Have you ever searched for your name in Google? Maybe you found a Facebook page, some websites whom you have no affiliation with, and a LinkedIn profile.

If you’ve made an effort to alter how your name appears in the search engines you have engaged in on-line reputation management, a form of search engine optimization, which aims to populate the internet with as much positive or neutral content. Although content that is irrelevant or damaging is hard to remove, it may be “washed out”, so that only relevant and positive content shows in the search results. If the task of on-line reputation management is already a challenge for individuals, just imagine how hard it is for businesses, which have to deal with user generated content ranking highly in search engines, with the help of on-line review sites and forums.

Can Your Brand Handle Negative Publicity?

If you google Paypal, which facilitates money transfers, paypalsucks.com will prominently show up in the search results. Many prominent companies have sites such as RipOffReport.com, ConsumerAffairs.com, and Pissedconsumer.com showing up for their own name, in the search engines. Some local businesses have a review site, such as Yelp.com, that shows up for their business name and that lists negative reviews posted by competition, former employees, or angry customers.  Whether or not negative publicity for such companies is based on fact is irrelevant to search engines, who rank search results primarily off the amount of incoming links, and websites, who are protected by the Communications Decency Act of 1996, allowing them to post user generated content without being held liable for what is said.

Sites such as Yelp.com, the subject of a class action lawsuit, and ConsumerAffairs.com, which has been sued on multiple occasions, have been criticized for allegedly extorting the businesses they feature. Whether or not review sites take advantage of businesses with bad reviews is questionable. What isn’t, is the fact that anyone, be it a direct competitor or a disgruntled employee, can post reviews on online websites, such as these.

Combating Negative Reviews

To combat negative reviews, some businesses have taken advantage of the system, by encouraging customers with positive experiences to post on sites such as Yelp.com, Google Places, and Yahoo! Local. To combat sites such as ConsumerAffairs.com, or forum posts with negative publicity, companies have created their own websites, in an attempt to outrank them for their own company name. Review posting and website creation, are just some of the tools businesses use to manage their online reputation. The full tool kit for online reputation management is presented below:

7 Ways to Protect your Brand’s Reputation

1. Web 2.0

Sites such as Wikipedia.org, Aboutus.org, Squidoo, etc. rank prominently in the search engines. However, even though Wikipedia.org is almost a guarantee to rank on the first page for a company name, its content will be user generated and neutral. If your company has had some negative publicity in the past, it may be best to avoid Wikipedia, which doesn’t offer control of its content.

2. Youtube/Flickr

Creating Youtube videos and Flickr images that include your business name in the title rank well. Aside from possibly taking place on the first page of Google, the videos and images, in and of themselves, can create positive word of mouth for your company.

3. Press Releases

Using PR Web can help you create articles, featuring your business name, that outrank websites or webpages that aren’t too authoritative.

4. Profile Pages

Business profiles on sites such as LinkedIn, GooglePages, and AOL Hometown, can rank well in the search engines.

5. Guest Blogging

Having your business featured on a prominent blog will, if not push down negative publicity, at the very least, give your business links and traffic.

6. Content Removal/Addition on website

If you find negative information about your company in the search results, ask the website administrator if the content can be removed. If not, ask them if they can feature an article, which mentions your business in a neutral way. If they let you feature an article, that article may take the place of the negative webpage in the Google search results.

7. Blogs/Sub-Domains

Create blogs, which include your business name, and sub-domains, which get some automatic authority from your original domain. It will also help if you mention your business name on any existing website pages you already have. For example, if you sell goods online, consider adding your business name to some of your product pages. Doing so may make Google show these pages when your business name is searched on Google.

User generated content allows customers to publish their own views of a particular business and helps other potential customers make decisions. However, the fact that the affiliation of the reviewers and the validity of the claims can’t be checked, leaves the door open for unwarranted negative publicity, which can cause some businesses to shut down. The aforementioned tools of online reputation management can be used by businesses to counter the effects of user generated content.

More Reading

• 10 Steps to Promote Brand “You” With Social Media
• 23 Steps to Build Your Personal Brand with Social Media
• Why Social Media is Optimizing the Personal and Corporate Brand
• Blogging for Dummies – An Opportunity for Personal Branding
• How do you Use LinkedIn? [INFOGRAPHIC]

Guest Author: Nickolay Lamm is an online marketing specialist at InventHelp, headquartered in Pittsburgh. He keeps tabs on the latest in invention and technology news at Invent Help News.

Image by otherthings

Public relations professionals are some of the early adopters, innovators and users of social media in a rapidly changing web landscape and Twitter is a social media channel that can promote your message to a large group of people in real time so in essence it is instant PR.

You will find that within companies that the PR team is generally the group responsible for the brands social media activities.

I stumbled across this list painstakingly compiled by Liliana Dumitru-Steffens from the Everything PR blog which lists the top 100 PR companies and individuals who are on Twitter and as it provides a valuable source of potential resources I had to share it.

She used Twitaholic, Twittercounter and WeFollow. The rankings are based based on the number of users following back these PR experts (or PR companies/ publications), and not on their professional skills.

