Online Influence

  Imagine Google as a beautiful girl. You want to win her heart, so you shower her with attention and ply her with gifts in hopes that she will ignore her other suitors and pick you. But things go wrong. You grow obsessed, appearing at her door in the middle of the night with a brain surgeon after she complained earlier of a slight headache, and she ditches you. Instead, she falls for the man who charms her grandmother and wins over her friends. That is how search engine optimization…

  Last night, CBS’s 60 Minutes did a great two-part report on the real estate industry in China and the growing sense that there is a huge bubble that is about to burst here. Part 2 is an especially good eye-opener to anyone who hasn’t heard of the “Ghost Cities” being built all around the country: (Part 1 was a fabulous profile of one of China’s most famous real estate moguls, Zhang Xin. You can see it here.) Given the time difference, the report aired at what amounts to the…

One could be forgiven for thinking the zombie apocalypse had made an early arrival in Beijing. Every morning, millions of commuters squeeze into the Chinese capital’s subways, buses and taxis. Moving as one, they shamble along, and much of the time more heads are bent over smartphones than not. If you peer over the shoulders of your fellow commuters here, it’s easy enough to see what they’re doing. Some watch movies or play games, but a surprising number of travelers are reading: novels, the morning news, and quite often, microblog…

  One thing journalists really hate is to be told by their editors that they have “buried the lead.” It means the point of the story is not obvious from the first few paragraphs, and that the “lead” or premise of the story is buried too far down in the story. As always there is a lot of news right now about China. These are all important stories. But look closely here, because none of these stories directly affects you or me: ·         A strike by journalists at a newspaper…

Engaging readers with concise, consistent, accurate copy There are two false presumptions that prevail when first learning to write press releases: that it will be really easy, or really difficult. Approaching the task with either of these extremes in mind will undermine writers from the get-go, because in fact, the truth lies somewhere in between. With a little preparation and a basic understanding of both your company’s needs and the requirements of your newswire, crafting an effective press release can be speedy and painless. On the other hand, skipping that…