The Social Media Is B2B

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Ignoring this media can hurt your company with negative publicity

A good article by another blog writer discusses the area of "social blogs". I have mentioned this as well, trying to wake up the Business Community that this new media is not going away. Instead, it is building.

Social mediaIf handled properly, you can monitor these social blogs to get an insight to the thinking and buying habits of potential customers. Pr clients and publicity agencies should also monitor these activities. It will give you a better understanding of your market. PR and Marketing need to interact more often. Rather than doing their own "thing’ to show corporate their greatness, it’s time to blend these resources and become more effective for doing business with B2B.

The article I saw was posted Nov. 1, and it is titled

"Social Media, Blogs, Message Boards…It’s Not Just a B2C Thing". The writer gives some indepth perspective to the fact that each are, PR and Marketing each feel it is the others responsibility to monitor. This type of thinking can cause your company to fall behind and not clearly recognize when tends move on or how your product might be viewed.

One of the comments in the article is direct and makes a solid point. It says "In the B2B world, internet users are using online communities to make their voices heard — sharing their experiences and opinions. Sure, consumers are more engaged in social media, but business users are increasingly using it, and I am confident it will become the norm over the next few years."

If you want to check some of the social web sites, here are a few to view:
YouTube.com
Break.com
Consumerist.com
MyBad.com

There are several others, but this will give you an idea and a few places to start your monitoring.

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Web Site Marketing Lesson #12

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Publicity is Everywhere series

As we enter the end of this year, I want to make sure that many of you are taking advantage of the web site your company, or pr client has. If you haven’t checked your site lately, within the past 6 weeks, then it’s time to take another look.Web Marketing and page ranking

This time you need to look at where your site is ranked. How is it positioned with the search engines? Does the site appear when you type the different keywords…near the top, or way down past the 100 other companies listed? Do you even show up? How many layers of keywords do you need to type before your company appears?

If your site is not getting high rankings, don’t call your pr agency, or the IT department, or the web designer. The search engines are again re-structuring how they rank and search a site. It’s time to get smarter on how you market your pr client’s web site.

That is why I continually recommend pr clients and web-marketing companies to re-visit their web sites at least every 6 to 8 weeks and do updates to re-fresh the site. Many times this re-fresh will require some additional optimizing to meet the new demands set upon sites by the SEO’s. It is a good idea to take advantage of checking your pressroom, contact info and make sure your products and services are current.

If you want us to check how valid your links are, how valid your site is with the search engines, just give us a call. The service is FREE! Yes, free. No strings attached. It is our holiday gift to you.

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The words you choose can help or hurt your press release

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How important is PR in your company?

To create a press release, an article or even a web site, requires writing. This in turn means knowing the right words to use.

If a company is concerned about getting favorable publicity, then you better make sure the words you have your pr agency, or in-house pr staff write, are carefully selected. Why? Because it is the words, the phrases and the order these are placed that can make a big difference in getting noticed and published.

Public Relations companies tend to be wordsmith’s. But they too can fall into the "template" of writing and not choose the words that are best suited for each company. If an in-house staff is doing a public relations service for your company, they can also get caught in choosing words that fill space and not benefit the company.  Sometimes you need to look outside of your industry to get a clearer picture so that your approach is different.

But just being different isn’t the solution. It is again, the choice of words you use. Words must be relevant, just as they should when building your web site and optimizing it. The structure is also important.

This is even true with articles and your web site. Your web site becomes the salesperson and only those words are what potential customers will read. These words will describe to them who you are.

Now you can better understand that words placed correctly, and key phrases used properly can increase your chances in getting publicity. Remember to look at your web site to make sure it has the words you need.

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Get more PR from your web site

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PR Clients need to look at their web site for media attention and traffic

Publicity, publicity! All you want is some FREE pr, but your pr agency is just not getting the job done–as least you don’t feel they are.
Get more PR, Get Noticed!
If you want to get attention, then consider using your web site. This can be a powerful source to building a company’s image, establish a position in the market and can generate massive awareness. How? I’m glad you asked.

Whether you are a pr agency, or if you are a pr client who handles all publicity activity in-house, then it’s time to put some serious action in making your web site become part of the publicity team.

There are some current changes in SEO’s (search engine optimization) that are making it more difficult for company’s to get listed, but at the same time, it has opened a wide door for publicity.

