What is a Business Blog?

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People are asking me to help define or give them examples of what is a business blog. When I wrote the previous “Business Blogging is Great PR” blog, I figured by now most pr clients and publicity professionals as well as advertising agencies know the difference between a personal blog site and a company or business blog site.

First, you do know what a blog is, right? Ok, let’s move. There are basically two types of blog sites: “personal blogs” and “business blogs”. The personal blog is where anybusiness blogging, blog sites individual can write about any topic, such as the weather, their favorite pet, their life experiences, or whatever they wish. Yes, sometimes it is a gripe about their job, or a problem they had with a manufacturer’s product. But that is one person voicing their thoughts. These personal blogs are set up by the individual.

A Business Blog can be similar, meaning it is one person’s opinion, or thoughts, but it relates to an actual product, or a company. You need to know that there are two types of business blogs. One is on the Internet that anyone can read and see. The other is internal blog sites set up at companies. Usually these are created by large corporations. The blogs are usually intended for employees to voice their comments internally, within a company, not readable to the outside world.

To help illustrate a business blog, look at these site. I saw them referenced at About.com:

• Gizmodo

• Google Blog

• Jupiter Research

• Loosetooth.com Shop Blog

You will see that each is different but they are all business related. One may do a review on a product, while another tells people about their store and what it offers. Sometimes a blog is written by the company for anyone to read to attract employees or make people feel good about the company. A couple of examples of these blog sites would be Google Blog, and GM’s FastLane Blog.

Learn how to start using a business blog. PR Clients and all publicity professionals need to get ahold of this powerful media and make it work for them. For additional tips, visit the site “to improve your blog“. It has a few more helpful suggestions. If you need help to build a company blog, or want to learn more, call George Carson at 949-477-9400, or visit our Carson marketing, Inc. web site.

Business Blogging Makes Great PR

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If you are still wondering how to get your company, or pr client noticed, then look at Business Blogging. It is one of the strongest pr marketingbusiness blogging, blog sites strategies you can implement. It takes some work, but the rewards are great. First you need to realize that just having a blog site isn’t going to make things happen overnight. You need a plan, you need to understand how the blog world works, and then your business blogging will all come together.

There are dozens of companies claiming to do blog marketing sites. Only a few truly understand how this mysterious cyberworld can get you noticed. We are one of those companies who have surrounded ourselves with many of the top developers and marketers that know how a pr clients web site can become listed or ranked very high on Google and Yahoo, as well as MSN. There isn’t any top-secret formula, just a lot of planning, consistency and hard work. Like any other web site, a business blog site may take a few weeks to get indexed with the search engines.

To make your blog site more business provide the visitors opportunities to make comments on the site. Have an area that they can signup for your company newsletter, or download and article that relates to your industry. If you need assistance in getting a solid blog site that gets noticed, call George Carson. He can help with the development and the web marketing.

If you want to do other publicity activity to get noticed, then consider these other tried and true efforts. Many of them I have spoken about, but sometimes when you read it by other publicity professionals, you might listen more. These are just a few suggestions I saw that was written in an article called “How to Get killer PR“.

• Attend Events. Introduce yourself to other business people, check to see if there is a special area for networking at these events, or if they have guest speakers.

• Find something that makes you unique, a compelling theme (as the writer states). Find the strengths and uniqueness and talk to reporters about those qualifications

• Be accessible. When anyone form the press calls, or sends you an email, you need to respond in a timely manner. That doesn’t mean when you are ready, it usually means within a couple of hours or sooner.

These few tips are common sense, but often not used. Make your publicity part of your overall business plan. It should include the blogging as well as the many other campaign elements I have spoken about in the past. Look at topics on my blog like “How to write a Marketing Plan“, or “Write a Press Release for the Media Not Your Company”; another good article is “Where to send your press release”.

If you are serious about developing a blog campaign, check out “Social Media Keeps Growing…” and “Internet Marketing Tips“.

Now get back to your business blogging.

What Advertising Marketing Strategies Are You Using?

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Advertising agencies and publicity professionals use different advertising marketingPR Marketing Strategy strategies to promote a pr clients products or services. Do you know what marketing strategies are being developed for your company? If you are not sure, then use this information as a guide to get a better understanding of what marketing strategies are about.

