Guest post by Neel

The mainline for hype in the PR industry for some time now has been “social media”. Whether or not this is actually achieving the sort of results which would qualify for the glowing endorsements of social sites as the “future of media” is another matter. The PR industry has in fact been pretty slow to pick up on the social sites, and actually it was market research, not PR, which really opened up the subject to debate. Like SEO, the PR industry was pretty lethargic about seeing the potential for development of social sites, and it’s only recently that social sites have been getting serious attention.

PR, issues and social media

Slothful or not, PR has now latched on to Twitter as a meaningful source of information. The fact that client interests can literally be tracked second by second, and any feedback, controversy or other issues properly monitored has been the main factor. A belated revelation, perhaps, but it’s becoming clear that PR is getting value out of the Twitterings of the world.

Admittedly, Twitter has one problem: what is Tweeted, by definition, isn’t necessarily the whole story in any continuum of events. However, as a live sampling mechanism, it’s a perfectly valid market information source, and has the advantage that it’s usually only core client issues that get Tweeted.

The other advantage is that Tweets are instantaneous, unlike press and other media, which are on average anything up to a day behind the play in terms of PR issues. That’s a major advantage. Major corporations have also latched on to this valuable source of raw data. Tweets and other social site information have undeniably provided valuable feedback, which could otherwise quite literally take months to go through normal corporate channels.

There are practical applications- For example, if Toyota management had been able to access commentary online about its recent brakes disaster, it’s more than likely that action would have been taken a lot faster than it was. There are already several cases of customers complaining about products online, and their complaints being picked up by PR or market monitors, and dealt with in record time.

The real time effect and social media

Real time responses have quite a few things going for them. They’re infinitely more efficient, and the response time is far more cost-effective than the usual complaints channels.  This real time response is also more efficient for PR firms, which in many cases may be only called in when the client becomes aware of a market problem or issue. That can be days or weeks after a PR debacle has hit the fan, using traditional methods, and in many cases the problems escalate during the time lag, making PR operations that much more difficult, often having to be literally done on the run, in developing situations.

It’s likely that PR and market research between them will adapt some form of customizable search engine optimization for social media, isolating key market issues in the same way search-based keywords are developed for SEO. These could be weighted keywords, or combinations of elements.

This is perhaps the biggest development in PR since the 1950s. Whatever happens next, it’s not likely to be dull.

About the author

Neel is an Australian freelance writer and journalist. He writes extensively in Australia, Canada, Europe, and the US. He’s published more than 500 articles about various topics, including SEO.

A five-part series on online branding for businesses by Ryan Chaffin

1. What’s in a Name? Everything
2. SEO: Marketing in the New Millennium
3. PPC as a Model of Smart Advertising
4. Social Media: Highly Accessible Advertising
5. Freshening Up: Maintaining Your Brand Image

The proliferation of the internet has completely changed how our society exchanges information. What was once the realm of letters and paper is now the realm of e-mail and electronic documents. Just as the way of relaying information has evolved, so has the world of advertising. Billboards are now sidebar ads and the Yellow Pages are now Google Maps.

For many small businesses the internet has become a boon to their services, bringing them a whole host of new customers that they never would have seen in the years before the web. But, herein lays a problem. It is one thing to recognize the changing landscape of marketing and advertising, but a completely different thing to understand how this new mechanism works. Simply putting together a novice website and then letting is fester in cyber-anonymity is simply not enough. This is where a properly placed SEO campaign can assist your company in emerging from internet obscurity.

For example, you may be in the business of hiring truck drivers.  You may offer the highest quality truck driver hiring services available. Your track record may be sterling but no one will have any idea of your business’ quality if you don’t properly advertise it or if your name doesn’t appear in a simple web search. SEO stands for “search engine optimization” and these services accomplish exactly what the name implies: they help your website conform to the standards dictated by individual search engines. A properly launched and maintained SEO campaign can bring your name to the top of a web search, effectively bringing more traffic to your website. Think about it: when you search for a service, which web result do you usually click on? If you are like most people, the first page of results is usually as far as you get.

Let’s return to our previous example. If someone were to type “hiring truck drivers” into a search engine and you owned a company that specialized in this very service, you would want your company name to show up first. If you have correctly branded your company name online, enlisted effective SEO techniques, and followed up on your marketing campaign with solid services, then you would be in a prime place to reap the benefits of a very high ranking. All of these variables coming together and working in tandem would equate to a higher customer flow and increased sales.

