"El Che", taken by the author, Cienfuegos, Cuba

Like most 17 year-old middle class kids I really believed I was a Marxist. And like most deluded 17 year-old middle class kids I wore a t-shirt with one man’s iconic face staring out from my chest. Everyone knows Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara – a REAL middle class Marxist from Argentina. His face – snapped briefly at a Cuban rally in 1960 by luck more than design by Alberto Díaz “Korda” Gutiérrez – has become one of the most iconic in history. Yet the photographer never truly profited from it as it was never protected by copyright. Following Korda’s death in 2001, his daughter Diana is now taking up the mantle of pursuing those who have used that famous shot in their marketing, I learned this week.

Ironic Icon

Vodka firm Smirnoff used the Che photo – much to Korda’s displeasure – to advertise its wares in 2000. The irony was not lost on those who knew that Guevara did not actually drink, and he would surely resent the whole concept of his face being used in such a capitalist manner. The whole spin around that image represents great PR in itself. After Guevara’s death at the hands of the Bolivian military in 1967, Fidel Castro had himself what every revolution needs – a martyr. And what better image to use than Korda’s snapshot to provide the impression Castro wanted to convey of his revolution – young, bold, determined, resolute, and utterly defiant.

For all its cliché, for all the bombardment in teenage posters, t-shirts, car stickers, it’s still one of my favourite images. I would love to know how much that photo would be worth in the real world of marketing, surely more than any other – and that’s not just me being nostalgic. I guess for once we can thank its lack of copyright that we see it quite as often as we do.

“Is what they [the PR company] are pitching in line with the kind of content the blog covers anyway, is it relevant?” Sevilla asked. “What works for me is being sent a personal email, one that starts with my name.”

My initial impression was “hang on a minute…that sounds just like how one should pitch to a journalist!” until fellow pundit Lisa Jordan of Blow PR added a little context about different types of blogger.

“It’s definitely more relaxed than if you’re approaching a major publication,” Jordan said.

Sevilla argues that there are many PR companies that don’t understand how to approach bloggers, while Jordan believes that bloggers could become journalists in the future so it could be in PRs’ interest to get to know them. It was also raised that bloggers may well not have journalistic backgrounds and therefore may not respect embargoes.

Personally, I believe all key journalists and bloggers should be treated with the personal touch that Sevilla refers to, as the lines between a successful blog and an online publication are often blurred. If you look at TechCrunch, Mashable or the Huffington Post, these are “blogs” which have spiralled into extensive online publishing enterprises and whose contributors could probably be classed as journalists rather than bloggers.

I agree with Sevilla, best practice is always to know your target publication – whether it’s a blog, online publication, print or broadcast – before you contact them. You only have one chance to make that crucial first impression.

Further reading:

Read our social media guide for more on blogger relations

10 per cent of small businesses blog. Does yours? If not, listen to our blogging how-to podcast to get started

FourSquare enables users to tell others where they are by checking into the site from wherever they are via a GPS-based app on their mobile. Once users have checked in, their “friends” know where they can find them and the site also awards users “points and badges based on your adventurousness.” FourSquare even pronounces users as “Mayor” of a particular place if they’ve been there more than any other users.

FourSquare enables businesses to target users in their vicinity.

The Business Case

I logged into FourSquare as a user several months ago and, to be honest, I remain to be convinced, but 300,000+ users worldwide could prove me to be in the minority. So what does this mean for business? For an article I’m writing for New Media Knowledge I caught up with prominent online PR exponent (and my old boss), Stephen Waddington of Speed Communications, who’s very much an advocate for FourSquare. He believes that FourSquare may well have “cracked it” when it comes to location-based marketing combined with customer relationship management (CRM), and generated an income stream in the process.

Waddington believes that by overlaying a sales proposition onto a social network that FourSquare has enabled firms to target customers who are in or nearby stores and restaurants in real time. Look out for that interview in full later this week.

FourSquare’s GPS-based mobile apps cover the main handsets, so potential users are only likely to grow at this time. Businesses, such as restaurants, cafes and stores, can offer FourSquare-based offers to users to draw in the punters. It’s early days, but if your read up about FourSquare the experts are largely backing it for big things and it’s always good to at least test the water with these things. I find this with social media, if you’re in first you’ve got a better chance of building up a following. Our verdict? Give it a spin.

