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This Week

LOUISVILLE, KY: Humana launched a viral healthcare education campaign called "Stay Smart Stay Healthy" on November 10.

SEATTLE: Concepts & Strategies (C&S), a woman and minority-owned communications PR firm has partnered with Visible Technologies in order to use Visible's social media measurement, management, and engagement tools to support its communications efforts.

SAN FRANCISCO: Business Wire (BW) has added features to its NewsTrak Access service including added search terms to find press releases, details when a release is submitted to Facebook and other social media sites, and clickthrough information.

Media Watch

Social media tug of war

The PR industry as a whole must do a better job of embracing social media, or else they run the risk of losing the battle against the advertising industry.

Social media is still considered a relatively new phenomenon, one in which communicators must find new ways to engage customers. The medium values two-way conversations over one-way communication, psychographics over demographics, and influence often over reach.

Click here to read on.


PRWeek Awards 2008 Winners Announced

Marketing to a social Web

This PRWeek/Visible Technologies webcast, Interacting with Social Media to Strengthen Communication Strategies, features Jeff Zabin, Aberdeen Group research analyst and an industry case study from Bob Pearson, Dell VP of communities and conversations.

Check out the archived webcast. To access slides from this event, click here.

Date: June 19, 2008
Duration: One hour

Sponsored by Visible Technologies

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Latest News

Comstock's comeback to GE signals increased digital focus

Nicole Zerillo

FAIRFIELD, CT: Beth Comstock has returned to General Electric as SVP and CMO, with the goal of helping the company pursue a more integrated digital strategy.

NetApp pursues wider audience in rebranding

Keith O'Brien

NEW YORK: NetApp has launched a marketing campaign to complement its new brand messaging and strategy.

JDMedia uses search engine to raise breast cancer funds

Frank Washkuch

JDMedia, a New York-based research, consumer marketing, and Web-development firm, wants to have more people who are looking for Internet destinations to use SearchTheCure.com, its Web site that uses Google's AdSense technology. Its aim is to raise charity funds for issues surrounding breast cancer.

PRWeekUS.com

Tonya Garcia has been blogging from the NIRI show. Click here to see her latest posts.

Expert Q&A

UPDATE: Medialink stock reaches record low
By Tonya Garcia

NEW YORK: Medialink's stock price dropped to under one dollar last week, reaching its lowest price in company history.

At one point Wednesday morning, May 28, the broadcast and multimedia PR firm's stock price was listed at $1, but yesterday, May 27, the official close price was 89 cents; its lowest close in history. It closed Friday at $1.07. NASDAQ rules require companies to maintain a minimum closing bid of $1 per share. Failure to do so for 30 consecutive business days runs the risk of delisting. A one-year chart of the company's stock shows a gradual and persistent fall; the 52-week high for Medialink stock is $6.50, the low, reached during Thursday, was 87 cents.

COO Larry Thomas said those speculating about the well-being of the company were "connecting the dots in a way they shouldn't be connected," pointing out that the company has added five sales people in the past 90 days and is looking to fill other positions.

In its Q1 report released last week, the company reported a $2.5 million loss.

PRWeek reported the May 16 departures of Mary Buhay, former SVP of corporate communications, and Michelle Wallace, former SVP of client services. Thomas said the company is not looking for replacements for them but is "continuing to structure the business in a way that makes sense for the current market."

"It's part of the changes in the overall media landscape [and] changes in the broadcast PR industry," said Thomas. "The way to improve confidence overall is to make sure we have services that are relevant, [which is] what we're doing now."

When the Q1 results, released May 15, showed an 11.1% drop in revenues from the same period last year for a total of $7.1 million, Medialink CEO Laurence Moskowitz said in a statement that the company is suffering from the overall economic downturn. He noted a "sharp decline in business in March," but said that "April's results were back in line with our expectations," and the company had begun a "realignment of our domestic media communications group" to improve sales and services.

Medialink CFO Kenneth Torosian also attributed Q1 losses to problems with investor, Pequot Capital. "According to their public filings, Pequot held approximately 14% of the Medialink common stock," Torosian wrote in an e-mail. "The sale of over 900,000 shares of the Medialink stock, a generally thinly-traded security, in a short period of time put price pressure on the stock."

Medialink's Teletrax digital video tracking service reported a revenue of $1.1 million, an almost 60% increase from the year-ago period, but it incurred an operating loss of $825,000.

"We also are continuing the re-evaluation of the overall business plan for Teletrax while we explore various means of tracking video on the Internet," Moskowitz said in the earnings statement. 

PR Toolbox

PRWeek's Q&A column, PR Toolbox, provides relevant and useful information from the PR services industry for PR professionals. This is a great opportunity for you or your client to share your techniques, and demonstrate your expertise in a field.

Submissions are collected 10 days in advance of the print publication (two Thursdays before the issue date) and word count is 150.

Please contact our editorial assistant, Beth Krietsch, with Toolbox pitches.

Latest Features

New media helps firms connect with clients

Ted McKenna

Don't feel obligated to use new media tools like blogs and podcasts just because everyone else seems to use them, agencies often tell their clients. But while the same advice holds true for agencies themselves that want to use Web 2.0 tools, a little experimentation doesn't hurt.

'Magic Wall' gives more interaction with TV newscasts

Beth Krietsch

Millions of people tune in to TV news coverage each day, but they're likely to change the channel when bombarded with complicated information.

Teens speak up with Ad Council

Tanya Lewis

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that car crashes are the number-one killer of US teens.

Using Wikipedia, best places for product launches, more

Beth Krietsch

Can Wikipedia be an effective tool to use for PR work?




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