Is Your Blogger Relations Using Push & Pull PR Tactics?

Yesterday digital PR maven Adam Vincenzini pinged me about a post he was researching on how brands could make it easier for bloggers to talk about them. It’s a great question because mentions and links from influential content sources are priceless for credibility, awareness and in particular, social SEO.

This is a topic close to home because after 8 years of blogging here at Online Marketing Blog attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors, nearly 50k RSS subscribers, 13k blog Facebook Fans and 16k blog Twitter followers, I’ve had the opportunity to be pitched, schmoozed and numerous other tactics to get me to talk about companies that want exposure. After all that, I can say I think I’ve found the magic formula that will almost guarantee bloggers will talk about a particular brand.

Are you ready?

I know, the suspense is killing me too.

OK, here it is.

It’s not about you. It’s about them.

Yeah, that’s it.

Bloggers don’t really care about your brand’s agenda.

What DO bloggers care about? That’s exactly the question PR and Media Relations professionals should be asking themselves. The problem is, most media relations people still think of bloggers as if they operate like journalists.

A great example is sending an email pitch (with no previous correspondence or social web interaction) with a press release attached as a MS Word document offering a chance to set up a meeting with some corporate executive to talk about the thing being pitched.

Really?

For comparison, imagine someone coming up to you at a party and introducing themselves, suggesting a great new drink and that you’ll need to arrange a time to talk to the bartender for more information about the drink and maybe you’ll like it and maybe you’ll talk about it to others.  I don’t think so.

What about introducing yourself, asking about favorite drinks and then getting one of those favorite drinks to try – right then and there?  If it’s great, that drink will get talked about, right then and there.

The problem with many blogger relations efforts is that PR pros tend to pitch based purely on serving the brand’s need for exposure instead of thinking about what would make the blogger interested and even excited to use a brand’s information in a blog post. That’s the challenge for PR professionals – reconcile brand needs with those of the media or bloggers.

How to be useful to bloggers as an information source is the key to getting more brand mentions. Dig into what hooks or triggers motivate a particular group or segment of bloggers and then package useful content in compelling and interesting ways that PR can use to engage them. Think about how those bloggers discover new content. Do they search? What do they search for? Where do they search? Do they ping their social networks for sources and information? Which social networks?

Besides optimizing brand stories for easy discovery on search engines and social networks, think about how to get on the blogger’s radar by appealing to their ego – in a relevant way.  Create content that is special, that is unique, relevant and timely. Bloggers love to be first. They love to share.

Once you’ve created compelling and useful content, make it easy for bloggers to share on the social networks where they spend their time. Beyond generic social sharing widgets, it might mean the ability to Tweet an individual data point, image or video. easy + useful + relevant = win.

Don’t stop with an infographic, monster list of industry statistics or entertaining video – keep producing interesting content and you’ll not only get on the radar of influential bloggers, you’ll stay there.

Push tactics like media relations pitches to bloggers need to empathize with bloggers’ needs and then package brand content in an interesting and useful way. Pull PR tactics to get on bloggers’ radar means optimizing content for search and social media discovery as well as making it easy to share the the content that has been found.

That’s how you make it compelling for bloggers to talk about brands online.

If you’re a media relations and PR pro, what have you done to become more successful at increasing blogger mentions of your company or your brand clients?

For even more great insights, check out Adam’s article on Ragan. You can also get Blogger Relations 101 here and some useful SEO tips for PR in Optimize.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. | Blogger Relations: Push or Pull? How to Get Bloggers to Mention Your Brand | http://www.toprankblog.com

Photo Credit: Flickr gjkooijman

Lady Gaga is the definition of an influencer offline and online; her music, fashion sense, and passion for social causes have spread around the world in only a few short years.  Love her, like her or hate her, you know who she is and you’ve probably heard more than one of her songs.

When searching for a way to improve your online PR strategy or increase your social reach, who better to learn from than one of the most influential celebrities in the world and on the web?

Social Media is Going Gaga

• Lady Gaga Facebook Fan Page Followers – 46,608,220
• @LadyGaga Twitter Followers – 18,198,577
• Lady Gaga Google+ Followers – 20,852 (only 4 days after signing up)

#1 – “The Fame” is Only Half the Battle

Photos from @charliesheen & @ladygaga

Social influence involves much more than a popularity contest.  Actual influence is composed of the ability to influence opinions, outcomes, and actions. While other celebrities like Charlie Sheen are popular on sites such as Twitter, his social popularity didn’t help him get his job back on Two and Half Men or sell out his nationwide “comedy” tour.  You may notice in the photos above that Charlie Sheen’s profile still reads “unemployed winner”.  Looks like he could do with a little less popularity, and a lot more influence.

#2 – A “Poker Face” is Bad For Business

Photo from Lady Gaga's Facebook Fan Page

If you are responsible for online PR for your company, or are interested in promoting yourself on the web, it is essential that you are as transparent as possible.  While it may be tempting to stretch the truth in a crisis, honesty is key.  Transparency and messaging are also important to give your audience a sense of who your brand is and what you stand for in ways that will inspire your community to engage and take action.  Understanding why people buy is essential when marketing a product or individual.  People become fans and buyers when they can relate to or form a connection with the spokesperson or can apply meaning to what they stand for.

#3 – “Little Monsters” Receive Recognition

Photo from Lady Gaga's Official Google+ Profile

If there is one thing that cannot be debated about Lady Gaga it is her adoration for her fans.  Her music has influenced millions of people, but she is quick to thank her audience for influencing her life.  In fact a Tweet that I saw just the other day on her Twitter profile said:

“Can’t believe I have 18,000,000 TwitterMonsters, really rad, was just a few years ago I had barely any.”

Even a small comment like this shows her appreciation for the fans that helped her get to where she is today.  A good PR professional should always remember to give thanks where thanks is due.

#4 – Playing More Than Just A “Love Game”

Photo from www.ladygaga.com

A Press Release last year from gaming giant Zynga announced their partnership with Lady Gaga to promote her new album.  When fans visited a unique farm called GagaVille in the popular game FarmVille they were given exclusive access to new tracks and unreleased songs from her upcoming album.  This was a win win situation for both Zynga and Gaga.  The promotion increased Zynga’s gaming popularity, and sold gaming cards that included additional promotional activities such as winning a day on the set with Gaga.

What Would Gaga Do?

Let’s face it, not every client will experience the popularity and influence of Lady Gaga.  However, there are many practical applications that can be gleamed from what we’ve learned about the pop music mogul’s online and social media presence.  I urge you to take some time and ask yourself the following questions about your brand.  While we may not all be a target of the “Paparazzi”, there are steps we can take to improve our social influence and make more “Money Honey”.

Influence vs. Popularity

• Is your brand popular, influential, or both?
• Do you have a plan in place to improve influence and grow your online community?

Honesty & Transparency

• What causes do your customers care about?
• What is something personal that could be shared to further connect your online customers and those who influence them?

Showing Gratitude

• Who helped your organization get where it is today?
• Is there a public opportunity to thank them for their contribution?

Additional Opportunities

• What are some partnerships or promotions that you can form on behalf of your brand?
• How much is this type of media exposure worth to you?

If you are looking for additional tips and tactics for Public Relations or improving your social influence be sure to check out the additional posts below:

• Importance of Social Media & SEO for Public Relations
• 5 Tips on Creating Video Content for Public Relations
• Boost Your Digital PR & Marketing Skills with Social Media Optimization

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. | 4 Things Lady Gaga Can Teach Us About Social Media PR & Online Influence | http://www.toprankblog.com

Lights, Camera, Action. Video puts a new spin on traditional Public Relations.

If you are  Public Relations professional (or online marketer), the time has come to implement new tactics that will keep your audience excited, engaged, and encouraged to share.  While optimized press releases, case studies, and white papers are great forms of online content, it’s time to take advantage of one of the hottest media formats on the web.  A study done by Forbes stated that 75% of senior executives surveyed said that they watched work-related videos at least weekly, and 52% watched work related videos on YouTube at least once a week.

I will warn you that implementing a video marketing campaign is not always easy and not always successful, but there are some practical tips that can improve your chances of #winning with an online video strategy.

Tip #1: Take Storytelling to the Next Level

A press release can only say so much.  Sure you can offer statistics and anecdotes to motivate action but is it really enough?  For example, lets say that you have a non-profit client that raises money for the homeless.  How moving would it be to capture what your client is doing to help the homeless on video?  I’m not talking about a video news release of course, but a true life account of not only what they are doing on an ongoing basis to help those in need, but showing the face of the audience they are trying to help – priceless.  Consumers, businesses, and the general public can be inspired to take action based on the emotional connections that see once a story is presented visually.  I for one nearly burst into tears each time I see the ASPCA videos speaking out against animal cruelty featuring Sara Mclaughlin’s “Arms of an Angel”.

Tip #2: Short, Sweet, & To the Point

One of the reasons that many people enjoy, and interact frequently with video is because it enables them to consume more information without much effort.  The last thing you want to do is spend countless hours creating a video that will simply be skipped over.  Think in terms of sound-bytes.  Give a top level overview and stick to the topics and tactics that you believe will have the largest impact on your audience.  Also short videos have been proven to get more views according to testing done by video management service, Wistia.

Tip #3: The Power of Video Testimonials

Testimonials are critical for generating new business.  The willingness of your current and former clients to speak favorably about their experience with you is priceless.  In addition to posting and emailing testimonials in their standard format, consider adding video testimonials for increased effect.  It may take a little extra effort to coordinate the recording of testimonials, but just about any point and shoot camera offers decent video recording capabilities as do many smart phones.  An article released earlier this year by our SEO client PRWeb provides a great case study on video testimonials, as well as some tips on creating your own videos.

Tip #4: Re-purpose Content in a New Format

Perhaps you have a press release that did exceptionally well when originally released.  Why not take the opportunity to repurpose your original information as a news story using video?  You could also create a video that is a compilation of multiple stories as a news update aimed at keeping your audience informed.  For more ideas, check out this post on 5 Ways to Repurpose Content.

Tip #5: Improve Video Sharability

Video is an opportunity to promote branded content that is both entertaining and engaging.  With sharing widgets embedded, videos can be shared with multiple social networks in a few clicks.  The easier you can make it for your audience to share, the broader the reach your video will have.  Consider embedding YouTube videos on your website to improve ease of viewing and sharing for your audience.

According to YouTube’s social statistics:

• 17 million = the number of people that people have connected their YouTube account to at least 1 social service.
• 12 million = of those connected and auto-sharing with at least one network.
• 150 years = number of years of YouTube videos that are watched each day on Facebook.
• Over 50% = the number of videos that have been rated or include comments from the community.

