Adam Sherk

DECEMBER 18, 2012

8 Social Media Questions Publishers Should Be Asking Themselves. 5 Ways that Social Media Impacts SEO. The Fastest and Slowest News Sites in 2012. Media Relations Gone Wrong: How Not to Pitch a Journalist (Video). 5 Good Ideas for News Media Facebook Pages. SEO Metrics for Publishers: How are You Tracking and Measuring Success?

Press Release 119

Press Release SEO Digg Sports 119

Adam Sherk

DECEMBER 9, 2014

Google News has been in the news itself lately, from European efforts to impose taxes to questions about its value and even suggestions for giving it a full redesign. But just how much traffic is it currently driving to publishers?

News 279

News Sites Publishing Data 279

Adam Sherk

OCTOBER 26, 2011

I was talking with John Shehata from ABC News yesterday about Facebook, and he brought up an interesting question. What’s a better approach for journalists, creating official Facebook Pages or enabling the subscribe button on their regular profiles? Facebook is certainly encouraging the use of the new subscribe button.

Facebook 138

Facebook Widget Digg News 138

Adam Sherk

APRIL 8, 2010

To me the real question is: when one site aggregates another’s content, 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.

Aggregator 110

Aggregator Content Syndication Journal 110

Adam Sherk

NOVEMBER 14, 2011

But for the individual or organization in question, the resulting shake-up in the SERPs can be troubling. From a user perspective it makes sense to favor fresh content for this query, since it is likely that the majority of people searching for “joe paterno” or “penn state” last week were looking for information on the recent news.

Reputation 155

Reputation Google Wikipedia Embedding 155

Adam Sherk

JULY 17, 2009

So the question is, how do you get on the list? I hear this question asked a lot now, with the most common answer being you have to know someone at Twitter. I also hear that Twitter is bombarded with requests to get on the list, so they don’t like people asking anymore.

Twitter 100

Twitter Press Release Syndication Blogroll 100

Adam Sherk

JULY 23, 2013

The questions I’m asked most often are how and when to use it, how well it works and if it is worth putting in the time and resources to support it. The standout tag for Google News has been around for a couple years now but many news publishers are still uncertain about it. Does the standout tag actually work?

News 213

News Google Publishing Case Study 213

Adam Sherk

JULY 13, 2010

Here’s another question: Would you foot the bill to give users free access to coverage of your company or clients? But that would cause all kinds of problems, not the least of which the publications’ editorial integrity being called into question. So it’s hard to imagine mainstream media relations falling too far out of the PR toolkit.

Press Release 141

Press Release SEO News Survey 141

Adam Sherk

DECEMBER 2, 2009

Perhaps some of the respondents took the question to mean third-party online press room services. I was surprised to see only 36% of respondents are using online press rooms, since that should be a fundamental part of any corporate website.

Vocus 166

Vocus SEO Social Media Press Release 166

Adam Sherk

NOVEMBER 2, 2010

The AOL News hostrank figure seems strangely low but I doubled checked it and that’s what Blekko is reporting: Side note: when I compared news sites on social media engagement there was a question about which domain was used for MSNBC.

Sites 112

Sites News Postrank SEO 112

Adam Sherk

OCTOBER 28, 2010

Here are a few examples of embedded Google News results I saw yesterday for searches around pumpkin carving: I’d rather not link to the articles in question so I’ll include some screenshots and let you judge for yourself: Do these articles offer users what they were looking for, actual pumpkin carving patterns and templates?

Trends 114

Trends Embedding Content Patterns 114

Adam Sherk

SEPTEMBER 17, 2009

Some news sites are supplementing content links with direct questions and comments to users, but this does not appear to be happening in any significant volume. Most news sites have an official Facebook Page now, with the typical approach being to add a daily stream of links to new content while promoting site features, apps, feeds, etc.

Sites 238

Sites News Engagement Facebook 238

Adam Sherk

OCTOBER 29, 2009

But in case in takes off, the questions businesses should be asking themselves now are: Are we in our target audiences’ social circles? It’s still an experimental feature in Google Labs and users have to be signed into their Google account to use it, so it’s safe to say that adoption of Social Search will be slow. If not how do we get there?

Google 109

Google Google Reader Press Release Survey 109

Adam Sherk

JUNE 15, 2010

To help answer that question I used Twitalyzer to evaluate the main Twitter profile of 30+ major news organizations including a mix of newspapers, magazines, TV and online-only outlets. The easiest thing to compare is reach based on Twitter followers and I’ve included that data below.

News 165

News Sites Twitter Digg 165

Adam Sherk

NOVEMBER 18, 2009

One question: Your grid lists the Patriots as having the most Twitter followers with 30k but the text claims the Chargers as No. It’ll be interesting to see how their efforts increase as more talk about the need for a social media presence continues. Mike November 24, 2009 at 2:00 pm Interesting quick read, thanks for the info.

