SEO Press Release Tips

May 30, 2012 Leave a comment

Business Wire, Marketwire, PrimeNewswire, PR Newswire, and PRWeb: these are the main paid wire services that American companies use. On any given day a couple of thousand press releases are sent out in the U.S. by those wire services.  So, how can you separate yourself from the pack?  How can your PR efforts and press releases be noticed in such a throng?  It’s not easy, but it’s possible.

It’s no longer enough to concern yourself with interesting the traditional media with your releases.  Yes, you need to create press releases that meet the needs of the traditional media, but you also need to maximize the use of search engine optimization (SEO).  Why do you need to concern yourself with SEO?  Will it help you land a story in the New York Times or an interview on the Today show?  Most likely not.  But it can help in other ways.  For example, when someone is searching online for a company that offers your type of product or service, are you the one they’re going to find?  Where do you show up when it comes to a Google search?

That’s where search engine optimization comes in.  SEO’s primary function is to help you rank in Google and Yahoo News and for your keywords.   And this is generally accomplished by knowing your keywords, and creating anchor backlinks for your blog or website.

Anchor text is the hyperlinked text on a web page.  They are the highlighted words you click on when you click a link.  It offers readers information about the nature of the page you’re linking to.  For example, this is my Public Relations Firm’s website linked to a keyword.  More importantly anchor text communicates with search engines.  In essence it tells search engines what the page is about.  It’s incredibly important to use in your press releases; used effectively it can boost your rankings and particularly your Google rankings.

Your first step is to learn your primary and secondary keywords.  Your press releases should reflect the keywords used on your website.  You want your releases to work for you by driving search engines to your site.  Don’t make the mistake of only using your keywords on your homepage.  Make a concerted effort to have a minimum of one of the keyword links in your press releases lead to a page on your site other than your homepage.

Focus on the first 200 to 250 words of your release.  These initial words set the tone not only for the release itself but for your overall search results.  You want to choose those words carefully and you want them to be targeted.

In most of my articles about press releases, my main focus is on the content; on telling a strong story with a compelling narrative.  Those are points you always have to keep in mind and my follow up article on SEO press releases will cover that in more depth, but here the focus is on making sure that your releases not only are interesting but that they also are SEO friendly.  A few points to keep in mind are to make sure your headline contains your primary keyword  and that you pepper the release itself with three target keywords.  Also, never forget to include at least one URL in the release.  You never know, your release might be republished without anchor text and by including your URL you’ll assure that the reader can find you.

SEO is an ever changing field and one I don’t think anyone fully masters.  So keep experimenting and keep writing new releases with SEO in mind, but also remember, when all is said and done, it comes down to telling a compelling story.  Don’t get so lost in the SEO game that you forget the basics.

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2012

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How to Figure out what Marketing Is Right For You

May 24, 2012 Leave a comment

Mashable’s definition of Marketing is a great place to start thinking about your own company’s marketing mix:

How do you decide what marketing direction is the best for you?  That’s not necessarily an easy question to answer.  You need to know your company, your product or service, your target market and the direction you want your company to go.  Begin by writing out a marketing plan.  Initially have fun with it play with it, then start to hone it down.  Start with a list of questions and then fill in the answers.  But do it a few times and set it up so your answers can’t always be the same as the previous responses.  Look at your company and your business from a number of angles.

Do you need to:

  • drive sales?
  • find new clients?
  • build your brand?
  • reach a new target market?

PR and media relations can achieve a number of goals, but before launching a campaign, you need to define exactly what your specific goals are.  Once you have your marketing objective list, your next step is to review your marketing budget.  How much can you realistically spend to achieve your marketing goals?  Your budget is going to help define your approach.  If you have thousands that you can dedicate to marketing each month you have different options than if you have a couple of hundred or less to put towards your marketing efforts.

If you have a finite marketing budget, your first focus should be on establishing an online presence, by building an easy to read, informational website that speaks to your clients’ needs.  The Internet offers you a way to position yourself and your company online without breaking the bank, but simply having a presence on the Internet does not mean anyone is going to see it.  You need to drive visitors to your site.  This is when a social media outreach program, article marketing program and a blog can help.