Whether you’ve implemented a video campaign before or are simply testing the waters, video can have a large impact on engagement and separate your news from your competitors.

What are some of the video campaigns that have had a large impact on you personally?  Anything funny, controversial or compelling?  Are there video tactics that you have tried before and would recommend to our other readers?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. | 5 Tips on Creating Video Content for Public Relations | http://www.toprankblog.com

Think Outside the Marketing Search Box. Companies publish a variety of content besides products and services but usually rely only on people’s familiarity with the company website to find that information.  Customers, employees, partners, job seekers, news media, industry analysts and investors need a variety of information from those companies and with over 11 billion queries handled every month by Google, search is a prime channel for discovery. So is social. Facebook has over 800 million members, Twitter has over 200 million and LinkedIn over 100 million. If content has a purpose and an intended audience, why not optimize for findability and shareability?

Go Holistic. As companies are making plans for resource allocation in the coming year, I’d suggest consideration of how to facilitate the ease of connection and sharing between the online content published by the brand (on and off the corporate website) and the intended audiences. In particular, the holistic application of search keywords and social topics on marketing, PR, Customer Service, Talent Acquisition and HR.

ROI on Optimization Isn’t Just for Marketing. There are more departments that publish online content than those above, but it’s a good example of the opportunity that companies have to make it easier, more efficient and effective for intended audiences to discover and engage with a company’s content. If Marketing can show a return on investment based on content optimization that attracts website traffic and converts visitors into sales, then so can optimizing other types of business content with a specific purpose. For example, optimizing news content for discovery by journalists, bloggers and analysts who are doing research.

Amplify PR Investment with SEO. If a company is spending $10,000 per month on a Public Relations firm retainer and part of that budget is specifically for media relations and getting press coverage, then optimizing press releases, the newsroom, digital assets like PDFs, images, video and even social media content can help connect the brand story with journalists who are in need of sources. With effective PR content optimization, the impact of that $10k spend might be increased by 50%. We spend nothing on media relations (not that I don’t think we should) and gain about $5k in value of media coverage every month because our news content is discovered by journalists, analysts and bloggers through search and social media.

Make Connecting & Sharing Easier. So think of search and social media optimization not only as way to boost leads and sales, but as a way to amplify the effect of communications between the brand and its community of customers, media, job seekers and employees.  Whatever can be searched can be optimized. Facilitating search and social media based discovery of that content can mean attracting better employees, solving customer service problems online without phone calls and increasing credibility of the brand where key constituents are looking.

Are you optimizing for search and social media discovery outside of marketing? If you could show an impact on increased effectiveness or even a deflection of costs, where would you start?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. | Where Does SEO & Social Media Optimization Fit Within Your Company? Hint: It’s Not All About Marketing #optimize | http://www.toprankblog.com

With SES Chicago over, we’re picking up our Wednesday guest posts again. This time with my friend David Meerman Scott, best-selling author of numerous books including The New Rules of Marketing & PR, Real-Time Marketing & PR and a new book called Newsjacking (Wiley) created specifically for the Amazon Kindle. David is someone who has always been a forward thinker and a few steps ahead of most marketers. This post gives some perspective and an example of newsjacking that opportunistic marketers are increasingly tapping in to due to availability of trend, buzz and social stream monitoring tools. 

With Google now indexing new content in real-time, there is a tremendous opportunity for clever people to rank at the top of the results for emerging keywords. One great way to accomplish this is to engage in what I call newsjacking.

To some newsjacking may sound like a black hat technique but it is perfectly appropriate when done ethically. I wrote about the ideas in my brand new book Newsjacking: How to Inject your Ideas into a Breaking News Story and Generate Tons of Media Coverage.  Newsjacking is a quick read (most people tell me they finish in about an hour) and is published in electronic-only format for Kindle, Android, Nook, iPad, and the like.

The Newsjacker’s Goal: Own the Second Paragraph

As journalists scramble to cover breaking news, the basic facts—who/what/when/where—are often fairly easy to find, either on a corporate website or in competitors’ copy. That’s what goes in the first paragraph of any news story.

The challenge for reporters is to get the “why” and the implications of the event. Why is the company closing its plant? The corporate website may offer some bogus excuse like “because it wants to spend more time with its family.” Competitors may quote some expert’s speculation on the real reason, but a reporter can’t cite that without adding something self-demeaning like “according to an expert quoted in the New York Times.” Journalists need original content—and fast.

All this is what goes in the second paragraph and subsequent paragraphs. That’s why the newsjacker’s goal is to own the second paragraph.

If you are clever enough to react to breaking news very quickly, providing credible second-paragraph content in a blog post, tweet, or media alert that features the keyword of the moment, you may be rewarded with a bonanza of media attention.

If there is one organization we all count on for a quick reaction, it’s the fire department. So it is encouraging to find that the London Fire Brigade (LFB) is able to newsjack at lightning speed.

Sir Richard Branson was hosting actress Kate Winslet and 20 other guests at his private Necker Island retreat in the British Virgin Islands on August 22, 2011, when lightning struck the wooden building and set it ablaze. Winslet helped rescue Branson’s 90-year-old mother from the inferno.

News of the rescue, along with photos of the dramatic fire, quickly became the lead story in media worldwide. But the story was thin, few outlets had an original angle on it, and no one had reporters in the British Virgin Islands. For editors in the ferociously competitive UK media, situations like this are hideously stressful. So imagine their collective relief when the local fire brigade showed up to the rescue.

Within hours of the initial reports on the fire and Winslet’s role in the rescue, the LFB offered Winslet the chance to train with firefighters at its training center. The offer was made in a story written by the LFB and posted on its website: LFB

This clever newsjack got the LFB huge attention, as the offer to Winslet was featured by news outlets worldwide.

What the LFB did—quickly posting the Winslet offer on their site and alerting reporters—took no more than a few hours and probably cost nothing. But the resulting media exposure was worth millions. It was a gambit that succeeded because the timing and the message were perfect. It also got LFB ranked highly when people search on the fire.

You can newsjack, too.

Today’s tools such as blogs and YouTube videos gives us the ability to communicate instantly, yet most marketers have not developed the communication skills to address real time. Marketers have been trained with a campaign mentality, spending weeks planning, designing and executing in a sequential manner.

Social marketing is changing that and as people see the value of newsjacking, I hope we change quickly. We now have the ability to react instantly to breaking news. Marketers need a new mentality, infrastructure and workflows to meaningfully participate in real time.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. | Newsjacking – Own the Second Paragraph with David Meerman Scott | http://www.toprankblog.com

[Note from Lee: While I fervently pursue the home stretch of writing my own book "Optimize", I've asked a few friends to share their thoughts on topics such as Content Marketing, SEO and Social Media. This post comes from Rebecca Lieb, who I've known since her days at ClickZ, then Econsultancy and now she is digital advertising and media analyst at the Altimeter Group. Her new book, Content Marketing: How to Think Like a Publisher to Market Online and in Social Media comes out this week.]

Content workflow is the point at which content marketing gets tactical. It’s nuts-and-bolts process: content calendars, creation, approvals, style guides, templates, and tools.

Get this part right and you’ll be ready to run a newsroom.

At the core of a content workflow is creating an editorial calendar to establish what content will be created, when, in what format, and for which content channel. A digital editorial calendar also tracks connections for that content, including how content will be repurposed and amplified in social media channels.

The editorial calendar should list of all content approved for publication. It addresses how much content is created, how often, and when it will publish. It includes content requirements, responsibilities, and a schedule.

An editorial calendar should be governed by a master calendar that takes into account key dates and events. It not only provides an overview of what content publishes by day, week, or month, but ties that broader schedule together with specifics, like holidays, trade shows, company announcements, events, or product launches. Don’t forget to take international holidays into account if content is targeted to foreign countries. These key dates also help inform the editorial calendar with ideas for content themed for the Christmas season, perhaps, or a major industry conference at which you’re releasing a whitepaper.

The editorial calendar also serves as an invaluable map for repurposing content. Say you’re publishing a whitepaper or research report. How and when will that information be broken down and funneled into other channels, such as a blog, press release, or an update on a social network? It should also act as a reminder to collect appropriate graphic elements like photos, charts, graphs, or multimedia content to enhance the written word.

The editorial calendar funnels “real-world” content into digital channels. Perhaps an executive is speaking at a conference or has made a media appearance. Capture the presentation and share it on SlideShare or YouTube.
Holiday reminders should be taken seriously and leavened with common sense. Seasoned editors don’t publish their best material late on a summer Friday afternoon when their target audience is beach-bound, just as a financial services company shouldn’t publish on a bank holiday Monday. It’s common sense; content should have the maximum possible impact.

Editorial calendars track what kind of content is created, when, and how often. A calendar might show you post twice daily to Twitter, blog three times a week, and send newsletters twice monthly, on Wednesdays.

Editorial calendars are critical tools in tracking ideas for content. A company striving to post four times per week on its blog might shoot for one originally authored piece, one commentary on industry news, a guest post from an outside expert, and one round-up of curated links on topics related to the business. Having specific goals helps to alleviate that “blank page” syndrome when you know you have to create something, you just don’t have a clue what that something should be.

Many editorial calendars incorporate the production process into the mix to ensure content creation is on track. This can include who’s responsible for individual content elements, when a first draft is due, who conducts the copy edit, and when (often, with a specific time) the final draft will be received, proofed, entered into the CMS (or newsletter template, or blog platform), and be published.

A follow-up process can be designed to promote and disseminate content on social media: tweeting, linking to, and otherwise amplifying the content. Whose job is that, and when will they do it? The editorial calendar should address this aspect of connect-the-dots content.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. | Mastering The Content Workflow | http://www.toprankblog.com

Starting with adding SEO to our media relations services in 2001 to providing SEO consulting  to PR industry leaders like Vocus, PRWeb and The PRSA, we’ve been in the thick of SEO and PR for some time.

The demand for smart Social Media and SEO information from PR agencies and corporate communications organizations has amplified significantly this year. We’re talking with numerous companies, helping them get up to speed with strategy, road mapping and training. One of the most useful insights we can provide is guidance on what to avoid when it comes to incorporating SEO and SMO (social media optimization) into PR content strategies. No one likes to #fail, so here are several things to avoid:

Shiny Object Keyword Syndrome

SEO advice is easy to find online including suggestions of doing keyword research using tools like Google’s AdWords Keyword Tool.  There’s a temptation to focus only on the most popular words and phrases even if they aren’t 100% on target. Or worse, if the website that PR staff can contribute to and edit isn’t anywhere near deserving of being known as THE authority for a highly competitive topic.