First, if you Google the term “advertising marketing strategies“, you will see that Wikipedia defines it into three main areas. They are:

1-Weak Strategies

2-Middle Strength Strategies

3-Strong Strategies

I want to concentrate on the strong strategies in this blog. When you see an ad campaign, or even a publicity campaign, and you feel good about it. That’s what strong strategies are about. It gets to the inner feelings of someone. An example would be, in wikipedia, the Geico commercial. Although it does have the qualities of a strong marketing strategy, I do not feel it is the best example. Not everyone feels good about or relates favorably to that the little Geico character.

Think of yourself when buying something that you really liked, such as a new car, or when you booked that vacation to Hawaii. It made you feel good. And why did you buy that specific car, or plan that special location for your trip? It is because you felt good about it when you were first exposed to the campaign. It was the creative marketing, or pr marketing strategy, or the special publicity surrounding the product that started to give you these great feelings.

As the definition says, creative strategies promote great publicity campaigns and sales promotions. So now that you, as a pr client, or even a publicity professional, know what the advertising marketing strategies are, start using them to improve your campaign. It can only make it better.

Newsletter Writing For Business

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It seems like everyone is writing something. Either in a blog, or a social media site, personal web sites, and of course business newsletters. Does this mean that companies, or businesses should not have a newsletter because there is too much to read? Simple answer-NO. Whether you are a pr client, a local publicity agency in Orange County, or a national food manufacturer, you need to have a company newsletter. Not just a newsletter, but one that your clients, customers, or prospects can read because it has value.

That is the keyword. Your business newsletter (sometimes referred to as a companywriting a newsletter newsletter) should become a must-read publication. Using the Internet, this is a cost effective and affordable way to promote your company. PR Clients as well as professional publicity people know that writing to their industry can be rewarding. Your newsletter needs to have rich content. Make the newsletter entertaining. Possibly consider having a questionnaire, or take a poll about a topic that relates to your industry. This gets clients and customers involved. And it is one of the best publicity programs that any pr client can produce in-house.

If you are a pr client, or a publicity professional and are not comfortable in writing newsletters, just Google the words “how to write a newsletter’ and see all the resources. One site in particular is called right-writing. You can start with any of these sites as a guide to get the process going for your company. Having a newsletter available for download is much easier than writing a blog everyday. It may not be as strong of a marketing tool for pr clients as a blog site, but it is better to have one rather than nothing.

For those publicity professionals who are creating pr marketing strategies for pr clients, then consider writing a monthly business newsletter for your pr clients. I also recommend that all clients begin with a business newsletter, and then develop a blog site. This can be an internal, or external site. Remember, if you are unable to produce your own in-house publicity newsletter campaign, then give us a call. We will get you noticed.

Are Media Buyers Spending More On Internet?

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With all the hype and interest of the Internet, you would think it has the lion share of media dollars. Instead it seems that pr clients, media buyers, and pr marketing strategies are still embracing old habits of media—broadcast (TV and radio).

It surprised me a little since I see a lot of pr clients, as well as ad agencies placing millions of dollars into the Internet with ads, keywords, social media money, etc. But I think you need to evaluate what is really happening. First, we are in an election year. And actually last year had many legislative issues that the people voted on which fuels the media in the strongest markets through TV and radio. That could be why these past 18 months have shown a surge in traditional broadcast media buying. There is a great article in iMedia Connection that has a graph and explains further, by the author, his viewpoint on this topic. The title of his article is “Get more relevant with niche media”

If you are seeking different ways to grow your business, then maybe this is the time to get noticed. Start developing a social network, a company blog site, or begin using your web site to attract more customers. When one segment of an industry such as TV or radio are scarce with ads of your competitors, then switch back. But keep in mind that timing is everything. If you are a B2B company, or a retailer, or a manufacturer, then check to make sure you are not promoting, advertising your company in a down time. Such as Christmas, unless you are selling hi-tech stuff, or toys.

We are now entering a heavy media buying season for political campaign advertising, re-think where you spend your marketing and advertising dollars. I would recommend that you look into establishing an online campaign. These are much less costly than a TV campaign. And it will generate a lot of customers, as well as create a branding position for your company or products. PR Clients need to be more sensitive to this as do media buying agencies, media buyers and advertising agencies. This goes for publicity professionals as well. PR Agencies need to better understand how to use online publicity as a means to be visible for pr clients. While the broadcast media gets hammered with political campaigns, then immediately following is the holiday season, promotions now can be the best time to develop that needed online campaign.

