Archive for SEO
Talking PR and Social Media in New Orleans
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NEW ORLEANS — I’m in Louisiana for the next few days with members of the Counselors Academy, a section of the Public Relations Society of America for owners and principals of public relations agencies. As usual, they have a great lineup of speakers and I’ll be sharing links and nuggets of information from some of the sessions.
With all the talk about social media (and all the so-called experts in the latest tools and tactics), speaker Jay Baer, president of Convince & Convert, delivered this reminder: “The goal isn’t to be good at social media…the goal is to be good at business because of social media.”
That’s a point worth thinking about as we take steps to weave social media into our routines which, by the way, need to be just that – part of our days: “There’s no magic answer to how much time to devote to social media,” he said. “You must commit to doing it regularly versus doing it in-depth. Speed and response time is important so be first, fast and mobile. A minute here, a minute there in the tiny gaps in the day.”
Jay also shared why your online/social presence – in addition to using traditional channels – is so important. A Google study (see the Zero Moment of Truth) shows that in 2010 people needed 5.3 pieces of information to make a purchase decision. In 2011, they sought out an average of 10.4 sources of information, including blogs, websites and social networks, before they decided. “When we’re almost ready to buy, that’s when we call,” Baer said.
“When we want to make a purchase decision, we research first.” So in addition to making sure your sales information is accessible and accurate, be sure that whoever answers that call is ready, because that’s an educated and motivated customer ready to talk!
Anyone who’s spent time as a police reporter knows what this is all about – making the dreaded daily phone calls to dispatchers at remote police stations and sheriff’s departments to ask the same question: “Anythin
g going on?” Second only to the scanner crackling away in the newsroom, it’s the lifeblood of any local news organization. The critical first steps in news gathering. And a lot of it relies on prying loose the info from the staffer at the other end of the phone line – typically a stressed out dispatcher who hardly wants to engage in a conversation with “the media” and – gasp – reveal any information.
But take a look at how Jason Mays (or @Jason_WCMH), left, uses Twitter to turn the chore of making beat calls into part entertainment, part breaking news each night. Through his tweets, anyone of his followers can learn first-hand what’s going on in Central Ohio – even before it becomes breaking news – as he spins through his Rolodex in the early evening hours dialing up the county Sheriff’s Departments and Highway Patrol offices throughout his TV station’s coverage area.
A self-described “scanner rat” who works the phones for NBC affiliate WCMH in Columbus, Ohio, Mays has created a loyal following for his nightly “Beat Calls” (maybe even the competition!). Here’s a sampling of some of his tweets from recent months, documenting calls placed as well as some he receives while on duty at the NBC 4 assignment desk. Some serious, some off-the-wall. All provide a glimpse into life in journalism’s front row seat:
Bank robbery just occured at 7450 Sawmill rd. Man with gun gave teller a note. Guess what? He got a dye pack. he he he. CPD looking for him.
FAIRFIELD CO – Working on absolutely nothing.
Multiple football injuries going to local hospitals tonight. I think I heard its the first day in pads for HS.
US 33 WB AND 104 EB CLOSED DUE TO MOTORCYCLE AX. POSS FATAL. MAN MAY HAVE FELL OFF OF BRIDGE DURING AX
REYNOLDSBURG PD – the ever personality-less courtesy extended to me once again.
FAIRFIELD CO – working a neighbor dispute of a neighbor that mooned the other
Now to jinx myself. The scanners are very quiet. Very little going on. A purse snatching, 1 DOA natural causes, a grill fire, that’s it.
LICKING CO – dealing with their resident daily crazy call. I have 2 people that call me every day and ask crazy questions.
UNION CO – I pressed ’1′ for general information. Got it. I asked what’s up.. .she said… General stuff. Clever girl.
Got my weekly UFO call. Check.
PR Buzzsaw's YouTube Debut at Blog Potomac
Posted by: | CommentsWe recently attended the Blog Potomac “unconference” (i.e., t-shirts and shorts, no PowerPoint, happy hour during the ethics session) and were among 25 bloggers interviewed by Li Evans, owner of Search Marketing Gurus, on why we love blogging. Here’s our answer, provided by Jeff:
You can also check out answers from fellow conference attendees/bloggers, including AOL’s Frank Gruber of the Somewhat Frank blog, Debbie Weil of BlogWrite for CEOs, David Parmet of Marketing Begins At Home and Jared Goralnick of Technotheory.
Li asked each person at the Falls Church, Va. event: “So what’s your name? What’s Your Blog? and… Why Do You Love Blogging?” ”The answers and responses we got were amazing and it was a lot of fun to do,” she says. “I felt like I now expanded my realm of blogs to read immensely, while also wanting to make sure the SMG audience knew about all these folks where we so passionate about blogs and the topic of their blogs!”
Check out all of the Blog Potomac interviews here!
