Earlier this week, one of our account teams did a webconference with a client sales organization, and this reminded me how important it is that a PR agency remain focused on the business development priorities of the companies it supports. When we created Topaz, one of our core principles was “PR with a business development mindset,” and this is a focus we maintain to this day (although now I’d describe it as “PR and social media relations with a business development mindset”). We’re not just working to arrange briefings, place articles and generate other types of coverage and visibility — but rather we’re focused on helping our clients with business objectives like generating leads, attracting investors and retaining customers. It’s essential that we understand what is important to our clients’ success and align our work with those priorities. That was the impetus for this week’s webconference — we wanted to understand their business goals and challenges and discuss ways we could better support them. In this case, the sales team also provided valuable insights into topics that are top-of-mind with customers and prospects — which in turn helps us develop more relevant, compelling content (fortunately for us, this client, Brazil-based outsourcer Stefanini IT Solutions, is in a market rich with topical issues…and their IT services story matches up nicely with these trends). We intend to build on this and participate on regular sales teleconferences — with this client and others. And I’m confident we’ll soon be able to point to more PR results that go beyond clips and impressions and speak to real business impact.

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This week’s PRobecast, Alison Raymond, Tony Sapienza, Amy Krigman and Renatta Siewart talk California’s bill that makes it illegal to impersonate someone on the Web, cardless check-ins at the gym, business logos and more. Here are the issues we covered:

CA Bill says it’s illegal to impersonate – California recently passed a bill that makes it illegal to impersonate someone else on the web – and this means person or corporation. While instances like the whole Phoebe Price bullying case, would make me want to agree with this bill. What happened to freedom of speech?

Fingerprints at the Gym – An article in DailyFinance talked about a gym in the Silicon Valley installing fingerprint scanners at their front desk – as part of their national cardless check-in program. So gym-goers will scan their right and left index finders and the machine would keep in on file. The article brings up a good point, identity theft is already a problem but at least you can get a new account number. You can’t get a new fingerprint. Would you scan your print so you didn’t have to remember your card?

What to Consider when Creating a Business Logo – A mashable article talked about the 4 key things to consider when creating a logo and these included: Make sure your logo gives a good impression, Make your logo “sticky” – meaning non-changing, Find a great designer and introduce yourself into the social marketplace. I think this article brought up a good point – logos really need a good first impression. If it doesn’t look good, your audience will likely look elsewhere. And, secondly – introduce yourself to the social sphere, but think about where you want to go. Don’t spread yourself too thin. You want to make sure you have a plan as to what you want to accomplish and then proceed to do so.

Firefox 4’s Beta 4: Hello, Sync and Panorama – Mozilla just released its beta version of Firefox 4 which includes 2 features: Panorama and Sync. Panorama is a visual tool that allows you to see all of your open tabs in a group. It has a drag and drop interface so you can more easily manage them. Which is helpful for the tab-fiends. The Sync allows users to synchronize all their bookmarks, history, passwords, etc. across multiple computers. What are your thoughts on these new features

Could ‘Social Network’ hurt Facebook? – There’s a film coming out in October called “The Social Network” that is supposed to be about Mark Zuckerberg and how facebook was created. Apparently Zuckerberg didn’t have anything to do with the film and the film casts him in some bad light. If true, do you think this is going to effect how people will think of facebook?

Lindsay Lohan’s Potential New Radio Gig – Lindsay Lohan just got out of rehab and there is talk of her calling the East Coast home again. A radio show in Long Island is now offering her and her mother Dina $1M to host the morning radio show and talk fashion, tips, etc. Do you want tips from Lindsay

The Most Dangerous Celebrities to Google – McAfee recently put out a top 10 list of the most dangerous celebrities to Google. The Top 3 being Jessica Biel at 3, Julia Roberts at #2 and Cameron Diaz being the top dangerous celebrity. According to McAfee, the risk is greater when you include “nake” or “nude,” which isn’t really surprising. This really just goes back to the fact that you have to be careful what you click on, whether it’s a link that was sent to you or on Google.

The 15 Most Bedbug-Infested Cities in the US- There was a recent study of the top 15 bedbug-infested cities in the US and Boston came out as number 11. Gross! What are your thoughts on this epidemic?

Lastly, this week we are starting a PRobecast PR Power Ranking – which we go around the room and everyone votes on what story did the best job PR-wise. This week’s winner is Terminix who released the study on the top bedbug-infested cities. Not only does this story have the “yuck” – it also grabbed a lot of attention.

So, Congratulations, Terminix!

Hope you enjoyed PRobecast, Topaz Partners’ loosely edited weekly podcast!

Let us know what your thoughts are on these matters!

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Technorati Tags: bedbugs, Facebook, free speech, Lindsay Lohan, Terminix

While down the Cape this weekend with a bunch of friends, we frequented this bar Harry’s on Main Street in Hyannis. (Fun place BTW.)

On one of our trips there, the bartender, Rick, was talking about Pandora. Hearing half of the conversation, my friend raised her wrist saying, “I have a Pandora.” Well, Rick wasn’t talking about the bracelet, he was talking about Pandora Radio. (On a side note, four of us at the bar had Motorola DROIDs, which is where the conversation spawned from.)

This got me thinking…

It’s essential to market your brand very carefully when a company has the same – or a similar name – as another brand, or you could cause a brand identity crisis.

While this was just the case of not hearing the brand Pandora in the right context, if not branded correctly, you could be sending your customers on a wild goose chase – causing them a lot of aggravation on the way.

Creating your company’s URL with the exact company could divert some of the confusion. Let’s take the above situation as an example: if you type in Pandora.com and you are looking for Pandora jewelry, you will be directed to Pandora Radio. Which would be a problem, if I was looking for Pandora Jewelry.

So what if you can’t brand a company’s URL to the exact name? Make sure your customers – or future customers – are aware of your actual homepage link when you market yourself. Try and get your link as similar as possible to your company name. Or, in the very least make sure your URL is easy to remember!

For example, I heard a radio ad for Volvo on the way to work today. They were advertising New England Volvo retailers and made sure to let listeners know that their website was http://www.nevolvo.com. Note the N-E to make sure listeners didn’t just visit the general Volvo site.

How’s your URL branded? Is it your company name? Something similar?

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Technorati Tags: Branding, Pandora, URLs, Volvo