A properly run SEO campaign can accentuate all the hard work you have put into your business by highlighting your products and putting your company name in front of more people than any other medium can afford. The results can truly be astounding: the investment worth every penny.

About the author

Ryan Chaffin is currently a college student majoring in Business Marketing. He loves anything technology, internet, and social media related along with sports and health & wellness. Ryan currently specializes in search engine optimization (SEO), blogging, and social media and believes in achieving your fullest potential on and off the web. You can also find Ryan on Twitter (@ryanchaffin).

Guest post by Derek Vaughan

Having been involved with PR since the days before new media, I have made numerous adjustments to my PR strategies to maximize the impact of my news releases in the digital era. Unfortunately, I have also seen many ”old school” agencies and PR experts who have overlooked these critical elements of the modern digital news release. Here’s a bit of what I believe they may be missing.

1. Using keywords in the headline

To anyone who’s ever used Google news or a blog post to gain website traffic, the need to have well targeted keywords in your titles is obvious. Search engines (including specialty search like Google News) automatically look through online content and begin with the headline or title of a piece to determine the overall category for the content and the search terms that may trigger that content to appear.

In the past, old school writers preferred the pithy and ironic headline that elicited a chuckle and showed a command of language and ”turn of phrase”. This headline from The Sun is a perfect example of that old school cleverness. Playing off the broadway song from the musical ‘West Side Story’, the story referenced the October 2006, decision by North Korea to conduct a nuclear test. It’s a great pun, but in today’s digital media world the headline lacks certain keywords that would let it rise in the search results for a targeted keyword like: ‘nuclear testing’.

In a modern best practice for PR professionals, one ought to do a bit of research into the search terms that resonate with audiences and include those search terms in the headlines, title and body of the release.

1a. Research your keywords prior to release

As a corollary to including keywords as mentioned above, one ought to research those keywords for maximum impact. Here’s one way to do that – use Google Trends. You can locate Google Trends at: http://google.com/trends. So what is Google Trends and how does it work? Here is how Google describes the service:

”Google Trends analyzes a portion of Google web searches to compute how many searches have been done for the terms you enter, relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time. We then show you a graph with the results – our Search Volume Index graph. Located beneath the Search Volume Index graph is our News reference volume graph. This graph shows you the number of times your topic appeared in Google News stories. When Google Trends detects a spike in the volume of news stories for a particular search term, it labels the graph and displays the headline of an automatically selected Google News story written near the time of that spike.”

So you can see at a glance the number of searches conducted for keywords you may be considering for your headline, and also get a quick view of how many other Google News stories are referencing that same keyword topic.

2. Include links with anchor text in the release

One of the prime benefits in the digital age of writing up a press release is to get links back to your website. Without getting into a deep philosophical discussion on search engine optimization, suffice it to say that links back to your website are good for search rankings. Even better are links that contain the phrases of the terms you are interested in targeting. For example, a link like: http://wordsofabrokenmirror.com is fine – but more impactful is a link like: PR and Marketing Expertise. The second link goes to exactly the same page, but contains the types of keywords that matter for the site. In any modern release, one should use this anchor text for links pointing off the release. Not every online press release service offers this feature. Shop around a bit and you’ll find that the most professional and up-to-date news release services accommodate the use of anchor text. A final note – be sure to use links sparingly in the body of the release and also include anchor text links in your ‘About’ section or footer.

3. Post the release on your own website

Getting a release out on the news wire or emailing it to targeted editorial contacts is great. However, don’t forget to create a ‘Press Releases’ section on your website as well. Then post each release into your press release area each time a release goes out. This builds credibility as your number of press releases increases, and also gives you a version of your press release that you can link to on outside sources, or within you blog as described below.

4. Promote the press release using social media, blogs and your own website

Often an old school PR master will send a release out via the wire services and call it a day. The modern digital PR professional knows that promoting the release via social media, blogs and your own website are also important final steps in the PR process. There are many great resources that can help you come up to speed on using social media to promote your site and releases, but I recommend at least creating a Twitter account for your site and promoting the press release there.