Those high popularity count keyword phrases are like shiny objects that distract from the language that is most relevant and realistic to achieve. It’s fine to have highly popular (and competitive), relevant keyword phrases as targets, as a long term goal and contingent that there’s a commitment to creating the content and attracting the links necessary. In the meantime, go after phrases that reflect the intersection of the topic your promoting and the most relevant queries being made. In fact, extend that search keyword research to social topics for more long tail concepts to optimize for.

Many journalist inquiries are pretty niche. They’re often looking for something very specific, and if you’re chasing high popularity keywords that will take a year to achieve, you may be missing out on a lot of search visibility that could inspire media coverage in the meantime.

One-Off SEO

Another temptation is to approach SEO very tactically and try new SEO knowledge on a single web page or press release. There’s nothing wrong with experimentation, but optimizing a single or a handful of documents isn’t what drives significant search traffic.

An extension of that would be to optimize a newsroom or website  without planning to revisit keyword lists and whether refinement is necessary.  I’ve heard comments like this many times, “Oh, we optimized our site already. In 2004.” SEO, like Social Media and Content is a journey – not a destination.

Missing Links

Google PageRank introduced the online marketing world to the importance of links beyond those that simply drive direct traffic. Today, PageRank isn’t as much of a focus, but links are still very important. Especially links from social networks and media sharing sites.  Many PR professionals consider the keyword optimization of web pages, press releases and digital assets all that is necessary – discounting the need to attract links.

Links are like electricity and help search engines discover new content. They also serve as a signal for use in assigning importance for ranking. PR professionals are in a unique position to attract some of the most valuable links possible – from online media websites. Asking journalists to link back to a website takes little effort and might result in a highly valued link that can send the most significant kind of signal or link juice to what it is that you’re promoting.

Additionally, sending out press releases through a news release distribution service like our client PRWeb, that are properly optimized with links to content that is being promoted can result in link acquisition as well. Sometimes it’s 5 or 10 links and sometimes 100′s of them.  Optimization with keywords is just the start. Link building and social promotion are what create awareness to journalists and bloggers directly as well as through improved search visibility.

Falling Short on Measurement

Improved search visibility is often measured with a ranking report.  With personalization, those reports are not as useful as they once were. Web analytics tracks visitors to a website and where they came from, like from a search engine. That’s about as far as most PR and Corporate Communications pros will go when it comes to measuring the impact of their SEO efforts.

However, there’s a lot more. Especially since increased, relevant traffic to the corporate website or news content can not only reach the media but end consumers looking to buy. If the content can warrant a link to a “buy page” where a conversion or inquiry can occur, PR practitioners would do well to make sure web analytics tracking is setup so that new business inquiries can be attributed to optimized PR content when appropriate.

How powerful would it be to show not only media coverage, but improved web traffic and new business inquiries as a direct result of PR’s SEO efforts?

Waning on Training

You don’t just flip a switch and become SEO savvy, I’m sorry to say. Achieving SEO competence takes training, practice and persistence. At TopRank Marketing, we have a consulting service but we’re in the business of helping PR firms and corporate public relations staff get up to speed with SEO and Social Media SEO skills. But there are many other places to get useful knowledge ranging from the upcoming SES conference in San Francisco to the online training provided by Market Motive you see in the right side bar of this blog.

The key thing is to understand that to gain momentum, providing SEO skills training to those in your organization in a position to create content online will be especially helpful. Going it alone as the sole SEO savvy person in a  large agency is tough to scale. However you get that training is up to you, just be sure to get it for yourself and for your team.

Frugal SEO Tooling

I’ve noticed there’s a tendency with many PR agencies and departments to be a bit conservative on paying for tools. It’s true that there are many free tools out there, but over time and without a business model to fund them, they get neglected and can become irrelevant or go away altogether. Then you’re up a creek without a paddle, scrambling for some other free tool, not knowing what really works and what doesn’t.

That’s why I like to pay for tools. I know they’ll be around and will have an obligation to provide some kind of service level and support. Whether its paying for WordStream for keyword research or SEOMoz Pro or Raven Tools for a host of SEO functionality and campaign management, don’t skimp on the tools. The impact of great SEO, especially SEO and Social Media Optimization, can have a tremendous impact and maybe even a multiplier to online media relations efforts. Tools will help you do quality work and more importantly, scale!

To Be Optimized, You Must Socialize

A big part of today’s optimization for better search performance means active social media content creation, curation and engagement. Building networks that you can share links with and inspire link propagation is essential for the social link and content signals being increasingly considered by Google and to some degree, Bing. Optimizing social media content improves the search visibility of brand content on the social web. The social network participation on sites like Facebook, Twitter, Quora and Google+ that goes along with brand social media efforts also provides Google with signals that can be used for ranking content on Google.com. Optimize and Socialize!

Conclusion

There are many more ways than this to fail at SEO and SMO for Public Relations, but as a foundation, these tips can serve to help PR Agencies and Corporate Communications avoid some of the pitfalls and become more productive, more quickly with their SEO efforts. Realistically, these tips are appropriate for any industry, but the boost in inquiries we’re getting from PR firms and business Comms pros, motivated me to create this post just for you

If you work at a Public Relations firm or in Corporate PR, have you hit on any of these areas to avoid? How did you get back on track, or did you?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. | How Public Relations Can Avoid Failing at SEO | http://www.toprankblog.com

Thanks to an invite from Justin Goldsborough and Heather Whaling, I participated in a #pr20chat chat this week to talk mostly about SEO and PR with a hint of social media. For Twitter chats, I prepare by getting the questions to be asked in advance and then I answer them in a “tweet ready” format so I can be as useful as possible during the chat itself. That prep makes for a good blog post too

What are some simple, basic principles of SEO that PR ppl need to understand/implement?

• I’d like to start with: Social is hot, but Google handles 10 billion+ queries /mo, so SEO is far from “dead”
• For a good foundation, check out these 10 SEO tips for PR Pros
• SEO Basics: Search results vary for users based on location, logged in, history – ranking is an iffy metric
• SEO Basics: Research keywords & focus optimization efforts: 1-2 topics per page
• SEO Basics: Use keywords & variants in titles, headings, body copy & links to the page
• SEO Basics: Create, optimize, socialize & promote for links. Track web analytics, social monitoring
• Also, check out this SEO Guide for PR (pdf)

When it comes to PR & SEO, what do PR people do wrong? Tips for improvement?

• #fail: Focusing solely on press releases for SEO. If it’s searchable, it can be SEO’d
• #fail: Only writing press releases AP style. Also try an article format & send via @PRWeb (client)
• #fail: Overuse keywords, ignore link building, discount impact of social on SEO
• Tips: Create keyword glossary & train writers on basic SEO copywriting & linking
• Tips: Include web pages, releases, images, video, PDFs, MS Word Docs
• Tips: ID a destination page as a topic target & build content, links around it

What are some tips & tools to help PR people discover the best/most relevant keywords?

• Keywords should empathize with the intended audience: journos, bloggers, consumers
• Think about keywords for search and social topics for conversations. Sometimes they’re the same
• Keyword Tools: Google Keyword Tool (includes mobile)
• Keyword Tools: wordtracker.com wordstream.com keyworddiscovery.com & semrush.com (for competitors)
• Keyword Tools: Übersuggest (via SEJ) leverages Google Suggest
• Once you have keywords, you’ll need: Keyword Glossary & Editorial Plan

What are some SEO best practices to ensure the *right* people (not just more ppl) find your site/content? (via @kaczynski)

• Attract the “right” people via search to PR content through relevant keyword selection & optimization
• Knowing your target audience means knowing their keywords. Optimize for the “pull”
• Understand what keywords & topics reflect your target audience interest & focus on that

Google recently intro’d Google Instant Pages. What does this mean for SEO? PR?

• Google Instant Pages only speeds display of SERPs you click. Very little impact on today’s SEO

How should PR pros balance social media vs SEO? Should one “lead” and the other support/follow?

• Optimize & Socialize based on customer centric search keywords & social topics. It’s yin/yang
• Social Media & SEO work together, but the lead tactic depends on intended outcomes
• Both SEO & Social affect info discovery. Social media facilitates engagement & influences SEO
• Marketing often owns SEO, PR owns Social. Cross-training is essential

Explain the process you follow to create & promote content marketing initiatives. How does SEO fit into that?

• Content Marketing starts with my magic 8-ball. I just do what it tells me
• Oh wait, here you go: 10 Steps to Better Content Marketing & SEO
• Content plans are aided by keywords & social topics so creators can be inspired

Fill in the blank: _____ is the #1 thing all PR ppl need to start doing to improve SEO

• That kind of question is trouble. There’s no #1 thing anymore. But then again …
• If you focus on just one thing, you’ll get burned when that one thing changes
• It comes down to relevance and network. The right keyword & content mix + social network for sharing = the WIN

We have some of the smartest marketers and public relations pros on the web reading this blog. What Tweets would you post in response to these questions? What questions along the lines of PR and SEO would you like answered?

Thanks to @prtini for her roundup of the chat, which you can find here: “14 PR & SEO Tweetable Tips“.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. | 8 Social SEO Questions Public Relations Pros Need the Answers To | http://www.toprankblog.com

If you’re like a lot of people, you run to Facebook and share it with your friends, colleagues, and anyone that will listen. Is that a bad strategy? Not necessarily, as Facebook and Twitter can be great places to reach large audiences. In fact, Facebook continued to grow even stronger in its use as a sharing site in 2010.

However, you can’t safely assume that Facebook is the only or best method of content distribution. Social media is a hot market right now and use of these channels are not a bad thing. Though a strategy of a few tweets and a fan page update will not get you to your goals. Ultimately there is no singular model that is always the ideal for any company but a few points to consider include:

Audience - I lead with this one as it should always be the first step in creating any marketing or communications plan. Who are you trying to reach and where are they? If you want customers that are highly engaged on mobile devices then Facebook could be a good fit with over 200 million people accessing the social media giant via their mobiles. If you’re seeking long-term content placement that might be reviewed in-depth, consider SlideShare where the demographics indicate  81 percent medium to heavy internet users and eight minutes spent on the site looking at content.

Influencers - After establishing your target audience you should move to identifying who has the ear of the audience you want to reach.  Spend some time researching terms and keywords that connect to your topic. Take advantage of the many tools out there like Google blog search, Alltop, PostRank and see who shapes the views of your audience.

