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

The 2012 Community Manager Report

Community Manager is an essential, yet still uncharted territory for many companies that are expanding their presence on the social web.  What should you know about the current state of this position?

• 67% of Community Managers work for a brand
• The most popular city for Community Managers is New York
• 65% of Community Managers are Female

Be sure to check out the rest of this report presented by Social Fresh.

Google & FBI: All Your Social Data Are Belong to Us

For non-geeks, here’s the reference (Zero Wing video)

“Google Privacy Changes: What Do They Mean To You?” Google announced this week that it is rolling out a new, main privacy policy that covers the majority of its products. The company is consolidating over 60 privacy notices into the main privacy policy. User activities across Google web properties from Gmail to YouTube will be used to deliver customized ads. Via WebProNews.

“The FBI Wants to Monitor Social Media” The FBI is looking to develop a web application that can monitor social networks, including Facebook and Twitter, in order to gain better real-time intelligence about current or potential future security threats or situations. As with the Google combined service data collection, many people are thinking, “Weren’t they already doing this?” Via Mashable.

“McDonald’s Twitter Campaign Goes Horribly Wrong #McDStories” From McDonald’s PR: While #meetthefarmers was used for the majority of the day and successful in raising awareness of the Supplier Stories campaign, #mcdstories did not go as planned. We quickly pulled #mcdstories and it was promoted for less than two hours. Via Business Insider.

“Twitter Now Able To Censor Tweets, If Required By Law, On A Country-By-Country Basis” From Twitter: Starting today, we give ourselves the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country — while keeping it up in the rest of the world. Danny Sullivan compares Twitter’s approach towards censorship to Google, which you might find interesting. Via Marketing Land.

The Online Marketplace is Competitive: Tips to Help You Meet the Challenge:

“The Top 51 stats for Generation Y marketers” How can marketers tap into this gadget-savvy, brand-aware demographic? The following statistics, taken from four recent reports listed below, provide an insight into the complex world of 13-24 year-olds. Via The Next Web.

“5 marketing Tips for Putting Customers First” The digital world of today offers many choices to customers, which means that marketing professionals have a tough job ahead of them.  We must not only ensure that our messaging is on target, but also work with our internal team to make sure that our promises can be delivered.  Via i Media Connection.

“10 Essential YouTube Tips and Tricks”  YouTube is currently getting over 3 billion views each day.  This article provides some great tips for getting more out of your YouTube experience including, improved search and better viewing options.  Via Mashable.

“10 Ways to Impress Your Industry’s Influencers” Often times your press releases are in the hands of influencers within the industry.  This article provides some great tips on identifying who these people are, buttering them up, and following their lead.  Via Ragan.

The TopRank Team Knows News

Brian Larson – “MarketingSherpa Research Shows the Avg B2B Deal on the Decline”
We know that B2B sales cycles are longer. The rebuttal from B2B’s has always been ‘the size of our sales are far greater’.  What if that changed? With B2B deal sizes diminishing, do B2B’s need to focus on increasing sales volume or developing new ways to demonstrate value and win back larger sales? Or both? The answers to these questions are sure to influence online marketing strategies.  Via Marketing Sherpa.

Ken Horst – “Social media for the complex sale: Where should you start?”
While most B2B companies are heavily invested in their social channels today; many are finding that for at least Facebook and Twitter, these may not be the best channels for companies with a longer sales cycle.  The good news is that in this post, the author lists 10 other social media outlets that B2B marketers could use to help prime the pump for those longer sales cycle products and services. Via SmartBlog.

