Upcoming Business Wire Events – Aug. 2 Edition

Join Business Wire experts in your area for media breakfasts, panel discussions and other insightful events. We bring local media members and industry thought leaders to your market to discuss today’s most relevant topics, from writing for SEO to marketing with social media. Best of all, Business Wire events are usually free of charge. Check out some of our upcoming events in your area:

Business Wire Networking & Happy Hour

Hosted by Business Wire Seattle

Join your friends at Business Wire for a complimentary Happy Hour to thank you for your membership. Network with other BW members, meet local account executives and editors, and enjoy a drink and light appetizers at the Tap House Grill in Downtown Seattle. This event is free and open to Business Wire members only.

Tuesday, August 10 from 4:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. PT
Tap House Grill
1506 6th Ave., Seattle, WA 98101
To register: Please RSVP here. For questions, please contact Lauren Linscheid at 206-405-4000 or email lauren.linscheid@businesswire.com

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Adding Video to Maximize Your Reach, Exposure & Pick-Up

Hosted by Business Wire Atlanta

Join Business Wire in Atlanta for lunch and a panel discussion on using video to maximize your marketing communication efforts. Learn how integrating video into your marketing and public relations plans can add value to your news and generate interest in your PR campaigns. Panelists include: Jay Durgan, MEDIAMobz; Cliff Pollen, VisibleGains; Kate Keib, WXIA-TV; and Leigh Jones, The Daily Report Online. This event is free for Business Wire members, and $20 for nonmembers.

Wednesday, August 11 at 11:30 a.m. ET
AMC Fork & Screen Buckhead
3340 Peachtree Rd. NE, Atlanta, GA 30326
To register: Please RSVP to Yasmine Santos at 770-667-7500 or email yasmine.santos@businesswire.com

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Video & SEO: Best Practices for Effective Marketing and PR

Hosted by Business Wire Los Angeles

Business Wire Los Angeles hosts this breakfast event where our panel will discuss how to use video in your press releases to drive web traffic, generate leads and help your search engine optimization. Tips will be offered on creating simple but engaging videos, and optimizing your video and press releaes for search. Hanna Pantle, AVP, Corporate Communications & Media Relations at BMI will moderate the panel, which also includes: Dave Toole, MediaMobz; Meredith Kendall, Break Media; Matt Meeks, Bender Helper; and Joel Russell, the Los Angeles Business Journal. This event is free for all attendees

Thursday, August 19 at 8:00 a.m. PT
The Olympic Collection
11301 West Olympic Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90064
To register: Please RSVP to Garrett Henricksen at 310-820-9473 or email garrett.henricksen@businesswire.com

For more upcoming local Business Wire events or to see what’s coming up in our award-winning webinar series, visit http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/business-wire-events.

Follow Business Wire events on Twitter! Hash tag #bwevents

Social and Mainstream Media Must Learn to Live Together

Business Wire/Phoenix account executive Malcolm Atherton recently attended Blog World, and had some observations about the interaction between mainstream and social media:

After spending three days at the 2009 Blog World & New Media Expo, I got the feeling that social media and mainstream media have some issues to work out.

 This was clearly illustrated when Don Lemon of CNN took part in a keynote panel titled “The Death & Rebirth of Social Media”.

 Don noted his positive and negative social media experiences, how he thinks social media and mainstream media can help one another and how social media “made me up my game [at CNN] – I have to be more accurate.” However, as JD Lasica wrote on SocialMedia.biz, when Don was asked “’Why should bloggers want to work with CNN?’ Lemon should have more artfully worded his reply — ‘The plain truth is that my platform is bigger than your platform.’”

 Perhaps that statement is part of the problem – mainstream media likes social media but doesn’t give it equal billing.

 On the flip side, during the same Q&A, one feisty blogger angrily stated that he would never share an information source with CNN or any other mainstream media outlet because “mainstream media is not interesting to me anymore.”

 Sigh.

Later that day, during a panel titled “How Social Media is Changing the Definition of News,” social media maven, journalism degree-holder, and panelist Robert Scoble stated that old school journalism doesn’t like that they have to publish in real time and do all fact checking later to stay competitive. Animated discussion ensued between panelists and the audience.  (And with good reason – mainstream media were slow to break the news earlier this year of Michael Jackson’s death, which had already broken on Twitter and various entertainment blogs; while other recent events have shown that with running with a story before fact checking comes the possibility of getting your fingers burned.)

As legacy media find themselves increasingly dependent on and successful with blogs, Twitter and other real-time publishing outlets, they’re going to have to learn to live with some different standards and protocols; social media, on the other hand, needs to account for the reputation, reach and impact of large corporate media outlets.  Bulldog Reporter shows how more journalists are dipping into the social media pool; while Search Engine Watch discusses how big players can earn respect in social media.

Follow Malcolm on Twitter at @MalcolmAtherton.