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Posts by: Barbara Rozgonyi

Vote Here | Mashable Open Web Awards

Posted on November 22, 2008

 mashable-open-web-awards

Vote here through Sunday, November 30th 11:59 pm PST for your favorites . . .

Mashable Open Web Award Categories

  1. Mainstream and Large Scale Social Networks
  2. Embeddable Widgets
  3. Blog Plugins
  4. Social News
  5. Social Networking Applications
  6. Social Bookmarking
  7. Search And Social Search
  8. Sports and Fitness
  9. Photo Sharing
  10. Video Sharing
  11. Start Pages
  12. Places and Events
  13. Travel
  14. Music
  15. Social Shopping
  16. Fashion
  17. Celebrity and Gossip
  18. Mobile Applications
  19. Dating and Romance
  20. Wiki
  21. Politics
  22. How-To
  23. Environmental
  24. Non-Profit Causes
  25. Online Games
  26. Niche and Miscellaneous Social Networks

Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008 | Final Round Voting

Tuesday, December 16th, 2008 | Winners Announced

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Survey Results Show How Journalists Use New Media

Posted on November 21, 2008

Does age matter in media relations? What is a credible source? Do journalists get SMPRs?

Thanks to Middelberg Communications for contacting Wired PR Works with the preliminary Findings from the Middleberg/SNCR Survey of Media in the Wired World. Because the survey is in progress, journalists can still participate in the new media and communications survey. Final results will be presented at the New Communications Forum in Spring 2009.  It’s worth taking some time to browse through the results in progress; here are three areas I thought you might find interesting.

Highlights from the Middleberg/SNCR [Society for New Communications Research] Study

Although the study reports many findings, the credibility factor jumped out first. The 30-49 segment gives the highest credibility marks across all new media communications, except for online video. Boomers don’t find blogs very believable, but they rank corporate websites fairly high – is this a matter of perception? What if the corporate website is a traditional site/blog hybrid?

 

sncr-middleberg study

Journalists Prefer Email, Phone and Meetings over Social Network Message and Twitter

Our media contacts love email. Phone calls come in [or go out] when we need to screen a story idea for interest, check on details, or set up interviews. Recently, we sent out a part one part two email. The first contained the release and mentioned that an identical email that included an image attachment would follow immediately. Two media outlets emailed back to say they got message one, but not message two and they wanted to run the picture. Sometimes we get better pick up on our client’s images than we do on their stories; having a mix is good. One reporter asked for additional images to create an online slide show. How do these responses compare to your media connections’ preferences?

sncr-middleberg study2

Social Media Press Releases Work for 21%, not for 17% and 62% don’t know what they are

Now here’s an interesting finding that goes against all “the press release is dead” proclamations. Is it the insider terminology that throws off the 62%? What if the question asked journalists to rank SMPR components like multi-media attachments based on value – do you think the response would be different? How can the PR industry let journalists know about the SMPR? Almost two years ago I wrote a post about the social media release called “Give Whoever Whatever They Want” that outlines 10 reasons why SMPRs don’t work for everybody. 

sncr-middleberg study3 

 

Source of all graphics: Middleberg/SNCR Survey of Media in the Wired World

Where PR Comes In: Storytelling, Engaging, Communicating

The study goes on to note implications for public relations practitioners, including making the case for placing social media responsibilities with PR professionals who are “storytellers who understand how to build relationships, collaborate, engage in conversations, understand changing influence patterns, and how to communicate with journalists in the channel of their choice.”

Your Turn

How did these results help you?

2 Comments - Posted in Social Media Tagged with:

Publicity Tips | Get Radio Gigs as an Expert Guest

Posted on November 21, 2008

 bigg-success

Thanks so much to Mary-Lynn Foster and  George Krueger for interviewing me as a The Bigg Success Expert Session guest.

It was fun to talk about how to promote your business for free as a radio show guest.

You can listen to the preview for free and I’m pleased to let you know you can purchase the entire The Expert Session interview at a very reasonable price.

Get your copy of The Bigg Success Show Expert Session with Barbara Rozgonyi on how to promote your business for free as a radio show guest.

Here’s the promo . . . didn’t they do a great job? I love how they package their experts.