Blogs – The benefits of a blog as a central hub of content are quite well established in terms of SEO for companies. Yet another benefit of a blog for many organizations is the simplicity of updates which can be made easily. Use your blog as a point of entry for beginning a dialogue. Engage here and you’ll begin to identify the content that your audience is actually seeking. Use it as a research tool to understand your audience further: check out the sites of those that leave comments on your blog, review your analytics to identify changes in referral sources, and offer opportunities for readers to share their questions with you.

Email – Don’t forget about a core (if not as sexy) tool that works well and is still a top source of content sharing. Develop an email newsletter to communicate with prospects and others interested in your content. The content you create for your email newsletter can be a jumping off point to create interesting blog posts, which can then include surveys or interactive content to transform a single piece of content into a discussion between you and your audience. In concert with other tools, it facilitates a continual cycle of engagement with your audience.

Syndication – Services that offer the potential of extended reach and content syndication are excellent resources that are often being too easily dismissed in my opinion due to the alleged “death of the press release.” Aside from the use of services like PRWeb (a TopRank client) for trying to reach journalists, syndication will improve your reach to end-users and potentially appear in a number of locations and offers a number of share options for well written content that is relevant to your target audience. With the syndication you also have the opportunity to get your site in front of potential customers with anchor text links back to your own pages.

Consumers, across industries, expect greater personalization than ever before. Any singular content distribution channel will ultimately miss an important part of your target market. Take advantage of the communication tools available to create an experience that each user feels was made for them by taking the time to understand them and offer a variety of channels that fit their needs.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. | 5 Tips: Content Sharing Beyond Facebook | http://www.toprankblog.com

For example, events.   In the digital marketing world, the number of online and real world events has exploded. Despite many options to choose from, it can get costly to send staff to multiple events per year and even more if you sponsor or exhibit.

But this post is more about what one might do holistically to leverage multiple communication channels to promote an event and how an event can serve multiple marketing and business objectives.

For the purpose of this example, I’ll use parts of a promotional program following a standard model of:
Audience > Objectives > Tactics > Tools > Measurement

Audience:

• Influential Persona
• Media Persona
• Customer Persona 1
• Customer Persona 2

Objectives:

• Establish credibility in the industry and associated community
• Build buzz about the event & inspire viral sharing
• Leverage the event for media coverage regionally, on blogs and industry pulications
• Attract signups/attendees for the event
• Generate content at the first event to use with subsequent event marketing & PR

• Create content that will demonstrate insights (keyword specific) and promote the event on sites the company controls, contributed articles to industry web sites and pitching
• Create awareness of event through pitching other bloggers and marketing contacts to announce the event
• Build enough interest within the target audience to motivate signups by promoting the event using social media tactics

27 Online Marketing and PR Tactics:

• Create a landing page for the event on the company website or blog with embedded overview video (series of videos like 10 tips on … could work too)
• Publish a series of interviews on the company blog with key individuals that have influence on the target topic. Promote the event at the end of the interviews
• Pitch and contribute articles about key topics related to the event with important industry publications (online and offline)
• Promote the event to online event sites Zvents, Upcoming and event calendars (online, email or print)
• Write & distribute news releases (1, 2, 3) each taking a different angle
• Pitch stories to general marketing publications
• Pitch story to regional publications where the event will be held
• Publish a series of videos, 1 for each key topic or problem solved. Post to YouTube and distribute via TubeMogul to other video sharing sites. Alternate titles and tags.
• Offer guest blog post to small business bloggers, especially those in the region where the event will be held
• Populate the social media profiles that have been registered with keyword optimized content, linking to an event landing page
• Create a series of promotional emails and landing pages for the event directed towards an in-house list (like an email newsletter)
• Pre write a promo/guest post that other bloggers can easily use – customize it.
• Send follow up emails with themed creative
• Create a cool badge that other blogs can add to their site in exchange for a link from the Social Media Smarts “friends” page.
• Get testimonials for staff that will be speaking – text, audio and/or video formats
• Generate link bait ideas such as: Custom Google search engine just for target industry blogs, List of relevant tools, List of the best target industry topical resources (based on a poll of readers), Post a question on LinkedIn and publish results
• Ask friends to promote – give them a write up, image/logo and a place to point to
• Offer people options other than signing up for the event: RSS, Twitter, White paper, webinar – for those that are not yet ready to do the workshop, to keep in contact with them
• Create content that justifies the cost of the workshop – under promise and over deliver
• As a fulfillment piece, offer a white paper on social media marketing and a guide for winning budget or to justify cost for attending the seminar. Brand it, make it cool
• Create a social media smarts score for blogs. Rank blogs based on their use of social media and then score them. Give a dynamic badge they could put on their blog.
• Crowdsource from social networks content for the presentation and recognize contributors online and at the event
• Contest for marketing partners to help promote event, recognition and/or material rewards
• Promote attendance goals and show progress
• Promote limited seating/limited offer (exclusive, fear of loss) to motivate sign-ups
• Promote speaking slot via twitter and geolocation tools like FourSquare during event
• Sponsor or create a Twitter chat leading up the event to discuss topics of relevance and that address pain points of target audience. Make sure chats are archived and that promotions for the event exist on the archive.

Tools:

• Company Blog
• Column on industry site
• Column on partner blog
• Guest post on friendly industry web site
• Press releases – prweb.com (TopRank client)
• Guest blog posts:
• Contributed articles: industry publications
• Event listing sites: Upcoming, Zvents, etc
• Viral/link bait content, contests
• Video sharing sites: YouTube, Vimeo, Metacafe, Facebook and Tubemogul distribution
• Image sharing sites: Flickr, Zoomr.
• Social Networking: LinkedIn, Facebook
• Twitter accounts and network
• Social news and bookmarking sites
• Social event listing sites, plancast, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc
• Event calendars for publications and/or pitch pubs on SMS as a noteworthy event
• Geolocation sites Foursquare, Gowalla

Measurement:

• Social monitoring of keywords and topics related to company brand and event
• Traffic to landing pages
• Page views of landing pages
• Signups
• Pre-conversions: white paper, RSS, Twitter and social network connections, reports, webinars, newsletter
• Views of social media promoted off site (Tweets, Facebook likes, Comments, etc)

Content Capture and Marketing From the Event/Attendees:

• Give attendees tools to promote the event
• Recognize attendees for attending
• Offer post-event communications/networking
• Capture video interviews with satisfied attendees
• Give attendees a USB storage drive with presentation and useful tools pre-loaded.
• Give attendees an incentive to get others to sign up at subsequent events

Could I list more than this? Could you do more? Of course. Is it efficient? No. This is a list of ideas. I can’t imagine doing them all for a single or short series of events.   There’s nothing wrong with those tactics for promoting events, but the focus here is mostly on editorial or content based promotion.

What creative tactics have you used to be more efficient with event and speaking gig promotions?  Have you ever found yourself at the end of an event wishing you’d done more or done things differently to promote?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. | Tasty Ideas to Maximize Online Marketing for Events | http://www.toprankblog.com

That’s more than two times as many search results for “marketing consultant” or “pr consultant” (about 4m each). Those industries have been around a lot longer, yet the hype has attracted even more content focused on social media.

The ease of publishing online has made it correspondingly easy to lay claim to expertise that is often subject to some curious interpretation.  There are some smooth talking folks out there with great communication skills that haven’t done more than count Tweets, comments and mentions.  See the recent post, “What does social media success really look like?” for more on measuring social media success.

To me, the biggest disconnect is that being a competent user of social media sites is not really the same thing as being a competent social media marketer. Marketing implies there is an offer for a target group of customers and an intended objective. That means knowing more than how to setup a Twitter or Facebook account. It means knowing customers social behaviors and preferences, social technologies, explicit and implicit social network rules and how to measure outcomes.

There's more search and news volume for "social media" than "public relations" since 2009! How are your social media skills PR pros?

From a PR perspective, knowing how to DM a pitch to a blogger on Twitter and social bookmark a press release are very different skills than being able to monitor a targeted group of bloggers and journalists’ social activities for moments of opportunity and being useful through social communications in the right way and when it counts. That and creating signals of credibility and influence through social content and networking for the purposes of persuasion is another set of skills outside the realm of many self-professed “experts”.

My point is that it takes more than being a “user” of social tools to influence business outcomes within a company or for clients when it comes to something like the social web. Sure, there’s a need to understand the technology and of course, being a first-hand participant gives you insight that others just jumping in won’t have. But most companies can achieve that level of experience pretty quickly on their own.

It seems to me that a Social Media Marketing or PR Consultant is far more valuable as a social technology “super user” and more importantly, a sort of social media (sociologist, social psychologist, anthropologist) as well as someone with marketing or PR skills.

Picking up on social trends & technolgies, analyzing data for insights that you can act on and being able to identify opportunities within the sheer mass of noise produced by a deluge of updates, Tweets, comments, tags, blog posts, videos, images and other social content being published every second is essential.

Is there room for competent users calling themselves social media marketing consultants that focus on helping individuals and small businesses setup social profiles? Sure there is.  Will that kind of activity help those social media neophytes become successful?

Showing up doesn’t mean you’ll win the game, so I’d say in many cases, no. It takes  more. And as time goes one, it will take even more to stand out.

Maybe I’m just being grumpy or maybe this post is just a jab at a friend who bragged about ranking on Google for “social media consultant”.  That aside, I think there are some valid points regarding user vs. professionals. What do you think?

For buyers, have you hired a consultant only to find they know just a hair more than you? Have you hired a social media consultant that was able to provide insights and strategic direction that actually facilitated business goals?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. | Will the Real Social Media PR Consultant Please Stand Up? | http://www.toprankblog.com

New Zealanders aka “Kiwis” are an active bunch on the social web with more than 2 in 5 interacting with companies via social sites and 84% of mobile social networkers there having visited Facebook (Nielsen). The social media momentum is growing and companies are hungry for information and perspective.

I’ll follow up the keynote presentation with a workshop, aka Masterclass Programme, the following day focused on Social Media Content Strategy that drills down into the mechanics of social media marketing, content marketing and SEO.  Here’s a bit of a preview on what I’ll be presenting in the workshop:

Optimized Content Strategy

Photo: Stuck in Customs

If content or media can be searched on, they can be optimized. People who have heard me speak or who read Online Marketing Blog are familiar with this perspective. It’s a holistic approach to search that takes full advantage of all the digital assets and content types that search engines want to include in their search results and therefore, translates into opportunities for being where customers are looking.

An Optimized Content Strategy is thoughtful of customer information needs as well as search engines.  Great content is worthless unless someone reads it and in today’s competitive online marketing world, shares it with others.  Content optimization goes beyond keywords to making sure content distribution and promotion are as much a part of the content strategy as how relevant and useful the content is to readers for reaching business outcomes.