Remember when I spoke about keywords? Well, I did. The fact remains that if done correctly, you can get your web site listed at the top of any category your company is doing business. Yes, I can assure you this is possible. We have been working with several SEO people and have tested and re-tested our secret strategies and it has worked every time.

If your publicity agency isn’t performing, or you’re a pr client who just needs some outside objectivity, give us a call. We have the secret tools to get your company at the top, which will get media attention as well as making it easier for reporters, editors, and publishers to find you. So give us a call.

We are not going to offer this to every company, so call to see if you qualify.

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Social Networking Is Changing How We Search

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SEO’s Conference says change is happening

It was long when I told you that the next major area of Internet Search was going to be in the "social search’. This was recently discussed as being true at  "The Search Evolution: How Social Search is Changing All the Rules" conference in New York.

social searchesA lot was mentioned on how this social search will affect the SEO’s and the users of search. One statement was made that  "social search is simply an extension of social media as we know it today".  The article went on to say "Today’s method of matching interest to action and the content includes weighing link popularity of websites and determining a relative ranking of said content".

This means that pr clients, ad agencies, pr professions and all publicity needs to take a serious look as to how this change can affect their markets and how it will also affect their pr programs.

Marketers and pr clients need to think beyond the search box. It is falling back to branding, the building of your brand.

Just as I have said before, the YouTube and other blog sites are shaping this social network and it is now changing how all people view things and clients products. Publicity is not a stand alone item. Neither is marketing, or web site marketing. All of these must work together in order to become successful and to build a brand.

If you don’t want to believe this, then sit and wait. As you begin to see your market share slip, and competitors move ahead of you because you thought this was another fad, then start looking for another job or career.

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Web Site Marketing and Publicity

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These two can be powerful when used properly

web site marketing and publicityIf you are a pr client, or a publicity agency, you know the power of pr. But have you combined any of that power with your web site? Probably not. Beacuse most publicity experts and pr clients think these two should stay separate in different departments. If that is your thinking then you are not providing your company, or pr client the full experience they can have when you use these tools properly.

Let’s accept the fact that you are a savvy publicity person. And that you have media contacts, a good copywriter to do press releases and articles for the company. Now what about the web site.

I have spoken about organic search engine listings before, and this part of the "SEO TIPS" is based on getting organic listings. In case you do not understand what Organic listings are, let me give you a very brief explanation. Keywords are either purchased and/or placed into your web site so that people can find your site. Organic listings are thosse that are not "paid" listings. The paid listings, you have seen them before. It is where Google, and Yahoo have web sites listed on the right side, or at the very top. Notice above those lists the words "sponsored links". That means these are paid positions. The other sites listed are non-paid, also called Organic Listings.

Here are some tips about SEO basics. I use these and found other professional SEO’s use them as well. You can more of these at the Target Marketing web article.

  • Look for synonyms when doing keyword searches
  • Get links to your site, make sure these are quality links
  • Have a site map
  • Create a press room
  • Keep the site fresh, modify pages every 10 to 12 weeks

These are basic, but important. If you want to get into the heart of using marketing with publicity give us a call. We’ll make sure you are getting noticed!

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Do You Need An Idea For A Story?

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Get creative and break out of the publicity box

Whether you are a pr client or a publicity agency looking for a new slant on an article, try re-thinking how you approach a topic or subject.

We all tend to get into this hole of doing the same type od releases, articles for pr clients. Everyone wants publicity people to be creative, think of a new angle or invent a story for the media. Well, that isn’t always the best way to gain favorable publicity.

articles and stories for publicationWe need to think outside of the publicity box. A good article that addresses this issue is called "How to get Free publicity for small businesses". The author has some good tips to help you think outside of that box. For example, ask your customers (in a survey) that include some controversial questions. This can spark a topic of interest for your industry to get your company an article published.

A few other tips include:

  • Create a top 10 list within your industry. If you have a bakery, or food manufacturer, do a "Top 10 of the most wildest food items made"
  • Offer surprising facts about your industry or business. For instance, if you’re a recruitment firm write an article titled, "The Average Starting Salary of An MBA Graduate is 40 percent Higher Than Their Pre-MBA Earnings."
  • Be first to offer something that no one else has in your industry. Such as a 200% double your money back guarantee. Make sure your product or service is really good.
  • Do you participate in any local charities, or events. Try closing your office for the entire day and have everyone work for that charity. This can be a great headline "Local Print Shop Closed Doors to Help the Needy".

