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products with answers from official brand reps get 100% more questions than others – suggesting that, upon seeing that the brand is engaged, shoppers are more likely to ask questions (when they may’ve otherwise left the site to look elsewhere).

After a consumer answers a question or submits a review, never leave them at a dead end; once someone contributes, they’re more likely to contribute again. Take them to a thank you page that includes a few more related, unanswered questions.

I think that it’s human, it’s personal, it’s relevant, it isn’t greedy, and it doesn’t trick people. If the recipient knew what the sender knows, would she still be happy? If the answer to that question is yes, then it’s likely it’s going to build trust.

See, you are absolutely right here. When I think about how much money someone like Gillette spends, the question is: Why doesn’t Gillette just build the most important online magazine for men, one that’s more important and more read than GQ or Esquire? Because in a zero-marginal-cost world, it’s cheaper than ever for them to do that.

I think part of the challenge is that we have to redefine what business we’re in. I think that most big companies come from the business of either knowing how to use TV advertising to build a mass-market product, or knowing how to build factories to build average stuff for average people. I think we have to shift to a different way of thinking.

My new book, What to Do When It’s Your Turn, is all about the fact that what we get paid to do for a living is to expose ourselves to fear. That’s our job. If the people we work for aren’t up to that, then maybe we should go work somewhere else.

There’s sort of a parallel there with the debate over the ethics and merits of native advertising. How do you feel about sponsored content? There are two kinds of native content: There’s content I want to read and content I don’t. If you’re putting content I don’t [want to read] in front of me, it doesn’t really matter how much you got paid for it—I’m probably not happy.

If you only reach out to people when you need them, what’s the benefit for them? I’ve long believed that the journalist/PR relationship needs to be a two-way street.

I’ve often been in situations where a journalist needs something that I either don’t have or can’t provide. For the sake of the relationship, when that happens, I will go out of my way to help them out, even if it means me pointing them in the direction of the competition.

#8 – Your own news isn’t what always gets results

Finding and creating opportunities between the launches and the announcements. If you succeed there, you’re doing something right. A good example of this is when you’re able to interject your story into the current news cycle. This works particularly well when you’re positioned as an expert.

Let’s be honest – a lot of media coverage is ego-driven. There’s no shame in wanting exposure for reasons beyond brand awareness and the bottom line, just make sure you balance it with messaging that transcends ego.

Behind every effective PR strategy there are many, many questions, but the most important question asked is “Why are we doing this?”. If the answer doesn’t address a specific business need, then it is worth reconsiderin

18% consider writing skills foremost.

Can you front-load engagement to convince the news feed algorithm to show the post to a larger audience? It’s hard to say how much impact doing this would have, but here’s how you do it:

The new post-targeting feature, still being rolled out to all Facebook pages, allows you to segment your fans by criteria previously only available to advertisers. This includes age, gender, interested in (likes), relationship status, all education information, workplace, plus the old options like language, country, state, and city.

on the TV front – we work with connected TV ecosystem companies like Shazam, Cisco, and others that are building Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) into HD and 4K displays. In the increasing model of TV/mobile co-viewing/browsing, a sponsor could deliver a message that is first seen on the TV but is also sync’d to become a Call-To-Action (CTA) on the mobile device of the viewer.  And as the ad will know the location of the user, they could tailor the message to direct the customer to the nearest retail location of the brand advertiser.”

In 2011 we worked with Fox TV and our member company Loopt on the show 'Bob’s Burgers.' They approached us with an LBM idea –they wanted to build a fanbase as the show was just starting.  So, we partnered with the California-based chain Fatburger in 64 locations to rebrand them as Bob’s Burgers.  On one of the episodes, one of the animated characters checked-in on their mobile device.  We’re also worked with Bravo on shows like Real Housewives and Top Chef – to drive viewers to real-world retail locations that the characters on the show frequent.”

Let’s take a big retailer like The GAP – they spend $$$ on great TV ads with great music.   Instead of The GAP saying 'Check in on Foursquare today at the GAP and save 20% on a pair of jeans'  – essentially giving their margin away, wouldn’t it be better if I could say 'Hey, you know that great commercial you saw that got you into the store? Let me give you a free copy of that song as a download right now.'  So we’re seeing a shift from just discounts and coupons and moving toward an exchange of valuable content.  The producers and broadcasters of that content have a huge opportunity to participate in that.”

Regarding the potential for backlash against location-based marketing, Khan is optimistic:  “The way we look at it is, if you can demonstrate real value and relevance to an individual user, they will be willing to share their location data. It’s almost a mathematical equation.  You have to articulate opportunities around the value exchange.   Four years ago, the stats for Foursquare showed that more than 82% of the location data (check-ins) were driven by men.