Category Archives: PR Marketing Strategies

Social Media Gets Bigger With Yahoo

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Here we go again! Another attempt at social media, but this time it is one of the giant Internet companies, Yahoo. It is not well known, but Yahoo did an attempt at social media called Mash. It “crashed andsocial media networks failed” on September 29, 2008. This shows you that just because you have a fat piggy bank with unlimited resources, you can fail. To be effective with your pr marketing strategies you need to know this.

Unlike Google who used “Blogging” to get social with it’s “Follow this Blog” link, Yahoo tried being another Facebook, or MySpace. Now Yahoo has learned a lesson and has re-invented itself in terms of social and blogging. This time Yahooo  is claiming to be more of a social destination. According Stoneham, who says the following about the new yahoo social direction:

I want to make it clear that this new profile is not intended to be a new social destination on Yahoo!. Rather, our plan is to integrate “social” as a central dimension into the services you use every day. For example, if you’re on Yahoo! Messenger 9.0, you’re already seeing Yahoo! Buzz, Mybloglog, and Twitter updates as part of your friends’ status messages. Soon you’ll see social capabilities added elsewhere across Yahoo!, beginning with places where you start your day. The new homepage we’re testing will soon have an application that lets you stay up to date with what your friends are doing across the Web. And Yahoo! Mail will be delivering a smarter inbox, displaying emails from your most important connections first.

Developing a pr marketing strategy for your pr clients, or if you are a pr client, don’t feel these attempts are showing a crowded market for social networks. I still feel the industry is growing and maturing. Yes, there will be fallouts, and that in turn builds a stronger understanding of where the next level of social networks is going. In my opinion, it is going to be more “business” related. There will always be consumer sides to social, but the business community is hungry for this as well, but on a mature level. So keep your pr marketing strategies in touch with the changes and keep an eye open for new social BUSINESS networks, it is only a matter of time, and the time is not far off.

Is Your Web Marketing and Optimization Using Google?

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Every web marketing person uses the grand daddy, Google, as their guide to making web site pages rank high. So what is all this noise about PageRank, and why is Google the page rankingpacesetter? Because in just a few years, Google has set the path and standards for page ranking. To better understand how page ranking helps a web site, you need to know what PageRank is. Make sure that your pr marketing strategies include a PageRank campaign.

This is a description that I found which Akinola Akintomide wrote. He explains it as this:

“PageRank is a patented algorithm written by Larry Page (Page-Rank). It is a trademark registered to Google. It is a numeric value that represents how important a page is on the web. According to Google “PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value.” In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links, a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves “important” weigh more heavily and help to make other pages “important.”

Sounds techy, and it is. Google changes this process every three months. That’s why it is necessary to have an on-going web marketing program, otherwise your web site will loose its position in the rankings. If you are interested in knowing about the algorithms, read this description in Wikipedia’s page on it.

The new pr marketing strategies for web marketing now include a variety of methods. Just last year you could do these to get high Page ranking on Google:

Updating pages frequently

Registering on DOMZ and Yahoo listings

Adding linked sites that you purchase with these endings: .edu, and .gov

It now requires, in addition to the above, to find pages that are reputable and relevant that is linked to your site. In addition you need to make sure the “links” are truly relevant. For example if your company is a cosmetic, or snack food company, just mentioning a manufacturer, or a recipe and linking to those sites will rank you lower. Why? Because your site, or the text only mentioned the link as a reference, it did not have a lot of dialogue on the subject. That shows you how sophisticated their whole process of optimization, and web marketing has become. It is a full time effort to keep your site looking good in the eyes of Google. All the other SEO’s follow this same path.

Need help in getting to the TOP? Give George Carson a call at Carson Marketing, Inc. 949-477-9400. He will provide a one-hour consultation free and explain to you in easy to understand terms how web marketing will benefit your web site.

Carson PR gets Clients noticed

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Publicity clients rely on their pr agency to provide various services such as press releases, promotional events and articles. As these are necessary, it is the innovative pr marketing strategy that we use to get pr clients noticed. There are many other marketing strategies that can be developed in a campaign to be successful. That’s what makes Carson PR and Carson Marketing, Inc. unique.