Social Content & Marketing Roadmap:  Laying the Foundation

Photo: vtveen

Setting up accounts on Facebook, Twitter and publishing a blog isn’t a social media strategy. Rather, understanding the who, what, when, where and why of your customers and industry influentials is essential for developing a strong social content plan that engages, persuades and converts. Social media efforts that work together are far more productive than the siloed activity so common amongst companies just starting out.

The foundation of an effective social media content effort starts with Listening via social media monitoring tools, participation and web analytics. First hand experience in combination with analytics is priceless for setting objectives and developing profiles for the audience segments you’re trying to reach.

How a company decides to reach those customers is often a mix of social content creation and engagement. Being reactive or proactive with a social content strategy is another consideration before identifying the social media channels and tools that will serve as the best connections for engaging with customers. We started with measurement through listening tools and it’s analytics that closes the loop with an approach that measures the KPIs or proxies to social media marketing success.

Cycle of Social Media Interaction

Photo: Travelling Pooh

Speaking of closing the loop, the Cycle of Social Media & SEO is what enables a social media marketing effort to stay fresh, inspired with relevant and effective content for customer engagement.

Starting with keyword optimized content that is promoted while social networking helps build channels of engagement and distribution, the likes, follows, subscribers and links that result from great content intersect with interested audiences. That interaction between sharable content and social influencers expands the reach of brand stories and messages to an even greater audience empowered to publish, share and link.

The increasing activity creates an opportunity to mine data that will effectively inform future editorial plans, making content even more productive in terms of meeting customer needs and helping reach business objectives.

Blogging to Power Up Your Social Media Engagement

Photo: Wandering the World

One of the most effective models my social media marketing pros at TopRank have implemented for clients is a hub and spoke scenario with blogging at the center connected to outposts of social content and networking.  There are myriad reasons for a blog as the center, but there’s no reason another strategy might not put Facebook or YouTube at the center.

The point is to link from outpost social activity to a conversational destination (Tweets link to the blog) vs. linking directly to corporate website pages that offer no opportunity for discussion or easy sharing.

Social Media Marketing Applications

Photo: WanderingtheWorld

The social media, networking and application websites and services used in an optimized content marketing effort depend on where end consumers spend time as well as the major influences on those target audiences.

Some of the most popular social applications are: Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, FourSquare and social mobile apps. But there are others that can provide more effective connections with people a brand is trying to engage depending on their content discovery, consumption and even sharing preferences.

For example: Flickr, SlideShare, Delicious and niche social networks powered by Ning.com have created some formidable connections with influencers leading to media coverage, new hires and new business.

Digital Asset Optimization

Photo: Jason J.

Search engines have an insatiable appetite for content and media to include in their search results. Content = inventory for search engines to run ads against and expand the search engines’ ability to be useful to people that search.

Google has made tremendous changes in the past few years including Universal search in 2007 that can potentially include different types of media besides standard web pages in the search results. Companies that expect to drive traffic through search would do well to be aware of the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) landscape, including what kind of media are appearing besides web pages.

Each document or file that has a unique URL can be a potential entry point via search and a destination for someone else to link to. Links to content are how search engines find content to include in the search results. Links are also used in ranking that content.

Digital Asset Optimization is something TopRank started promoting in 2007 that deals with taking inventory of all digital assets that a company could possibly optimize for search. That includes images, video, blogs, news, real-time content, MS Office docus, PDFs and so on. These different document and media can attract customers through search, especially as part of a long tail strategy. They also fold well into social content marketing, which is why DAO is part of the SMJ Masterclass agenda.

Essentials for Social SEO in 2011

Photo: TylerIngram

How do Social Media and Search Engine Optimization intersect? What are the opportunities for companies to make the most of these two disciplines as part of a unified social content strategy? Those are important questions and the basis for planning what key approaches companies can take in the coming year to make the most out of the optimized content created as part of social media efforts. They also answer how to best leverage SEO tactics such as link building through social channels.

There’s nothing dead about SEO, but it is definitely changing and any marketer focused solely on traditional search optimization is clearly not paying attention to shifts in search behaviors. Search within social media will continue to increase and in combination with the changing landscape of search on sites like Google, can provide a tremendous channel for discovery, customer engagement and acquisition.

Social Media Measurement & ROI

Photo: StephenChipp

It’s the most popular question companies ask: How do I measure ROI from social media?  I like to counter with, how do you measure ROI from the company telephones?  Understanding the business value of being more social as a company means better understanding the impact of creating better relationships with customers, building thought leadership and expertise and activating employees, customers and industry peers as evangelists for your brand.

Problems solved or mitigated though social media extend far beyond Marketing > Sales > Revenue.  There are situations where it’s completely fine to make direct response offers through social channels and with the right tracking, the ability to directly measure an increase in sales as a result.

What’s the value of lowered Customer Service costs, increased ability to attract top-shelf employees, a boost in industry media coverage, improved product development and review cycles? Here are 10 questions about social media measurement I’d recommend tackling to give you a better perspective.

Sound interesting? Think you could handle an entire day of me doing a brain dump on Search, Social and Content Marketing?

Nicholas O’Flaherty, Managing Director at Bullet PR and a pretty good sized group of Marketing, PR and Communications professionals gathering in Auckland, New Zealand are willing to give it a go Nov 16 & 17th. Of course, there will be a lot more knowledge dispensed than from the likes of me. Social Media Junction includes speakers from Deloitte & LinkedIn as well as representations from a variety of industries such as Banks, Government, Retailers, Telecom and a Beer company.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. | The Junction of Social Media & Content Marketing in New Zealand | http://www.toprankblog.com

• Tia Peterson for “Is SEO the Missing Link In Your PR Strategy?“
• Catherine Lockey for “PR’s Kickin’ it “New School” with Social and SEO“

Thank you to everyone that entered! You will receive a copy of our eBook “Optimize: SEO for Public Relations.

With our roots in the public relations and media relations world, TopRank Online Marketing has a deep appreciation for the strategy, storytelling and networking skills that are essential for successful PR campaigns. We’ve also talked a lot here about the intersection of both SEO for PR and Social Media with PR.  It’s an incredible combination that increases reach, engagement and delivers even more value to business than Media Relations alone.

On October 17th, I will be giving a pre-conference 1/2 day workshop on Search Engine Optimization for PR Professionals:  SEO Boot Camp for Communicators where I’ll do a deep dive into the essentials of search engine optimization and social media, real-time search, content marketing, universal search and digital asset optimization.  The workshop offers strategies, tactics, exercises and case studies that will equip you with knowledge that will bring you to the front of the pack when it comes to SEO, online reputation management and search engine dominance.

On October 18th I will be giving a 45 minute presentation on Social Media Optimization – both at the 2010 PRSA International conference in Washington D.C..

In fact, there are over 80 sessions within four tracks including keynotes by Charlene Li and Jeffrey Hayzlett (both are interview alumni of Online Marketing Blog). It’s the most significant Public Relations conference of the year.

Surely, any PR professional that can add SEO and Social Media Marketing skills to their mix is a even more valuable asset to their organization. Heck, even the PRSA uses SEO to add more value to its members by making content easier to find via search engines. Not everyone is in a situation to attend the PRSA International conference to gain these skills, but TopRank Online Marketing has a special opportunity for you:

We’re giving away two free full passes to PRSA International

That’s a $1,575 value for EACH PASS! (non-member rate)   This doesn’t include travel, accommodations or any of the additional things that PRSA charges for, but it DOES include: “General Sessions, Professional Development Workshops and Package 1 meal functions”. We’ll give one pass each to two people who win.

All you need to do for the opportunity to win a full pass to the 2010 PRSA International Conference is:

1. Write a blog post that explains why you think SEO and/or Social Media is important for Public Relations
2. Include any additional insights on why you should be one of our pass winners
3. Link to this blog post. You can use this shortened URL: http://tprk.us/prsa10me to make it easy
4. After you publish your blog post, email us at: prsa10me@toprank.org with your name and a link to your post.

Entries via email must be received at prsa10me@toprank.org  by Friday 10/8 at noon Central Time. Winners will be selected and announced that same day by 5pm CT.  Bonus points if you can get your social friends to retweet, comment, link and share your post.

So what are you waiting for?

Of course, if you’re not into blogging or you really want to attend the PRSA International conference, then you can get more info and sign up directly here.

For the best list of PR professionals in the Twitterverse, please make sure you check out our Public Relations Pros List.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. | SEO & Social Media Marketing at PRSA International 2010 | http://www.toprankblog.com

1. Pick a great hashtag – The hashtag ties your Twitter chat together. It should reflect the topic and be intuitive. Examples might be:  #poetry #crmchat or #seo411 – Here’s a list of over 150 chats, topics and the times they run at:  Twitter Chat Schedule.

2. Decide a format and schedule - Part of what makes a Twitter chat successful is that there is a consistent time that requires little reminder and also a format that’s easy to follow. There are a certain number of early adopters on Twitter that “get” how #chats work, but there are many, many more who don’t. They’ll see a sudden flurry of #chat handles in their friend’s Tweets and wonder what’s going on. Make it easy for the audience you’re after to join in and know when the next chat is happening. While there may be more, I’ve seen 2 formats standout.

• Free for all. This is where the chat is treated like a cocktail party and people start posting comments and questions and anyone that wants to, will reply. Its very much many to many and without the use of a tool like Tweetchat can be difficult to follow.

• Outside guests or experts.  If you start the chat, you’re the moderator. One of your duties if you choose the format of bringing in a guest is to find guests that your attendees respect and want to hear from. Prep the guest with how you run your chats in advance.  Use a template email or web page to communicate this. If your guest hasn’t participated in a chat before, they might need a little more guidance but once you’ve done one, the rest go pretty similarly.  Prep the guest with questions in advance so they have an idea of what the specific topic will be. This helps them provide better answers more efficiently.

Promote the guest and get the guest to promote the chat.  Tell the guest what your group responds well to and give examples if you can. This will provide some appreciated guidance for the guest and help give the group what they’re looking for.

3. Create a web page explaining your chat - While a Twitter @account for the chat is a good idea, it’s also a good idea to have a static web page somewhere that the Twitter account can link to. People should also be able to easily find the About #chat page through search engines, so get some other pages or chat members to link to it using the chat name. Explain what the purpose of the chat is, who the moderator(s) are, when the chat runs (including time zone), if the chats are archived and where, and make it easy for visitors to spread the good word about the chat by offering social sharing links/buttons.

This page can live on your blog, your web site or you can easily setup a page on posterous, wordpress or blogger.  If you want to explain more than what is reasonable on a Twitter page, a web page offers more room. A Blog, Facebook Fan page or LinkedIn group that explains the Twitter #chat can also be used and several #chats mentioned below do just that.

