As we head into the holiday season many of us will be gathering together with friends, family and colleagues. So, I thought that I would share just a few of my favorite resources:

Serious Eats

FoodGawker

Food Network

AllRecipes.com

Epicurious

FoodBuzz

Besides these resources, there are thousands of food blogs out there, many of which you can find through FoodGawker and FoodBuzz. Also, several of these resources also have iPhone and iPad apps available.

Additionally, I’ve spent the past year or so gathering a list of 275+ recipes over on Delicious that you can also search through and also have a food blog (which has been woefully neglected lately), Prime Cuts.

Do you have a favorite food blog that you find as a great resource? Add them below in the comments so the rest of us can go check it out.

Oh, and these resources are great for any other time of the year too.

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Photo Credit: TNEmily

The old way of marketing – Traditionally marketing teams would put together a press release and send it to a handful of newspapers, magazines and radio stations.  The press release might be mentioned/written about and those audiences who subscribe to the newspaper/magazine or who listen to that radio station would be exposed to the content of the PR.  If the company hires a reputable marketing firm, they may guarantee that their PR will receive more exposure due to the reputation and network of that firm.  But, how would they reach all of the other possible interested folks who weren’t part of one of those groups mentioned above? Simply put: they wouldn’t.  This translates to lost opportunities for the company in developing prospective customers and helping the company to push their brand to a mass-audience.

The new way of marketing – Nowadays companies who embrace Web 2.0 have so many other available tools besides the traditional vehicles for reaching prospective customers.  Now companies can have a website, blog, social networking pages such as MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, and also reach audiences into the millions with their PR campaign – if they know how to properly target that PR for the internet.

Besides becoming diversified on the World Wide Web, companies have to debunk the old myth that you only publish press releases when you have BIG news such as a new product release, corporate merger or acquisition, etc.  Companies should publish press releases about anything that they have going on.  The more press releases you get distributed, the more your company (and brand) will stay at the tops of the major search engines when prospective customers search for your company and/or products.

David Meerman Scott, in his book The New Rules of Marketing & PR suggests writing a PR about anything from your CEO speaking at a conference to winning an award or publishing a white paper.  Whatever the subject, the goal is to keep your company in front of prospective and current customers.

Resources on becoming a new school PR expert:

• I highly recommend purchasing The New Rules of Marketing & PR.
• While waiting for the book to arrive, download and read the condensed ebook which focuses on web-based press releases with suggestions on how to properly optimize your PRs for the web.
• Brian Solis’ PR Tips for Startups is an excellent resource for an overview on the history of PR and where we are today in the Web (PR) 2.0 world.  Solis provides thought-provoking and actionable tips for the reader to implement.

• Another resource from David Meerman Scott is his Gobbledygook Manifesto which will help you to analyze your corporate marketing and PR materials, remove meaningless catch-phrases, and communicate with your prospective and current customers in way which they will understand.

Becoming proficient at maximizing social media, web-based PR and marketing, and understanding all of the available tools to you will not happen overnight.  It will take time to build these networks and is a space that is ever-changing to meet the speed of technology.  But, don’t be afraid of it, embrace it and utilize these resources to help you start understanding the Web (PR) 2.0 world.