But back to the PR question, although your budget will dictate how you’re going to implement your marketing campaign, your budget, or lack of it, does not need to stop you from utilizing media relations.  Draw up a campaign blueprint.  Then move forward.  Don’t waste valuable marketing time trying to figure out if you should launch a PR campaign, focus on how.  It is the one form of marketing that reaches your target market, offers you validation, credibility and establishes you as an expert in your field.  Define your needs, your objectives, your budget, the most appropriate approach and move forward.  The worst decision you can make is to do no marketing.  That’s a sure way to go nowhere fast.

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2012

Marketing. Mashable. Retrieved May 24, 2012. http://mashable.com/follow/topics/marketing/page/2/

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A Novel Approach to Reading: In Defense of the Lowly Book

May 22, 2012 Leave a comment

IPads and Nooks and Kindles have gotten more than their share of PR and media coverage.  There has been a press battle among them with press releases flying fast and furious.  And the media campaigns are working.  They’re selling.  These e-reader devices are fine for reading magazines.   I suppose they could be okay for reading some non-fiction books.  But when it comes to reading fiction, there I firmly draw the line.  It’s not so much that I’m a Ludite in this arena; it’s that as a reader you lose so much of the essential reading experience when you shift from a book to a shrunken computer.  There is a certain romance to reading novels that supersedes merely looking at and digesting words.

I’m an admitted novel junkie.  I cannot go to sleep without reading for at least half an hour.  And it has to be a novel.  Reading non fiction or current affairs as I lie in bed only serves to agitate me.  With a novel, I can blissfully drift towards Morpheus.

But I am getting ahead of myself.  Before I find myself lying in bed lost in strange and foreign lives and worlds, I need to choose the book.  Here too, I admit to being old school.  I actually go to bookstores.  Not only do I go, I do so with the same enthusiasm as a five year old goes to a toy store.  It’s an outing, an experience, an adventure.  I never know what I’ll find and seldom go with any particular book in mind.  I browse, pick up the various books, study the covers, and touch the pages, read some pages; it’s a totally sensual experience and not simply a visual one.  You touch books, feel them.  Books have a scent.  You can read them aloud and make it an experience that touches all of the senses.  Reading novels is not simply about the words, but about the experience of choosing, holding and being engulfed by a book.

If the focus is on how many volumes you can carry in a particular device and how quickly you can read a particular book, I’d say you’re losing a good deal of the joy.

There are people who like to figure out the most practical and least time consuming ways to eat; people who have shakes for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  They get their nutrients, their calories, but, at least from my perspective, they’ve lost quite a bit in that bargain.

And that is not unlike what I fear we’re losing when it comes reading.  It’s meant to be a sensual experience.  The focus is not supposed to be on transferring information from a machine into your brain.   The physical book, with its specific size, layout, cover, graphics, font and paper, is all a part of the total experience.

I suppose it’s an experience that is losing ground, as e-books and various pads and devices flourish.  Oh, well, I hold on to my book mania.  Plus, at least on my end, I really don’t have much of a choice.  You see, I often fall asleep while I’m reading, drifting off as I’m lost in a novel.  And, there are times, when said book falls from my hands to the floor.  This isn’t a constant occurrence, but it’s happened often enough.  And my novels, being the sturdy troopers they are, take the plummeting and live on to fight another day.  They neither complain, nor do they break.    Now think of me lying in bed reading my IPad and having it tumble onto the floor.  Disaster!  Reading would become such an expensive pastime; I wouldn’t be able to afford it.  No, I’ll happily stay on the sidelines in this e-reader revolution and stick with the romance of my books.