The speaker panel last night included venture capitalist Julie Meyer of BBC’s Online Dragons’ Den, Pimlico Plumbers’ founder Charlie Mullins and Mitesh Soma of online pharmacy, Chemist Direct.

Getting started

When starting out as an online retailer, Chemist Direct’s Soma explained to the gathered small business owners how he got started on a shoe-string budget.

“We used some pay-per-click and optimised our website as much as possible,” he told delegates. “Referrals and good write-ups were most effective at generating awareness. A lot of dotcoms that went bust spent a lot of money on advertising, but we didn’t want to do that. We used low-cost approaches, such as link building and supplier referral.”

Soma’s site is backed by Atomico Ventures, the venture capital (VC) firm established by the co-founders of Internet phone company Skype, which he believes has helped him further develop Chemist Direct.

“They could help out a lot with their expertise, but it is difficult to get funding nowadays,” he said. “To get funding you need to have a clear proposal, a good team and a good track record helps. VCs can be more selective now.”

Recipe for success

For Pimlico Plumbers’ Mullins, there is nothing better for your business than recommendation.

“We do 1,800-2,000 jobs a week, 70 per cent of which are repeat customers,” Mullins said. “We have our own marketing and PR department but you just have to do it yourself to start with. You could be the best company in the world but if no one knows about you it’s no good.”

Meyer agreed with Soma that the key ingredients to get funding and operate successfully as a small business was to have a clear proposition, a good team and, preferably, some demonstrable track record in business.

“We look at the quality of the enterprise, track record, what has the entrepreneur brought to life, have they got that spark or magic, and what’s their leadership ability?” Meyer concluded. “We separate the ‘tourists’ from those that seriously want to create companies. All throughout history capital has followed the idea. The money finds the idea; it always does and always has.”

Further listening

Listen to our interview with Alex Bellinger into how to make a good podcast.

Take a look at the Conservatives’ dismal ‘I have never voted Tory before but…” campaign from last week. It ended a Labour MP up in hot water when he played on words to make out that the Tories were ‘scum-sucking pigs’. Juvenile yes, but of course, someone had hacked into his account, yeah yeah yeah…

Then New Labour comes up with an equally ridiculous slogan – “A future fair for all” – except the middle classes, students (who received free tuition under the Tories), Corus workers, first time buyers, need I go on? See, you can ad lib all you want with a stupid slogan like that.

With slogans and ‘mission statements’ you have to be über careful. Do you even need one?

Usually I hate numbers – I don’t know how the accountants of the world do it – but when it comes to Web traffic it’s a whole different ballgame. Maybe it’s a vanity thing, but if the numbers are down I get piqued…until I heard the wonderful expression (and it escapes me who used this turn of phrase) that “hits stands for How Idiots Track Success”. Ah, the old “quality, not quantity” chestnut.

But when it comes to small business traffic analytics it goes deeper than that. Everyone knows it’s more than just numbers – bounce rate and conversion are more meaningful by a mile – but how far small businesses delve into that data could dictate your whole Internet strategy. I use Google Analytics for my sites, but I’ve heard Yahoo’s analytics tool is also pretty useful. Google Analytics tells you all you need to know to start out with, but they’re both free. Other free tools I use are Alexa and Xinureturns (to gauge your overall performance in-country and globally). Xinu will also tell you how your site’s performing across numerous search engines and also tell you your page authority.

If you’re a small business you probably just need to keep tabs on a few key areas:

• Numbers: how is your hit rate? (More is not necessarily good without the below…)
• Keywords: What keywords are people finding your site with? Are they what you want them to find you with? If not, then you need to look again at your content and keywords to make sure they’re accurately aligned with your product, service and location. Check out our simple SEO guide for more on keywords.
• Location: Where’s the traffic coming from? If you purely service the UK then five per cent of hits from Uruguay ain’t no good…
• Arrival method: How are people finding you? Search engines? Twitter? LinkedIn? Business directories? Find out what’s working and max it. Find what’s not working and max that too.
• Landing page: Every page is a landing page, remember. Which ones are doing it for you? Is your blog attracting the hits? If so then are people exploring around your site from there? If not, why not?
• Bounce rate: See ‘Landing page’. The higher this number, the worse your site is performing. The lower the number, the better you’re doing at drawing people into your site and increasing your chances of making sales.
• Conversion: See above. If you’re not converting then something’s going drastically wrong. It’s time to reassess your overall approach.

