Patrick Beeson

Latest blog entries

• Class blogs can mar students' Web history

  Search engine optimization (SEO) is a useful technique for any journalist to learn. It helps users find your content through search engines such as Google or Bing, and visually with keywords they recognize when scanning a list of headlines.

  But there are situations where SEO can work against you as one student pointed out during my presentation on social media at the recent ICONN conference at the University of Tennessee.

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  • Patrick Beeson
  • Jan. 17, 2010
  • 9:18 a.m.
  • Comments are closed for this entry

• Top content for this site in 2009

  The end of 2009 is upon us (thank God).

  Unfortunately for the readers of this blog, I've done a pretty miserable job publishing new entries this year. But at least the entries that did make it live are substantial (I think).

  Here's a look back at some of the stats for this site in 2009 (as of December 22).

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  • Patrick Beeson
  • Dec. 22, 2009
  • 7:11 p.m.
  • One comment

• SMC Winter Panel Recap

  "Be smart." That was the central nugget of the Social Media Club of Knoxville's panel last night on Social Media Liability, Ethics and Policy.

  The event, held at the Square Room on Market Square, was well-attended by folks from Knoxville's marketing, public relations and media organizations. You can read the Twitter stream from the event using the #smcknox hashtag.

  Panel participants Jeremy Floyd, Erin Donovan and Chad Parizman all provided great input on the topic, though Floyd's legal background clearly held more weight. I appreciated hearing anecdotes from both WBIR and Scripps Networks however.

  But I felt the panel barely touched on the topic I tried to introduce in a question: How the news media should balance the social media contributions from its employees.

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  • Patrick Beeson
  • Dec. 2, 2009
  • 8:05 a.m.
  • One comment

• Reporters: How to respond to comments

  Reporters getting involved in story comments has long been taboo in most newsrooms. And I don't blame them: Most comments are often the darkest thoughts of otherwise normal individuals.

  Mixing it up with a surly gang of commenters requires tact and guts. Fortunately, reporters have both.

  By responding to comments, reporters can go a long way to improve the level of interaction on their news site as well as better their journalism.

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  • Patrick Beeson
  • Oct. 2, 2009
  • 9:51 a.m.
  • Six comments

• SEO work for John Bailey Company

  Note: This entry is much delayed and now dated from sitting in my cue for two months. But I wanted to publish it anyway. Enjoy!

  Finding a good insurance company can be difficult, especially if you need special coverage for things like a rafting business, ATV rental, or shooting range. That's where Google usually helps out.

  John Bailey Company insurance agency in Knoxville offers insurance products for specialized outdoor businesses. But so do many other agencies nationally.

  By using search engine optimization techniques rooted in providing both a good user experience and content, I was able to boost their site ranking dramatically.

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  • Patrick Beeson
  • July 16, 2009
  • 9:23 p.m.
  • One comment

• Google makes local data, context vital

  Google's announcement that they would now be entering the data visualization game is a good thing for local news sites though it might not seem like it.

  This move has effectively brought the price of technology to the floor, and put the real value on the data, and stories that put that data in context. Especially important is local data; the kind of data that's often hard to get at unless you happen to have relationships with the local entities. And most local news sites have this in spades.

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  • Patrick Beeson
  • April 29, 2009
  • 7:21 a.m.
  • No comments

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