Fulcrum Blog

I’m sitting in my car, outside of the FPRA Annual Conference at the Gaylord Palms while I participate in a conference call with both a client and a vendor. The vendor is someone I’ve never worked with before, so they took some time to get familiar with my company via my Web site. Respectable and appreciated, of course. But then the guy makes a comment about how he was intrigued by a “recent” blog post, and my heart sinks. I chuckled and made some conversation about the topic, all the while feeling the sensation of heat rising from my neck to my cheeks and then my ears. In the back of my mind, I’m thinking, “oh Lord, someone is actually reading that thing? I haven’t posted in months!”

Let’s just say, girl got called OUT. Which led me to reflect on how things have changed since I last posted, some inspiration that’s been ever so gently tapping me on the shoulder, and a bittersweet feeling that I need to recommit.

Let’s start with the evolution part:

My firm is changing, I’m changing, everything around me is changing. No surprises here, as change is the way of the world. But I guess I’ve gotten a bit tangled up in it, thinking busy-ness was an excuse to ignore important things, like my blog. Here’s a snapshot…

• Fulcrum celebrated a year in business. Happy Birthday to us! In spite of the economy, this little engine keeps chugging.
• Over the last year, Fulcrum has focused on providing small businesses a cost-effective marketing communications solution through project-based services. But over time, client needs and business challenges have evolved us into a more long-term, comprehensive management solution for mid-sized organizations that aren’t large enough to have full time in-house marketing and communications staff. As such, that’s where our focus has shifted. When you hire Fulcrum, you get an outsourced marketing communications and public relations manager that considers themselves an internal resource. It’s a very personal approach and I like it.
• I’ve added APR to my name, as I talked about here and here. This has fit well with the previous bullet, but was a time commitment.
• I’ve had some personal “additions” - I rescued a chocolate lab/doberman puppy, which (not necessarily by choice) made us a home with more canines than humans; I watched my brother get married in the beautiful mountains of Big Sky, MT; and, I acquired my first niece, Madison. (Not that any of this really matters to you, but more on personal commentary in a bit.)
• After a year break from the local FPRA board of directors, I was installed today as the Accreditation Chair for ‘08-’09. I’ll be helping people through the workshops, interview and testing that I went through earlier this year.
• I took on the responsibility of chairing a new Communications Committee for a non-profit board that I serve on, and worked with my team to develop a survey and the beginnings of a marketing plan.
• I was very recently re-approached by the University of Central Florida to teach a public speaking class for undergraduates. For a moment, I thought I would be teaching in the fall semester (whoa). But it looks like it could happen in the spring instead, and I’m quite excited.

Now for what inspired me:

• The first point of inspiration is of course the story I opened with, but that was really the last. The straw that broke the camel’s back, if you will.
• A good one was the FPRA Annual Conference I mentioned earlier. I spent the better part of a week in professional development mode, listening to inspiring speakers, hearing about new research and learning some cool things. It just kind of reminded me of the importance of picking your head up from your desk and peering over the horizon every so often.
• My former esteemed employer started a blog. Encouraging the firm to blog was a focus of mine before I left. It didn’t happen while I was there, but they are rocking it now. 
• I’ve recently had a surge in Twitter and Facebook activity. And I started having some tweets pushed to my phone via text. Increased usage of both applications has revived my inner social media spirit.
• Last but not least, I consume a lot of online media and am constantly reminded of the value that blogging can have … credibility (at least one can hope), exercising my writing muscle, networking and relationship building, search engine optimization, etc.

And it all adds up to recommitment:

• It’s probably pretty apparent at this point, but I am going to re-commit myself to blogging. I can’t promise how often, or how lengthy, or how relevant, but I’m going to try much harder.
• I downloaded the newest version of Wordpress so that I have the latest gadgets.
• I updated my masthead… gave it a shiny new photo and a spiffy little tagline that will hopefully lend some context to what I’m doing. My mission is to explore all things marketing, communication, and PR to uncover and discuss more sources of leverage for my clients.
• I’m going to stop being lazy and start using some pictures to make my posts prettier.
• I won’t say I plan on it, but I’m sure it will happen – I’ll probably go off topic and I’ll probably get personal from time to time. When you own your own business, it’s pretty hard to separate your personal life from your work life, so I see that as a natural tie. There aren’t that many people reading anyway, right?

Cheers! 

I saw this great post in a blog I frequent and thought it summed up some really good points about Google’s universal search. In case you didn’t notice, last year Google started integrating the content from all of its databases (like video, stocks, images, news, etc.) into the main search results of a keyword search. What that means for us, other than more and diverse search results, is opportunity. We can and should be going “multimedia” with content to take better advantage of search engine marketing.

The post primarily speaks to creating YouTube videos to support your marketing message, with the idea that YouTube videos often show up in the top results of many keyword searches. You can also use photos, blogs and press releases to do much of the same.

I think the message here is clear - universally think Google with everything you do. Google is sort of taking over the world, so rather than using it just to search for an article about Elliot Spitzer, or for a site that sells environmentally friendly cat beds, use it to market your business in any way you can.