Emily Conley – “Google Announces Privacy Changes Across Products; Users Can’t Opt Out”
Google released an announcement on Jan. 24th stating that the company plans to follow users’ activities across the majority of its sites, including YouTube, Gmail and Google search. With no opt-out option, as of March 1st all logged in Google users will be sharing data that will enable Google to create more complete user portraits.  The change opens new debate around privacy and competitive practices.  Via Washington Post.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. | Online Marketing News: Women Dominate Community Management, Google Privacy, FBI Social, Twitter Censorship, McD Hashtag Gone Wrong | 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

After seeing the nice write up by Adam Sherk on Ragan on how to write press releases Google will love, I decided to curate a list of our own Press Release Optimization tips and share them with you. Plus Lee’s added a few more at the end of this post.

Essential Press Release Optimization Tips
Multiple studies have concluded that both consumers and journalists search for and read press releases.  By optimizing your press release for a specific audience the content will be easier to find and therefore attract new traffic and brand recognition .  This post provides a useful checklist and process for creating a better optimized press release.

4 Tips for Getting PR Approval on Optimized Press Releases
Integration of approved news and SEO keywords can be a daunting task.  Including Public Relations in early in the process can help alleviate problems related to SEO approval.  This post includes 4 essential tips to ensure that your optimization recommendations can be approved and impact your SEO program.

Lowdown on Press Release Optimization
Clever copywriting may not always be a best practice approach for optimizing press releases.  Why?  The objective of a press release should be to present a well written article which contains relevant keywords pertaining to the audience that you are trying to reach.

Press Release Optimization and Blogger Relations
The hardest part of news optimization is not always the optimization, it is the measurement.  Traditional PR is becoming more and more difficult as major organizations are shutting their doors or laying off employees.  An online PR strategy encourages sharing and creates a larger audience base for your news releases.

3 Reasons PR & Communications Need to Know SEO
An understanding of the needs of their “customer’s customer” has always been a very essential piece for PR agencies to remain relevant and productive.  Now with the added element of an online strategy it becomes even trickier.  This post dives into 3 ways that PR professionals can continue to provide value through a better understanding of optimizing press releases and news.

Takeaways from Lee:

[Note from Lee: Thanks to Ashley for curating some of our advice on Press Release SEO that we've given over the years. The SEO tips in these posts are pretty much timeless but the increasing influences of Social Media must also be factored in to create news release content that matters to intended audiences and that inspires them to share and link.  In addition to the tips for optimizing press releases above, here are a few things worth considering:]

1. Research Google News specific keywords using Ubersuggest. Other keyword research tools like WordTracker and Wordstream focus on general search engines, but why not find out what’s popular on Google News as well?

2. Focus on a single keyword phrase and 1-3 variations per release. Most important keywords should be first in the title, but not at the expense of a compelling title. Optimize for customers first.

3. Always include an image and attach other useful images using keywords in the file names and annotations.

4. Include video as an embedded element of the release if you can. More engaging content means more shares and reach to attract links.

5. Promote your press release through a distribution service like our client PRWeb, which is very SEO friendly and effective not just because TopRank provides them with SEO advice, but because they are committed to being a great resource for small business marketers and PR professionals.

6. Syndicate and promote the RSS feed of your newsroom (assuming you publish a RSS feed) as well as the RSS feed provided by the press release distribution service. Example tools for this include: Pingomatic, Twitter Feed and posting short form or summary versions of the release with a link to it via Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and other relevant social channels. Monitor social shares of the release and respond accordingly.

7. Write your news as an article. Try experimenting with creating a timely and newsworthy article format for your news release vs. traditional press release style. It might inspire more editorial pickups and links.

8. Create a series of press releases. Don’t treat your release like a one night stand. Build awareness and momentum with news distribution by creating a series of press releases or at least coordinating releases with other content marketing and online PR efforts over time. One press release is NOT a silver bullet.

9. Archive press releases on your site using keyword categories. Chronological organization of past press releases is only useful for a short period of time.  But if releases can be tagged with keywords and associated with topical categories relevant to your business and the interests of the media and your customers, then they also become useful to search engines that can surface those releases where people are looking.