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2012

Tew, Sarah. “Kindle vs. Nook vs. iPad:…”  Photo. CNET. 05 12 May 2012. 21 May 2012. <http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20009738-1/kindle-vs-nook-vs-ipad-which-e-book-reader-should-you-buy/>
Carr, Austin. “Twitter Stats Reveal How the iPad, Nook, and Kindle Stack Up.” Photo. Fast Company. 11 Jan 2011. 21 May 2012.  <http://www.fastcompany.com/1716018/how-the-ipad-kindle-and-nook-stack-up-on-twitter>

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EXTRA! Buffett Buys Newspapers: Maybe Newspapers Aren’t Quite That Dead

May 18, 2012 Leave a comment

Berkshire Hathaway, perhaps best know as Warren Buffett’s company announced a deal on Thursday to purchase 63 newspapers from Media General.  Berkshire will be purchasing more of MEG’s daily and weekly newspapers for $142 million in cash.  Buffet’s statements on May 5 seemed to be heading him away from the newspaper business, which he described as an industry that was “declining” and one with “Problems”.  He then went on to say that generally it was best to stay away from declining businesses and that that’s not where they make real mon

ey at Berkshire.

But Buffet obviously still thinks there’s value in newspapers.  I think the secret here is that the focus is mainly on local and regional papers, where people still find a good deal of their information.  That’s where traditional journalism can grow and thrive.  It’s almost like a return to the early days of newspapers where all news really was local.  The internet and the cable new stations pretty much have a lock on national stories.  That’s a hard place for newspapers to compete now at days, but local stories and information can still keep newspaper journalists buzzing.  The local newspapers will have to be creative to remain competitive, but the death of the newspaper might have been greatly exaggerated.

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2012

 

 

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How PR Drove Facebook’s IPO

May 16, 2012 Leave a comment

Sometimes an amazingly effective PR campaign can be a dangerous thing.  Take Facebook for example.  The company raised the price range for its IPO to $34 to $38 a share, from $28 to $35 a share.  That illustrates how the media frenzy has hungry investors biting at the bit for this offering.  It also shows how perception can create what could be a false reality perhaps blinding investors to the reality of the situation.  Facebook’s initial price range put its valuation at $77 billion to $96 billion, but now that shifts to $93 billion to $104 billion under this revised price range.  That, my friend, is a lot of money.

Facebook has yet to prove that its $3.7 billion in revenue and $1 billion in profits last year can justify such astronomical evaluation. . Last month, Facebook disclosed that its first-quarter profit and revenue shrunk from the fourth quarter of 2011.  The company claimed that it was do to seasonal trends in advertising.

Facebook going public can be dangerous.  The pressure of being a public company can make companies lose sight of what made them so successful to start.   When it comes to Facebook, the pressure will be particularly great. Its earnings are quite a ways below its projections.  It’s hard to see how it will find a way to grow at the lightning speed investors will not only expect, but demand. 

Another red flag is that Facebook has real exposure to Europe. Apparently over twenty five percent of its users are fromEurope, giving Facebook definite financial exposure on that front. With the state of the European economy, and Facebook’s reliance on European advertising, that could be dangerous.

According to the media, most savvy investors seem to be shying away from Facebook’s IPO.  There are probably some credible reasons for that.  This is not to say that Facbook is not an amazing success story.  Its success and growth have been astronomical; still that doesn’t necessarily justify such aggressive valuations.  And that’s where the media and PR frenzy comes into play.  From newspaper and magazine articles to radio and TV segments Facebook’s IPO has been a front page story for weeks. And then of course, there is Facebook itself.  The social media outlet is its own non stop marketing machine.  The buzz creates more interest and investors start beating the investment drums.  It looks like a difficult road for Facbook to live up to those projections; time will tell whether the drum beating will lead to success or investor disappointment.


Copyright © Anthony Mora 2012

Flauraud, Valentin. “he loading screen of the Facebook application on a mobile phone is seen in this photo illustration taken in Lavigny.” Photo. Chicago Tribune. 16 May 2012. 16 May 2012. <http://www.chicagotribune.com/classified/automotive/sns-rt-us-facebook-retailbre84f0x2-20120516,0,4596444.story>

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Breast Feeding & the First Gay President: How Time & Newsweek Are Riding the Social Media Train