I’m busy trying to get over my complete obsession with numbers, but if you’re new to analytics and want to learn more (as well as help RunMarketing’s bounce rate…) then check out this podcast on analytics best practice and link building with Kelvin Newman of search consultants, Site Visibility.

The key thing to remember is that analytics is a never-ending practice. Even if you’re flying high in April, you could be shot down in May, so keep on it. The Japanese call it ‘kaizen’ – continual improvement.

Adam Parker, RealWire

In January this year, press distribution service RealWire generated huge debate in PR circles with its An Inconvenient PR Truth campaign, which unveiled a few uncomfortable home truths from journalists, bloggers and other industry players into the way PR professionals approach them.

To date, the site has received more than 4,000 hits from 70 countries, a similar amount viewed its accompanying video; 50 blog posts were created on the subject as well as 700 tweets and more than 100 comments.

In his first recorded interview since An Inconvenient PR Truth went live, Adam Parker talks to RunMarketing about the impact of the campaign.

For your small business marketing needs I recommend the below:

• Internet Marketing: The Site Visibility crew turn it on here with some great tips and high-level interviews on digital marketing
• SmallBizPod: Regular podcasts with some great entrepreneurs with book reviews, useful tips and upcoming events
• Internet Business Mastery: Aimed at the entrepreneur who wants to set up a Web-based business
• The Digital Marketer: Quite literally ‘quick and dirty tips’, these are great to source ideas for further exploration
• Duct Tape Marketing: This long-running marketing blog  contains some great content and interviews for SMEs. Give it a spin

If you’re thinking about running a podcast and want to hear some really well put-together productions and then have a listen to these:

• Stuff You Should Know: I’ve always advocated that two people in dialogue make the best podcasts, and Josh Clark coupled with Chuck Bryant make the perfect pair here. Entertaining, witty, informative while sticking to a tight schedule so you don’t drift off
• Radio Lingua: Former teacher-turned-podcaster Mark Pentleton has built a successful business with his simple language learning techniques. I’m working my way through Coffee Break French right now…
• Guardian Bike Podcast: I expect great podcasts from the BBC and others with broadcasting traditions, but the Guardian has been – for me – the best of the broadsheets to expand into digital. This special interest podcast tops the lot for me

Listen to our podcast with SmallBizPod’s Alex Bellinger on how to create a podcast for your small business. You can subscribe to RunMarketing’s regular podcasts with some great industry names here.

In this podcast, we talk to Claire Stokoe of digital agency Fresh Egg about how small business people can make the most of Facebook as a marketing tool.

Freelancers can bring value-for-money support to SMEs

If you’re a small-to-medium sized company looking to widen your audience you may be undecided as to whether to hire a PR agency or an experienced freelance consultant. There are pros and cons to both, but as a freelancer who has spent eight years within agencies I can tell you why I believe the PR freelancer model is probably the right one for you. This is why:

• PR agency day rates (eight hours) can cost anywhere between £800 and £1,000. Freelancers’ rates could save you 40-50 per cent on that fee, meaning you get roughly twice as much time for your money as we don’t have the overheads of offices and commutes
• If you’re a small fee payer to a PR agency you may well find yourself steamrollered when a bigger, ‘more valuable’ client has a crisis or major product launch. A freelancer stands or falls by their reputation – plus they probably have a mortage to pay or kids to feed – so every client should be highly valued and you won’t find yourself ignored
• Good PR freelancers will have years of experience and contacts in their field and will be able to prove their credentials. Many PR firms engage in a tactic called ‘pitch and switch’, where a senior team will come in to pitch their agency to you, but once you’ve signed you find they’ve palmed your account off to a newly-graduated ‘executive’. Would you trust your brand to someone with little or no business or industry experience?
• Many freelancers will have left agency life due to creative constraints – their agency or client may have wanted them to ‘play it safe’ rather than counselling what they thought would really create an impact for the client
• An agency will tell you that they’ve got more heads and therefore can do a better job than a freelancer. As Cole Porter wrote; “It ain’t necessarily so”. Make sure your PR freelancer has a mix of traditional PR and digital media experience, and that they can write good copy. Where they may have a skills gap they will more often than not know someone that can help out in that area for a similar fee, again, making sure you get the best value for money

At the end of the day, selecting a good PR, marketing or new media professional to promote your company will come down to credentials and chemistry. For more on this subject, listen to our podcast with Stu Campbell of FIRE PR on selecting a PR agency or freelancer.