Online Marketing Blog

(Rob Key, Peter Himler, David Bradfield, Lee Odden)

Prior to being engaged to someone with far more social tact and less complete obliviousness towards social etiquette than myself, it would have never once occurred to me to bring a “host gift” to a party or get together.

As I mature and meet more and more people, however, I’m glad to have someone around who actually realizes that most social groups will adhere to often unwritten social rules (including “host gifts”), and will be unlikely to truly welcome someone into their group unless they follow them.

When looking at the changing PR landscape, particularly the presence of new forms of social media, what can PR professionals learn from this example?

As with most conferences, we like to take a few photos and the annual Public Relations industry event, PRSA International conference is no different. Held in Detroit this year with attendee goals met and sponsor goals exceeded, there is a feel of optimism both about the city as esposed my Detroit mayor Ken Cockrel and by PRSA President Jeff Julin.

I personally started the conference on Saturday with a 4 hour workshop on SEO for Public Relations which included results of our Journalist Use of Search Survey. At 10am today I’m on a panel with Peter Himler, Rob Key and David Bradfield.  Here are a few of my favorite photos from the first 2 days of PRSA 2008.

It wouldn’t be a proper PRSA conference roundup without a photo of PRSA President Jeff Julin

Conferences are a big part of TopRank’s marketing and content promotion strategy and it looks like a busy summer is ahead of us. Numerous events are coming up quickly – enough to make your head spin. Here is a summary of our involvement with PRSA, DMA, PUSH, SIS, SES and SMX events over the next 30 days:

05/14/08 – MIMA: Duality Reality – Who Controls Social Media in the Enterprise?
The local interactive marketing association along with inspiration and motivation from Doug Pollei, there will be a very interesting panel of in-house Interactives discussing how large companies (General Mills, Best Buy, Target, Fingerhut and OptumHealth) are adopting and measuring social media programs. If you’re in the Twin Cities this week and involved with social marketing now or in the future, this is a MUST ATTEND event.

The buzz about SEO in the public relations industry has grown tremendously over the past 2-3 years. Press releases in particular, have been the easy target for promotion as candidates for optimization. With the growing use of Google and Yahoo News, optimizing press releases have been an easy way to gain prominent visibility in the short term and in some cases, long term visibility in standard search engines.

As both a SEO and a PR practitioner for companies ranging from startups for Fortune 20 corporations, our Online Marketing Agency is tasked with educating audiences in both industries. For example, at public relations conferences, I’m the SEO guy talking about optimized PR. At search marketing conferences, I’m the PR guy talking about using PR for SEO. Our Account Managers like Jolina Pettice and Mike Yanke do the same thing with clients.

With the changes last year in the search marketing conference industry there has been disappointing side-taking and rumor mongering but also a healthy dose of optimism about what more competition will do for attendees. I would think the sustainability and success of any conference is in large part dependent upon attendees needs being met. Whether your primary business is interactive marketing, public relations, advertising or SEM, online marketing and PR oriented conferences offer a variety of benefits.

Because of Online Marketing Blog readers’ varied marketing and PR related interests, this week’s Poll aims to identify the top motivations for readers to attend marketing industry conferences:

Tomorrow the PRSA is conducting a teleseminar “PR and Social Media – What every practitioner needs to know“.

Take a first-hand look at the phenomena that are redefining the practice of public relations.  Hear from three digital PR pioneers about the array of new tools, strategies and channels available to today’s practitioner from Facebook and Second Life to blogger relations, digital video and search engine reputation management.

As has been the case with a number of public relations industry events, I am tasked with bringing a search marketing perspective to a PR and social media focused panel. A similar session was held at the PRSA International Conference last year, “Social Media for PR Practitioners“, so the seminar tomorrow will be a nice update.

Sometimes a Monday blog post deserves a good collection of links:

• The Fox on viral link building and listening to your audience
• Smackdown on Matt Cutts re: spanking SEO blogs
• Jeff Jarvis @TheGuardian and the social whirl driving the development of search
• eMarketer says B2B’s are buzzing over Marketing 2.0
• Vox on Video: Measuring engagement of user generated video
• SEO Lowdown on the LED: “You’re doing the SEM industry a dis-service by characterizing the level or complexity of SEO work according to the size of a company.”
• Grehan Clickz’s the SEO and Public Relations connection. Mike, what took you so long?
• Speaking of PR and Search, be sure to check out Himler, Bradfield, Miele and Odden @PRSA Webinar on PR and Social Media Feb 26

I just returned from the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) International conference being held in Philadelphia where I participated on a panel, “Social Media, What Every PR Practitioner Needs to Know” with Rob Key of Converseon, Nicco Mele of echoditto and Peter Himler of Flatiron Communications who handled moderation duties.

Fifteen minutes before the session, the room was packed with people eventually standing against the back wall and it was clear that both the room and the topic of social media were going to be hot.