Search Marketing World 2008: Online PR & Search
Michelle Goodall- E-consultancy
What is Online PR and can you really claim to do it?
Its about taking press releases and optimizing them for the web .... but it's much more than that
SEO PR area where PR meets SEM in only part of the story
OPR is much more than developing optimised content and building links
Its about
Managing reputations
Creating buzz and word of mouth
Identifying advocated and detractors
Identifying issues and trends
Managing information flow
Successful integration with all of the forms of marketing disciplines
What is Online Public Relations
Opportunity to Listen to your publics in a way we could have never imagines
Opportunity to indetify influencers related to your brand
Opportunity to engage with multiple stake holders in relevant and exciting ways
Opportunity to measure outputs outtakes and outcomes of your engagements
Lots of disciplines:
Marketing PR, Media relations
Corporate PR
Public Affairs
Investor Relations
Crisis and Issue Management
Sector Specific
Think broadly across 3 categories
Monitor /Map / Research
Promotional
Defensive
Underpinned with Transparency, Honesty and Integrity
The PR Toolbox is massive, but with online PR that toolbox has gotten even bigger
Why haven't PR Agencies sewn this up?
Slow adaption of web technologies
Challenges to PR Models - transparent, authentic, rapid messaging
Measurement and accountability
Led by consumer technology agencies and a handful of experts
Senior skills issue - limited support from PR associations
PR mapping and measurement models limited (old ways are not effective)
Unclear about value and charging structures
PR clients often defer online PR budgets and strategic control
Opportunities for Search Marketers
Monitor/Map/Research, Promotional and Defensive
Understand the breadth of the discipline
Focus on SEO PR or buy in PR skills/develop them through training
Develop a reputation monitory solution
Develop social media / PR measurement models
Clear charging structures
Who owns Online PR? Fight is going to start! Its up to SEM to step up
Eion Kennedy - Slattery Communications
What's holding back adoption?? What PR has to offer? Why the rush? Tools for use now. What's is possible, Case studies.
Exposure - PR people are good at getting this. PR people could hide behind the spokespeople
Online PR has changed this and makes them uncomfortable
Instant Feedback also makes PR people uncomfortable
PR people have a fear of technology
Time
Age profile
Networking - online this is totally different as compared to the normal way for networking
Information overload - RSS Feeds, online news, etc.
Fear & ignorance - refusing to invest in things like Facebook, etc.
What PR has to offer
content generations
creativity
Engagement /Debate
Networking
Problem solving
Monitoring
Why Rush?
Traditional media constricting
Channels not relevant
Media Rich Demand
Others will eat our lunch
Whats on offer now?
PR Newswire
Click Press
Feed Demon
Flickr
Blogs
Facebook
But moving to...
Digg
Youtube
2nd Life
Yahoo Delicious
Podcasting
SEO Press Releases
Case Study - Redmere Technology
Worked with Newswire and UK based Businesswire
Within 30 minutes of putting the press release out through these, Google picked up
Spike in traffic
Repak Case Study
started a blog, outside their website
They feared comments in the beginning
Trained them, reworked press release material and material that wasn't good for PRs
Felt they were missing out and joined up on Bebo to engage that "generation"
Bebo site with white board drawing competitions, polls, quizzes, advice section photos, videos and blog
Daily update of site with new material per day
Built out friends network
Creation of a YouTube video featuring the making of customised "blinged" BringBanks by students
Daily posting on Repak Blog
Results for Recycling Week Promotion: 11,00 visitors, 41 entries, over 760 friends, 200 comments, 307 quizzes, over 500 polls, international hits, over 100 views video, endorsement, 10 entries ion blog, media coverage
When they changed their logo on Bebo from the traditional boring one, to the one of these twins - traffic spiked phenomenally
Rob Reid - Cybercom
Right now search marketing is changing faster than ever before and so is Public Relations
The consumer is driving the demand for change
people are consuming media differently today
broadband has meant that they are consuming richer media now than ever before
Google has recognized this and introduced universal search
this will follow in Ireland and throughout Europe
Search Marketing - Online PR - Social Media
All converging - SEO. PP, links, video, photos, podcasting - blogger relations, coporate blogging, seeding RSS Feeds - community development, widget development
Universal search is the convergence point of this change
universal search is where online PR social media and search marketing are becoming intrinsically linked
Shows the KFC/Taco bell video result of the Rat Video
SEO -PR
SEO works effectively for press release visibility as it does for website visibility
Social Bookmarking
Make sure all of your website's content is tagged with social bookmarks
This content can be found through regular searches as well as sites like digg, delicious
Video & Photo SEO
Search engines don't see actual images so tagging these make them more visible to search engines
Understand the shift in consumer habits before developing your Online PR strategy
Digital in not just a new marketing channel - its about a fundamental shift in consumer behaviour
Very impressed with the rapid turnaround on your report. Imagine you must have had tired fingers by end of the day
Posted by: Eoin Kennedy | April 04, 2008 at 04:50 AM
Excellent, detailed wrapup, Li.
Just add Keynote and you've got a perfect presentation.
A couple of comments in regard to the PR industry and adoption. I worked with PRWeb.com for a few years, and found some interesting insights into the adoption of online PR:
1) The old-line folks appear to want to keep the "good 'ol boys" clubs going - which is all fine and dandy, but it means they lose quite a bit of reach by keeping their message "inside the firewall".
2) SEO of press releases is something that I believe David McInnis of PRWeb (and now of www.Cranberry.com) initiated as far back as 1998. I used the platform back then and was able to achieve search results on NorthernLight and AOL even back then.
3) As David Meerman-Scott profiled in his excellent book "The New Rules of PR and Advertising" (available here: http://www.davidmeermanscott.com/books.htm or as a free PDF download at http://www.davidmeermanscott.com/products_ebooks.htm ) the PR industry and marketing have been overlapping for decades. The difference is now there is enough clarity and less obfuscation to confuse the markets. PR is Advertising (just don't tell anyone).
4) I STILL receive direct sales from online press releases I created as far back as 2003. These act as almost long-form sales pages (a rich landing page of sorts). Once firms realize how to manage their online media assets and put them to work, a whole new world opens up.
5) Universal Search changes everything... except SEO Best Practices now apply more than ever... and to more of your online digital assets. If you're a PR person, you now have many more elements you can play with in regards to Photowire Images, Podcasts, Video, Press Release Attachments, etc...
Excellent writeup, and good to see progress contnuing to be made.
Warm regards,
Mark Alan Effinger
http://www.RichContent.com
Posted by: Mark Alan Effinger | April 05, 2008 at 07:17 PM
To promote business, Online PR is most effective way. For online press release you need to write articles on global level, good title and excellent content are important in press release promotion.
Posted by: henrry134 | April 09, 2008 at 12:11 PM