In the Expert Session, Barbara shared so much more. She gives a tutorial on setting up Google Alerts, tips on alerts you might want to set up and an example of how to do it. Even better, she doesn’t use “techie talk!”

She also talks about:

  • how to be a trend setter
  • how to tap into the virtual water cooler to listen in on conversations about your industry
  • what you need to promote yourself to radio stations
  • the most important words to tell a radio host that guarantees you’ll get more calls
  • what you should have in your promotional package
  • and much, much more in four tracks of about ten minutes each

Your Turn

What other publicity topics would you like to know more about?

1 Comment - Posted in Publicity Tagged with:

Review PR | What makes you want to see a robot?

Posted on November 17, 2008

Today, November 18, WALL-E comes out on DVD. [And, yes I’m asking myself if my blogging mentors would write this kind of post. Stay with me – there is a lesson or two here somewhere.]

I hate robots. I love Pixar. I didn’t want to see WALL-E.

But, I couldn’t stop reading the reviews.

After about three or four I made my decision: I had to see this love story between robots – and I did, three times. I’ve listened to the WALL-E soundtrack so many times, my iPod has it memorized. How did this happen?

What compels you to buy a product, go to a movie, play a DVD, select a song on iTunes?

Emotion, entertainment, education, engagement?

Do you read reviews before you make a decision?

Writing great reviews is a subject I want to explore in more depth. But, for now, you can listen to my interview with Brad Shorr about how to write an Amazon review. And, you can study excerpts from four WALL-E reviews. Each author’s take is in their own tone, yet accurately describes the movie.

Nominated as one of fourteen features for consideration in the Animated Feature Film category for the 81st Academy Awards®. WALL-E comes in at 32 on IMDB’s list of best movies of all time. Here’s the trailer . . .

 

Four WALL-E Reviews

It’s become a commonplace of contemporary screenwriting classes that a movie must grab its audience within the first few minutes, if not seconds; that’s why so many of them start with clichéd explosions, collisions or violent combat. But no film-school formula could have envisioned the quietly magical pull of this film’s opening sequence. The humor is so delectable, the images are so powerful, and darkly beautiful, and the music provides such a haunting counterpoint, that I’d love to describe the whole experience in minute detail. Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal 

Indeed, sitting among rapt children mostly under 12, I felt as if I’d stepped through a looking glass. This movie seemed more realistically in touch with what troubles America this year than either the substance or the players of the political food fight beyond the multiplex’s walls. While the real-life grown-ups on TV were again rebooting Vietnam, the kids at “Wall-E” were in deep contemplation of a world in peril — and of the future that is theirs to make what they will of it. Compare any 10 minutes of the movie with 10 minutes of any cable-news channel, and you’ll soon be asking: Exactly who are the adults in our country and who are the cartoon characters? WALL-E For president, by NYT Op Ed columnist Frank Rich

The story is set amid breathtaking visuals: Giant skyscrapers built of trash fill Earth’s horizon, and WALL·E’s plunge into outer space is gorgeous, his dance through space exhilarating. Meanwhile, the descendants of those who populated Earth have become massive, flabby beings with tiny, almost-vestigial limbs. They spend their days in moving recliners equipped with screens, in their own virtual worlds, avoiding human contact.  Claudia Puig for USA Today

There’s much more complexity to the film than any “message movie.” As we see glimpses of the junk WALL•E has uncovered amidst the ruins, we see hints of the triviality of greed run amok—witness the Rubik’s Cube and the plastic cutlery. But when he pops in his favorite videotape, Hello Dolly, we see that something good and beautiful has been made by the very same race of people—art, music. Josh Hurst for Christianity Today

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Want to Get Ahead? Take the Stairs

Posted on November 17, 2008

Barbara Rozgonyi-Rory Vaden

At a college preview, a sign said: take the stairs, you’ll get a workout and you’ll save energy. So, we did.

At the mall over the weekend, we tried to take the stairs. But, there are no more stairs. There are only elevators and escalators.

According to Rory Vaden, the world’s leading expert, speaker, and author on personal self-discipline, therein lies the problem with a lot of what’s wrong not only with America, but with your business [and maybe your approach to life]: taking shortcuts in attempting to get to the top, a place he knows how to get to.