10. Link to press releases from other media and content. When you publish case studies, white papers, reports and ebooks, consider linking to a relevant press release. Many of those types of documents are MS Word or PDF format and you can embed links within that can be found by search engines. White papers and ebooks are often shared socially and re-published on other websites and blogs. Your document hosted on another domain name that includes links back to relevant press releases can provide a strong signal to search engines for better rankings.

What press release optimization tips have you found useful? Are you including press release SEO as part of Online PR or Content Marketing?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. | 5 Press Release SEO Posts & 10 Bonus Tips for Better Google Rankings | http://www.toprankblog.com

Information production, sharing and consumption is accelerating faster than marketers (or consumers) can keep up with. A lot of that information is user generated content from social sharing and networking sites. Internet Marketers have long been savvy about creating, optimizing and promoting content that’s findable and relevant for target audiences.  Marketers aren’t the only corporate departments creating content in need of an audience though.

Public Relations, Media Relations, Corporate Communications, Investor Relations and many other groups part of corporate MarCom publish content to the web. Audiences may vary, from journalists and reporters doing story research to investors and potential business partners. Increasingly, PR departments are publishing direct to consumer news content, ala “brand as publisher”.

My presentation at PRSA International in Orlando focused on how PR practitioners can realize the emerging opportunities for shifts in consumer information trends, how PR content can be optimized and socialized, tools to scale and practical social media optimization tactics to elevate search visibility of social media and social news content. Here’s the embedded deck from Slideshare:

Here are the specific SEO tactics for social media in this presentation and links to other more in-depth articles on those topics:

• Blog SEO Tips – Blog Optimization – also check out our Blogging category with nearly 8 years of blog marketing tips.
• Facebook SEO - Facebook SEO Tips: Optimizing for an Audience of 800 Million
• LinkedIn SEO – Optimizing Your LinkedIn Profile to Improve SEO for Your Company
• Twitter SEO –  How to Use Twitter for SEO
• YouTube SEO – 5 Basic Tips for Video Optimization
• Google+ SEO – How Google+ Will Affect SEO for Your Website

Kikolani has some great social content SEO tips posted recently as well.

Also, here are the tools mentioned in the presentation:

• RavenTools – Paid tool. For basic SEO project management & reporting.
• SocialMention – Free social media search engine and social topic search tool.
• Google Keywords Tool – Free. Basic tool for researching which words/phrases are most used on Google and how competitive they are.
• Google Insights – Free. Shows trends and comparison of keyword phrase popularity (interest) over time plus geographic information.
• Ubersuggest – Free. Handy tool that makes Google autocomplete suggested search phrases usable. Works for Google.com and Google News queries.
• Scribe – Paid tool. WordPress plugin and standalone web service that provides real-time feedback on article keyword optimization.
• Majestic SEO – Paid tool. Think of this as a clipping report for links, including information about quantity, quality and type. Has a historical feature that’s quite handy for trending.
• SEMRush – Paid tool. Want to know what your site or your competitors’ sites are ranking for organically on Google? And their pay per click ads? This is the tool. Also has a trending and comparison feature.

There are many, many more Social Media Optimization and straight SEO tools out there – certainly many more that are advanced, private or for enterprise sized sites. These are basic, easy to use tools that are free or low cost that Public Relations and Communications professionals can use to optimize their news and social content for better keyword relevancy. More relevant (and links) means better visibility in search and a better user experience.

Thanks to PRSA for another great International conference!

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. | Boost Your Digital PR & Marketing Skills with Social Media Optimization | 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

Organizations advance their reach and engagement goals through content and Strategists work to audit, develop strategy, plan, create and maintain that content. Ahava Leibtag provides an excellent and practical approach at CMI in her post, “Creating Valuable Content” which outlines how content should be: Findable, Readable, Understandable, Actionable and Shareable.

SEO and content strategy intersect in more ways than optimizing web pages with keywords. My take on Margot’s question, “How does SEO and content strategy interact?” starts with understanding customer segments, behaviors and preferences for information discovery, consumption and sharing. Knowing what customers care about and how those concerns and interests manifest as search keywords and social topics folds very well into the keyword research practiced by professional SEOs.