Take advantage of the next six months by establishing your company to be positioned on the first page of all the major search engines. Even at the top, maybe the top three positions. And it is possible to do this without purchasing a lot of keywords. I can’t go into how to do that in this short blog, but I will be more than happy to explain how to do this effectively and get results. Just call me, George Carson, at 949-477-9400.

George Carson presents Power Listening soft skills to colleges

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It is hard to believe that a year ago I made a presentation to the California Community Colleges on  “Job Behavior” as the first soft skills lesson. This year our company produced another lesson onpresnetation on soft skills Power Listening. Although many people, including pr clients, ad agencies, even many publicity professionals think this isn’t that important, or a soft skill. Well it is. In fact listening is the most important soft skill a person can learn.

Check out these facts:

Over 75% of what we learn is from listening. And get this, a person can only speak about 180 words per minute, but we hear over 500 words per minute. That means we get bored when people are talking, and therefore loose interest and miss what is said. So if you are a pr client, publicity professional, start listening, not hearing, but listen to what is being said.

It was a great presentation and many of the professors and other administrators at this conference for the community colleges were very pleased with the presentation. Several people commented that they learned a lot and will begin using this Power Listening lesson in their classes immediately.

My other point why I am telling you about this, it is an excellent publicity vehicle. Our company was well received by the 109 community colleges throughout California. This is one of the many ways a pr client can gain exposure for their company, or themselves. Give lectures; speak on topics that you know, or about trends in your industry. A few helpful hints:

• Contact your local Chamber Of Commerce to give a lecture

• Contact any local, or regional associations in your industry and give a talk

• Send an article to your local newspaper to the business editor and ask them to publish your article. Make sure the article is newsworthy and talks about a specific topic in your industry

These are just a few suggestions. To learn more about making presentations, or “how to listen”, give George Carson a call. He knows how to listen, and can show you how to gain favorable publicity when using this soft skill. Contact George at 949-477-9400.

How Important Is Branded Keywords?

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When developing your pr marketing strategy for your web site, ask yourself, is buying my branded name as a keyword important?

We recently had this asked by one of our pr clients. The answer isn’t abranding keywords simple yes, or no. You might think, wait, my product or company name is important, how can you say it isn’t. The reason to consider buying it or not, is purely an emotional decision, mixed with a business decision. To help me further explain this pr marketing strategy, I read an article in iMediaConnection that is titled “5 Reasons to pay for branded keywords“. The five reasons are based on a study he uses to show ten top companies, and lists those who do, and those who do not. For example you would think that McDonalds would purchase their keyword with Google, wrong. What about IBM, wrong again. Both of these companies, along with Intel do not purchase their branded names as keywords on Google, or any other search engines.

So why aren’t these big companies buying their names as keywords. Here are a few of their reasons:

• “We are already in the number one slot in the natural search results, so why waste the money?”
• “We have not integrated search into all of our marketing campaigns.”
• “We believe other companies should not be allowed to bid on our branded terms, so we take the same approach.”
• “We have not given it much thought.”

So as you can see, this may or may not be a good reason for you or even the big guys. But it is their decision. The article points out good arguments why you should consider buying the keywords. They are:

1- Consumer Behavior

2- Your competition will

3- More control, there are two others, check them out on the article.

Yet other major companies like Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Toyota and Mercedes-Benz do purchase their branded keywords. I usually tend to tell my clients, if you can budget purchasing your branded keywords, then it is a good pr marketing strategy to do so. Most companies are not worldwide and should make the decision to do it or not, before their competition does and they have no choice to make.

To learn more about web marketing, or to improve your pr marketing strategy, give Carson Marketing, Inc. a call. They can get your site noticed and positioned high on Google, Yahoo, and MSN, among many others.

How To Write A Press Release For Your Audience

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Writing a press release is much different than writing an article, or a script, or copy for an ad or brochure. A press release should be written to a specific audience, or market. If you are a PR Client, then make sure that your in-house pr department or your publicity agency understands the importance of targeting a specific audience for each press release.

PR Clients need to understand that publicity is an art. It doesn’t just happen in the media. To get a press release published,How to write a press release you need to follow a few points. Besides writing it in the correct format, which you can check out this site to help you understand how to write a press release. What you need to also do, make the press release fit your specific audience. Don’t try to be general and reach the entire market. No matter how generic your product or service might appear to be, you can target specific markets and revise the release to target other markets.

One way to get your press release published is to see what you are saying. If you are opening a new office, or moved to a new location, then the release should be targeted to local media. It is also good to mention how this move, or new office will impact the area. For example, will you be hiring new people, how will your company affect the new area? Think in this manner and you have a good chance of getting published.

