November 19, 2009 by IBI · Leave a Comment
In recent years, blogs and social media monitoring have become a fundamental part of the press office operation and many PR agencies’ bread and butter services. As social networking has matured, companies need to engage proactively to ensure their brands are effectively supported.Traditional media such as magazines, newspapers and TV channels have increasing numbers of journalist-written blogs as part of their online presence, meaning a top tier of blogs are seen as being just as influential in the media landscape as their e-zines and print media counterparts. There has also been an increase in the number of business-led social networks, business users of blogs and micro-blogging tools such as Twitter and Google-owned Jaiku, and multimedia social sites like Flickr. However, a huge portion of the blogosphere and social media landscape is not professionally produced and individually these sites do not have huge audiences. Collectively though, these smaller outlets comprise as much as 99 per cent of the social media landscape and together form a powerful force that the PR industry is looking to harness. As the majority of blogs and social media sites contain personal content written in the first person, viral issues and stories can spread quickly. The sites connect people and when issues spread virally across social networks, they become big news for organisations that they affect. This is why tracking blog buzz across the whole of the web is critical for reporting on brand image, online coverage, and building a picture of customer perceptions.An example of how effective a viral campaign can be, was when an online grass-roots campaign was formed on the social network Facebook. Protesting against an overdraft charge that the bank HSBC was imposing on recent graduate accounts, thousands of students joined forces online through a viral Facebook group which generated massive media attention, and forced a u-turn at HSBC. Within just a few weeks of the group launching, the bank scrapped the overdraft charges. Over the last year, the fact that blogs impact a company’s brand image online has become more established. Marketing, PR and communications departments are increasingly exposed to the impact blogs have on a brand’s reputation, whether that’s negative coverage of a product or an online petition or a campaign across social networks. As this issue has gathered momentum, companies have realised that blogs and social media need to be actively managed not just monitored. Some progressive brands are already doing this successfully. US retail bank Wells Fargo for example has a team dedicated to responding online to bloggers’ issues and complaints in order to increase positive sentiment around the brand online and reduce the amount of negativity that might emerge.What caused the need to move from monitoring to engagement? Early adopters have led the charge. And the masses have followed. We are seeing social media’s evolution in the business ecosystem move from early adopter to mass market status and web tactics are rapidly becoming better understood tactically and strategically as part of the PR mix. The challenge is to turn the opportunity into action.
Brendon Craigie works for Hotwire, an international public relations consultancy specialized in technology PR.
Their digital media practice specializes in counselling companies in the Web 2.0 sector, such as web site infrastructure tools and services, digital and internet marketing services and information providers.
November 19, 2009 by IBI · Leave a Comment
As the communication landscape changes and new, cutting edge ways of consuming information emerge, PR agencies and corporate public relations teams around the world must re-think the way they format news and deliver it to their target audience. The social media press release has radically altered the way PR professionals approach broadcasts and announcements.
* What is a Social Media Press Release?
Inspired by Tom Foremski of the Silicon Valley Watcher, a social media press release is a next-generation press release optimized specifically for online distribution and publication, such as placement in blogs, social bookmarking sites, RSS, and other similar mediums.
The social media press release is designed to facilitate rapid and widespread sharing of news, information, images, audio, video, and other content. Unlike traditional press releases that are notoriously packed with hype and marketing-speak, the social media press release is far more functional, focusing on just the most relevant and pertinent facts, and relaying them in a simple, concise, hyperlinked format that will appeal to bloggers and other online journalists.
The typical social media press release includes a summary of key highlights, a few expert quotes, links to background information embedded throughout the text, and tags that identify related coverage and other similar topics of interest – all written in a style that reflects the way people speak about the subject at hand. As a result, it is much easier for bloggers to post the information, and for online journalists to conduct their research, and find the quotes, references, statistics, and other data they need to write thorough and accurate stories.
Many social media press releases also include images, video, and other visually-oriented content, tying together various multimedia elements in a way that makes them easily adaptable and re-usable.
* Fast and Wide Distribution
Social media press releases provide faster distribution and wider broadcast coverage than old-school public relations channels can. A recent Pew Research report shows that the public is more Web savvy than ever before, and that Internet use has become a part of the typical consumer’s daily routine.