The ranking doesn’t aim to demonstrate how influential they are on Twitter and you could rank this list many ways in terms of their digital influence and that could include

• How many Twitter lists they are on
• How many Retweets their followers put back onto Twitter
• How many comments are on their blog posts
• How many Facebook friends they have
• The number of views on their YouTube channel
• The quantity of views on  their Slideshare channel
• How many search engine results do they receive when you enter them into a search engine
• What is their ranking in Google
• How much traffic does their website receive
• The number of inbound links to their blogs and websites

What a recent survey by Exact Target has shown is that Twitter power users are very influential online and so need to be taken seriously by brands.

So this list is only one measure of their own public relations success on behalf of their own brand on one social media channel. So go and visit their Twitter feeds and check out their content you are sure to learn something from these PR Twitter power users!!

Who do you think is the most influential and how could you measure that?

1. MagicSauceMedia – Renee Blodgett PR – 100,270 followers
2. PublicityGuru – Bill Stoller – Editor & Founder, Free Publicity Newsletter. For a Free Sample Issue click here – 89,432 followers
3. petershankman – Founder of HARO – 88,603 followers
4. JonathanCheban – 86,236 followers
5. peoplesrev – Kelly Cutrone – 84,000 followers
6. SocialMedia411 – Social Media Insider – 73,655 followers
7. briansolis – 65,542 followers
8. prsarahevans – Sarah Evans – 50,117 followers
9. Steve Rubel – 45,568 followers
10. Steveology – Steve Farnsworth – 40,815 followers
11. WeAreSocial – 39,212 followers
12. Alexander Blom – 39,161 followers
13. PRNewswire – Vicky, PR Newswire’s Director of Audience Development & team – 38,619 followers
14. MattSingley – 36,032 followers
15. PRwise – Roger S. Johnson – 31,450 followers
16. JessicaNow – Jessica Smith – 31,369
17. Collin Douma – 29,764 followers
18. MarvetBritto – 28,556 followers
19. ereleases – PR Distribution – 28,034 followers
20. Rochelle Veturis – 25,362 followers
21. DougH – Doug Haslam – 25,089 followers
22. DannyBrown – 23,175 followers
23. leeodden – 22,732 followers
24. Kathy_Johnson – Co-founder of PR/social media firm Consort Partners – 21,980 followers
25. chrisabraham – Chris Abraham is THE expert in social media and digital PR – 21,590 followers
26. missusP – Christine Perkett – 20,988 followers
27. Mark Ragan – 20,586 followers
28. Giovanni Gallucci – 20,453 followers
29. fishmark – 18,464 followers
30. prblog – Kevin Dugan – 17,875 followers
31. PR_Couture – Crosby/PR Couture – 17,801 followers
32. RealYaverbaum – eric yaverbaum – 17,711 followers
33. Lizz Harmon – 17,396 followers
34. SteveKayser – Biz Writer, Editor, Publisher, PR/Marketing – 16,704 followers
35. TDefren – 16,592 followers
36. karasmamedia – Kara Smith – 16,413 followers
37. PublicityHound – Joan Stewart – 16,290 followers
38. Shannon Paul – 15,826 followers
39. luisete – Luis Rodriguez – 15,627 followers
40. David Alston – 15,428 followers
41. DenverPR – Maggie Holben – 14,872 followers
42. juliebonnheath – JBH PR & Marketing – 14,706 followers
43. Doug Mummert – 14,337 followers
44. PressAbout – Free Press Release Distribution – 14,153 followers
45. sagefrog – Mark Schmukler – 13,659 followers
46. Michelle Blanc – 13,653 followers
47. jimcaruso – CEO & Chairman at MediaFirst PR – Atlanta – 13,579 followers
48. Flack_Me – The PR Professional’s Blog. – 13,057 followers
49. Marsha Friedman – 13,045 followers
50. ProfNet – Maria Perez – 12,925 followers
51. PRjobs – Lindsay Olson – 11,957 followers
52. jasonkintzler – 11,650 followers
53. laermer – Richard Laermer – 11,530 followers
54. HowellMarketing – 11,414 followers
55. CXN_Inc – 11,020 followers
56. John Digles – 11,016 followers
57. TracyHNguyen – 10,983 followers
58. LisaHoffmann – 10,920 followers
59. LizzieGrubman – 10,873 followers
60. davefleet – 10,580 followers
61. justinkistner – 10,354 followers
62. gothamc – 10,286 followers
63. walshpr – 10,153 followers
64. richquigley – 10,102 followers
65. dbreakenridge – 9,821
66. pheadrick – Parry Headrick – 9,687 followers
67. CathyWebSavvyPR – Cathy Larkin PR – 9,663
68. kdpaine – Katie Delahaye Paine – 9,652 followers
69. TiloBonow – 9,540 followers
70. BusinessWire – Monika Maeckle, Vice President, New Media Business Wire – 9,373
71. IdeaGrove – Scott Baradell – 9,370 followers
72. Spin_Thicket – 9,352 followers
73. pressreleases – Press releases distributed by Journalism.co.uk – 9,170 followers
74. Rachel Kay – 8,996 followers
75. Bill Rice – 8,709 followers
76. LuxuryPRGal – Christine Kirk – 8,636 followers
77. India PR Blog – 8,598 followers
78. tacanderson – VP of Digital Strategies at Waggener Edstrom – 8,514 followers
79. SourceBottle – 8,276 followers
80. Stefan Keuchel – 7,995 followers
81. Shonali Burke – 7,949 followers
82. Nigel_Morgan – 7,943 followers
83. SocialNicole – Nicole Harrison – 7,902 followers
84. ecofashionista – Kelly Drennan – 7,839 followers
85. George Affleck – 7,816 followers
86. J Public Relations – 7,790 followers
87. GetPubRelatJobs – 7,705 followers
88. CelebritizeYou – Marsha Friedman – 7,677 followers
89. Kellye Crane – 7,632 followers
90. waxgirl333 – 7,589 followers
91. Stuart Foster – 7,553 followers
92. SaurabhSaggi – 7,507 followers
93. GemmaWent – Red Cube Marketing – 7,451 followers
94. Brian Crouch – 7,432 followers
95. BarbaraJones – 7,418 followers
96. Len Kendall – 7,397 followers
97. PR4YOU – 7,377 followers
98. Yann Ropars – 7,373 followers
99. JenerationPR – Jennifer Berson – 7,273 followers
100. David Burrows – 7,244 followers

