Archive for December, 2007

Trends You Need to Be Aware of in 2008

Monday, December 31st, 2007

2007 saw some remarkable shifts in media consumption, communication patterns and influence.
Search Engines Are Driving News Traffic  

The Hitwise US News and Media Report about recent trends in online news consumption, shows that search engines are responsible for more News and Media category website traffic than ever before.

  • Print News websites received 29.7 percent more traffic from Google in March 2007 than in March 2006
  • Broadcast Media sites received 35.9 percent more traffic from Google in the same time period
  • News Aggregators and portals were also significant sources of traffic for News and Media websites.

online news trends

 

 

The New York Times found that more than half of their traffic was coming from search and as a result dropped paid content and reverted to the traditional model of free content supported by ads.
Blogs will change your business

When Business Week said this in 2006 many PR folk thought it was a wild prediction.  2007 has seen a shift in where people go to get news.  According to a recent Synovate/Marketing Daily survey, 8 out of 10 Americans know what a blog is and almost half have visited blogs. When asked about the types of information they get from blogs, 65% said they get opinions, while 39% get news and 38% get entertainment. With the right mix of compelling content and exposure, a blog can draw a dedicated following, making the blogger one of the new influencers.
 

Video is Important

“One of the most striking trends over the past year has been the increase in traffic from News & Media websites to video websites,” said LeeAnn Prescott of Hitwise. A big contributor to the trend was user-generated video around news events
One of the key insights from the last two years is that short-form online video does best when it’s placed in a context, say Jeremy Allaire and Adam Berrey of Internet television startup brightcove. The context could be created by pages in a website, comments from users, line-ups in a player, etc. Regardless of how it’s done, getting the context right means you can put the right video clips in front of a viewer, which makes everyone happy. High-quality video will push Internet TV closer to traditional broadcast TV, and create new opportunities for brand marketers.

The dynamics of influence are changing. 

Placing the right kind of information in the right format with the right people who have the right contacts can spell success or failure of a public relations program, says Paul Rand, CEO of Zocalo Group. As consumers grow weary of the media barrage, they pay more attention to the advice and opinions of people they trust.

Seth Godin agrees. “It’s no longer a given that the Today Show is the ultimate media prize.  One blogger with a niche audience could bring you better results,” writes Godin in his new book Meatball Sundae. The upside is that individuals (and organizations) that manage to figure out how to have influence without trying to profit from it, those brands are the ones that will last, that will thrive and that will bring the rarest commodity–trust–to the table.
 

Questions you should be asking in your 2008 PR strategy sessions:
 

Do we understand how search affects our news content?
Why is new Universal or Blended Search results page layout so important?
How can we improve the search visibility of our news content?
Are we monitoring what is being said about us online?
Have we identified the influencers in our space?
Do we have a blogger relations program in place to reach these influencers?
Do we understand the dynamics of social news sites?
Which social news sites would be best for our content?
Are we planning to use video – and how will we do it?

 

 

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Hitting the Newspaper Coffin Nail on the Head

Thursday, December 20th, 2007

Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine has some hard-hitting comments on the Wall St Journal’s article about selling online ads. 

“Newspapers are losing their own core market because they didn’t understand the scale of the internet,” says Jarvis. “They still thought mass when they should have realized that small is the new big.”

One of the comments on Jarvis’ post says, “Broadcast television networks are next. By the end of this decade or shortly thereafter, television networks as we have known them for the past 60 years will cease to exist. Their news divisions will disappear even more quickly.”

Is the sale of online ads of any interest to PR folk, you ask.  Ad sales are their income line and if it affects their newsroom, you bet it does.  So this trend is one we need to watch closely.

 

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A Decade of Blogging

Thursday, December 20th, 2007

10 years oldBlogging is officially ten years old this week.  On December 17th 1997 Jorn Barger of Robot Wisdom coined the word weblog.  And not too long after that Pyra Labs launched Blogger – now owned by Google.

Barger has some advice for new bloggers at Wired.  His take on a blog is that it is a way to save and share URLS’s about interesting content elsewhere on the Web.  He is not much for original posting.

Blogging has indeed moved on from the way the first bloggers posted.  Now blogs focus on proving information and insights. They’re used as a PR tool to create and maintain relationships with readers and to build thought leadership. Linking is of course still an essential part of blogging – one can’t blog in a vacuum.