Team 209

Team Twitter Facebook Sports 209

Adam Sherk

OCTOBER 6, 2010

That’s not an easy question to answer without having access to each site’s analytics data and knowing their goals and objectives. Now the focus is decidedly more tactical with sites looking to understand how to maximize the benefits of their efforts and better integrate them with other marketing initiatives.

Sites 176

Sites News Postrank Engagement 176

Adam Sherk

OCTOBER 20, 2009

Of course the larger question is whether or not companies will use third-party services to distribute press releases via Twitter when they can do so for free on their own. Their Latest Press Releases page shows their most recent 50 releases, the oldest being from October 7th.

Press Release 145

Press Release Twitter URL RSS 145

Adam Sherk

APRIL 30, 2009

Until recently the best solution offered up was to append tracking codes with a hash mark (#) instead of a question mark (?), On newspaper and magazine sites, the main culprit is typically the practice of appending tracking codes to the end of URLs, for example: www.yoursite.com/article ?xid=rss xid=rss (or ?xid=topstories xid=topstories or

Issues 100

Issues Publishing URL Syndication 100

Adam Sherk

JANUARY 20, 2010

I wish them the best of luck, and look forward to seeing how things unfold. UPDATE: For those interested in more actual information, NYTco.

Press Release 126

Press Release Digg News SEO 126

Adam Sherk

JANUARY 28, 2010

The question, then, is whether newspaper publishers will do any better at monetizing mobile advertising than they have online.

iPad 129

iPad Apple News iPhone 129

Adam Sherk

JUNE 30, 2009

Adam Sherk August 31, 2009 at 10:41 am Good questions Alex. &# On a related note, if an article or press release is supposed to be posted on several locations, what’s are some rules of thumb for rewriting the text in such a way to avoid it from being considered duplicate content?

Syndication 111

Syndication Press Release SEO Publishing 111

Adam Sherk

AUGUST 4, 2010

Feel free to ask me any questions, I’m subscribing to follow up comments via email. If your readers enjoy Digg4, they may also be interested in quippd: [link] , which is similar to Digg4 in many ways (we went live first!). We don’t have an RSS import functionality, but we are looking into it.

Digg 134

Digg Sites News Activities 134

Adam Sherk

MAY 17, 2010

Only the news organizations themselves can fully answer that question; their own analytics data combined with internal estimates of the value of fans and various actions will paint the clearest picture. But how much are these pages really worth to them, and which news sites are getting the most value for their efforts?

Sites 167

Sites News CPM Facebook 167

Adam Sherk

AUGUST 21, 2012

That’s a common question these days as publishers try to make the most of search and social for audience development. It is intended to be a general overview for publishers. Hopefully you’ll find it useful. How does social media activity impact search engine optimization?

SEO 278

SEO Social Media NoFollow Engineering 278

Adam Sherk

FEBRUARY 4, 2010

A couple weeks ago Tom Foremski and Todd Defren looked at the question of whether or not PR firms could or should use their ability to drive exposure and traffic through social media as a carrot in media pitches. A similar question could be asked of news organizations.

Social Media 146

Social Media Press Release SEO News 146

Adam Sherk

MARCH 30, 2011

This week I’ll be part of a panel discussion at Socialize that will address just that question: Social Media: Harvesting Intent for Better ROI. And they’ve made good strides in utilizing social media monitoring and measurement to better understand user behavior and quantify the success of their efforts.

Publishing 131

Publishing Social Media Aggregator ROI 131

Adam Sherk

DECEMBER 16, 2009

In the Q&A in Google’s announcement, one question in particular caught my eye: Q: I’m offering my content / product descriptions for syndication. is one of the most common consulting questions we get. Do my publishers need to use rel=&# canonical&# ? A: We leave this up to you and your publishers.

Syndication 103

Syndication Publishing URL Yahoo 103

Adam Sherk

MARCH 12, 2010

And we just need to…it’s not a question of old media vs. new media or anything like that. . “They say, ah yes but because when somebody searches for something and a page comes up for a newspaper it’s registered as a unique visitor and you sell your own advertising along side that. So Avatar good, Google bad.

Video 111

Video Avatar Press Release Survey 111

Adam Sherk

JUNE 29, 2010

Now the question is, can someone make a sentence out of some of those, but I see David has beat me to it. Now here’s the real question: is it the PR practitioner’s duty to NEVER use these words, because just because they are OVER used doesn’t mean they aren’t the most appropriate word in certain situations. .&#

Press Release 279

Press Release Marketing Class List 279

Adam Sherk

SEPTEMBER 22, 2010

David Heim September 23, 2010 at 12:10 pm re Mitch Shannon’s question: I believe that either Herb Lubalin or Ed Benguiat was the art director for fact: magazine. Don’t know if they’ve mended their ways, haven’t read Time (or Newsweek or U.S. News & World Report) for many years.

Press Release 131

Press Release Issues News Wikipedia 131