4. Recognize #chat participants -  Call out participants during the chat by retweeting interesting things they’ve posted. List all chat participants on the #chat web page. Offer a TweepML list of participants to make it easy for someone to follow everyone in one in a single click. You might also manage a Twitter list of past guests, another list for moderators and another list for most active participants. Possibly promote the Twitter list on services like Listorious. Besides ensuring quality questions, on-topic tweets and great guests, recognition is a powerful thing to do in order to grow a Twitter #chat group.

5. Archive the #chat - Saving the threads of discussion that occur during the chats can be very useful afterwards. This is especially true if you have a good guest and/or participants that come prepared. I like to have about 10-12 pre-written Tweets with links to useful resources prepared before the chat even starts. That way when people ask questions I can answer immediately. I’ve done this several times and it’s gone over pretty well. Look through the Twitter stream of the chat and archive the whole thing or just the most interesting threads into a web page. Archived Twitter chats are an excellent source of content for your blog. Over time, archived chats can be a very useful repository of information, attract links and create search traffic for your web site.

A few of my archived chats include:

• #socialmedia (SEO and Social Media)
• #blogchat (SEO for Blogs)
• AdWeekMedia Connect (Intersection of Search & Social Media)
• #twt20 (Search & Social Media)
• #MeasurePR (SEO and PR Measurement)

Now that I’ve shared a few tips that Twitter #chat editors or moderators should consider, here are some of the best marketing and PR #chats to check out:

• #blogchat – Run by @mackcollier, #blogchat is a long running chat that covers all aspects of blogging on Sunday nights from 8-9pm Central.  View transcripts and other info here.
• #journchat – Run by @prsaraevans,  #journchat is another long running weekly conversation (Mon 7-10pm Central) between journalists, bloggers and PR people.
• #pr20chat – Moderated by @PRtini and @JGoldsborough, #pr20chat is a weekly conversation (Tues 8PM EST) that focuses on public relations 2.0 topics.
• #socialmedia – @Marc_Meyer & @JasonBreed moderate the #socialmedia chat, which of course, is all about social media and occurs Tuesdays at 12 pm Noon EST. Each episode is also tagged with a number, such as #sm1 #sm2 etc. View the live stream here.
• #commschat – @AdamVincenzini & @EmilyCagle run this UK-based Twitter ‘communications’ chat #commschat Monday nights, 8pm (UK time) on traditional / social media, PR, journalism, blogging. See the Blog and FB page.
• #measurepr – Run by @shonali, #measurepr covers measurement topics within the public relations and social media industries that kicked off on February 2, 2010, and is held bi-weekly on Tuesdays from that date, from 12-1 pm ET.
• #prstudchat – Run by @dbreakenridge & @valeriesimon, the monthly #PRStudChat (I thought “stud” meant “manly” not “student” the first time I saw it) provides a platform for conversation between Public Relations Students, Educators and Professionals. See more on WTH.
• #imcchat – Moderated by @bethharte & @abarcelos, #IMCChat is a chat for all of those interested in Integrated Marketing Communications and runs every Wednesday night at 8pm ET.

What are your favorite Twitter chats for Marketing and Public Relations topics? What advice do you have for running or participating in a successful Twitter chat?

Besides the tips above, there are great posts on how to run and participate in Twitter chats on Mashable, from Mack Collier and here.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. | Twitter Marketing Tips: Twitter Chats & 8 Marketing & PR Chats to Follow | http://www.toprankblog.com

From the days of talking new features as a super user with founder David McInnis to our current role as search and social media consultants, the focus on innovation and serving customers has always been a mutual focus. I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know Vocus Product Manager for PRWeb, Jiyan Wei, Director of Online Marketing, Meg Walker and Vocus CMO Bill Wagner as well as other members of the Vocus team and they’ve been working very hard to make an array of substantial changes to the PRWeb platform to better serve customers.

PRWeb innovated the entire idea of the optimized press release and was in use by hundreds if not thousands of SEOs long before any other wire service thought to start following their lead and offer SEO friendly features. Now PRWeb has launched a new design, site architecture, press release templates and resource center that provides even greater Search Engine Optimization and Social Media exposure benefits.

Here’s a quick video tour of the all new PRWeb that’s worth a look:

More SEO & Social “Built Into” the Template - The press release template that PRWeb uses to publish press releases offers critical opportunities for customer discovery, consumption and sharing. That means making it easier for readers to find press releases by baking in more search engine friendly features, providing more room for media such as images and video, offering social sharing options and optimizing code for faster loading pages.

Centralized News – In particular, the move away from showing over 100 press releases on the PRWeb home page to a dedicated news center with specific industry category pages will allow even more entry points via search and give customer press releases even more exposure, especially in the long term. With over 500,000 pages, implementing SEO friendly design and architecture changes to a site like PRWeb is no small feat. Structuring the news center according to industry categories creates more of a news destination vs. a repository of press releases. Better design and content organization provides a better user experience and will attract more links.

More How To Online Marketing Resources - Another major enhancement for the new PRWeb site is the resource center with a growing collection of useful how to tips, articles, videos, webinars and white papers for everything from press release writing tips to general online marketing topics. Seeing examples of press releases organized by specific industry gives marketers useful insight for making their use of press releases successful.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. | 3 Things You Should Know About the New PRWeb | http://www.toprankblog.com

Even if PR departments and organizations are digitally savvy, there are a good number of reasons (7 in fact) to incorporate search engine optimization into their processes:

Reach Journalists where they’re looking - There are many formal studies as well as our own outreach to the media that have illustrated the changing behavior of journalists, analysts and reporters to use search to do their job of research and reporting the news.  Optimizing news content and digital assets presents a significant opportunity to “be” where journalists are looking.

Search extends reach of PR & communications - The content produced by Public Relations departments is of value to many audiences outside of the media.  Employees, potential employees, investors, partners, customers and even prospective customers are influenced by news content.  Whether it’s a press release or an announcement through video, optimizing what can be searched extends the reach of PR and communications efforts far beyond traditional news distribution channels.

Increase unsolicited media placements – TopRank Online Marketing and many other web sites that optimize and promote news content receive unsolicited mentions from industry news sites, blogs, online and offline publications. Optimizing news content for discovery by search can have an amplifying effect on traditional media relations outreach efforts. When a journalist receives a compelling pitch via email, the natural instinct is to go to Google an search the topic. When your content shows prominently in the search results it can be a one-two punch to capture interest and show credibility.

Bypass media channels: direct to consumer – Increasing numbers of companies are taking to heart, the notion of “brand as publisher” and creating their own content strategies for news. Large companies have owned TV stations, radio stations, newspapers and other publishing channels for as long as they have existed. Why should online media be any different? Optimized content can be searched for and found by anyone: Including consumers or companies researching products and services to buy.

Optimized PR facilitates marketing goals – News content is often syndicated and stories re-published. When links are included, they can serve as a link building effort that directly affects marketing objectives through direct traffic to the company site and increase search visibility due to the influence of links.

Protect your brand & online reputation - As many brands have discovered, it takes just a few upset bloggers with time on their hands and savvy connections to bring unwanted attention to negative and dissenting views.  Companies that publish content can ensure some of that content is optimized for brand terms, products, company names and any other brand asset they wish to protect in the search results.

For the most part, one domain name can only display up to 2 search results for a single query. That means content that lives outside of the main corporate web site, such as press releases hosted indefinitely by wire services like PRWeb, can serve to occupy additional search results for your brand name.  Don’t wait until someone creates a yourbrandsucks.com web site that ranks #1 for your brand name to start working on your search results reputation. Be proactive about optimizing content on and especially, off the corporate web site for brand names.

Demonstrate more value from PR & Communications - As budgets are cut in Marketing and Public Relations departments, PR needs to do a much better job of showing value. Despite giving SEO workshops and seminars for PR professionals for hundreds of Media Relations, Communications and PR practitioners over the past 3-4 years, most PR firms don’t incorporate SEO.

Those that do, can demonstrate more effective Pull PR results, but can also demonstrate the direct and indirect effect on marketing, customer service, recruiting and investor relations by the search traffic earned through optimized news content.

I’ll be discussing these and many other aspects of how companies can enhance their marketing efforts through optimized Public Relations at the Vocus User’s Conference in Washington D.C. today. Actually, I’ll be attending the event today to see Brian Solis and many others. I will be giving my presentation on Friday morning, right after David Meerman Scott does one of his famous keynotes.

At the same time, TopRank’s Adam Singer is in Toronto, for the Search Engine Strategies conference. He’s presenting on a similar topic that also includes a substantial consideration of social media along with search engine optimization and digital PR.

If you’re attending either event, please be sure to connect with Adam or I afterwards.  If you’re liveblogging either event and these sessions in particular, be sure to let us know so we can link to your post in our roundup.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. | 7 Benefits of Partnering SEO & PR | http://www.toprankblog.com

During the past decade, PRWeb has reshaped the traditional press release and changed how companies large and small distribute news. Innovations of PRWeb over the years include:

• Search engine optimization (SEO) for press releases to increase the visibility of news in search engines like Google and Yahoo!
• Social bookmarking tools like trackbacks and bookmark links to take advantage of the explosion in social networking
• Really Simple Syndication (RSS) to increase the distribution potential of news and built the industry’s largest RSS network
• Allowing customers to include podcasts along with their news to increase the impact of their news release
• The “Feature Video” allowing customers to leverage the video content from popular sites like YouTube to bring their news to life

Meg Walker, Director of Online Marketing for PRWeb lead a session discussing how to optimize press releases to gain the strongest visibility in both search engines and media.

1.  Meet audience demand

Prior to drafting a release, you need to understand what your audience is demanding.  Meeting audience demand is integral to accomplishing your press release visibility objectives.

There are many times you don’t realize there may be a hook in to reach your target, and understanding audience demand allows you to tap into it.

The steps to meet audience demand include:

Knowing your audience – what is it potential prospects and media are interested in?  In what tone should they be spoken to?  Do they appreciate a certain angle over another?  Understanding is key and should drive the strategy behind the release.

Be relevant – more than just understanding your audience, give them content that is both relevant and timely.  By doing this, you’ll create the highest propensity your news gets picked up, shared and passed on.

Satisfy customer demand – to know what the demand is, first research popular trends in search engines and stay on the pulse of your industry.  By creating content that is related to hot topics you can create far more visibility for your releases.  Staying up to date, informed and on the pulse of your customers is vital to connect with them through press releases.