If you are a medical company, then ask how it will affect that industry. Does your release explain how your company (or what the release is about) changes anything in the industry? Of course, this release should target medical publications, and local newspapers that have a Health section. A short article on “Reaching the Right Audience” explains more ways of identifying how to understand your market so that your press release targets the right audience in order to get published.

Follow these simple steps and you will have a better chance of the media running your next release. If you need professional pr help, give George Carson a call at 949-477-9400.

How To Create Branding

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This is a topic that can always be spoken about. Mainly because most pr clients, advertisers, and publicity agencies do not fully understand how to create a branding campaign, or build a brand product.

It starts with a plan. A Marketing Plan would be best. Inside the plan should be the different marketing strategies that outline in detail what your company goals are to be achieved and what will it take to attain those goals. So how does this relate to BRANDING? Glad you asked. It is just one small part of your pr marketing strategy.branding campaign

When you or your advertising agency creates a campaign for your product, or company image, consider what it is you are trying to achieve. If it is to be memorable, or have humor, or be a serious campaign, then this is how the branding will start. Branding also starts from within a company. From the CEO, to the president, to the office receptionist. But that’s another area of branding that we can discuss later.

Let’s get back to your ad campaign, or publicity campaign. If the idea that is presented looks good, feels good, but you as the pr client just says “that could be our competitors ad if you take out our logo”. Well, consider this, are they using that campaign, or that slogan, or those images. If not, then maybe you are in the old school. Just as I read in Brandweek, an article called “The Doing of the Thing”, by Mike Wolfsohn, points out that this type of thinking can make you be left behind the competition, instead of being the competition. He uses several examples; one in particular is the MasterCard “Priceless” campaign. While the competition, Visa, is trying to position them as the card that is used everywhere, MasterCard takes the personal approach making it more emotional. Anyone of the other card companies could have used that as their idea, but MasterCard did it.

So don’t throw out an idea because you feel the campaign is too generic, make it your brand, make it become your slogan, or image. That is one way to start building a brand. To learn how to create a brand in more detail, give George Carson a call. He can get you noticed so that YOU become the competition. Call him at 949-477-9400.

How To Use Meta Tags In Your Web Site

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Web designers and Webmasters already know how important Meta tags are, or can be, but are they really being used anymore? I worked with a pr client to help them promote their web site. In doing this, we had to re-educate them about the use or non-use of Meta tags.

It seems like this term has a lot of staying power. Maybe because it is one of the only words, other than “optimize”, that the average pr client, or agency hears and still believes it is the “core” to promoting a web site. Not True Anymore! Before I get too deep into Meta tags and how to use them properly, let me say that yes, we use them, but it is now a very small part of web marketing. Most of us doing web marketing for our pr clients use Meta tags as form of structure, not to generate web traffic. But that’s another topic, and one that is much more complex today than it was two years ago.

Meta tags were the hot ticket in the early 90’s (wow, that isn’t that long ago, but sounds ancient in relation to technology). When spammers and gaming sites overused this process to generate traffic to their sites, new rules by search engines began developing. Meta tags have different names such as Meta Robots, Meta Description, Meta Keywords, and Meta Content Type. Since algorithms have emerged the way you use these Meta tags still can help, but not alone.

You’re probably asking what is a Meta Robot? It is a code that tells search bots to either follow your site (URL) or you can direct it to index certain pages. I’ll explain the other Meta Tags so you can understand them better. As a pr client, it may seem a lot to learn. As a web designer, keep this in mind, as it will help a Webmaster or web marketing expert get a site listed sooner.

Meta Description. Critical in a site. It is what people type as keywords. So these are important for your product/service in identifying them correctly.

Meta Keywords. I feel these are still one of the foundations to using any Meta Tag. Be careful not to place more than 18 to 20 keywords. Otherwise it can decrease your sites position with search engines.

Meta Content Text. As important, this can hurt a site by not displaying properly in search listings.

Although there are two schools about Meta Tags, it doesn’t hurt to use them. If done correctly, it can only help to improve a search engines listing, but it alone cannot give you high rankings as it did a few years ago. If you feel you can do this yourself, visit the Search Engine Watch site about meta tags.

If your web site needs more traffic, or better ranking with search engines, give Carson Marketing, Inc. a call. George Carson will show get you noticed. Call him at 949-477-9400.