Ok, now you try it, get creative, break out of the rut.

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Look Out! Is Google Playing Games With Your Site?

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Supplemental Results, are they good or bad?

Google and supplemental resultsThe battle continues at the big Search Engine Wars to see who is the biggest and strongest. In this battle it always seems that the loosers are the webmasters and ultimately the pr clients, manufacturing clients, and any company that has a web site.

The term: Supplemental Results, is something that Google has created less than a year ago. They, Google, claims it is a good thing, but is it really? From all the stories and blogs and webmasters that are writing about this, it seems to be not very good.

Let me explain. While AllTheWeb tries to claim they are the biggest in indexing sites with about 3.2 billion pages, Google at the time of this announcement had only 3.1 billion pages indexed. Then Google decided to list those pages that have not been crawled get into this pile. That way Google was able to announce it has 3.3 billion pages indexed. It is all publicity at the worst. Why? Because while these SEO’s fight to get attention in the media, we, that’s you and I, suffer.

This is how Google explains this black hole listing:

"Supplemental sites are part of Google’s auxiliary index. We’re able to place fewer restraints on sites that we crawl for this supplemental index than we do on sites that are crawled for our main index. For example, the number of parameters in a URL might exclude a site from being crawled for inclusion in our main index; however, it could still be crawled and added to our supplemental index. The index in which a site is included is completely automated; there’s no way for you to select or change the index in which your site appears. Please be assured that the index in which a site is included does not affect its PageRank."

Confused? Yes, we all are. Now you can see why web marketing is a full time position. It’s like a battle field. The big SEO’s are fighting while developers, pr agencies, web masters and web marketing experts need to dodge their bullets in order to get sites listed correctly. You don’t want to get in this "supplemental results list". Webmasters, designers and web marketing experts are learning how to avoid this from happening. Make sure your pr agency, or web marketing company knows about this or your site might just be next.

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New PR Client Shifts To CarsonPR

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We Get Clients Noticed

We are very pleased to annouce that our company has recently added a new client, Extreme Karting. The industry of go-kart racing has matured over the past few years as the sport has attracted all ages.

go kart racing pr clientToday the sport is known as the premier driving experience for those who want to continue their racing careers into other motor sports like Drag Racing, NASCAR, and Oval Track Racing.

One of the reasons why Carson and Company and its pr division, CarsonPR, was chosen to handle the account was for their ability to get to the core of a company’s business and show how to improve profitability without a major increase in spending. In some cases, using the same budget, by re-directing the money to get higher returns.

George Carson, president of the agency, has handled other  "auto racing" pr clients for over 30 years and knows the sport. His ability to use "smart street marketing" has helped companies find their strengths while increasing the bottom line.

“Knowing how to use a budget wisely”, commented Carson, “is one of our business approaches for a successful program”. Our company uses all the different resources and media available to gain favorable publicity. With over 30 years experience in this industry, the agency knows all the different media as well as how to best negotiate for placement of articles and press releases. 

To help you get your next campaign race ready, give George Carson a call at 949-477-9400, before he is contracted by your competition.

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Get Better Page Ranking

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It’s Good PR when done correctly

page rankingAre you caught up in trying to get higher rankings with search engines? Have you found the secret? Did you or are you hiring SEO professionals to get to the top?

If you are a pr client or a publicity agency, look no more. The secret to higher rankings is not a science. In a few simple words, it’s making your site easy for the robots to crawl around your site.

Wow, you’re thinking this isn’t any news. Well, it is. Because publicity and page ranking are based on the same principles of keep it simple and easy to read.

Remember that a search engine is like an editor or publisher. The main function is to provide its users good information. This means your site should have good content, just like a press release. And just like a pr release, your site should have better content than your competitors to make it easy for the robots to crawl the site.

Let’s carry this pr and SEO stuff deeper in comparison.

• When you write a press release, the headline is important. If it doesn’t tell the reader what you are about to announce, they will pass you by. That’s the same for your web pages. The "titles" should reflect your keywords and what that page is about.

• Now about those keywords you are buying, or trying to place into the site. Would you only write "keywords" in a release? No, you write sentences. So why settle for a keyword. People type phrases when looking for something, right? That proves to you that key phrases are more important than single keywords.

These web marketing tips are at the same time publicity tips. Why? Because publicity is everywhere.

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