It is the ability to be proactive. The foresight to see market conditions and respond accordingly. It is the knowledge of knowing how to reach an audience. That’s what makes us different.pr clients

Am I bragging? Maybe. Why am I telling you this? Because I am frustrated in having new pr clients come to us after being hammered or taken by traditional pr agencies for thousands of dollars, then we only have very limited budgets to make things happen. And we do! Our direct pr marketing approach isn’t unique, but it takes on-going efforts (rather than pumping out press releases, or articles and sitting back waiting for them to be published like traditional pr agencies) to get pr clients noticed.

It is the combination of web marketing, social networking, blogging, as well as online publicity programs that creates a successful campaign to get pr clients more than noticed, but gets results.

When a pr client really needs a successful campaign, that’s when we are called. Why are we the last resort? Because we don’t take clients for granted, but work harder than most of our competitors to “make things happen“. If you are ready for success, give George Carson a call at: 949-477-9400. It could be the best call you make before you spend your budget foolishly!

Start using Web Marketing as a publicity tool

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Web Marketing may not be new to pr marketing people, or web developers, but pr clients do not truly understand the power it has. For example, it takes weeks sometimes months to get a press release published, or even an article in a trade or consumer magazine. When you use web marketing correctly, your publicity efforts can happen within days, sometimes hours!

It is important if you are a pr client to not forge ahead and start calling your publicity agency to do web marketing. That’s not their strength. What you need to do is have your pr marketing strategy team web marketingdevelop a solid web marketing campaign that targets your specific audience. If you do not know how to implement a web marketing campaign, who do you call? Web designers are not likely to know or want to do this. Your publicity agency isn’t prepared to create online campaigns; they are best at submitting traditional media. It is best to contact a company that knows what and how to get your company noticed.

Web Marketing is more than sending out press releases to online newswire services. It is a complete program that analyzes your web site and does more than optimize it. Knowing the language on each page that has links to those sites and pages within your site is critical in optimizing a site. Keywords are not the big thing anymore. You can include them, but keywords or key phrases alone will not get you noticed. What about buying adwords? I prefer to not do this. Yes, we would consider buying some adwords for clients that really can afford it, we prefer to use specially designed programs at Carson Marketing, Inc. to include a vast array of elements. These may include the optimizing I just mentioned, marketing to social networks, writing blogs, to publicity releases, links with credible sites that are ranked high, to an on-going publicity program for online media. These are just a few examples to let you know that web marketing isn’t the simple task of sending a bunch of press releases to the online media. It’s time to get noticed so that you survive this slow time in order to be on top of the competition. Let us show you how without burning a whole in your wallet. Call us at 949-477-9400.

Is listening part of your PR Marketing Strategy?

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A few months ago I had the pleasure of presenting to the faculty and administrators of the California Community Colleges a lesson on “Power Listening“. It was geared to students to better understand pr marketing strategieshow to “listen”, not just hear, what is being said. This was a critical lesson when entering the business industry.

Today I saw a great article in Marketing Pros, that addressed this same issue about listening. It was from Todd Defren who has a blog called PR Squared. Todd puts the listening concept more in tune with the business world of marketing. Publicity professionals may hear, or listen to what is happening in a PR Clients market. But do they have the power, or knowledge to implement a program that responds to what they hear.

For example:

Defren says there are two ways you can “listen” to your customers:

  • Many savvy brands use active listening to monitor social media and respond when appropriate. Defren on active listening: “Quick! Somebody said something about us! Say something back!”
  • The next step is actionable listening. “The difference here,” he notes, “is that the folks doing the listening/responding are empowered to effect change within their organization, on customers’ behalf.

Much of what Todd is speaking about is social media. Knowing when and how to respond is critical. Having the power to do the response to what is said is necessary. By not acting quickly to social media comments about your pr clients product/service is a missed opportunity to gain a stronger brand and image. This is another example of showing a need to include social media and social networking in a pr marketing strategy for pr clients. If you are a PR Client, it is time to get your publicity campaign in gear with today’s pr marketing tools. Listen to what is being said about your industry, and products. Make sure you have a publicity professional or pr agency that can meet your needs.

Publicity Professionals secret to “Identifying Publicity Ideas” in your company.

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If you are a pr client, and want to improve how to get more free publicity for your company, let me tell you a few trade secrets on how you can do this.