May 14, 2012 Leave a comment

The news magazines controversy wars are going at full steam.  Time got out of the gate first with its May 21 cover, featuring a rather defiant and somewhat uncomfortable looking Jamie Lynne Grumet breastfeeding her three-year-old son, Aram.  In the photo, Aram is standing on a chair and feeding on her exposed left breast.  Not your everyday magazine cover.  But it wasn’t meant to be.  The image had more impact than the article, which accompanied the photo; which is exactly what Time intended.  The web erupted with praise and criticism; and the social media stir accomplished the decision, makers at Time, were hoping for. Celebrities jumped in; Alyssa Milano and model Joanna Krupa began to Tweet about it and the social media frenzy was off to the races.   It drove more readers to the site, where they had to pay to read the full articles.  The traditional media had a heyday with the cover which, in turn, caused an even bigger sensation on the various social media fronts

An article in the Los Angeles Times explained that Time’s editors ran the controversial photo and article to mark the 20th anniversary of Dr. Bill Sears’ book on the topic.  According to the article, the book helped “power the movement for moms to establish deeper, and more prolonged, physical bonds with their children.”  That is all true, but the purpose of the cover photo was to cause a sensation and drive sales

Not to be outdone Newsweek’s cover May 14th cover declares Obama “the first gay president,” with a story by writ

er Andrew Sullivan.  With Tina Brown at the helm, Newsweek has recently a number of controversial covers, but here the envelope is being pushed with a vengeance.   The cover, which shows President Obama with a rainbow halo above his head, comes days after Obama’s statement that he is personally in favor of gay marriage.

The article draws parallels between the isolation felt by many in the homosexual community and Obama’s struggle to fully discover and assert his racial identity.  But again, the image and the tag were less about the article and more about the marketing.

As with the Time breastfeeding cover, it is the Newsweek cover photo and tagline that will be remembered and that will cause a stir.  Here, the major news magazines, which have taken tremendous blows during the past few years, primarily because of the internet, are now utilizing the power of social media to sell magazines.

It’s an interesting irony and in a way marks a bit of a 180 turn.  The traditional media using the tremendous power of social media to market it wares.  This is indicative of how public relations, social media and the traditional media have in a sense all melded into one.  You can no longer separate one from the other and, if as a marketer you fail to see that – you lose.

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2012

Martinson, Jane. “Are you mom enough?’ … Time magazine Photograph: AP”. Photo. The Guardian. 14 May 2012. 14 May 2012. < http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/the-womens-blog-with-jane-martinson/2012/may/14/breast-best-row-time-magazine?newsfeed=true>
Harrigan, Matt. “Newsweek cover calls Barack Obama ‘the first gay president’.” Photo. Syracuse.com. 14 May 2012. 14 May 2012. <http://www.syracuse.com/have-you-heard/index.ssf/2012/05/newsweek_cover_calls_barack_ob.html>

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Is Traditional PR Still Relevant?

May 11, 2012 Leave a comment

According to a study done by PR newswire “ In both the US and Canada, pitches through a social network resulted in coverage approximately 70% of the time. In contrast, the standard pitch to a US or Canadian journalist rarely leads to coverage, with 66% pegging the success rate at 0-20%.”

Needless to say social media has forever changed the way PR works.  Whereas the traditional media still offers the best validation and credibility, that sort of seal of approval and trust factor is becoming its primary function.  Sure, if you land a segment on the Today Show or an article in USA Today, you are still going to get a huge boost, but overall the landscape has changed dramatically.  It used to be you could launch a very effective traditional PR campaign without landing any of the major media coverage.  Trade, local and regional media could and did carry a campaign.  But just as the music world has been turned on its head, so has the world of traditional media.  There are fewer outlets and there is a smaller audience.

So, does this mean that traditional PR is dead.  No not by a long shot, but the game board has changed dramatically.  Traditional PR is still vitally important, but to be truly effective it needs to be augmented by different forms of outreach.  This is no longer the time to only reach out to writers, editors and producers. 

Social media has become as important as traditional media, but each has a different function and must be addressed in a different manner.  Neither one on its own is as powerful as the combination of the two.  Social media offers a conversational style of communication with a connection to your audience.  This generally requires greater transparency.  It is a different type of communication and can lead to stronger and deeper personal relationships.