Image by monkeyworks illustration

I was discussing the changing landscape of the public relations market over coffee the other day with a couple of PR professionals and we got to chatting about how social media is changing their industry.

One key point that they made is that with traditional print media the advertising and the message has to be booked months in advance.  The challenge for marketers and PR is that in that time the message they want to put out could change because their competitors and the economy could have evolved drastically.

What they liked was the ability of social media to get the message out in real time or tomorrow not months later.

A real life example of how a company has adapted to this is Vail Resorts (A skiing resort conglomerate with sales of over $1 billion a year) where Rob Katz (CEO) and his team have taken control of its own public relations, advertising and Marketing in real time through social media. Why did they do it?

Here is Vail Resorts, CEO Rob Katz and why they pulled 80% of their traditional print media advertising budget  and moved heavily into social media marketing. (for those of you who would prefer a brief text summary I have done that for you below)

Click here to view the embedded video.

They noticed that planning for a a vacation used to be 6-8 months in the making but with 2 major paradigm shifts with the GFC and the explosion of social media that booking windows were dropping to 2-3 weeks instead of 6 months and room occupancy rates  were jumping from 50% to 80%, 2 weeks before Christmas.

They believe that real time decision making is not going to go away and because everyone is making their choices much quicker they had to change their advertising, marketing and PR strategies and tactics.

Also for the Vail Resorts video is one of the best ways to get people excited about skiing is video which now can be posted on YouTube and Facebook so social media enabled them to add online video to the marketing mix, something they couldn’t do years earlier.

They talked to their traditional print media channels such as “Outside” and “Mens Health” magazines about the 4 -6 month lead times and decided that they couldn’t do business the same way, not because of the readership target market but because they needed to move to more real time marketing.

Social media’s key ability is that it enables you to get your message to your guests and consumers that was right for that week out into the market… Now!

A traditional print message booked months earlier might not be the right message today as competitors and the economy change.

Decision?…they pulled 80% of their traditional print budget!!

Social media has compressed the executive decision making time to mobilize your messages to your target market.

Rob took his PR group, traditional advertising group and the social media team and had them work hand in glove and they almost work within a week by week messaging calendar.

He said “it is almost like a political campaign” watching what’s on around you and what their competitors are doing constantly changing their message and putting it out in a coordinated effort. They are also putting out their message to non traditional channels such as Mashable and other digital channels.

They also send out

• Social Media messages
• Newspaper advertising which are still very close to real time
• Search engine marketing

They used to live in an industry that would book advertising months in advance and then live with that message for the entire season.

Long lead time traditional media is struggling and all companies want is a good medium to advertise.

Is this the start of a paradigm shift?  How is real time social media marketing affecting your industry?

I thought I knew who was in charge of Social Media in corporations until I came across this survey conducted by ipressroom.com with support by the PRSA which interviewed 278 public relations, marketing and human resources professionals to identify trends regarding their approach to social media. The breakdown of the companies surveyed by revenue was as follows

• 14% of the companies had revenue in excess of $1 Billion,  
• 5% had revenues between $500 Million and $1 Billion 
• 36% with revenues from $5 Million to $500 Million
• 45% with revenues under $5 Million

The survey asked a variety of questions including the following.

1. Which online communications channels are most important?
2. Which ones should organizations deploy first?
3. Which channels are critical for employees to learn to use to do their jobs effectively in a networked world?

So what were six insights from this survey and who really is running the “Social Media Show” ? 

Insight One: Social Media Is Prioritized and Utilized More Than  Managing the Company’s  Website Content…  despite the fact that an annual survey in 20 countries of 4,475 Opinion leaders called the “Edelman Trust Barometer,” revealed a company’s own website is seen as more credible than business blogs, personal blogs, social networking sites and advertising…… “Most organizations deem it more important to utilise social networks and micro-blogging services than devote more time to managing and updating content on their website”.

