The words you choose can help or hurt your press release

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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Is Your Brand Memorable?

Building Brand Identity

Sometimes as Brand Builders and Marketing Professionals we have a difficult time in explaining to pr clients what branding is all about.

Make your brand memorableToo often, pr clients and other companies think branding is flashing your logo or company name over everything in sight. That WILL get you noticed, but it isn’t branding. Not really.

Think of branding as a person, not an actual human. A good article on branding written by Thomas Brown puts the perspective into human terms. Saying things like, if you have a mindset about branding as a human you will nuture it, rather than manage it.

In another view the Branding Camapign could be divided into three areas:  Mind, Emotions and Physical. All have their specific reasons and teaches you how to re-think your company’s image, brand.

Do you know someone who is exceptional, all knowing (in a good way) someone who is very helpful? Then imitate and apply some of these traits into your company branding program. You just might see something new take shape in your company as well as the people who discover you.

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Does Your Publicity Campaign Include Tagging?

It’s not graffiti anymore, it’s pr

When you first hear or read the word TAGGING, you probably think of taggers who do graffiti on the walls. Well, think publicity and then think Internet, now you’re getting closer to tagging in today’s terms.
tagging and video publicity marketing
It is the linking of web sites. This old term is what describes how we use links to each other sites making search engines locate us faster.

It seems that this "linking" has been around in the earlier days of the Internet. Spammers were probably using this technique of marketing and when we were all hit hard with spam, search engines became more intelligent by counter acting their tactics.

You or your web designer, programmers often use tagging with your site. You have heard the words meta tags, keywords, right? Well, that is a form of tagging.

When a company wants to optimize your web site, this is one of the tagging areas that are often refined.

If you are in publicity and think this stuff is too deep in conversation and you don’t have an IT person, then use this handy tool for creating links. It is Yahoo’s Del.iclo.us. This is a tool bar that you can download from Yahoo’s site.

Tagging can help your publicity in many ways. For example, tagging can be done with pictures that are in your press release (which should be in your pressroom’s web site), or online video. Many sites have this available such as Yahoo 360, or Technorati’s blog that addresses tagging.

Publicity campaigns are no longer a list of releases or articles; it is your web site and making it SEO friendly with tagging, as well as other unique optimizing tricks. But that’s another subject.

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Is It Publicity or Marketing?

YouTube and Google

Google and YouTube purchase Google likes being in the news and takes a lot of chances. But that is one of their marketing strategies, to keep in front of the computer user public.

I have read many articles lately about the purchase of YouTube by Google. Some good, some are not.

One interesting viewpoint was by Bill Wise of Did-It, a search marketing agency.

He tells us that Google could have made a blunder in the $1.6 billion purchase. Bill gives three reasons for his theory:

  • YouTube is still young and in a market that has attracted a young audience and still hasn’t turned a profit
  • YouTube has only 65 employees compared to Google with 8,000 and MySpace with 300
  • Last is the legal issues that YouTube and Google are facing with copyright infringement

No matter your perspective, Google will win in the long run. It is possible that YouTube could be a short lived fad, or be taken over (in the market share) by Microsoft’s version (Soapbox), or other networks like CBS allowing downloads of shows and who knows, maybe videos. What Google is gaining is a lot of Publicity. You cannot pick up a publication, newspaper or watch TV, listen to radio without hearing something about this acquisition.

So the question remains, Is google creating a major publicity campaign around YouTube? If so, I think they will get back their investment just by the fact that many new people will now be attracted to YouTube and be exposed to the advertisers that Google hopes to reap the profits from. I’m also sure that Google learned it’s lesson with the failure of the ad venture, GooglePrint. Maybe they can apply the right marketing with this new venture.

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Getting a Solid Brand Identity

Where do you start?

building a brandIn order to build a successful branding program for a company name, or a product requires several steps. To begin, you need to make sure you have a plan in place.

Branding is more than plastering your name on ads, flyers, or on your web site. It is more than running a bunch of radio or TV spots. Yes, this will get your company noticed, but only for the period of the media schedule.

It starts within the company. It is the culture that is developed. Some people mix their branding with a company’s "mission statement", or their company philosophy. These are separate and need to remain separate. Building a brand takes time. Some company’s are impatient and cannot wait the few months it takes to gain recognition, so they spend a lot of money on various media to get the word out.

This will help jump start any branding campaign, but it is short lived. You need to have a consistent plan that is more than a one shot campaign. I could go on to explain this further, but it will only become a long blog. <a href="http://www.technorati.com/claim/uwjgsy8u4d" rel="me">Technorati Profile</a>My point in writing this is to help pr clients realize that branding should be a very important part of your business plan and should be implemented in order to compete in today’s market.

If your company needs some guidance in developing a branding campaign, please give us a call. Our free consultation can show you how to incorporate a successful branding campaign into your company.

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