Julie Silver Talenfeld

Boardroom Communication Inc., founder and CEO, Julie Talenfeld, was profiled in a recent issue of Plantation Forum, part of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel family of newspapers. Read the On The Spot article here.

Known locally as a marketing communications professional who’s also a strong proponent of work-life balance — including in her company’s Plantation, Florida, offices, Talenfeld discusses her family, her summer, and her work in and for the community.

So you have a good Website. You use social media. You network offline, and tap Outlook to stay in touch with peers and referral sources. But could you be doing more to drive traffic to your site and generate even more leads?

Some think “eCommerce” is for eBay sellers, Amazon and other online merchants. The truth is: Any service provider, attorney, accountant or real estate professionals who uses the Web to generate leads, awareness, traffic – and sales, can maximize his or her Web presence to drive commerce.

Some law or accounting firms are consumer focused. Some real estate brokers seek only commercial transactions. Web site and search engine optimization (SEO), search marketing and social networking all play a role in successful online practices, regardless of whether the professional is B2C or B2B.

Success stems from maintaining your online presence, establishing your credibility, getting involved in online conversations, and tracking where all that is taking you. The reality is that few law firms seriously consider the Web as a business and practice development tool. This much change. These 13 tips can help bolster your online presence and results…

1.    You are a merchant. Think of yourself that way. e-Commerce might seem contrary to how a professional like an attorney or accountant “sells” his or her services. But the basics remain the same: You must market yourself and your skills, generate exposure, awareness and traffic, and then close the deal. (more…)

In that place where public relations and search engine marketing converge, practitioners have a long-standing understanding of the process: Infuse every press release, opinion and op-ed, advertisement, passage on the website, and other written text with keywords.

Keywords are the words and short phrases that not only define what your firm or client does, but what prospective clients or customers likely will be using in their searches.

For marketing communications pros from South Florida to New York City, the process is the same. Every document we write or Website we create for our clients is stacked with keywords, including those seen on the screen – and unseen in the back-end where only programmers go.

But has the process changed? A provocative new perspective has emerged from none other than the SEO Team at Google.

Metatags are a waste of time.

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Kanye West, Joe Wilson and Serena Williams Provide Lessons in Bad P.R. and Crisis Management

Kanye West grabs the microphone from Taylor Swift on the MTV Music Video Awards – and proceeds to ruin her night, and tarnish his own reputation.

Representative Joe Wilson of South Carolina shouts “You Lie” during a speech by President Barack Obama on the floor of the U.S. Capitol – and is chided by fellow Congressmen and admonished by his constituents.

Serena Williams threatens to shove a tennis ball down the throat of a linesman at the U.S. Open – and is left to answer for her actions and try to salvage a blemished reputation.

These represent only the latest public instances of potentially reputation-harming activities on arguably the largest stages of their respective arenas.

Setting aside what got society to the point that such boorish, disrespectful or threatening behavior seemingly is commonplace, what should people do when they’ve erred publicly? (more…)