Note: Is this because “Social Media” is seen as trendy and new? 

Insight Two: Ease of Use Drives Adoption.. therefore not surprisingly, micro-blogging has grown slightly bigger than blogging, 62% versus 59%, demonstrating that lowering the barrier to entry — the “140-character news cycle” as Shel Holtz puts it — drives social media adoption by making it easier for people to participate.

 Insight Three: Small to medium-sized enterprises lead the way in Social Networking and Twitter.  Small to medium-sized enterprises are significantly ahead of larger organizations when it comes to adopting Twitter (64% versus 47%) and social networking (74% adoption versus 38%) but not in blogging which is now squarely in the large organization’s repertoire. But larger organizations are managing the content on their web sites more actively than small to medium-sized enterprises. 

Insight Four:  Public Relations is leading the social media revolution inside organizations of all types and sizes

• PR leads marketing in the management of all social media communications channels. Marketing leads PR in managing only email marketing and SEO.
• In 51% of organizations, PR lead digital communications compared to 40.5% by marketing.
• PR is responsible for blogging at 49% of all organizations. Marketing is responsible for blogging at 22% of all organizations.
• PR is responsible for social networking at 48% of all organizations. Marketing is responsible for social networking at 27% of all organizations.
• PR is responsible for micro-blogging at 52% of all organizations. Marketing is responsible for micro-blogging at 22% of all organizations.

Note: So there you have it Public Relations Professionals, you are running the Social Media Show… in most cases. 

Insight Five:  Among those responsible for hiring PR and marketing employees which Digital Skills were seen as most important and how did they rank?

A: Companies With Turnover Under $1B

1. Social Networking
2. Blogging
3. Micro-Blogging
4. SEO
5. Email Marketing
6. Web Content Management
7. Social Bookmarking

B: Companies With Sales Over $1B

1. Blogging
2. Social Networking
3. Micro-Blogging
4. Web Content Management
5. SEO
6. Email Marketing
7. Social Bookmarking

Note: So if you want a job in PR or Marketing it seems some experience with Social Media wouldn’t go astray

Insight Six: Social Media is growing in importance as a communications approach…with the majority of organizations considering hiring a specialist. This demonstrates that social media is no longer just something to do in your spare time, but rather a core discipline to be maintained by a dedicated resource.

• 26% are definitely interested in hiring dedicated resources to maintain some degree of social media engagement, while
• 48% of all organizations are considering adding dedicated staff that specialize in this area.
• Interest in adding dedicated social media specialists to the workforce is markedly higher among organizations with $1bn+ in annual revenue (43%) that it is at small to medium-sized enterprises (23%).

So there we have it, The 2009 Digital Readiness Report, a study conducted by iPressroom and PRSA, found that public relations professionals are firmly in the lead when it comes to managing an organization’s use of social media communications channels. And you thought it was going to be the marketing department didn’t you.

So who should be in charge of Social Media? Like to hear your thoughts

There are two parameters that help define PR, reach and influence and getting your corporate message out efficiently without filters is also vital in the age of digital media, where cynicism of the old methods is pervasive.

So why does Social Media need to be taken seriously?

1. It’s more believeable and trustworthy than the filtered mainstream media that has many vested interests
2. Its fast and effecient as it can be sent from smartphones before it even hits the traditional media channels (remember the Iranian Elections)
3. It has leverage. (One Friend tells another, who tells many more, who then tell others.. its exponential,and  it helps to have great original content or a good story)

So what is the reach of Social Media? and which have the most Influence? When you look at the the players like Facebook and Twitter, and the other Social Media’s platforms numbers, the motivation for being involved becomes compelling and should negate any excuses about being engaged in Social Media.

Eight Major Social Media Channels

1. Facebook: The Premier Social Networking Site where you can add friends, post photos, share your life and join groups
2. Twitter: Share information, “follow” other people and get your information out as a “live” stream.
3. YouTube: It is the Social media channel where you can upload and share Videos, subscribe to channels and again add friends
4. LinkedIn: A social media site that operates primarily in the the professional networking and business relationships segment
5. MySpace: A social networking platform that enables the easy sharing  of  multimedia nd works well as a multimedia aggregator
6. Digg: A social platform that enables you to post your articles and others can vote on whther they like your story or not.
7. Blogs: An interactive way of sharing content informally and receiving comments
8. Wikipedia: The socially generated encyclopedia which is updated and edited constantly by the online community

Their Reach

• Facebook: Over 200 million members and 80 billion monthly page views (Techcrunch)
• Twitter: It now has over 44 Million unique visitors a month (according to Comscore)
• YouTube: Over 100 Million visitors in March and over 13.8 Billion video views in March alone (YouTube report)
• LinkedIn: Over 16 million unique visitors a month with a a very affluent demographic where the average user is 39 and makes $139K ayear and over 500,000 C-level members (Quantcast)
• MySpace: Just under 100 million visitors a month and 43 Billion page views (Techcrunch)
• Digg: More traffic than the New York Times with 23 million unique visitors a month and 4.5 billion pages views (Techcrunch)
• Blogs: Over 5 million blogs are tracked by Technorati, the “Bible” of Blogs with 600,000 being corporate blogs (Technorati)
• Wikipedia: Nearly 63 Million Unique visitors June 2009 (Compete)

Note: If you want to look at some really interesting numbers have a look at (Future Marketing Trends at FutureBuzz.com)

So what is the Reach of the Old Media? and what does that say about their influence.. is it growing or waning?