Keyword Glossaries and Editorial Plans aid in planning relevant content that is inherently optimized for customers and target audiences.  Specific keyword optimization is appropriate as well, but the end content product becomes much easier to find, consume and share if there’s empathy with customer needs translated into topics and keywords from the start. Readers of this blog know that I’m a fan of optimizing for customers before search engines and that you can certainly do both.

An Editorial Plan outlines content types, topics and the keywords they’re optimized for. It indicates where and if the content will be re-published and re-purposed. The plan also shares what channels of distribution will be used to promote the content and share it via the social web. There very well may be an augmentation of the search optimization effort for the social web that emphasizes popular and relevant social topics vs. search keywords.

Planning, creating, optimizing, promoting and engaging with content on topics that customers and target audiences care about is where modern SEO has evolved: Content Marketing Optimization.  SEO expertise, which also includes knowledge of how search engines crawl and index websites, content management systems, the impact of how websites are coded and organized, provides a powerful ally to Content Strategists when goals and objectives are in alignment.

I think the publication Margot is researching will provide valuable insight not only for SEO, but any other element involved with an organization’s content from web developers & designers to copywriters and marketing executives. In case Margot reads this post, what tips would you share on how your area of expertise best interacts with Content Strategy?

Note: On August 18th, I’ll be giving a presentation on Content Marketing & SEO at the SES San Francisco conference which will be a deep dive into the topic with 90 minutes allocated. I hope to see you there.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. | How SEO Can Work With Content Strategy | 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

Consider: Facebook is approaching 700 million users and Google handles over 11 billion queries per month. World-wide there are over 5 billion mobile subscribers (9 out of 10 in the U.S.) and every two days there is more information created than between the dawn of civilization and 2003. The age of communications and digital relationships between brands, the media and consumers has changed faster and in ways few could have anticipated.

With an ever increasing universe of data and ways to connect, PR and communications professionals are in a compelling position to master the new rules for consumer information discovery, consumption and sharing. As participants and content creators savvy about the search and social web, PR professionals can directly impact online brand visibility, customer engagement and acquisition.

A big part of how Public Relations pros can show more value for their efforts is to understand how the intersection of search and social media provides a powerful means to reach and engage media and consumers that inspires interaction, sharing and meaningful business outcomes.

Some of the fundamentals online PR and communications practitioners should seek to understand in the world of Social Media and SEO include:

• Stay on top of future trends in search, social media and content marketing for PR
• Gain insight into how social and search strategy can amplify media and public relations outcomes
• Understand how to develop search & social personas – think like your customer’s customer
• Be able to conduct strategic and on-demand research for keywords and topics relevant to search and/or the social web
• Know best practices of SEO for Blogs, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and any other digital media produced for news distribution
• High level of expertise with tools to improve quality, efficiency and scale

Call it convergence or consolidation, but no matter how you look at it, marketing and public relations expertise is unifying to bring brand messages and influence to the new search and social web.  It’s a compelling thing for PR professionals to gain an understanding of how search and social media channels can improve reach and placements. It’s even more impressive to step into the shoes of their customer’s customer as a marketer would and really understand how news is discovered, consumed and shared.

If you’re a public relations professional, have you begun implementing search and social media optimization into your news content strategy? How are you educating yourself and your teams on these best practices?

Later today I’ll be speaking to a soon to graduate class at St. Thomas University in St. Paul, MN about these topics and I’m also giving a 1-hour presentation at the upcoming Vocus User’s conference in Baltimore to a group of experienced PR professionals on Integrated Social SEO & PR.

While I have a few ideas and expertise to share, I’m most looking forward to the discussion and questions unique to each group.  If you have questions about incorporating Social SEO into your news content, leave a comment below.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. | Importance of Social Media & SEO for Public Relations | http://www.toprankblog.com

This downright addiction to social media has made an impact in virtually every industry as companies seek to create strategies to engage on the social web. Public relations is certainly no exception as practitioners seek to communicate with, and hear from consumers, as well as using social channels to share information with key audiences.