Here are my five tips for new bloggers:

1.  Do your homework.  Identify the top bloggers who are visible in your space.  Read their blogs.  Make intelligent and useful comments that add value to the conversation. Subscribe to their RSS feed.

2.  Do research before you blog. Read the feeds of the bloggers you subscribe to.  Set up searches in Yahoo News for key phrases you blog about.  Read these feeds every day.

3.  Have a point of view.  The number one reason people read blogs is to get an opinion. Blog about something you know well and feel passionate about. 

4.  Write well.  While blogs are seen as personal journals your content is out there for all to see.   Be interesting.  Be controversial.  But above all, be readable.

5. Write often. Blogging’s biggest challenge is the time it takes.  Anyone can set up a blog in less than five minutes.  It takes skill and perserverance to have a blog that becomes influential. Write content that will keep them coming back for more.

If you plan to launch a blog in 2008 blog training and coaching for your team would be a good investment.

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Who Is Googling You – And Why?

Monday, December 17th, 2007

The Pew Internet and American Life Project revealed this week that more than double the number of people now look up their name in a search engine than did so in 2002.  Almost half of U.S. adult Internet users (47 percent) have looked for information about themselves through Google or another search engine.

53 percent of adult Internet users admit to looking up information about someone else, 

And right there is the reason you should be looking up your own name – others are doing it.  Who are they?  Could be a friend or it could be someone checking you out prior to a date. But it’s just as likely to be a prospective or current employer or someone considering doing business with you. Horror stories about online content ruining jobs and deep sixing business deals abound.

What will they see when they search your name? Good, bad, nothing? You need to keep a watchful eye on your Google ‘resume” precisely because it might just be the thing that tips the scales.

If there is nothing or very little to be found on your name, get busy. Lay out a strategy to fill the void with search optimized content. Create robust profile pages in social networks such as LinkedIn and Facebook. Write articles and syndicate your content in RSS feeds.  Blog.  Link to your profile pages.

What do you do if there is negative content out there? Create robust profile pages in social networks such as LinkedIn and Facebook. Write lots of good articles that position you as a credible expert in your field.  Syndicate your content in RSS feeds.  Blog, blog blog.  Create a network with other bloggers.  Link to your profile pages and to your articles.  Work hard to get other credible sources to link to your work.  Find other websites that mention you in a good light or that carry your content.  Link to those pages and push them onto page one on a search for your name.

The November issue of my PRoactive Report covers this subject in detail along with two cases studies and two podcasts.

I am holding a free webinar on online reputation management and the report on Wednesday 19th at 10 am Pacific 

Register here

 

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Target Gets It Wrong

Sunday, December 9th, 2007

When a 21 year-old college student points out to a corporate giant like Target that prides itself on its social responsibility record that their actions are unethical and unacceptable, something is really out of whack.

Lisa McNeill posted about the story at WebProNews: 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It blows my mind how

1) a company like Target can claim that something clearly branded to their advocates is “not endorsed” by their company (in my world if you farm something out you are ultimately responsible for it) 

2) how whoever was responsible didn’t think that “it’s our little secret” sounds outright sketchy and unethical

3) how large companies like Target and Wal-Mart haven’t hired a dedicated social media agency.
 

Wal-Mart did hire an agency supposedly skilled in social media. Edelman got just as much egg on their face as Wal-Mart did for their fake blog campaign. Target says the mis step came from the agency they used to run these programs online.  So it seems that’s not always a safe bet either.

What’s needed is a real understanding of the ‘rules of engagement.’  And a willingness to be transparent, honest and ethical.  

Target reached out to a group called “The Rounders” ( a group of students who receive discounts and products from Target to share with friends and to provide feedback) to promote its Facebook page.  Nothing wrong with that. However an email was sent to these young folk asking them to keep their Rounder status ‘like, a secret’ when interacting on the Facebook page.

Target says the intent of the email was not to hide the affiliation with Target.  It was to prevent the Rounders from dominating the Facebook group.

What do you think?  Here is the message

“Your Mission: Try not to let on in the Facebook group that you are a Rounder,”

“We love your enthusiasm for the Rounders, and I know it can be hard not to want to sing it from the mountaintops [and in the shower, and on the bus]. However, we want to get other members of the Facebook group excited about Target, too! And we don’t want the Rounders program to steal the show from the real star here: Target and Target’s rockin’ Facebook group. So keep it like a secret!”

If there were ever a case of sticking your neck out and asking for it to be chopped right off, this is it. In no time at all Rosie Siman, one of the Rounders who received the request, posted her concerns on the Facebook page for all to see.