• “USA Today” (largest read newspaper in the USA)  2.1 Million a day (Audit Bureau of Circulations) which if it was unique views per month of 63.1 million (which it isn’t it.. would still be 3 x smaller than Facebook)
• AARP is the most widely circulated magazine in the USA and reaches 24.5 million which is slightly more than Digg (Audit Bureau of Circulations) but still 8 times smaller than Facebook
• Fox News Channel (highest rated news channel for 90 months) has 15.6 million viewers a day (Huffington Post)..The same as the number of unique LinkedIn vistors sees monthly.
• Rush Limbaugh the largest talk radio in the States  has 14.75 million a day is less than half the 40 million unique visitors to Twitter each month (Talkers Magazine)

Note: 40 % of people blogged in 2008, 50% got their news online and 35% from print newspapers (Pew Research)

So what are some of the PR Values of the New Media?

• Twitter: You are able to listen and to respond to what people are saying about your brand in the market place within seconds with worldwide reach
• Blogs: Corporate blogs provide “recency” by allowing companies to provide the latest information delivered by RSS feeds to customers that postion your company as a thought leader in their industry and getting its message out without “corporate speak” making the corporation seem human rather than faceless.
• Facebook allows you to improve customer satisfaction(thats good PR) by more than 17 times according to research done by the the Aberdeen Group
• YouTube allows you take take control of your brands image on YouTube by creating an account and utilising its growing SEO priority in search engines , due to its increasing growth (over 53% last year) and growing importance as a Free Marketing, PR and branding medium, have a look at 5 reasons your company should be on YouTube in this Post by Small Biz Trends.
• MySpace provides more chance of getting your page viewed as its viewers average over 20 minutes a day as compared to CNN that averages 5 and a half minutes.
• Digg’s PR Values are to increase the visibility of your stories by having them voted on and increase your social networking opportunities
• LinkedIn allows you to communicate with highly affluent people that have the greatest  capacity to directly impact your business.

So in when someone is searching for your company and you want your PR to get out rather than someone elses message about your brand you need to  be across a range of social media. This gives your company the best chance of having your message seen and heard. If you do not join in the Social Media conversation, “it will take place without you” and you might not like what is being said.

In Summary Social Media’s Role in PR is about

• Efficient delivery of your message through ensuring that search engines find you easily (SEO..Search Engine Optimization), because you have optimised your Social Media (SMO… Social Media Optimization)
• Maximizing the level of  control over your message by being so high up in the search engine that you are the first 7 or 8 on page one, because you are maximizing your SEO through great content and spanning multiple boundaries of Social Media.
• Ensuring that peoples different preferences for hearing your message is maximized because you have it in audio text, image and video in social media

Public Relations

A survey of 1,900 business technology marketers by MarketingSherpa rated the optimized press release the most effective emerging market channel. Tad Clarke, Editorial Director of MarketingSherpa, has called the service SEO-PR has pioneered “the tactic known as SEO PR.” Optimizing press releases for news search engines.

As I am in the middle of revamping my company’s marketing strategy, and realise the importance of PR in SEO, I am looking closely at how we implement our PR, due to its importance in “”Being Found”.

David Meerman Scott has written a book that I would recommend that you read  (The New Rules of Marketing & PR) and I am using strategies from this great book in assisting me in developing our marketing plan. I also advise my clients about what they need to do to get found Online and PR is certainly a part of that strategy.

In this article I have taken an excerpt of David Meerman Scott’s insights and how the “New Rules of Marketing” apply to your business and especially how this applies to your companies PR.

David says “The Web has transformed the rules and you must transform your releases to make the most of the Web-enabled marketplace of ideas. In the old days, a press release was – shockingly – actually a release to the press. Before the Web, everybody knew that the only reason you issued a press release was to get the media to write about you.

What are  ” The Old Press Release Rules”?

• Nobody saw the actual press release except a handful of reporters and editors.
• You had to have significant news before you were allowed to write a press release.
• A release had to include quotes from third parties, such as customers, analysts and experts.
• The only way your buyers would learn about the press release’s content was if the media wrote a story about it.
• The only way to measure the effectiveness of press releases was through “clip books,” which collected every time the media deigned to pick up your release.

The new rules of PR in a Web 2.0 World

How to create a press release strategy for reaching buyers directly. The Web has changed the rules for press releases. The thing is, most old-line PR professionals just don’t know it yet. Because the rules for relating to the public have changed so slowly over the past ten years (since the Web has allowed people to read press releases directly), practitioners who learned based on the old rules have been equally slow to change. In fact, most old-school experts have refused to change altogether. It is time to step it up and consider the promise Web 2.0 public relations holds.

