Vocus vs. Cision (November 8, 2011). Vocus and Cision are both powerful and popular PR monitoring and management systems. Avoid mistakes that will cost you readers? Random Social Media Marketing b2b marketing Cision effective business blog email marketing Facebook Jay Baer John Jantsch Lee Odden Lisa Barone Lori Dicker MarketingSherpa Nifty50 PR monitoring social media monitoring top 10 blog posts Twitter VocusAfter 32 months (time flies when you’re having fun!) and 300 posts, here is a quick look back at the 10 most-read posts on the Webbiquity blog to date. MORE >>

The cost and specialized knowledge involved, however, severely limited its utility as well as the length of messages that could be practically sent. Meanwhile, printing presses evolved and got more sophisticated over time, and Xerox came out with its photocopier in the 1950s, but until the advent of computers and low-cost, high quality laser printers in the late 1980′s, it was a common expression that “freedom of the press belongs to those who own one.&#. We live in amazing times. Our human species originated, ballpark, 250,000 years ago. Share this on Bebo. Digg this! MORE >>

Still, though social media is a popular marketing tool for small businesses, it can also be a minefield of potentially costly and critical mistakes. According to a recent survey by Vocus and Duct Tape Marketing , decision makers at small and medium-sized businesses consider overcoming the perception that social media is free as their biggest social media challenge. According to a recent Manta survey , a staggering 90 percent of small business owners are using the web to network with potential customers and promote products and services. And why not? Not responding to customers. MORE >>

The net effect of this misguided view rests in overhead, excessive cost and worse, lost opportunity. Frank Strong is the director of public relations for Vocus. This guest post is written by Frank Strong. It has been said the sales function is about as far away as can be from public relations on the business spectrum. PR pros should not develop campaigns to drive sales. They should not use calls-to-action. Campaigns should not be measured by leads. Most importantly, PR should not be measured by sales. That’s marketing. PR is better served by measuring awareness. Point fingers. MORE >>

Price is always a consideration of course, but in selecting a potentially critical business tool like social media monitoring (consider the cost of BP’s social media failure ), the more important consideration is “value,&# as in: does the tool do at least as good a job at meeting the specific social media needs of my company as competing tools, and is it priced similarly or lower than tools offering equivalent functionality? But how do you choose one? Range of coverage. Many include at least the most popular blogs as well. Frequency of alerts. Workflow capabilities. Value. MORE >>