“You’re essentially asking people to lie for you,” Siman said. “People will be seeing all these posts saying, ‘Target’s awesome’ and they don’t realize they’re coming from people who essentially are being paid to promote Target.”

Now it has escalated into mainstream media and bloggers are having a field day with it.  target is backpedaaling and doing damage control. The agency is saying ‘no comment.’

PR Lesson:  If you engage in social media you’re talking to real people with strong opinions and a way to talk back. They are not segments or eyeballs. Treat them as you would a group of close friends.  Respect them and listen to their needs. Don’t lie to them and don’t take advantage of them.

If you do it right they will have your back.  If you do it wrong they will hang you out to dry in public. 

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The PR Long Tail

Friday, December 7th, 2007

Public Relations Long tail

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source: Now is Gone blog

Much has been written about the shifts in media consumption and influence.  And much has been said about the Long Tail.

The phrase The Long Tail was first coined by Chris Anderson in an October 2004 Wired magazine article to describe certain business and economic models such as Amazon.com or Netflix, where you can garner as much traffic, influence or income from the ‘tail’ where a very large number of smaller orders or search terms are collectively worth as much or more than the big top ten hits in the ‘head.’

Applying it to PR means that there is as much, if not more, gold to be mined in the long tail of blogs with a small audience than in the big mainstream media outlets.  And you need to pay particular attention to the magic middle.

You can find more about this PR Long Tail at the Now is Gone blog by Brian Solis and Geoff Livingstone.

“When a word of mouth campaign has actual substance it usually cascades,” writes Geoff.

He cites this example:

FortiusOne received significant blog hits in the magic middle last fall. When pointed to this significant traction, the Washington Post took notice and wrote them up. Then ABC, Information Week and a new host of bloggers saw the Washington Post story and covered FortiusOne. And then speaking engagements and secondary trade press coverage ensued.

At the Executing Social Media event in Atlanta in November the Department of Defense spoke about an Itaq story they pitched to mainstream media and got zero interest. They did a webcast with a bunch of military bloggers who ran with the story.  These bloggers created so much traction around the story that it piqued the interest of mainstream media and then they got great coverage in the Washington Post.

This ping pong match can be played to your advantage:

“One great way to promote your new media initiative remains traditional media, who often use well-respected blogs as sources or even the subject of stories… [Social media attention] drives information into the spotlight forcing traditional media to pay attention – or look like they’ve missed the news, and most importantly the conversation. Blogs [can be] a more effective way of reaching and inspiring traditional media to react than most PR professionals and wire services combined.”

We all know how to find the mainstream media we should be pitching.  How do we find the magic middle?

Very few PR people attend the Search Engine Strategies conferences, but they should.  There are always sessions that have PR value. I spoke at SES in Chicago this week on a panel called How to Meet the Bloggers Who Can Make Your Cash Register Ring.  It was aimed at retailers, but there were many lessons for anyone listening with a PR point of view.

  • Examine the landscape
  • Listen to what is being said
  • Use tools that can track conversations, not just mentions
  • Linking is the driver – track who links to whom
  • Gauge the bloggers authority and influence in your own space
  • Put out really good content and syndicate it in RSS feeds
  • When a blogger uses your content start a conversation with them and build a relationship
  • Read your log files to see who drives traffic
  • Give the bloggers what they want – good content, first stab at information, exclusives, links to their blogs

Is social media replacing old media?  No. But the Long Tail of Public Relations shows nicely why it is important to foster relatiobships with both mainstream media and bloggers in the magic middle.

 

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Seth Godin Tells Marketers How to Avoid Meatball Sundaes

Tuesday, December 4th, 2007

seth godn at SES chicago 2007Seth Godin’s keynote at Search Engine Strategies in Chicago challenged marketing folk to think outside the traitional box. His new book Meatball Sundaes examines the trends that are changing the way we have to do business and why old thinking doesn’t work in the new medium.

I had the opportunity to speak with Seth before his keynote and asked him how his 14 trends affect PR.

“The main challenge for PR is that the Internet has made the model of pitching the media redundant,” says Seth.  “The best PR people are those who are counsellors to their clients, not publicity hounds. The way to win now is to represent the new media to your clients, not the other way round.”