Conversation Versus A Speech

PR pros can no longer get away with blasting information out at an audience. Two-way communication directly with the consumer is a tremendous opportunity for businesses to gain real-time feedback on messaging coming from the company. The live interaction allows for ongoing refinement and improvement to make a deeper connection with the target audience. Human connections made possible by listening and replying via social media bring the audience closer to a brand and softens the barrier that exists when people feel as if they’re talking to a company that views them strictly as a potential sale.

Information Gathering

The speed of information sharing is faster than ever before and PR professionals have access to a wealth of content that can be shared with consumers seeking solutions to a problem. Creating a simple keyword based search on Twitter can connect companies with people at exactly the right time to serve as a helpful resource. By engaging proactively, PR teams can create new opportunities to create a favorable brand impression that can lead to the beginning of a social media relationship and a potential business relationship.

Social media has also positively changed long-standing dynamics of the PR/Journalist relationship. Journalists seek information and sources online and PR professionals have benefited from the added access available thanks to social media. Some reporters maintain blogs and others are active on Twitter but gathering information about potential stories is significantly easier than the days of heavy, out-of-date media guides.

Personal Service

With the advance of social media, there is an expectation from consumers that they will not be subjected to mass, non-targeted information and any concerns will be addressed quickly and personally. This one can be challenging for PR staff managing social media efforts. One upset customer on a Facebook page or a challenging blog post can send brands into a crisis mode.

When dealing with this expectation of 24/7 personal service, take time to evaluate what is a real crisis and measure how to respond.  The field of public relations is always an environment of on call issues but social media has expanded both the base of potential complaints and the public visibility of these issues.

There are a number of ways that the field of PR must continue to adapt as the social media tools of today will change tomorrow. Rather than focus on the channels, focus on the expectations of the audiences and how to serve as a valued resource for them.

If you’re a public relations professional, how has social media changed your day-to-day PR work? And, what remains the same despite the new channels of communication?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. | 3 Ways Social Media Is Changing Public Relations | 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 many organizations, hiring a social media specialist isn’t a viable option due to budget constraints or the responsibility for managing the social media programs falls on the shoulders of the communications department. It’s a role often already filled with deadlines and juggling of priorities between internal and external efforts, media relations, content creation, meetings and more.

The bottom line: Don’t chase every shiny object in the marketplace. A quick search on “social networking websites” and a visit to Wikipedia gave me 201 options. Now sure, some of these are very small and specific to a niche but it’s interesting to look back at all the ideas that someone thought were brilliant and revolutionary for their time.

The sad fact is that for every useful site like Caring Bridge or big hit like Facebook, there’s a Bolt or a Google Buzz that came and went or never took off at all. Set goals on what your company needs to achieve and create a set of key questions that you use in reviewing any new tool you want to explore. Think about using those filter questions as a screen to evaluate opportunities in front of you.

The questions will vary but take some time now (after a few more paragraphs at least) to think about and talk with the key stakeholders in your organization about the right questions. Filters should be specific enough to give you real, measurable information that can inform you about the potential success of your investment (time or money) in a social platform.

• Does this generate enough direct revenue to offset the staff time required?
• Will this expand our opportunities into a new market of interest to us?
• Is this tool effective enough to get customers to take a specific action whether its click to buy or visit a store?
• What level of speculative time investment are we willing to make?
• Could this lead to collaboration or co-promotion opportunities that will benefit the company?
• Does this effort align logically with our existing initiatives?

These are of course just samples and there isn’t a single way to do it. Perhaps 20 percent of a full-time employee’s time  to execute a program with unknown success is worth it in your model or the opportunity to create an entry to a new market.

