Online Marketing Blog

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.

Press Release SEO has been one of the most popular topics to attract Google search traffic here on Online Marketing Blog.  In fact, Lee told me he’s been using PRWeb (a TopRank SEO Client) to promote content in a news format since 2001. We’ve seen the ups and downs in the Public Relations industry over the years and have helped inform many Public Relations professionals on the finer arts of SEO by speaking at events like PRSA, providing training for PR agencies and corporate communications departments and writing about the topic here.

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.

In the course of providing expertise and advice, I’ve really come to believe that it’s more important now than ever for Public Relations professionals to accelerate their knowledge of SEO and Social Media. The storytelling business is a competitive one and great messaging isn’t realized until it connects with influencers and those in a position to propagate it. Both SEO and Social Media facilitate discovery of news and information, so PR pros can boost reach and impact by becoming Social SEO savvy.

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

The widespread use of social media has fundamentally changed how people communicate and share information. According to recent data from comScore, Facebook now accounts for 12.3 percent of the time spent online in the U.S. versus 7.2 percent just a year ago. Twitter now counts approximately 200 million accounts and over 110 million tweets per day.

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.

Monday I shared tips on how to leverage Google to find disparate, useful resources for use with sourcing content on blog posts. Working with my new blogging partner in crime, @DFolkens, this post is an output from  following that advice.

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:

I’m here at the PRSA International conference in Washington D.C. and the conversations about social media are to be found everywhere. The halls, the exhibit floor, sessions and even at the fantastic dinner hosted by Shonali Burke last night.

Yesterday I gave a 4 hour workshop or, “SEO Bootcamp for Communicators” as it was titled.  I polled the attendees who came from a variety of companies and organizations ranging from a for profit private school to the Veteran’s Administration, on what their questions were about SEO. Most revolved around getting to understand how PR can get up to speed on the value of SEO and incorporate it into what they’re doing as Marketing has done.

Sponsored by JenKaneCo, well known social media evangelist Brian Solis recently gave a presentation to an enthusiastic group of marketers in downtown Minneapolis to introduce the concepts behind his new book:  Engage! The Complete Guide for Brands and Businesses to Build, Cultivate and Measure Success in the New Web. The following is an overview of his presentation:

Relations vs. Relationships

There’s something interesting that’s happening right now on the web:  relations are starting to matter more than relationships.  The key lesson for marketers, and what the rest of this overview discusses, is that people will engage around content that compels them in networks where that content spreads.

There are many intersections between earned media and organic search engine rankings, so it makes sense that they would work well together. The PR industry is in an interesting situation right now with so much of the traditional media world moving to digital media.  Whether they admit it or not, journalists rely on PR professionals for a pipeline of stories and information. When journalists lose their jobs, media relations professionals lose an essential reason for being in business.

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

If you have ever wanted to be a fly on the wall listening to experts talk about the convergence of PR and Social Media, here’s your chance.  PRSA brought together the following people to lend their thoughts about the PR (R)evolution:

Moderator: Kami Watson from My PR Pro and Panelists: Deirdre Breakenridge from PFS Marketwyse, Ariel Hyatt of Ariel Publicity & CyberPR, Joseph Jaffe from Crayon and Brian Solis from FutureWorks PR. Here is the conversation as it unfolded, marked with Twitter handles.

What’s next in the realm of online and how will it impact PR?

@dbreakenridge – Google Wave is next for launching information and collaborating. As discussed in a panel yesterday 2008/2009 was the year of checking off a list of social media tools. Facebook – check. YouTube- check. Next, we need to evolve, connect the networks, improve the experience and understand real-time metrics. In addition, the consumer experience will be upgraded to reflect real-time pricing, etc.

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.

[Note from Lee:  The PR industry is in a state of flux with changes in the print industry, citizen journalism and the social web. Consumer behaviors with information discovery, consumption and sharing have been significantly affected by the dramatic increase in social platform usage and ease of self publishing.

Companies that rely on reaching and engaging those consumers through PR and marketing vendors and/or internal professionals need to carefully consider what skills and capabilities are needed to succeed. I've asked Adam Singer at TopRank to present his view on the matter and he's come up with the following post.]

Jason Falls recently made a smart comment about the need for Public Relations professions to be “social media ready”.  In that post, he referenced a 2009 “Digital Readiness Report” to assess the specific social media marketing skills companies are looking for in a PR vendor.