Conversational style—PR people used to interact primarily with industry journalists. “Pitching” and “spinning” were terms often used (not always with a positive connotation) to describe much of that interaction. Those days are fading, which is welcome news to many PR practitioners as well as their audiences. Greater availability of information requires greater transparency, but also leads to richer conversations.

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2012

Cwinters. “Media Free Agency.” Photo. Return on Reputation. 25 Oct 2010. 11 May 2012. <http://www.returnonreputation.com/2010/10/25/media-free-agency/>

 

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Alice Cooper, Pat Benatar PR- & You

May 3, 2012 Leave a comment

I began in the media world as a freelance writer.  My focus was on music, primarily rock.  I learned how the PR and marketing machines worked, but also learned how working with their teams, rock acts formed their own brands and created their own legends.  For example, two of the rock stars I interviewed, Alice Cooper and Pat Benatar and Kate took very different paths and approaches, but both created an image and a brand that defined them, and made them quite a bit of money.

Alice (Vincent Damon Furnier) had perhaps the most fun of any rock star with his mage, paving the way for KISS and a plethora of shock rock bands.  The band was the house band at the Whiskey on the Sunset Strip and became the band to walk out on (something I had to admit to Alice that I had done myself).  As the image and act grew, he added guillotines, electric chairs, fake blood, boa constrictors, and baby dolls to his act, drawing on a number of  influences from horror films, and vaudeville acts, to the more theatrical Broadway musicals.  He pioneered an over-the-top, theatrical and uber violent brand of heavy metal created to shock and rock.  In person, Alice is a fun, funny amiable guy, who talks about his alter ego with a wink and a smile.

Not as over the top as Alice, Benatar created her own alter ego.  Initially Benatar’s focus was on classical and Broadway theatrical styles. Rock did not seem to be in the cards.  Inspired by Liza Millelli she quit her job as a bank teller and decided to give a singing career a stab.  Yet, Out of that Pat Benatar the rock sex goddess was born, which lead to two multi platinum albums and decades of success.  Again this was a case of creating a brand, an image and turning that brand into a career and an amazingly successful business.

You might think you have nothing in common with Alice Copper or Pat Benatar, but (surprise) you’re wrong.  Chances are you’re not launching a new rock act (then again maybe you are), but the basic gameplan of creating a brand and an image is the same whether you’re an entertainer, an entrepreneur, a physician, an attorney, a jeweler, or the owner of a new social media site.  You want to establish your brand.  You want to create that message, story and image that is specifically you and that separates you from the competition.  Your brand and story can be loud and carnival like or extremely subtle and sophisticated.  It depends on you and your company.   You’re image probably won’t have much to do with spandex, guillotines, or over the top make up.  Then again, if it does – use it!

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2012

 Ochs, Michael. “Alice Cooper.” Photo. Rolling Stone. 02 May 2012. <http://www.rollingstone.com/music/artists/alice-cooper>

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PR Secret: A Good Story Will Get you in the Media Today

April 20, 2012 Leave a comment

With all of the new theories, programs, classes and seminars and master mind groups on how new media and social media are changing the world of PR, one thing remains constant, to be successful in the PR world, you have to have a story – good, compelling story with a strong narrative. All of the newest sites, gadgets, bells and whistles will get you nowhere, if you don’t have that in place.  Not that long ago, when the dot.com explosion firmly set on its head, the fact that AOL was set to swallow up Time Warner, was a story.  It actually should have been placed more in the realm of fiction, or better yet science fiction, but it sure as heck was a story; and one that received non-stop media coverage.  But if your company’s not about to gobble up Facebook, or Google, or Apple, how are you going to interest the media?  Some imagination and creativity on your part are in order.  You need the newest PR secret, which is also the oldest; you need a compelling story!

For example, if you’ve started a new website for your business, a press release announcing that your new site has been launched might get your company some ink in certain trade publications, you have a shot at garnering some online mentions on Yahoo and Google, but is that really what you want?  If you’re intent on launching an effective media relations campaign, you need to offer the media more than the fact you’ve created a new site.   What makes your site unique, special, different, or cutting edge?  What problems does it solve?  What questions does it answer?  How does it make a person’s life easier, happier, or more effective? 