• Do you want to reach your buyers directly?
• Do you want to drive traffic to your Web site?
• Do you want to achieve high rankings on the search engines?
• Do you want to attract buyers who are looking for what you have to offer?
• Do you want to move people into and through the sales process?
• Do you want to compete more effectively?

Why you need to learn the new rules? Today, savvy marketing professionals use press releases to reach buyers directly. While many marketing and PR people understand that press releases sent over the wires appear in near real-time on services like Google News, very few understand the implications for how they must dramatically alter their press release strategy in order to maximize the effectiveness of the press release as a direct consumer-communication channel. The media has been disintermediated. The Web has changed the rules. Buyers read your press releases directly and you need to be talking their language. This is not to suggest that media relations are no longer important; mainstream media and the trade press must be part of an overall communications strategy. In some businesses, mainstream media and the trade press remain critically important and, of course, the media till derives some of its content from press releases. But your primary audience is no longer just a handful of journalists. Your audience is millions of people with Internet connections and access to search engines and RSS readers.

Every organization possesses particular expertise that has value in the new e-marketplace of ideas. The Web has made it easy for organizations to publish that expertise in various forms, including press releases, which allows companies, institutions, and non-profits to function much like traditional publishers. Organizations gain credibility and loyalty with customers, employees, investors, and suppliers through content and smart Web marketers now think and act like publishers in order to create and deliver content targeted directly at their audience. As organizations of all types begin to behave like publishers, many are adapting to the rigors of the publishing business and learning the editorial process. At the same time, new rules are emerging as online publishing continues to mature. In an increasingly competitive marketplace, all organizations are searching for the elusive key to success. Well, look no further: Content ( Like Blogs), even in the form of a “mere” press release, will unlock success in almost any product category, even in highly competitive industries where smaller players are beset upon by larger, better-funded competitors.

Reach your buyers directly. Under the old rules, the only way to get “published” was to have your press release “picked up” by the media. We’ve come a long way. The Web has turned all kinds of companies, non-profits, and even rock bands and political campaigners into just-in-time and just-right publishers. Organizations – the new publishers – create press releases that deliver useful information directly onto the screens of their buyers. Until recently, nobody ever thought of companies as publishers; newspapers and magazines published the news. But that’s all changing. Self-publishing Web-style has moved into the mainstream and organizations large and small are doing the publishing… via press releases. As you are making this fundamental shift, what should you write press releases about? Big news is great, but don’t wait.

Write about just about anything that your organization is doing: Like

• CEO speaking at a conference? Write a release.
• Win an award? Write a release.
• Have a new take on an old problem? Write a release.
• Add a product feature? Write a release.
• Win a new customer? Write a release.
• Publish a white paper? Write a release.
• Get out of bed this morning? Okay, maybe not…
• but you are thinking the right way now!

To bypass the media this is what you need to do to apply the “10 New Rules of PR”

1. Think like they do: In order to implement a successful press release strategy, think like a publisher. Marketers at the most enlightened organizations recognize the fact that they are now purveyors of information and they manage content as a valuable asset with the care a publishing company does. One of the most important things that publishers do is start with a content strategy and then focus on the mechanics and design of delivering that content. Publishers carefully identify and define target audiences and consider what content is required in order to meet their needs. Publishers consider questions like: Who are my readers? How do I reach them? What are their motivations? What are the problems I can help them solve? How can I entertain them and inform them at the same time? What content will compel them to purchase what I have to offer?

2. Publish your press releases through a distribution service: Publishers also recognize that simply creating compelling content is not enough; it has to reach interested readers. The best way to publish press releases is to simultaneously post a release to your own Web site and send it to one of the press release wires. There are a number of options for wire distribution of press releases. The benefit of using a press release distribution service is that your release will be sent to the online news services such as Yahoo!, Google, Lycos, and many others. Many press release distribution services reach trade and industry Web sites as well. In fact, you can reach hundredsof Web sites with a single press release. Take a look at the various services and compare them yourself.

A Selection of the Larger Press Release Distribution Services

• BusinessWire www.businesswire.com
• PRWeb www.prweb.com
• PRNewswire www.prnewswire.com
• Market Wire  www.marketwire.com

In order to get your press releases to appear on the online news services, you just have to get your release onto a basic press release “circuit” offered by a press release distribution service. The services also have many value-added options for you to consider. Compare options and in making your choice, remember that when your goal of sending press releases is search engine marketing. Thus, the newsroom and geographical reach offered by a service is less important than ensuring that your releases are included on major online news sites.

3. RSS feeds from online news sites display your press release content. Many press release distribution services also offer RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds of their press releases, which they make available to other sites, blogs and individuals. What this means is that each time you publish a press release with them, the press release is seen by thousands of people who have subscribed to the RSS content feeds. And online news services such as Google News have RSS feed capability too, allowing people to receive feeds based on keywords and phrases. So each time your release includes a word or phrase of importance, people will receive your press releases directly and in near real-time.