Seth started his keynote with a short history lesson on marketing with the story of Josiah Wedgewood. Wedgewood created a factory, trained apprentices and created specialists in functions of pottery.  He built a canal next to his factory so he could ship goods all over the world. He was smart enough to see how he could use new ideas and change his operation to take advantage of those new ideas.

Companies need to do the same now.  How come Yellow Pages did not make the biggest and best search engine?  Why do we not search Sotherby’s site for things we want to purchase on an auction?  Why did TV Guide not make the first online video site?  Why did AOL not make the best online social networking site.  It could have been AOLBook. Companies are so mired down in their old thinking they can’t see the wood for the trees, suggests Seth.

His advice:  There are opportunities created by the new medium. But don’t try to put whipped cream on your old production and business methods. Change the way you do business to fit the way your customers are interacting and their needs and wants.  When you service the customer you will win.

 One attendee who workd for a scuba diving certification company asked if they should use Second Life to promote their diving courses.  No, said Seth.  Create a community for people interested in diving and offer them tours, cruises, info on the best diving places and oh by the way, to do this you need to be certified. 

Here are the 14 trends (and one new bonus one that is not in the book)

1.You can (and should) have direct communication with your customers.

2. Customers have the power of voice and they are using it.

3. Authentic stories work. To get attention you have to have an authentic story to tell.

4. The Internet has increased the speed of conmunication and delivery.  You have to adapt and move fast.

5. The Long Tail – we now have infinite choices online.  Figure out a way to take advantage of the long tail.

6. Outsourcing is growing by leaps and bounds.  If they can outsource they will.

7. Spam – too much clutter makes it harder to be heard.  Interruption marketing does not work anymore.

8. Everything is sliced and diced.

9. Customers are talking to customers – it’s CtoC. You have to tap into the relationships.

10.  The flip of scarcity and abundance.  What was scarce is now abundant and vice versa. 

11. Big Ideas spread fast

12. The New Rich – it’s impossible to tell who has the money. Think back to the 1920’s and the rich were easy to identify.  Now there are rich popele in all walks of life.  People buy high end fishing rods and designer jeans and pricey TV sets.  Find the rich in your sector.

13. The question is no longer How Many did we reach?  It’s Who and Why are they here? Find and make relationships with the people who can deliver the exact right audience.

14. Gatekeepers. Some have gone away and new media has created new ones.

Bonus trend:  Scarcity/Ubiquity and the dangerous middle ground.

People are willing to pay for the scarce and they recognize that this is an event or a personal interaction.  When it’s available everywhere it has to be low cost or free.

Seth feels that many PR people are not yet embracing these new trends, yet they are having a profound impact on our world. Read the book and start introducing these ideas at your 2008 strategy meetings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Press Release Optimization – SEO Secrets

Monday, December 3rd, 2007

Advanced PR Technology workshop- San Francisco

Friday’s SEO secrets panel about press release optimization at the Advanced PR Technology workshop in San Francisco had some of the best minds in the field giving their tips and tricks to get your news content into Yahoo News and Google News.

Jamie O’Donnell of SEO-PR:

Successful press releases optimization depends on good keyword research.  Find the terms that actually get searched.  Use tools like Keyword Discovery and Google Trends.  Put the keyword sin the headline and use them close to the start of the headline, not at the end.  Google only indexes 65 characters so make your headline tight.  Use the keyword in the first 30 words in the first paragraph and the in the last paragraph again.

Sally Falkow, Expansion Plus

I spoke about the need to RSS enable all your news content.  Even if you do not yet have an online newsroom with all the bells and whistles, make sure your press releases are optimized, you add hyperlinks in to the text of the release and then you syndicate them in an RSS feed.  Half the SEO process is in how you optimize the release but the other half is in building links back to your website and an RSS feed can do this for you. PRESSfeed is a social media syndication tool built specifically for PR use and we offer webinars on RSS and SEO PR once a month.

Lee Odden, TopRank Marketing

Lee started his section of the talk by showing that the three panelists came up on page one for various wording of press releases, optimization and SEO in PR:

Search optimized press release and Expansion Plus is #1 and #2

Search press release optimization and you’ll find TopRank Marketing is #1

Search SEO PR and Jamie comes up #1

Search marketing tactics come and go, but one channel of promotion that has steadily evolved is the practice of optimizing press releases for search engines, says Lee. Yahoo News is still more popular that MSNBC, AOL News or CNN. Being able to rank well on the most popular online news web site as well as Google News simply by optimizing and distributing a press release offers attractive benefits at a nominal cost. Read his tips here.

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