This is no longer a one-story-fits-all world, and it’s imperative that a company develop press releases, hooks and ideas that will compel an editor, writer or producer to want to do a story. Think of the media less as a unified country than a segmented group of islands, each with its own interests, philosophy and needs.

What interests the Wall Street Journal will not necessarily interest USA Today, 60 Minutes, People, Vogue or your local media outlets.  The job of an effective media campaign is to interest each one of those venues.  Depending on  the campaign, the name of the game is to reach either a specifically targeted group or the largest number of consumers.  Each objective has its own strategy, but regardless of the strategy or objective, every campaign comes down to one main component; a good hook.

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2012

Snow, Shane. “8 Hot Media Trends You Need to Know.” Photo. Mashable. 19 Apr 2012. 20 Apr. 2012. <http://mashable.com/2012/04/19/hot-media-trends/>

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PR Secrets for Your Online Business

April 18, 2012 Leave a comment

Apart from Facebook and a few other IPO notables, dot.com IPOs no longer command the attention they did in the wild west of the late 1990s, and youthful billionaires, although still newsworthy, are no longer the big stories they were even two years ago.  These stories will continue to garner press, but they are not enough for a company to build a media presence around. The days of easy media are lost to the end of the 20th Century.  Already the 21st Century is a more demanding, more media-savvy time.

When dot.coms were still the rage, many internet companies turned to celebrities, hoping that by partnering with Whoopi Goldberg or Cindy Crawford, or some professional sports star, some of the stars’ fame and sheen would rub off on their online business. These companies were aware that the media love celebrities; and it is a star’s fame often that drives the media like moths to the proverbial flame.

But soon, even the celebrity factor began to wear thin; amazingly enough William Shatner survived as an online spokesperson, but overall internet companies found themselves faced with the same question that brick-and-mortar companies have faced for years: after the initial fireworks have cleared, how does a company consistently develop engaging and credible stories that will interest the media?

This is where public relations, specifically media relations and media placement come into the picture. When it comes to marketing a dot.com business, e-commerce site or internet product, a company must now broaden its scope to include an effective, story-driven media campaign. Unlike advertising, effective media relations can validate and legitimize a company – and for a fraction of what a comprehensive ad campaign costs.

This is not to say that when marketing an online business advertising and public relations are mutually exclusive. The two have different tasks to perform and one reinforces the other. Both can be vital to a successful overall campaign.  But in the 3.0 world of marketing it’s a mix of social media marketing and traditional PR that offers the most successful form of marketing.

During the dot.com heyday, many e-commerce companies did advertising overkill which cost-wise had a tendency to kill their business; most ignored or under-utilized the immense power and effectiveness of a well-targeted media relations campaign. Many figured that the more money they threw into an ad campaign, the more successful they’d be.  Few did their homework, thinking out of the box, and developing unique, compelling hooks and distinctive story ideas.

Meanwhile, the media began suffering from a bad case of dot-com burnout, which continues to this day.  It’s no longer enough to simply send out press releases announcing that a new site has been launched. Every day, thousands of press releases and pitches flood the email, snail mail, phone and fax lines (yes there still are some of those) of every media outlet in the country.

If a company wants to be noticed, or heard above this deafening roar, it better to know what each particular media outlet wants, understand each particular outlet’s demographics, and know how each editor or producer likes to be pitched.   Marketing has come full circle.  Once again it is all about the story.  Successful public relations comes down to having a credible, effective, engaging and instructional story to tell.  And that’s good news.  It means that the smallest, most cash strapped company has a chance to shine.  It simply needs to be creative.  When it comes to PR and pitching the media, remember, your story is your fortune.

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2012

Craig. “Advantages of Having an Online Business.” Photo. U2. NET. 29 Sept. 2010 18 Apr 2012. <http://www.uk2.net/blog/advantages-of-having-an-online-business/>

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