4. Simultaneously, publish your press releases to your Web site. Post your press releases to an appropriate and readily findable section of your Web site. Many organizations have a media room or press section of the Web site, which is ideal. The press release should be kept live for as long as the content is appropriate, perhaps for years. For many organizations, the press release section of the Web site is one of the most frequently visited parts of the site. Check out your Web site statistics. You may be amazed at how many visitors are already reading your press releases. When the press release is posted on your site, search engine crawlers will find the content, index it, and rank it based on words and phrases and other factors. To achieve high rankings, pay attention not only to the words and phrases, but also to other search engine optimization factors such as the URL used, the words in the headline and first paragraph of the release, the title tag, and metatags. Don’t use image files for text, as the words cannot be read by search engine crawlers. You should also create your own RSS feeds of your news stories on your site. Use a standard off-the-shelf RSS feed generator so that interested visitors will be able to subscribe to your press release feed directly. [For much more detailed information on the specifics of search engine marketing techniques, check out Search Engine Watch.

5. Optimize your press releases for searching and for browsing. At the broadest level, there are two ways to use and deploy content on the Web and smart organizations understand both angles and optimize press releases accordingly. The first way that people use content is to answer questions (through search engines), thus organizations must optimize content to be found by searchers. This will attract people who are looking for what your organization has to offer. The second way that people use content is that they want to be told something that they do not already know. This is why browseability is so important; it allows users to “stumble” across useful information they didn’t know they were looking for. While many Web savvy marketers understand the importance of search-engine optimization, they often forget that sites must be designed for browsing too. You should deploy site navigational design in a way that provides valuable information visitors might not have thought to ask for in addition to answering any questions they may have. To illustrate this concept, consider one of the Web’s best known sites, Google, which in its purest form exists only to answer questions. With a site or content product organized only around answering questions, users must already know what they want before proceeding. But people also look to sites to tell them something. Contrast Google with another famous site, Drudge Report. Drudge Report doesn’t exist to answer questions; rather, it tells visitors stuff they didn’t think to ask. While it does provide search functionality (far down the home page), Drudge Report provides content that’s meant to be browsed and, when you are creating content for your site, you should too. Press release pages are among the most popular parts of many Web sites based on visitor counts because many people browse these pages as they research topics. Consider organizing your press release section using multiple ways to browse. Maybe create links to releases based on buyer profile (maybe by vertical market or some other factor appropriate to your organization), by product, by geography, and the like, in addition to providing a prominent homepage link to a media center or newsroom. You might also divide releases by different “solutions” or market-target landing pages to help users drill to areas of interest. People who are searching for your release will still find them by searching with keywords and phrases, but people who do their own research and consider a decision over a period of time often browse releases to learn about an organization. They may also need to print them out to present research to others in their organization, so consider providing easy ways to print releases (in PDF format as well as HTML)

6. The importance of links in your press releases, particularly because your releases may be delivered by feeds or on news services and various sites other than your own, creating links from your press releases to content on your Web site is very important. These links, which might point to a specific offer or to a landing page with more information, allow your buyers to link from the press release content into specific Web site content on your site that will then drive them into the sales process. However, there is another enormous added benefit to including links in press releases. Each time your press release is posted on another site, such as an online news site, the inbound link from the online news site to your Web site helps to increase the ranking of your site. This is because the search engines use inbound links as one of the important criteria for the page ranking algorithms. So when your press release has a link to your site, you actually increase the ranking of the pages that you link to – yours.

7.  Focus on the keywords and phrases that your buyers use.  One thing successful publishers do, which Web marketers should emulate, is understanding the audience first and then set about to satisfy their informational needs. A great way to start thinking like a publisher and to create press releases that drive action is to focus on your customer’s problems and then create and deliver content accordingly. Use the words and phrases that your buyers do. Think about how the people you want to reach are searching and develop press release content that include those words and phrases. Too often, press release content simply describes what an organization or a product does. While simple information about your organization and products might be valuable to a subset of your buyers, what many really want from your site is content that first describes the issues and problems they face and then provides details on how to solve the problems. Particularly when your buyers search, they use the words and phrases important to them. Once you’ve built an online relationship, you can sell into the needs and potential solutions that have been defined, but you need to help them find you first. First, determine who your target audience is and figure out how they should be sliced into distinct buying segments. Once this exercise is complete, identify the situations in which each target audience may find themselves. What are their problems? What keeps them awake at night? What do they want to know? What words and phrases do they use to describe these problems? The answers, by the way, may be very different from the way you would label them. Don’t get trapped by your own jargon; think, speak, and write like your customers do.