If you are a local publicity professional, like an Orange County publicity agency,publicity secrets or a Los Angeles publicity company, this could be a good refresher lesson for you as well. Let’s look at what your pr agency, or your in-house publicity department might be doing. Then I will point out suggestions to improve your chances to gain more free press. Has your publicity campaign consisted of this?

• After sending our a dozen or more press releases about new employees being hired, you see very little lineage in the press

• You submit articles to the media, but find the reporters do not return your calls, or emails about them and the article is never published.

• You read the local papers (like the Orange County Business Journal, or The Tribune) only to keep seeing your competitors get all the ink coverage, and not your company.

I’m sure as a pr client, this may have happened to your publicity campaign, more than once. And if you are a publicity professional and see this happening, then re-evalute your writing and research. What are the answers to making this right, to get more publicity? If you are not going to hire a good local publicity agency, like CarsonPR.com, then try these simple tasks and maybe you will finally get noticed. Or you can go to the 101 public relations site to learn more.

1- Ask yourself a few important questions. Such as, are the press releases interesting only to you, or does it really have any story angles that relate to a publications audience. Another example, if your company does something of interest to help customers, or the community, then that is newsworthy to local media. One idea would be to promote through an article or press release that your web site offers free newsletters or coupons to help customers be more informative in saving money.

2- If you want local media attention, turn the story into how it affects the local area. Interview customers in a specific area, or local retailers on how your company has helped, or improved their business.

3- Create a news event. Especially today with high costs of fuel, and food, maybe do something to make a person’s money go further. Can’t think of anything, then give George Carson a call. He has a lot of creative suggestions to get your company noticed.

4- Another suggestions is to look at trends. Can your company, or services ride that wave? Social media and networking are hot, look into your company to see how it can be more proactive to this new technology.

Overall, there are lots of ways a publicity professional will do an overview of how to modify a press release to be more interesting to the media. If your in-house publicity department can’t find a way, maybe they have become too “corporate” and can no longer think outside of the company’s corporate culture.

If these few tips can get your publicity campaign off the ground, I’m glad. If these sound like common sense, then why aren’t you doing them. When you need a local publicity professional, give us a call at 949-477-9400. We at Carson Marketing, Inc know how to get noticed, we have been doing it since 1980.

Is your social network campaign working for you?

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A good pr marketing strategy is to keep current and use new technology when it is hot. Just like online social networking. But are you using it? If so, are your pr marketing strategies in place? Do you use banner ads, or is it a place you visit once in a while?

If your pr marketing campaign consists of only placing banner ads on these social networks, then it’ssocial media networks time to re-think your pr marketing strategy. I have written several articles about using this hot media, to help pr clients. For example, banner ads on social networks only benefit the media, such asMySpace, or Linked-In, or even Facebook. Unless you have a very generic product or service, your wasting money. The first rule in marketing is to understand and know your audience.

A recent article in iMedia Connection by Michael Estrin speaks about this. I share a lot of his views about using social media web sites. This can be a productive media source when understood and planned correctly. One example in Mr. Estrin’s article is how Visa worked with Facebook, not using banners, but for downloading an application. The deal was worth $2 million to Facebook. This is one way to gain maximum exposure and get your customer to react to your product/service.

In last week’s newspaper, an article about Linked-In told how the company grew rapidly with advertisers (banners, etc). This is great for the company and it’s founder, Reid Hoffman, who is making money, but are the advertisers? Again, this is fine for the few major companies. It is best to target your audience, and get them involved. That’s the way to establish a strong branding image for pr clients. All professional publicity companies know the power of marketing and connecting to your audience. But are these professional publicity people really using the media or are the media buyers at the ad agencies just rushing in on this trend? I feel most ad agencies and many publicity professionals do not understand the social network market.

If you are a pr client or publicity professional, don’t just launch into this media, be sure that you, guide clients by learning how to utilize social network to the max.

Medical community recoginzes the power of the Internet

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Web sites are more than places to buy electronic products, or collect information about a company. All industries, including the medical field, understand how important it is to have a visible image on the Internet as part of their pr marketing strategies.