Daniel Foster, co-founder of Manchester dedicated server firm 34SP.com explains the benefits of using Twitter to promote internal press releases:

”Since we have used Twitter to promote our press releases we gain two valuable things. First, our followers on Twitter are alerted to the release and can then read the release, and if they choose – pass the item on to others via a re-tweet. Second, as Google now displays tweets as part of their search listings, we get another mention on Google for the release. This combination drives additional traffic to our site.”

You can also consider submission to social sites like digg.com if they are applicable to the site content. Also, if you have a blog on your website (I recommend that as well) you should craft a brief post outlining the highlights of the release and linking to the release page within your site. This further solidifies the relevance for search engines and creates yet another reference within the search engines on the subject matter which will potentially drive more visitors to your website.

While there are many great public relations professionals out there today, make sure you are challenging them with doing everything necessary to ensure the success of your digital press releases.

About the author

Derek Vaughan is a web hosting industry veteran, marketing consultant and writer. He has architected the marketing growth of several prominent web hosting success stories leading to acquisition
including Affinity Internet, Inc., Aplus.Net and HostMySite.com. Prior to his entry into the web hosting industry, Derek was responsible for online marketing at The Walt Disney Company where he marketed ecommerce for the ESPN.com and NASCAR.com brands. Derek received his M.B.A. from Vanderbilt University and currently serves on the HostingCon Advisory Board.

I love reading SEOBook and from the SEO perspective, I think Aaron Wall is quite the guru. I also think he’s got very cool marketing and business development insights to share. But it seems Twitter is where our opinions start to differ. According to his post about Twitter, this microblogging platform is a big page rank waster, mostly because of the no follow links. True. He also seems to think there’s little to gain from using Twitter. Aaron also quotes Seth Godin on the fact that, just like the phone, Twitter is only a connecting medium, not a marketing medium.

My question to you is: if you could (legally ) listen to people’s conversations on the phone, hear them when they mention your product or service, if you could start your own conversation with them, wouldn’t you be all over the phone? I know I would!

Twitter might be nothing more than a connection between many dots, but it’s an extremely transparent one. You can literally watch thoughts spread through word of mouth. Tweets and retweets and the circle keeps growing.

And don’t forget the ROI you get from investing in relationships! I’ve seen this idea in the post’s comments, but I feel it needs to be stressed out. Twitter is a great place to meet interesting people. You might have hobbies, passions, causes or business in common, no matter which, this limited characters outlet is a great place to build a meaningful relationship.

Does it generate value for your business? Let’s see, you learn new things, you meet key people, others spread news, reviews and quick notes on your products or services, you interact with business partners and potential clients. Isn’t all this valuable?

I’ll use myself as an example: I’ve found inspiration for my business blog on Twitter, I’ve found resources I would have otherwise missed, I’ve been exposed to innovative ideas and picked up some new tricks on the way, I’ve met some potential clients, but most of all, I’ve built relationships with truly amazing people.

Yes, Google ranks might suffer because of Twitter. But is rank the only thing that matters? I think I’d take a few people talking about the services I provide and driving new customers my way over half a point of Google PR any day! Especially if those doing the tweeting are key influencers for my potential customers.

I won’t deny it, it’s easy to get lost on Twitter at times, it’s hard to keep it strictly business. It’s better defined as chit chatting with friends, plus some other benefits.

What do you think? Can Twitter create enough value for you business, to be worth integrating Twitter strategy in your overall business and marketing plan? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comment section!

What I think you shouldn’t have missed last week…

The first week of spring is officially here and we have some chirpy blog posts for you to read. How you find them as inspiring and energizing as a sunny spring day.

Drew McLellan shared some amazing marketing insight after learnign a few tricks from a dog whisperer. Now that I’ve read the lessons, Drew, could you be so kind as to teleport the dog whisperer here, I think I need some help with my lab!

The newest, coolest thing when going to a conference is to live tweet it. So how exactly do you effectively present to a room full of tweeting birds? The answer comes from Tamar Weinberg on Pistachio.

Do you want a custom design for your blog? I know I did and my dream came true. But before you imlement this project of yours, please stop to consider a few issues explained by Alex Cristache of Blogsessive.

Stuart Bruce discussed PR, SEO and the fact that public relations, while employing quite a lot of search engine optimization, is not really about SEO, it’s about reputation.