The First Month on Twitter for @contactjeff
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As a follow-up to yesterday’s post on “Twitter Makes Sense If You Follow the Right People,” here is more of what I (a.k.a. @contactjeff) learned during my inaugural month on Twitter.
- I follow Robert Scoble’s Tweets and he’s always sharing the latest trends and tools. Some way over my head, but I learned about and experienced Qik (streaming video service right from your cell phone) and Summize (a very cool Twitter search engine) through Tweets from @scobleizer.
- The concept of live-blogging at conferences. The SXSW Conference took place during my early Twitter days and having Twitterkin there and sending live Tweets about conference highlights (with links) was an eye-opener. At another conference, @TDefren tweeted a comment about Google by presenter @kamichat that led to this PR Buzzsaw post.
- Links to articles in the Mainstream Media that I otherwise might not have seen, such as a link from @steverubel about a BusinessWeek article praising Twitter.
- Breaking news – a few times I learned of news events first via Twitter, then turned to CNN for follow-up. A Midwest earthquake in April was an example of this. Another time, @newmediajim helped spread the news of an Amber Alert he saw on a highway sign.
- Innovative uses – I’m learning first-hand how companies can use Twitter to their advantage. Tony, the CEO of 
online retailer Zappos, is a great example of this, engaging in conversations with the Twittersphere and making the company feel real to me. I’m also a fan of Grammar Girl’s podcasts, so @grammargirl’s Twitter posts add to her persona (brand) and remind me about the podcasts and alert me to new books and other projects.
- Twitter is able to connect people to each other in the real world – imagine that! Twitterers at conferences let each other know where to meet, where the best after-parties are, etc. And conferences have their own Twitter accounts (i.e., Blog Potomac) to gather attendees and provide updates on who’s speaking. And tonight the popular Twitterer @pistachio is rounding up people (a Tweetup) for beers somewhere in Boston.
- Traffic to this blog. By far our highest traffic day occurred when we wrote about mommy bloggers and how Johnson & Johnson was facing criticism for its outreach. I mentioned it on Twitter, some of my followers Tweeted about my post and in a 24-hour span the average traffic jumped tremendously.
See? There’s much more than what someone had for lunch. It’s all about finding interesting people to follow and joining the conversation.
Looking for ROI on Social Media? The First Step is to Actually Participate
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I attended a presentation sponsored by the Greater Baltimore Technology Council this week - The ROI of Social Media – and one of the obvious takeaways (and one that so many people haven’t done yet) is that to really understand what’s going on in this space, you’ve got to take the plunge and participate!
On day one, you don’t have to Flickr, Twitter, blog, IM, wiki, podcast, tag and Digg. You don’t even have to know what this sentence means!
No, just start out slooooowly. Panelist Jared Goralnick, blogger and president of SET Consulting, summarized it best by suggesting a start with RSS. Go to YouTube, he said, and search for how to set up an RSS feed, and then subscribe to blogs of interest that you can find through a simple search. I created a MyYahoo account years ago to do this and it was simple to set up. After a while you’ll get the hang of it, add more feeds and then be ready to dive into the other elements of social media.
Next up should be participating on LinkedIn and Facebook, which all the panelists endorsed. More on how to use these social networking tools – for business – in future posts.
As you read the blogs on your RSS feeder, notice who’s using Flickr and how. See how people Twitter (and try to figure out why!). Read about trends in social media. Learn what widgets are and take a look at how they’re being used. Visit a YouTube channel to see how a business is using it. In other words, get involved, and then you’ll see how public relations should be an integral part of the social media universe.
As panelist Greg Cangialosi, blogger and president of Blue Sky Factory, said: “This is only the beginning.”
Making Your Press Releases Work Harder for You
Posted by: | CommentsAre you overlooking a powerful way to increase your Web site’s ranking on Google and other search engines? Press releases not only convey news, but when they’re properly optimized and distributed they can play an important role in your search engine rankings. Here’s how:
* Launch your press release into cyberspace with a paid wire service. Major search engines rate Web sites based on the number of links to them. One way to create more of them is to use a service such as PR Newswire. Your news will reach editors directly, and it places your release – and a live link to your URL – where search engines can find and rank your site.
* Add multi-media content to your releases. Scroll through just an hour’s worth of wire service news feeds and you’ll see how difficult it is to get your headline and story noticed. A logo on the wire service release will grab an editor’s attention, as will a photo or digital video. Surveys show that press releases with multi-media content are most likely to be picked up by the media.
* Be where the media seeks experts. If you have an expert, register his or her bio – with links back to your URL – in the online media expert databases.
* Get instant links from the major news portals. Another reason to send your optimized news via the wire services is that in most cases it will be automatically posted on searchable sites such as Yahoo! Google News and Factiva. This creates instant links from multiple online sources.
* Finally, make sure your ‘News’ section contains. . .news. Keeping your press center up to date creates more online links, and it also shows that you are keeping current. If the last press release on your site is dated sometime in 2005, what does that say about your company?