For a young 26 of man, Rory’s realized stellar success already, including being a world champion public speaking finalist – twice and leading a movement to be more disciplined.

After years of selling children’s books door to door, Rory co-founded Success Starts Now, a leadership and sales training institute.

Anyone who’s ever sold anything door to door can relate to Rory’s stories. I have – and I have to say that even though I dreaded knocking on doors, the lessons I learned in becoming the top-seller in high school served me well as an award-winning sales rep a few years later who revitalized two “dead” territories into the company’s hotter markets. Did I quit? Yes. Did I keep going? Yes. Did I get to the top? Yes.

Those of us who were lucky enough to hear Rory speak at the National Speakers Association Illinois Chapter’s program, experienced samples of two of Rory’s programs: “Take the Stairs” and “No Laughs to Know Laughs: How to be Funny to Make More Money,” which is also a book you can buy – and I did!

Rory graciously agreed to let me share this picture with you as well as my highlights from his talk.

Here, I’ll focus on my takeaways from “Take the Stairs.”

“Successful people aren’t born that way. They become successful by establishing the habit of doing things unsuccessful people don’t like to do. The successful people don’t always like these things themselves; they just get on and do them.”
William Makepeace Thackeray

Successful people have the discipline to do the things even when they don’t feel like doing it.

[When I walked into the meeting, one of my newsletter readers greeted me: “Hi newsletter lady! You’re so prolific!” I told her later that knowing I had to get the newsletter out every Thursday was my motivation. Do I always enjoy writing the newsletter? Not if I’m under deadline for another project. Do I feel good every time it goes out? Yes! Is there, ever, an excuse good enough to miss an issue? No.] 

3 Must-Have Habits of Successful People

1 Sacrifice: it’s easy to be disciplined when you’re pursuing something that really matters

Isn’t this so simple and so true? If you’re finding that some things you think you should do aren’t getting done, maybe it’s time to ask yourself if they really matter – to who and to why?

2 Persistence: staying with it and dealing with failure and rejection is part of life

How did you get where you are? Failing is learning is it not?

“Success is never owned, it is only rented and the rent is due every single day. Any commitment made today must be made tomorrow.”  Rory Vaden

3 Action – taking action toward getting what really matters is the difference between people who get what they want out of life and those who stay stuck

One clarifier for me, personally: take action as soon as you can. Do ever delay taking action only to either forget or find it’s too late to be meaningful?

“It doesn’t matter what you say. It matters how you act. It’s the person who makes the sacrifice that gets the gift.” Rory Vaden

The Take the Stairs World Tour

Follow Rory’s adventures to the top of the world’s highest buildings, via the stairs of course, at Rory Vaden’s Take the Stairs Blog.

1. Burj Dubai Tower –700 meters (2297 feet) in Dubai, UAE

2. Toronto CN Tower – 553 meters  (1815 feet) in Toronto, Canada

3. Taipei 101 – 508 meters (1667 feet)  in Taipei, Taiwan

4. Petronas Towers – 452 meters (1483 feet) in Kuala Lampur, Malaysia

5. Sears Towers – 442 meters (1454 feet) in Chicago, IL

6. Jin Mao Tower – 421 meters (1380 feet) in Shanghai, China

7. International Finance Centre – 414  meters (1364 feet) in Hong Kong

8. CITIC Plaza – 391 meters (1283 feet) in Taianhe District, Guangzhou, China

9. Shun Hing Square – 384 meters (1260 feet) in Shenzhen, China

10. Empire State Building – 381 meters (1250 feet) in New York City, New York

Professional Speaking in Action

At the end of his presentation, Rory showed us his 2007 national finalist speech. It was so good, I was hoping it was on YouTube. Here it is; visit Rory Vaden’s YouTube channel to watch his collection.

On Being Funny

At the college preview, we did take the elevator when we couldn’t find the stairs. When we got into the even floor elevator, I said “We’re not on the funny elevator.” [Rory says odd numbers are funny, even numbers aren’t.] As my daughter and I smiled, a very distinguished gentleman turned to me and asked, “Where are you from?” He then introduced himself as the college’s vice president. Would we have met him if I wasn’t trying to be funny? Probably not. Thanks Rory!

Your Turn

How important is discipline to what you do?

 

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