One of the places all Chicagoans must visit during the holiday season is Daley Plaza, where the Chicago City Tree stands each season.  Just more than a week ago the annual tree-lighting took place, and now the entire city twinkles with holiday lights.  In conjunction with the Chicago Christmas Tree (rumored to be more than 90 feet tall), Daley Plaza is home to Christkindlmarket until Christmas day.

Christkindlmarket is one of the largest German markets in the U.S. Each year it offers visitors a festive and unique shopping experience where venders actually sell traditional German food and trinkets.  Having recently visited Germany, its holiday traditions and decorations are some of my favorite — I highly encourage anyone in the area to check the festival market out.

Gallo’s goal is not to turn people into Steve Jobs, but to teach speakers about the key attributes of really capturing an audience – something Steve Jobs had done very well.  He explains, “Someone can have the best idea in the world, but it means nothing if they cannot present it.”

The book’s webinar series is led by Gallo and helps participants explore the book principles further.  While the first webinar was today, people can still register for the next two here.  In the meantime, consider this underlying point from today’s webinar:

Great presenters do three things:
1. Inform
2. Educate
3. Entertain

Which point(s) do you overlook?
If only just for fun, visit one of the next two webinars to see if and how Gallo practices this point – even through a livestream or video presentation.

Devin Hester with his Berry Chill

Every time the Chicago Bears‘ Devin Hester scores a touchdown, Chicagoans receive a free Hester-combination Berry Chill yogurt the next day.  Despite the fact that the Bears were a bit of letdown tonight, we can still celebrate because Hester did, in fact, score a touchdown.  According to the Berry Chill blog, his favorite combination is original yogurt with mango, pineapple and gummy bears.  While I can personally do without the gummy bears, it still sounds like a pretty sweet deal.  Follow @YogiJones on Twitter to stay in the loop on other Berry Chill “Sweet Tweets.”  This kind of thing never happens in Roscoe.  I love Chicago and Berry Chill.

Also, in case you are an avid Berry Chill visitor and aren’t yet aware, Berry Chill containers are actually recyclable.  If you bring in 10 Berry Chill bowls, you receive a free medium mix for free.

At first that sounds hard to believe, but if you think about the evolution of message sending, it actually does seem logical. From horse to telegraph to post to email, we have always searched for faster ways to communicate. Social media is the natural progression from email because it is as close to “real time” as it gets. It is faster than email, often easier than email and provides access to mass amounts of searchable information.

This does not mean everyone is going to drop email though. Social media can’t do everything. There are size limits to many social media tools, like the 140 character maximum on Twitter. There is also a lot of clutter and a lot of people out there in those public social media domains. Personally, I like the space for detail and the somewhat private atmosphere that email can still provide.

…But why wait for an email reply when you can receive an answer instantly via AIM or Google Chat? So maybe Facebook is not your preferred mode of communication, and perhaps it isn’t appropriate for all types of communication, but you have to admit: Social media has its benefits too.

Before social media, company-customer communication was primarily one-way.  Sure, customers could fill out surveys or file complaints, but a dialogue did not exist. In 1995 Netscape went public, essentially giving the Internet life.  The cost of communication was virtually free in this new, infinite plane. Less than a decade later social media was born and now customers and companies can have conversations.

Listen to what customers are saying.  No matter what business your business is in, it is important to understand what the world is saying about you.  The idea of finding this information through the thousands of social media tools out there is daunting, but if you know where to look, the results are easy to find.

While there are do-it-yourself applications like Google Analytics and Yahoo Pipes, companies are actually developing software to trace social space content now.  Amber Naslund visited us at Loyola University Chicago yesterday to discuss Radian6’s social media research software.  The Chicago-based company’s software not only measures social space mentions down to the minute, but comes equipped to analyze the results as well.

Photo by Ralph Braseth

Amber was a fantastic guest with great insight.  If nothing else, she demonstrated that social media is here to stay.  While the social media tools will change, the principle of the revolution will not.  The ability to listen and connect with customers is an extraordinary advantage that allows companies to respond, build relationships and learn their people.

It is a PR professional’s job to get their client noticed, which in this case means as close to that top results spot as possible. Understanding the search process (and what makes a website more searchable) is key.

Here are a few things to consider when designing a website with optimal search-ability.