Even once you create filters, there are times when you should try new efforts that don’t fit or take a chance. But by slowing down to evaluate the opportunities you at least make sure you’re not adding yet another task to your role without thoughtful purpose and a good chance at success.

How much of your time do you estimate goes into social media on a daily basis? And what has worked for you in balancing the requirements of social with other essential roles?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. | Social Media Overload: When is Enough Too Much? | 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

In many companies, social media efforts are managed by those in Public Relations. While social technology reaches across all communication channels in all departments, there’s an inherent fit between PR and “being social.” As Public Relations firms and the PR functions within companies try to make sense of the sheer volume of advice on “social this” and “social that” being published on blogs, newsletters, mainstream media and trade publications, I’ve used Google search to find 5 useful reports giving strategic to practical advice on how Social Media and Public Relations intersect. Enjoy:

Pew Internet & American Life Project:  The Future of Social Relations

This report isn’t specifically about PR, but it strikes home with insights about how the public is increasingly using social media.  The Internet has obviously made a dramatic impact on social interaction in virtually every society around the world but do people believe it’s actually improving social relations (friendships, marriage) or harming them? That was the focus of this project which evaluated answers from 895 technology stakeholders and critics. The participants were asked to look forward ten years to answer the question of has the internet been a “mostly positive” or “mostly negative” force on their social world. Many of the responses acknowledge both sides of the issue citing, for example, that increasing connectivity may feed privacy concerns. It’s an interesting concept and those replying positive outnumbered the negatives by over a five to one margin.

Social Media Comes of Age:  The Vocus 2011 Planning Survey

Disclaimer: Vocus is a client. And yes, this report was discovered through the same search queries as the others
For a few years now social media has been working its way into the job responsibilities of many PR people across the country. As a new year begins, how are PR people feeling about the coming year in terms of priorities, budgets, and the growth of social media? Most appear to be looking forward to greater growth. Vocus surveyed 508 professionals with about half of them identified as PR pros and the other half being a mix of social media specialists, search marketers, and advertising professionals.

Top findings include 60 percent of respondents said PR will be more challenging in 2011. The dynamics of social media and budgets were among the top reasons why. Measurement  and strategic communications join social media as the top areas where responders see more effort in the coming year.

Harvard Business Review (sponsored by SAS)  The New Conversation:  Taking Social Media from Talk to Action

Despite the popularity and rush by many companies to enter the social media space, it’s clear that there is still a long way to go before the full market and many organizations fully understand their ultimate role. Nearly two-thirds of the companies surveyed are using social media but 75 percent said they did not know where their most valuable customers were talking about them and more surprising, just seven percent of participating companies indicated they were able to integrate social media into their marketing activities.

The 2010 FedEx/Ketchum Social Media Benchmarking Study:   Leading Brands and the Modern Social Media Landscape
This study focuses heavily on how social media impacts today’s communications landscape. It crosses major industries from top global organizations exploring their current experience to date with social media and where these organizations continue to explore the right structure and investment to test the benefits for their brands. All of those surveyed have some level of social media effort underway though many indicate there will be continued learning.

HubSpot: How to Leverage Social Media for Public Relations Success

“Using Social Media to Generate Media Coverage and Improve Brand Sentiment” from HubSpot is an ebook that seeks to provide a number of strategies and tips to integrate social media into a larger PR strategy. Rather than viewing social media as a threat to traditional PR as many have, this approach views social media as a natural and critical extension to what brands have done in the past. Customers have always talked about brands and that will continue but the importance of monitoring and engaging is greater than ever before due to the speed with which information, good or bad, travels in the online world.

Certainly there are many other reports, white papers, case studies and research published in 2010 about the intersection of Public Relations and Social Media.  This post serves as both a practical example of using Google search to find useful content for curation and hopefully a useful collection of helpful resources on PR and Social.  If there are some great reports on the topic that are not on this list, please share in the comments.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. | 5 Must Read Reports on Social Media & Public Relations | 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