We’re all obsessing about elevator pitches. While doing so, Frances Cole Jones, guest writer at Women on Business, point out that we overlook the importance of the FAQ page and the great results such a page can deliver.

What do you do when you want to launch a new product or service and have no idea what customers would think of it? Daniel Secareanu suggest the simplest and best solution: ask your customers.

You’ve all seen your share of teasers before something new hits the market. Michael Martine of Remarkablogger shows us how to get an audience drooling for a blog that doesn’t exist yet. His approach seems a lot more effective than a criptic add!

Google rankings involve a lot of things. It’s a secret recipe everyone’s after. And one of the reason no one has discovered it yet is that it’s learning and adapting to new tricks. Aaron Wall noticed a new trend: Google started placing heavy emphasis on branding.

When organizing an event, keeping the audience interested and excited about it is critical. Barbara Rozgonyi shares 9 ways to keep events alive with social media.

And we’re closing this week’s edition with a business puzzle from Corina Saceanu. Where’s the money?

What great posts have you run across last week? Please share them in the comment box!

Naomi Dunford, who’s a never ending source of small business marketing ideas, is right when she says that SEO is scary. It is at first, second and maybe third. It is when you run into a complicated article and although you know the words, you really don’t understand them in the given context. It’s even scarier when you start grasping what kind of work you should really do to be able to say your site is pretty much optimized for the search engines without having experts laugh at you. And it is scary when you look at a new book you’ve just purchased wondering when exactly you’ll have the time to read it. It’s 50 pages, but still, you’re a busy bee!

Well, Naomi manages to solve the time issue for you with her SEO School ebook. After a few pages, you’re laughing so hard, you can’t stop yourself from making time to read it. It’s a trick! She wants you to read the book, fall in love with SEO, or her style (this works if you don’t read her blog), and gets you to learn what you need to make your website better.

Cover Shot Credit IttyBiz

I have to confess I am a little biased. The first time I read a text book that was funny as hell was in my first year of college, when i was studying to get my Journalism degree. It was a book giving us the journalistic writing basics. But it was so funny, it read like a completely different kind of book. And I had little to no experience with such effective teaching methods. It worked great for me! I didn’t feel the least bit inclined to take one our breaks after every 30 minutes of studying. If helped me relax, laugh at myself and learn at the same time.

And the second issue that might add to my original bias: have you seen Naomi’s sales emails? You kind of feel compelled to buy something. And I was just waiting for a chance to find something perfect for me to buy. I had been planning to start learning more about SEO for over a year, so when the book was back on her site, I just bought it.

You’ll learn everything you need about what kind of site you run or want to own, about how much SEO you are really ready to handle, about keywords, research, tools, strategy, links and everything else shinny in search engine land. But it will be so fun you’ll never know what has hit you.

P.S. If you feel you must have SEO School now, feel free to join my Blogging and Relationships group writing project for a chance to win it, along with two hours of PR consulting from yours truly!

What I think you shouldn’t have missed last week…

It’s been quite a while since the last round of monday reading tips! The vacation had that weird effect on my blog, but I’m back with new great posts, all published sometime last week.

To start with, I chose something that really isn’t my style. But given the increasing number of people getting married to fast and ending up divorced, this really made sence: some really importantquestions to ask before getting married posted by Lin Burres.

Zane Safrit of Small Business Trends showed us a great way to keep our best employees as long as possible: greeting them with open arms.

Hendry Lee of BlogBuildingU highlighted an important aspect of off page optimization that we should always keep in mind: links.

Jason Falls of Social Media Explorer taught us a great lesson: how to work with brand enthusiasts and not against them. Looks like a very effective technique!

While Wall Street is going down, SEO seems to be growing fast. Tad of SEO 2.0 gave us 7 reasons why this was happening.

Meltdowns are something really hard to avoid. No matter how hard you try, they will still happen. Jonathan Fileds explaines last week that meltdowns are really not important, what’s important is how you handle them.

Robyn McMasters shared a writing lesson: keeping your text inclusive so that all your readers feel welcome.

And to round up this week, here are the top 5 reasons why blogging rocks our world day in, day out. Alex Cristache of Blogsessive is responsible for this one!

Hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s list. See you all next Monday!