plagiarism in marketing

Marketing our Clients' businesses on the Internet can include writing copy for their web sites, writing blogs, promotional material, news and articles for submission to various media sites. To ensure that our actions are effective, we monitor results and keep an eye on the industry sector.

Today, we received a google alert containing the following phrase: "Designing an open plan living space can have pitfalls - dishwasher background noise, heating a large area when you are snuggling up in a small space - how do you resolve these issues and stay true to an open plan concept without compromise? How can you prolong your enjoyment of year-round sunshine during the sunny but cold weather? Glass Curtains can be fitted internally or externally and the views are as clear whether they are open or closed but - what are Glass Curtains?"

Following the link, we arrived at the blog in search of the answer "what are Glass Curtains?" There was no answer given - the next sentence was completely irrelevant about a different topic.

The paragraph seemed familiar so we popped the whole lot into google search. Well, this was interesting ... an American interior design site showed the exact phrase as an RSS feed from an article site that, when clicked, displayed the whole article attributed to The BPc's Bee Primrose. Fair enough! That's the reason we submit such articles, as the link at the foot of the feature goes to our client's web site: SunSeeker Doors.

The first blog, however, had copied the text word for word, without links or acknowledgement, which is plagiarism and possibly illegal. For this reason, we are not going to reveal the blog's url as we don't want to increase the traffic to their site.

We've noticed that our articles are often found on other sites but usually this has been wholly copied with the web site links, which is great for our clients. This particular article has, so far, received 18 views resulting in 4 clicks through to SunSeeker Doors' web site in the 3 days it has been 'live'.

The answer? Read the full article "What are Glass Curtains?"

The Welwyn Festival, annually in June

Whew!

Each year The BPc sponsors the production of the Welwyn Festival's 36-page programme. This takes up to a week of one person's time to complete over a three week period from mid-April to mid-May, from receiving information to sending final proofed artwork to the printers. This has just been finished.

Following programme production, we update the web site with the current year's events towards the end of May and help to publicise the event via local media: Hertbeat FM, Welwyn-Hatfield Times, online event listings, etc.

This year, the web site is going to be revamped to accommodate RSS feeds from the new blog that we've set up for the Festival group so that news can be updated more easily by any committee member, rather than them having to ask The BPc to keep making web updates.

We've also set up a Twitter account for committee members to comment on events throughout the Festival. If you are a Twitter user, please feel free to 'follow' welfest.

Programmes are distributed free to around 5,000 homes throughout Welwyn and surrounding areas, the cost being covered by advertising in the programme (if you want to advertise in next year's programme, contact The BPc or the Welwyn Festival Group); there will be a few additional copies for sale in some of Welwyn's High Street shops.

:o) www.welwynfestival.org.uk