facebook Still the Better Play by Adam Sherk on February 17, 2010 Google Buzz has certainly gotten a lot of attention in the past week be it for privacy concerns, suggestions for improvements or its “ Code Red &# push to get things right.

Sites 118

Sites News Google Facebook 118

Adam Sherk

FEBRUARY 25, 2010

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk Make the Most of Your Retweet Buttons by Adam Sherk on February 25, 2010 In working on my presentation for the Twitter Marketing Tactics session at SMX West next week I’ve been looking at the various types of share and retweet buttons used on news sites. I’m partial to the Tweetmeme button , although displaying the number of tweets is a double-edged sword.

Syndication 117

Syndication URL Press Release SEO 117

Adam Sherk

MAY 12, 2010

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk Borrowing Content Was Happening Long Before Blogging by Adam Sherk on May 12, 2010 I was reading Boston Globe columnist Alex Beam’s piece on his time at Newsweek in the 1970s and this passage caught my attention: For me, Newsweek was like an upside-down journalism school, where I learned an astonishing number of bad habits, e.g., having someone else check your facts.

Content 116

Content Aggregator Press Release Syndication 116

Adam Sherk

OCTOBER 28, 2010

Monitoring search trends and hot topics for keyword targeting and content ideas is a common practice among publishers these days. While this pollutes the search results when taken to the extreme (see below), done right it is an effective editorial SEO tactic. The Hot Searches on Google Trends tend to be dominated by topics like sports, politics and entertainment with frequent breaking news and stories that attract a lot of attention.

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Trends Embedding Content Patterns 114

Adam Sherk

NOVEMBER 23, 2010

Sites have been using the rel=canonical link element for a while now to help offset duplicate content issues that cannot be eliminated through URL consolidation. While not a perfect solution it is often the best option available in cases like duplicate content caused by appending tracking codes to URLs (e.g. ?source=rss, ?xid=newsletter, ?nav=home).

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URL Syndication Newsletter RSS 114

Adam Sherk

AUGUST 24, 2010

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk Do Google’s Expanded Domain Results Apply to News and Video Listings? by Adam Sherk on August 24, 2010 As first covered by Malcolm Coles and later confirmed by Google , for search queries that include a specific domain Google is now showing a larger number of results from that site on page one.

News 113

News List Google Embedding 113

Adam Sherk

FEBRUARY 19, 2010

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk News Sites: Tame Your Blog Tags by Adam Sherk on February 19, 2010 Ever notice all the tags that some blogs add to their posts? Adding a few meaningful tags is fine, but news sites in particular have a habit of taking this practice much too far. The Huffington Post is a good high-profile example: Looking at recent posts they appear to have dialed tagging back a bit, but the average post still gets quite a few tags.

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Sites News Press Release SEO 112

Adam Sherk

NOVEMBER 2, 2010

With Blekko officially launching this week the new search engine is getting a lot of attention particularly in the search marketing community because of SEO data it provides. There is a good overview of Blekko’s SEO Tools on Search Engine Land so I won’t go into detail on that here. But I was curious to compare the data provided for major news sites.

Sites 112

Sites News Postrank SEO 112

Adam Sherk

FEBRUARY 9, 2010

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk Foursquare and The New York Times Archive Would Be a Great Match by Adam Sherk on February 9, 2010 Now that Foursquare is all the rage (or the bane of existence if you don’t like all those check-in and badge tweets invading your Twitter stream) news sites are looking at how best to leverage location-based social networks.

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Foursquare Badge Press Release Syndication 111

Adam Sherk

APRIL 8, 2010

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk The Wrap, Newser and Content Aggregation: How Much Attribution is Enough? by Adam Sherk on April 8, 2010 The cease and desist letter and the ensuing war of words between The Wrap’s Sharon Waxman and Newser’s Michael Wolff is getting a lot of industry attention this week. To me the real question is: when one site aggregates another’s content, how much attribution is enough?

Aggregator 110

Aggregator Content Syndication Journal 110

Adam Sherk

FEBRUARY 23, 2010

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk AOL Newsroom: A Model for the Future or Shades of 2001? by Adam Sherk on February 23, 2010 There is an interesting article in BusinessWeek on how AOL is utilizing software and analytics data in an effort to match content with user interests and monetize it more successfully. Are you sure you want to write that article, Dave?

Hitwise 110

Hitwise Press Release Adsense Syndication 110

Adam Sherk

JANUARY 7, 2010

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk Hearst Skiff Reader Looks Cool by Adam Sherk on January 7, 2010 Hearst’s Skiff Reader is being unveiled at CES this week. My professional, analytical opinion is it looks pretty darn good. I hope the much-discussed digital media consortium with Hearst, Time Inc, Condé Nast, Meredith and News Corp works out.

Press Release 101

Press Release Syndication Blogroll iPad 101