In fact, more than 50 percent of consumers polled indicated that they create and share content online. With the social media press release, companies are empowered to take their message directly to these consumers via the most popular and preferred formats, making it readily available and instantly accessible not just to reporters, but to anyone who is interested.
Social media press releases can also act as direct marketing and search engine optimization vehicles. News headlines can be delivered via RSS ads, so they are dynamically pushed directly to those who subscribe to similar topics. And, the inclusion of popular key words and phrases (particularly those that potential customers are likely to utilize when searching for the company’s products or services), as well as commonly-used jargon and acronyms, title tags, ticker symbols, and links to other Web content such as blogs and related articles, can give a boost to a company’s ranking in Google, Yahoo, and other major search engines.
* Social Media is Here To Stay
Most of the major wire services have recognized the importance of social media in today’s PR strategies, and have begun to expand their offerings accordingly. PRWeb and Pheedo provide RSS ads, track-back functionality, and the ability to tag and send out press releases via del.icio.us.
Additionally, PR Newswire and Business Wire have launched new social media features such as RSS Feeds. These services also now allow bloggers to access capabilities and functions within their sites that were previously only available to credentialed journalists.
* Social Media Press Release Template
Several PR firms adjust their tactics to take full advantage of the Internet for PR. You’ll notice more social media press releases from a number of Internet savvy PR firms and companies. An online search for “social media press release template” will lead you to examples, templates and ongoing blog conversations on the pros and cons of this next generation of press releases.
You’ll find that by following a social media press release template you can easily create compelling, highly-effective press releases structure specifically for distribution to media outlets and for obtaining comprehensive coverage.
November 3, 2009 by IBI · Leave a Comment
You get many ways to go about generating traffic on your website. Firstly, stress on your keyword. You must identify your key topics, and use your keywords wisely. Make sure, while generating traffic that your target audience gets what it’s looking for. Aim to make your website more than just a website – your focus should be on making it an online resource for your field or niche! Make use of blogs, get others to link you. Be proactive, use newsletters, press releases, and PR agencies. All of these may lead to new links. You could even contact top bloggers in your industry. This would give you added leverage.
Take advantage of social media and social networking sites. Newspapers, television, radio stations – all of these are popular, and have the power of influencing your target audience. Another secret to generating traffic is to use media directories like Gebbie Press and Burelles Luce, which can help you identify your outlets. And it’s essential to be part of Facebook, Digg, Netscape, YouTube, MySpace, etc., believe us, you will get great branding out of it!
Here are some valuable tips you need to know for generating traffic, when it comes to link building. Produce high quality content, get good quality related/trusted places to link to you, link to other related and trusted websites, and finally, get your links within the content of the webpage (that means, ideally, in the middle area of a page, and not the header or footer).
When it comes to generating traffic, make sure you are exchanging guest-posts, and not just writing them. It shouldn’t be one-way. How does this work? You write a guest post for a blogger, and to return the favor – he or she writes one for you. The advantage? This is a wonderful arrangement that allows your blog to always be freshly updated, and visitors will always be greeted with something new.
Also, for generating traffic, use the most boring and mundane of daily tasks to promote your website. For example, if you’re an active participant of forums, add your blog’s URL to your forum signature. Put the URL at the bottom of each email, so that each message you send will be a form of promotion for your website. You can also set Twitter to publish links to new posts from your blog, and not only that – you really must add your blog link to your social networking profiles.
Make use of in-post working. You can finish a post with a question to other bloggers – like what they think about a certain thing. If your post was thought-provoking enough, you might get a few replies, because opinion-based topics always get more uptakes. Engaging with other bloggers has the advantage of enriching your niche.
And here’s a secret tip to generating traffic – release an EBooks! Make a list of your top ten best posts, and put it together in 15 minutes. The EBooks can be out there publicizing your website in no time! You should also put in a blog translator plug-in on your webpage – as this is beneficial for those not fluent in English. This, apart from generating traffic, also makes your website accessible to just about anyone.
Darren Olander a successful internet network marketer has come up with a new business model for generating traffic for new business. Just visit his site http://www.instanttrafficsecret.com for more details.