Recently our company, Carson Marketing, Inc., was contracted to design a web site for a boardInternet Marketing certified internist. The web site was created for Dr. Hedyeh Golshan. Unlike the typical site that is sometimes difficult to find what you are looking for, this site is geared to be extremely user friendly. The clean graphics, and bright, yet subtle colors, creates a strong image for the doctor. We used her photo on the main page so that patients can feel they have a personal relationship with the name. This was all part of the pr marketing strategy we used in developing the web site.

The site is simple, with few pages, but enough information to help those seeking a medical doctor, like Dr. Golshan, to feel comfortable enough to further contact the doctor to arrange for an appointment. When discussing the site development with our pr client, we made sure to communicate in the site what was necessary for potential patient’s to know. This included listing a chart that shows the provider ID# for the different insurance plans. As simple as this sounds, it has helped those seeking a doctor by eliminating unnecessary phone calls to Dr. Golshan’s office asking for the doctor’s ID#’s.

So how does this all fit into a publicity campaign? As I have been saying for years, “Publicity is Everywhere”. That includes a pr clients web site. The Internet may be your only visible contact with potential, and existing customers, clients, or in this case, a patient. Having a clean and uplifting web site can enhance a company’s image and establish a branding identity. If your company needs to freshen up an existing web site, or need a new web site, call George Carson at 949-477-9400. Our creative and web marketing programs are designed to get you noticed!

Publicity Professionals Know How Important Social Networking Is, Or Do They?

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Are professional publicity firms and their staff really using social networks for their pr clients? Or are the pr clients telling their publicity professionals and pr agencies to look into getting more involved with social networking. If you are a publicity professional, you will say yes. Ask a pr client, and you might get a complex answer, or just plain “no”.

If you have a pr marketing strategy plan, or a publicity plan, then include marketing to the social networks. It is more than asocial networking group of kids connecting. There are a bunch of different networks on the Internet today. If you recall from my article titled “Social Media keeps growing…” you will learn about the different types of networks. Including those that reach seniors.

Today I read an article, front page of the business section, in the LA Times. It was all about MySpace and how it is now keeping up with Facebook. At one point Facebook took the lead with the social networks. Now, the owners of MySpace, News Corp, has hired hundreds of programmers who speak to this audience to create a slew of new features to compete with Facebook. Good article. In more than just how the two are competing. It is telling publicity professionals that social networking is a mainstay and you need to make your pr marketing strategies part of the overall campaign for pr clients.

It doesn’t matter if you are a local publicity company in Orange County, or a national publicity agency, you need social media networking. I spoke about other types of business networking such as linkedIn. These are geared to business professionals, but soon you will start seeing “business networks” similar to MySpace where companies of all sizes will share their thoughts, strategies, and business philosophy. So get going and get into social media networks. Not sure how to do that? Then give George Carson a call at 949-477-9400. He can get you noticed!

Is Social Media Becoming a Business Tool?

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Do you have a pr marketing strategy that is ready to include social media?

We hear a lot about social media and all the new web sites that are popping up to get in the action. Now it seems that AOL, the 4th popular search engine, is gearing up to show it is part of this new social era.

The problem might not be that AOL needs to think like everyone else. When you visitsocial media networks the ParentDish.com site, it is targeted to a specific audience. As a marketer, I think that is a smart move. Because you cannot have a social media site that is too broad based. It just won’t work. Even the AOL Blog tries to stay within their own profile.

On the other side of this popularity with social media, one major segment is still not considered. Know what it might be? I believe in the near future we will start seeing “social media for business”. I wouldn’t be surprised if a programmer, or a search engine company like Google, isn’t already developing this. The problem I see is going to be how the business model will be presented. Probably more general in scope. Like MySpace. But I truly believe that segmented social media business sites will be part of a pr marketing campaign for all pr clients.

This may take a few years to mature, just like Facebook and the many other sites that exist today. Why do I believe this to be true? Because blogging in the business community is already happening. It is in major companies as well as small to mid size companies. PR Marketing strategies now include blogging as part of the business culture. Just as it was among the youth a few years ago, now social media is the place to be. So it only makes sense that “business” will soon begin to embrace this media as a pr marketing tool. It will be an excellent way for executives and all businesses to exchange their philosophy, their business culture to others, and possibly become a place to learn how to grow a business from a CEO’s perspective.