2.  Stay focused

By keeping your keywords and topics focused, your release can rank better in search engines and resonate more with media.  As you are writing releases, remember you are writing about one topic per release.  By segmenting the message or trying to say too much at once, you dilute your key points and take a risk prospects and media will walk away without taking next steps or remembering the point.  Keep it simple, focused and impactful.

3.  Use images for search

Images can increase the click through rate on releases in both regular and news search by 15 – 25%.  It’s a simple step, but can’t be stressed enough.    Additionally, using images creates more traction in media – journalists and bloggers both love images as it helps them tell their story.

At PRWeb, we have seen releases that used 3 images generate more than 50 articles.  We also find that many people are discovering images via image search, which then draws them back not only to the release, but to the customer web sites.  Because PRWeb hosts press releases forever, your images can continue to receive both organic and image search traffic indefinitely.

4.  Use videos to engage visitors

By using video in news releases, we have seen up to a 500% increase in time on pages.  As the web shifts to a rich media experience, bloggers, media and end users are becoming more accustomed to video.  In the future, it may be common that video is included with releases.  But since today it is not as frequently used, it’s a chance to make your news stand out.

5.  Optimize your release

Anchor text links – use 3

• One to homepage – direct visitors directly to your company website.
• One to product page – send media and consumers directly to the product they are reading about.
• One to blog post – this presents an opportunity to speak to readers in a less formal fashion.  With social web users and digital influencers continually expecting social content, a press release presents a great opportunity to spark interest in your social content.

Alt-tag – an alt tag helps your images get discovered in search engines – all release images should be tagged appropriately.

URL Keyword – top keywords can be used as part of the URL string, so be sure and include those during the release selection process.  PRWeb allows you to customize this.

Description Tag – add a keyword rich and compelling description tag (on PRWeb, that will become the meta tag).

Title of release – the title of the release will become the title tag of the page, which is a vital element of your on-page optimization.  If you have a target phrase, ensure your phrase leads the title of release. 

You can learn more about PRWeb at their website or follow them on Twitter.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. | SESNY: 5 Tips To Optimize Press Releases For Search | http://www.toprankblog.com

As prep for a presentation I’m giving Thursday at Online Marketing Summit on the intersection of SEO, Social Media and PR, I reached out to a few local journalists and industry news contacts and asked for examples of how they used search engines or social media to do story research.

Newsrooms are cutting staff and reporters and editors are hard pressed to do more with less. Tools like search engines and social media make available a tremendous amount of information in real-time.  The news world is a world of deadlines and it would seem the use of search and social networks to source experts or people/companies that fit a story angle would be ideal. Even respected news organizations like the BBC are encouraging their journalists to embrace social media.

This kind of insight is very helpful to understand how companies can make their news content more easily discovered via social web participation, content and optimization.  Why is that important?  According to TV News Reporter Jason DeRusha, “Private business does a horrible job cataloging their expertise in a manner that’s search engine friendly.  This is a real opportunity, as journalists become much more crunched for time, and use search as quick way to identify local experts.”

National Public Radio’s Jon Gordon uses search and social in a way that epitomizes the response we received from all types of journalists: “I use search engines on almost every story.  I use social networks to find additional sources, as well as for story idea generation and story feedback.”

Here are a few examples of how journalists use search engines and social media tools to connect with story subjects. Not all of them are business situations, but are helpful as feedback on where to spend time creating, optimizing and socializing news content.

I begin every day at search engine. It doesn’t matter what story I’m working on, it always starts with a search. I work on a segment called “Good Question,” so I often type my question directly into Google, and see what comes up. When searching for local experts, I’ll often take the subject matter, tack on the word “Minneapolis” and add the word “expert.”

For example, last week I did a story on whether cursive handwriting was vanishing because of e-mail. I typed “Minneapolis handwriting expert” into Google, and found several local handwriting analysts. Next, I searched for private schools (because public schools are often challenging to get permission to shoot at) and found the school we used for our story.

For my story on whether we get enough Vitamin D in Minnesota, I searched “Vitamin D” “Minneapolis” and “expert.” If a local company showed up very high with their own expertise in those results, I would have called that company.
Jason DeRusha, WCCO (CBS) TV News Reporter

Often times, the use of search engines and social media sites intersect. Here is an example provided in our initial survey:

I was writing a column about the planned partnership between Google and Yahoo. I tracked down potential sources first using Google and LinkedIn, and came across a white paper prepared by a senior fellow at the American Antitrust Institute. While I could not easily find an e-mail address, I went to Facebook where I located him, then sent a message. He replied and we followed up with a phone interview.
Marketing Industry Journalist

In some cases, news publications also run real world events. Example: iMediaConnection has ad:tech, MediaPost has OMMA, Search Engine Watch has Search Engine Strategies. Here’s some great insight from MarketingProfs on how they’ve used social media tools for finding writers, case studies and speakers:

We do use social networks extensively to find key writers or speakers for our events or publications. I also use it to monitor key issues to cover in our newsletters, seminars, research, and so on: Social networks are a great way to take the “pulse” of a topic. What are people talking about? Is this a hot-button issue or not?

For events: Social media is integral to programming the agenda. We always distribute the proposal form for potential speakers via various social channels (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn).

Same for our case study collections: We mine for good stories by asking Twitter/FB/LI. For example, “Who has a good story on social media ROI?”

We always harvest an abundance from this “social Google,” open-ended approach. Once we have harvested leads from those channels, our seminar programmer or writers can follow up via email or DMs, whichever.

LinkedIn is a great place to mine client-side folks. It’s especially valuable for us as we try to include a significant percentage of client-side speakers at our events, and often client-side folks are harder to uncover/book. And obviously, our case studies always feature client-side folks.

We also use Idea Scale to crowdsource topic ideas for our event agenda.

We use Flickr all the time to find creative common graphics for use on the blog (or for the contributed pieces I do for AMEX Open Forum); we use YouTube and Slideshare to see possible speakers or presenters in “action.”
Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer, MarketingProfs

Some Journalists are more tech and social media savvy than others resulting in some unconventional uses of social channels to create efficiencies in reaching sources:

“One of my key social-media tactics for work is a bit obscure: I autofollow everyone who follows me (using SocialToo). The reason for this: Crucial exchanges for stories occur via DM, which is why I do not want to ever think about whether there is reciprocal DM-ing with this or that person. Once this is set up, I can use Twitter as a sounding board with questions related to stories, get initial responses via public tweeting, then take them into private DM-ing as needed (or switch to e-mail or the phone). With close to 10,000 followers now, this is a system that works well – with parallel sourcing via ProfNet and HARO, which I see as two legs of a tripod. Twitter is the third.”
Julio Ojeda-Zapata, Technology Editor at St. Paul Pioneer Press

Sometimes the information found isn’t what companies or individuals would want a reporter to find:

I routinely track down potential interviews by sending out a Tweet. Most recently, we came across a number of Toyota car owners who fell under the recent recalls. It would have been very difficult to find those people in a short amount of time without this type of technology.

Just today I was feeding and getting information through Twitter on the house explosion in Edina that helped our crews navigate around the situation and get better pictures of the breaking news.

Also, I used YouTube to find video of a man who is being investigated by a Ponzi scheme by the Secret Service. It turns out he had many videos of himself giving sales pitches to potential customers. We used the video on the air where otherwise we would have never known what the man looked like.

We often use Facebook to get photographs of crime suspects and or victims. And police investigators tell me Facebook is one of the first places they check when investigating someone involved in a crime.
Chris O’Connell KSTP (ABC) TV News Anchor/Reporter

Sometimes it’s not your content that gets discovered, but a connection to someone else that leads to being found:

This fall I was working on a feature about ethnic weddings in the Twin Cities, for our Weddings magazine. I was looking for recently married couples of various cultural backgrounds. I posted a query on Facebook to my recently married or engaged friends. Their responses led me to three of the five couples interviewed (via email contacts). After initial email correspondence, I interviewed the couples by phone and in person.
Senior Editor, Mpls.St.Paul magazine

I think this quote from Chris O ‘Connell sums it up nicely: “social networking has changed the way we do business and how we are able to get news and sources faster when deadlines matter.”

We’ll be conducting a new survey on Journalist Use of Search soon and will be posting more detailed data on how stories are sourced, tools used, preferences of types of information and more.

If you are attending #OMS10 be sure to check out our session on Social Media, Search and Public Relations at 3:15. It will be a very informative and engaging set of presentations from: David “dk” Klein, Dana Todd, Rand Fishkin, myself and moderator duties handled by Sally Falkow.

Does your company incorporate news optimization as part of your online marketing and content strategy? Do you optimize and promote news content differently than marketing content? Do you track whether the media finds your content via search or social media?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. | How Journalists Use Search & Social Media | http://www.toprankblog.com

Understanding the needs of their “customers’ customer” is essential for PR agencies and communications professionals to remain relevant and productive. “Push PR” is increasingly being complemented by “Pull” tactics – optimization for discovery. Being able to provide value is essential and here are 3 ways a better understanding of SEO can do just that.

1. Fish where the fish are.

There were over 14 billion core searches in Dec (comSore) vs 285 million who watch TV in a given month (Nielsen). Consumers rely on search daily to find news and information. PR and communications types need to understand the consumer search behaviors and preferences (keywords) of their clients as well as the publications they want their clients to be covered by.

2. Journalists rely on search.

According to TopRank’s “Journalist Use of Search survey”, 91% of journalists, editors and reporters surveyed use standard search engines such as Google, Yahoo or Bing to do their job. That preference was mirrored by findings in a recently published “Social Media & Online Usage Study” (pdf) by George washington University and Cision where 100% of those surveyed use Google to research stories.

3. Optimization is about more than SEO.

Search engine optimization, digital asset optimization, social media optimization and even micromedia optimization (ie real time SEO) are buzzwords all representing opportunities for Media Relations and communications professionals to influence discovery by making it easier for various types of search engines to find, index and rank their content.

It’s imporant that communications people understand the different search options consumers and the media are using to distribute and consume news. If content can be searched on, it can be optimized. That includes everything from press releases to video to Tweets.

Search Engine Optimization or “SEO” as an umbrella term is typically concerned with any kind of work that influences any kind of search engine to do what it does best and hopefully in favor of the content being promoted. Most people mean optimizing content for better visibility in Google, Yahoo or Bing when they employ SEO tactics.

It’s important to note that many publishers are already using SEO tactics to make their news stories better suited for discovery and ranking on search engines. These efforts have resulted in substantial increases in traffic to online news sites, improving the attractiveness of advertising.

