Online Marketing Blog

TopRank ran a survey of journalists, reporters and editors on their use of search and social media in 2008. We found 91% use search engines like Google to do their job. 64% use social networks.  Published in Jan 2010, a George Washington University and Cision survey of journalists reports 89% use blogs and 65% use social networks to research stories.

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

The PR industry is in a state of flux with increasing importance on getting into the content and social web business. Consumers are spending more time with digital and social media. Advertising dollars are following. That means less budget to staff newsrooms and reporters, journalists and editors to pitch.

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

Recently I was invited to give a basics webinar on optimizing news content  for search.  The intersection of search and PR/communications are obviously something quite familiar.

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

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

Previously, I explored the intersection of social media and PR and explained why it is so important communications professionals leverage digital channels. In that post I touched on the following key points:

• Authenticity/personality – the world and web crave it
• It scales – popular brands just get more popular
• Long-term storytelling – build a permission asset
• Leverage – digital PR is your social proofing
• Intersection with SEO – links are by-product
• PR has changed – pull is now more effective

Next I’d like to explore a brief outline of how you can effectively use social media to accomplish your PR objectives. I’ll run through 3 key steps as a primer, however I challenge you to consider a unique entry point for your own brand. The social web is as flexible as you want it to be, and there is no single “right answer”. The following are learnings for how you could potentially approach a social media PR strategy.

Recently, I presented at PubCon on the intersection of social media and PR.  The session title was “experts on PR and Twitter,” however the session description went on to discuss a variety of networks.  Therefore my interpretation was to speak on the intersection of social media and PR, and not just PR and Twitter.

The social web is far more than just Twitter, and if Twitter is the extent of your participation you’re missing out.  Lee’s diagram of social media and channels of distribution presents a visualization of a strong approach, where the centerpiece is a blog.  The centerpiece could be anything of course, not just a blog – but the essential element is that it’s a place you control and not an external network.  Using Twitter or any network you don’t control as the centerpiece is a mistake, because you’re building the value of a digital asset that isn’t really yours (no analytics, no control, no SEO benefit and if that network falls out of favor all your hard work is devalued).

Today at the PRSA 09 conference, it was a packed room for TopRank CEO (and author of Online Marketing Blog) Lee Odden who gave a presentation on SEO for Public Relations.

He started by explaining why SEO is/should be important to PR Professionals.

In a 2008 Journalists Use of Search Survey by TopRank, we discovered that 91% of journalists use standard search to fulfill a component of their job whether researching a story or locating a subject matter expert.

With journalists writing for more channels and with less resources making your content visible within search is critical.

Here are Odden’s 10 SEO Tips:

The first day of the 2009 PRSA International Conference in San Diego kicked off general sessions today.

One session I’ve really been looking forward to was the one on social media measurement featuring Katie Paine of KDPaine & Partners. She started the audience off with some numbers, that we all might find useful:

• 48% of respondents to a PRWeek study said that they were moving money from advertising to social media – only 18% said they were taking money from PR
• 78% of people trust peer recommendations, 14% trust advertising
• 91% of Inc 500 companies are using social media
• 38% aren’t monitoring their brand, product or reputation in social media

Next, the audience had to grapple with the idea (read truth) that it’s the end of measurement as we know it. Here are ten supporting facts:

When Brian Solis asked me to do a review of Putting the Public Back in Public Relations, the book he and Deidre Breakenridge published earlier this year,  it didn’t take a second to say yes. Putting that decision into action took a little longer and it finally took some time on a plane to get it done.

I’ve known Brian Solis through our common industry involvement with social media and the Public Relations world for several years.  Brian is a thought leader not because he’s popular on the social web or because he’s the cool-guy host of the Tech Set parties, or even because of his successful PR business, board memberships with up and coming companies, keynote presentations or the popular blogs he publishes at briansolis.com and bub.blicio.us.

Albert Maruggi

Minnesota is home to one of the most vibrant social media communities in the country, with attendance at Social Media Breakfasts exceeding 300+ (more than NYC or San Francisco).

With all that local interest and talent, I thought I would do a few interviews with some of the Minneapolis social media set that I’ve come to know.

Albert Maruggi is a 30-year communications practitioner whose career spans journalist, public affairs adviser in national politics, global marketer for technology companies and founder of Provident Partners. Through PRSA & Media Relations conferences—as well as through hair-raising driving in the hills of San Francisco—I’ve had the chance to get to know Albert and his keen insight into the future of digital marketing and PR.

The transition from old to new technology creates both challenges and opportunities for communications professions.  The field of public relations is directly tied to the publishing industry which of course, is directly connected to business and consumer information discovery and consumption.  The migration from offline to online has left these industries in a state of flux and traditional PR becoming increasingly digital is no exception.

There are tactical challenges as well as strategic. For example, the shift towards digital communications means a new set of tools must be learned in order to accomplish today’s PR goals.  Now more than ever, public relations professionals need to familiarize themselves with a new arsenal of tools to adjust and thrive in a digital world.

Online Marketing Blog readers are well aware: news search engines offer a great way to receive targeted traffic related to breaking topics or to help with a public relations launch.

What are the latest ways businesses and media are using content to tap into the power of news search?  Mark Jackson, SEW Expert & President/CEO, VIZION Interactive moderates this group to dig deeper:

• Dana Todd, CMO, Newsforce
• Allison Fabella, SEO Manager, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
• Greg Jarboe, President & Co-Founder, SEO-PR
• Lisa Buyer, President & CEO, The Buyer Group
• David Radicke, Consultant, SEO, SEM, Web Analytics, Radicke eCommerce
• Maile Ohye, Senior Developer Programs Engineer, Google

Mark led this session with a brief introduction of each speaker and quickly turned it over to let the panel members give their presentations.

image credit: Sergio Tudela via Flickr (cc 3.0)

A Creative Commons license is an simple way to encourage others to share, remix, and reuse your digital content. If you’re publishing material of any variety to the web and looking to have it spread, licensing your work under Creative Commons is smart as it actively encourages sharing with permission and attribution.

“Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy.” –Tim Oriely

With the release of Chris Anderson’s new book, Free: The Future of a Radical Price there is a heated debate going around the web about the idea of free. I’m not going to get into the economics of free, but purely from a marketing perspective, free is the great equalizer. Especially when talking about digital content, talented producers can leapfrog gatekeepers and get noticed fast. Creative Commons was designed to work with what the web naturally does, and that’s share the best content freely without resistance.