• Content: The more content on a website, the more text search engines have to draw from. The content is what users are searching for, so make sure it is high quality and worth the click-through. Once users land on your page, keep them there.
• Links: Links result in click-through and build relationships with other online destinations. Simply put, more links equals more web traffic.
• On-the-page elements: Keywords and phrases that users might search for should appear on a website as often as possible. Headings and subheadings are a good place for keywords because search engine crawlers can easily identify them.
• Off-the-page elements: Keywords can show up in the technical jargon of your website too. While users might not view the html that stitches web design together, search engines pick up the keywords hidden in the page’s coding.

All of these components arm a website with tools to catch the attention of search engines, and therefore hopefully a searcher. Initial search-ability is invaluable because search engines also take into account how often a website is visited.

High user traffic adds value and bumps sites up in search engine results. Website visits, therefore, grow exponentially, gaining momentum with each new visit. This ability, however, is a double-edged sword.

Take into account this example of both traditional and non-traditional search optimization. Keyword: “United Airlines.”

The first two search engine results link to the actual United Airlines website- exactly what that company wants. The United Airlines website has links from other locations, high keyword appearances and important content for users.

The third result, however, is a YouTube video titled, “United Breaks Guitars,” which bashes United Airlines for poor customer service. Of 20,800,000 search results, this video shows up at number three because it has a massive amount of user visits.

While this YouTube video is a PR nightmare for United Airlines, it is also a great example of how lesser-known companies can use search optimization to get their website noticed. “United Breaks Guitars” may have started small, but because it is entertaining it was no doubt shared millions of times between users.

The moral of this story is that the users themselves ultimately decide what will show up in search results. Understanding the search process allows PR professionals to harness the power of users who make websites popular. Interesting content is successful when tailored to what people search for, where they search for it.

As if vampire-based television shows don’t draw enough attention by
themselves, they are working out to be great subjects for alternative
media campaigns too.

The CW’s new teen drama The Vampire Diaries kicked off its first season with a blood drive branded “Starve a Vampire. Donate Blood.” Along with partner American Red Cross, the five week blood drive tour stops at high schools and universities this fall. This inspirational campaign is clever and actually does good too. Who wouldn’t want to support this effort and show?

HBO’s TrueBlood also got noticed for recent advertising. The hit show premiered in New Zealand over the summer and an advertising team at DRAFTFCB created a campaign that was both clever and also unique to natural surroundings. A billboard that read “On Hold. Vampire Lair Discovered.” was placed above a temporarily halted construction site. This billboard no doubt gets quite a lifted eyebrows from nearby drivers. The campaign definitely gets attention.

So what is the big deal? The vampire-backed advertisers have found a way to get the attention of an audience that has grown up less susceptible to traditional forms of media. First, they harness the power of one of the biggest fads on the market. Second, if it is interesting enough, alternative media campaigns can get people to take a break from their iPods and pay attention to an advertisement or event.

I’ll admit, if you’ve got my attention here, I’ll at least give your show a shot.

The author makes an interesting point of comparing space explorations to colonizing the New World.  Settlers left their homeland with no intention to return, but instead forge life somewhere new.  While I wouldn’t personally want to end my life here to go live on Mars, it is definitely an interesting thought.  What do you think?

It is hard to imagine that funny sounding name is now something that every computer user in the world likely knows.  Google is even a verb now.  According to  Alexa.com’s web traffic analysis, enough people “google” that Google is the number one visited website in the United States.  Of course, with expansions like Gmail, GooglEarth, Adwords, etc., it really isn’t hard to believe.

What was surprising to me is that Google is on the top 10 list in at least 25 other countries too – and generally high up on those lists too.  Google takes the number one spot in three countries (including the U.S.), the number two spot in two countries, and the number three spot in five countries.

Additionally, Google Corporation owns enough other sites that it shows up in country top ten lists more than once.  A number of top sites including YouTube.com and Blogger.com are also owned by the Google Corporation.

At about this point on Alexa.com, I started to get the feeling that that Google is probably connected to far, far more than I am aware of – and not just here, but all over the world.  While this depiction is probably not entirely up to date, the Google reach of the yellow Google bar in the center is still pretty impressive.

Hats off to founders Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page – not bad for a couple of then-students.