Digital Asset Optimization or “DAO” is a term TopRank has used and promoted since 2007 that makes reference to the different types of media search engines like Google have started to display (aka Blended or Universal search results) depending on the query. Search results are no longer limited to web pages and can include images, video thumbnails, news, blogs, books and local information. Optimizing for these different types of media involves understanding what digital assets can be created, keyword optimized and published online for search.

Social Media Optimization or “SMO” is a term initially made popular by Rohit Bhargava and added on to by several others in the SEO world including TopRank. While many social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn keep the bulk of their content behind a login and away from search engine spiders, many social interactions produce content that can be indexed and included in search results. Journalists and consumers increasingly participate with social channels to watch, share, contribute and curate information. If PR and communications can understand how to influence keyword use of social content then their news will be easier for analysts, reporters and journalists to find.

Here’s a story related to me by an editor in the TopRank Journalist use of search survey that illustrates the intersection of search and social media:

“I was writing a column about the planned partnership between Google and Yahoo.”

“I tracked down potential sources first using Google and LinkedIn, and came across a white paper prepared by a senior fellow at the American Antitrust Institute.”

“While I could not easily find an e-mail address, I went to Facebook where I located him, then sent a message. He replied and we followed up with a phone interview.”

Micromedia Optimization is a new term that basically means real time optimization of status updates and content sources that are indexed and included as real time content by search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing. The same micromedia content can be shared and discovered on platform specific search engines such as search.twitter.com and across social networks that provide the opportunity to syndicate such content. Google Buzz, Facebook status updates and LinkedIn updates are also included in this category.

The takeaway that I think is most important for communications professionals is to understand the nature of search and how to match up optimization tactics with channels of disccovery. Using keyword research for both standard search and social search optimization of news content along with ongoing web analytics and social media monitoring are key.

I’ll be discussing these strategies, tactics and a lot more at SMC Louisville tonight 6:30 p.m. until 8:30 p.m. ET on at the Louisville Visual Art Association. I hope folks can brave the snow (safely) and make it out. You won’t be disappointed!

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. | 3 Reasons PR & Communications Pros Need to Know SEO | http://www.toprankblog.com

The outcome exceeded all expectations thanks to the excellent promotions by PRWeb and SEW plus Mike Grehan’s smooth handling of moderator duties amidst technical difficulties. Over 7,000 people registered, there were over 400 questions and 650 Tweets using the #prweb hash tag during the webinar.

The way it goes with many webinars when you’re invited by an organization to participate, is that the topic and title/description are determined beforehand. The speaker adapts themselves to that.  This presentation content focused on optimizing writing for the web with a particular emphasis on optimizing content common to public relations.

As promised, I’ve sorted the bulk of the questions out and will present several here along with my responses. I hope they are useful.

If I’m not currently optimizing my site and I have a limited budget, where do I start?

The first thing any marketing activity needs to start with include setting goals, understanding your audience and the market. The lowest cost method of outsourcing that kind of activity where search engine optimization is concerned, would be to hire a consultant or agency to do an audit.

An SEO audit represents the initial evaluation and research along with recommendations to be implemented by the client. Typically this involves: competitive research, keyword research, web site code/template evaluation, content optimization recommendations, link building research and recommendations, tips on content creation/promotion/repurposing and to varying degrees, social media recommendations. Web analytics, monitoring and ranking tools are also often recommended.

An audit does not take the place of consulting since it’s an evaluation and recommendation, not implementation and guidance on an ongoing basis. It is however, a cost effective start. Here are a few resources:

• Top 3 Tactics To Improve Search Engine Rankings
• Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide
• Do’s and Don’ts of On-Page SEO for Public Relations
• 5 Online Marketing Resolutions for 2010

Should your newsroom blog be placed under the site’s domain, or maintained separately under the blog software’s domain to allow for incoming links to your main site that are coming from a different site?

There are two parts to the answer for this question. First, the reference to “blog software’s domain” sounds as though the blog is hosted with a third party service such as blogger.com or typepad.com. Example:  yourblog.blogspot.com or yourblog.typepad.com

My advice is to avoid using third party hosting services for your blog. If you’re too invested in such a service or have other reasons for using them and cannot use something like WordPress installed on the server where your web site is hosted, then use domain aliasing options so that your blog URL is part of your company domain name or a domain name that you own. Example:  yourblog.com or yourblog.companydomainname.com. This puts you in a position of more control since the blog content lives under a domain name you own vs a domain like blogspot.com, which is owned by Google.

While links from your blog/newsroom hosted on a blogspot.com to your company web site do count as inbound links, there’s not as much value from many links to your site from one other site vs many links to your site from many other relevant web sites.

Which leads us to the second part answer to where the newsroom should be hosted. My preference is to host the newsroom either as a sub-domain or a sub-directory of the main company web address. Example:  newsroom.redcross.org or in the case of TopRank, it’s toprankmarketing.com/newsroom/

The links that you attract from other relevant web sites to your newsroom pages will build PageRank back to the rest of your web site. This is more true with the subdirectory than the subdomain. Also, keeping your newsroom address as part of your company web site address is useful for branding and user experience.

Some advice on subdomains and subdirectories from Matt Cutts of Google and here’s a good post discussing the SEO pros/cons.

Should you post press releases on your own website (before distribution)? How do search engines deal with the duplicate content issue in this case?

If you’re a publicly traded company, publishing financial announcements need to happen on the wires first, or at least at the same time as publishing the press release on your own web site.  For other companies not constrained by such requirements, posting a release to your own site first is fine.

As for dealing with duplicate content when your press release is published on your own site as well as on the wire service, it’s a pretty common situation. In fact, it’s often a goal for companies that distribute their releases through a newswire service to get as many other sites to copy and republish the release as possible. If the release is properly optimized, each time another web site with a unique domain name publishes a copy, it creates a link back to whatever web page on your corporate site you’re trying to draw attention to.  This sends more traffic and can affect the search ranking of the destination page.

A long standing problem with situations where the same content is hosted on different domain names has been debated and worried about by many, many webmasters. Search engines like Google don’t like to show multiple copies of the same content in the same search results. It’s not a good user experience. Therefore, when duplicate copies of the same content are detected, Google likes to pick a canonical version and only show that one.

Duplication with press releases is quite common because of distribution on wire services and to influence search engines to rank a certain version of your press release, there are a few steps you can take. One piece of advice many webmasters try to follow is to publish the release on your own site so Google crawls it there first.  However, if there are more links to another version of the same release hosted elsewhere, the other copy might be perceived as deserving to rank in search results instead.

For more tips on how to deal with duplicate content in a press release situation, watch this video interview with Adam Lasnik of Google that I took at SES London. Adam offers advice on making sure copies of your content attribute the source and all link back to the original to provide Google information about what version is canonical.

Is it useful to submit Press Releases to Social Media sites in addition to submitting to PRWeb.com?

Deciding what to share on social media sites should take into account what types of content members of the social community are best responding to.  Press Releases are often formal marketing communications, not exactly conversational. As you understand the community you’re trying to reach with the press release, you should know whether it’s appropriate to share a press release with them in a social media setting.

The big mistake many marketers and PR professionals make is to register with a variety of social network, news and bookmarking sites and then self submit, vote and rate their own press releases without having ever participated in the community.  With no network paying attention to what you’re sharing, few will ever notice the press release. If you do have a network on social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon, Digg and others, then you will know first hand whether it would be acceptable to the community to share content in a press release format.

Outside of social media news release, your best bet to take advantage of social media distribution of a press release would be to make it easy for the press release to be saved, shared and submitted by interested readers. You can do this with widgets or plugins offered by ShareThis and similar services. Many wire services already support those features as well.   Additionally, you should monitor pickups of the release on the social web.

If you see someone submit or share a release you’ve sent out on a social media site, reach out and thank them, answer any questions and show interest. That can generate interest from others in the community.  One tip I recommend is to write a blog post version of the press release and share that content with social media communities. Then include a link to the full press release within the blog post for people that want more information.

What you should not do is treat social media sites as a place to dump press release content thinking it will get a lot of exposure because there are many members of the community.  Here are some additional newsroom SEO tactics.

What is a good Social Media approach for a company which generates little in the way of genuinely newsworthy material?

Companies that say they have nothing “newsworthy” to publish are more common than you might think. There may be deeper issues to deal with than a social media strategy if there’s nothing new, innovative or unique to talk about.  A good social media marketing program cannot fix a broken business.

A business exists to make money fulfilling unmet customer needs. A perspective to consider would be to take the focus off the company and put it on the customer. Use social web participation as a way to better listen with and connect with customers to find opportunities to serve them better. Develop relationships with influentials and encourage feedback. Innovation can certainly come from a customer base as can the spread of a great idea. Focus on connecting with customers and helping customers connect with each other in a social context and there may be more newsworthy material than you ever expected.

Here are a few useful resources on Social Media and PR:

• Improve Public Relations with SEO & Social Media
• Why Use Social Media For Public Relations
• 3 Steps for Effectively Using Social Media For PR

There are so many shady SEO people and firms – how do you pick a good one?

There are no more “shady” SEO people than there are “shady” clients. Professionals that provide effective SEO consulting are reputable, experienced and in my experience, probably more talented than most traditional marketers you’ve ever worked with.  People doing shady things in the name of SEO are NOT professionals and the absence of that word, professionals, in the question is the problem.

Picking a good consultant or agency means doing homework. Know your market, set goals, understand your competition in search and start asking for referrals from others who have hired SEO companies. Word of mouth is powerful both for companies that need to hire good SEOs and for good SEOs to attract business. Our agency, TopRankMarketing.com for example, has relied mostly on word of mouth to attract new business since 2001. We also get a lot of new business from search itself (practice what you preach) and from networking on and offline.

Here are a few resources on hiring a SEO and one on “shady” SEO:

• How to Hire a SEO Firm – According to Google
• 5 Tips on Hiring and Getting the Most Value from SEO Consultants
• Dear Fox News: SEO Is Not Search Engine Scamming (Unless You’re Scamming Yourself)

Part of the issue is demand.  Take the next question for example:

“Can you use article spinning software to publish Press Releases? Or is there an Press Release spinning software to create many press releases based on one press release? Other words, is there a difference between article marketing and press releases?”

Article spinning software for press releases? Demand for shortcuts, silver bullets and “we want everything now” helps create the shady side of SEO as opportunists take advantage.  Automatically generating garbage pages in press release format will help NO ONE.

That’s it for this round of questions. I’ll post another round next week. Thank you to PRWeb and Search Engine Watch for having me participate on the webinar. What are your questions about optimizing news content?

If you’d like even more in-depth information about SEO and Public Relations, AND you happen to live in the Louisville, Kentucky area, be sure to check out the event Social Media Club Louisville is having next Tuesday night, Feb 16th.

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