8. Your Buyers Don’t Want Gobbledygook. Though you may have a well-developed lexicon for your products and services, they don’t necessarily mean much to your potential customers. As you write press releases, focus on the words and phrases that your buyers use. As a search engine marketing tool, press releases are only as valuable as the keywords and phrases that are contained in them. Avoid words like flexible, scalable, groundbreaking, industry standard, or cutting-edge, and other forms of what I call gobbledygook. The worst gobbledygook offenders seem to be B2B technology companies. For some reason, technology marketing people have a particularly tough time explaining how products solve customer problems. Because they are a bit fuzzy, they cover by explaining myriad nuances of how the product works (peppered with industry jargon that sounds vaguely impressive). What ends up in press releases is a bunch of “industry-leading” solutions that purport to help companies “streamline business process,” “achieve business objectives,” or “conserve organizational resources.” Huh? Your buyers (and the media that covers your company) want to know which specific problems your product solves and proof that it works as advertised – in plain language. Your marketing and PR is meant to be the beginning of a relationship with buyers and to drive action (such as generating sales leads), which requires a focus on buyer problems. Your buyers want to hear this in their own words. Every time you write, yes, even in press releases, you have an opportunity to communicate. At each stage of the sales process, well-written materials combined with effective marketing programs will lead your buyers to understand how you (specifically) help them.

9. Content Drives Action. An effective press release strategy, artfully executed, drives action. Companies that understand the new rules of press releases have a clearly defined goal – to sell products, generate leads, secure contributions, or get people to join – and deliver content that directly contributes to reaching that goal. At successful organizations, press releases draw visitors into the sales-consideration cycle, then funnels them towards the place where action occurs. The action mechanism is not hidden nor is the organization’s goal a secret. When content effectively drives action, the end of the sales process – an ecommerce company’s “buy” button, the B2B corporation’s “please contact us” form, or non-profit’s “donate” link – are found in logical places, based on content that leads people there. For many companies, Web content also has a powerful, less tangible effect. On the best sites, content does more than just sell product – it directly contributes to an organization’s positive reputation by showing thought-leadership in the marketplace of ideas. Many people view a well executed series of press releases as highly influential, with regards to a company that they are considering doing business with. Press releases mean your company is “busy” and a lack of press releases can indicate that you are not moving forward. In the new world of marketing, consistent quality press release content brands a company or a non-profit as an expert and as a trusted resource to turn to again and again. Press releases are often considered as an important buying criteria, especially in a complex B2B sales process.

10. Drive people into the sales process with press releases. Savvy marketing professionals understand that sales and marketing must work together to move prospects into the sales pipeline. This is especially important in a complex B2B sale that has long decision making cycles and multiple buyers that need to be influenced. The good news is that press release content drives people into and shortens the sales cycle for any product or service, especially ones that have many steps and take months or years to complete. Here’s how you can make this happen:

• Understand your sales process in detail. All sales processes are definable, repeatable and understandable and effective marketers use the Web to move people into and through the process. You need to get together with salespeople, sales management and product managers to understand exactly what happens in the sales cycle. You should answer questions such as: How do people initially find your company or product? What words and phrases do they use? Understanding the process in detail allows you to understand how in the process press releases can be used.
• Segment your prospects. Consider press releases based on the buyer persona, perhaps by job title or by industry. A prospect is much more likely to enter the sales cycle by clicking a press release that talks about solving her problems.
• Create thought leadership content to sit at the top of the sales funnel. People in the early stages of the sales cycle need basic information on the product category, especially “thought leadership” pieces. Don’t just write press releases about your company and your products; be thought leaders and write about the industry and higher-level strategic issues surrounding your product or service. When doing initial research, people don’t want to hear about you and your company; they want information about them and their problems.
• Provide content that is compelling enough to get people to “raise their hand.” In your press releases, deliver something of value that you can trade for a registration form. A link from your press release to an informative white paper, online event (such as a Webinar), or online demo will help move your prospect further down the sales process – and, in exchange for the right content, she will happily “raise her hand” to express interest by filling out a form. Remember, you’re still not ready to sell a product or service (yet); you are still relationshipbuilding. (By the way, these links will also help raise the search engine ranking of the pages you point to.)
• Measure and Improve. Measure what content is being used and how. Understand through Web metrics what’s working and constantly tweak the content to make it better. Meet regularly with salespeople to gain insights into the sales cycle and how your press release content helps, and can better assist, the process. The Web is iterative – you can and should make adjustments on the fly.

The “New” News Cycle: The news cycle has changed, and with it, so must many of the rules of the game. With Web-based access to information, consumers have real choices for how they learn about the world around them – alternatives to the filter of mainstream media. Not too long ago, the only way for corporations to influence news was for their PR people to issue a press release (intended for media only) and then hit the phones to talk up journalists. Editors and reporters were in a power position as the filter between organizations and the public. With the old news cycle, all PR people knew the rules: The ultimate goal was to get some magazine or newspaper to write a positive story that would appear weeks or months later. Then the happy corporate flack would put the media hit into a clip book to prove their value to the organization. No more. Information control is decentralized. The best PR and marketing pros know that Web-based communication delivered directly to their constituents is highly effective. Now, press releases circumvent the media and appear in real time on millions of desktops. Bloggers almost instantly comment on product announcements, and smart communications pros treat these “new journalists” with respect. Of course, magazines and newspapers are still vitally important, but in the new news cycle, the value of the media has shifted to adding context to the news and identifying trends. Marketers are beginning to understand what the new news cycle means to their communications efforts and are harnessing the power for their organizations’ benefit.”