Tag Archives: bloggers

How to increase awareness for your company

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Publicity doesn’t just happen. A successful campaign requires planning. From press releases that are strategically scheduled for distribution to specific articles submitted to selected media all are part of how to create a successful publicity campaign that will gain media exposure.

Increase Awareness With Publicity

Before you begin contacting reporters it is important to prepare yourself and the company by knowing the specific elements in the plan. A few of the key publicity campaign elements are:

PRESS KIT. A digital press kit will help provide reporters information about your company, products and the services you offer. Included in this kit should be references to any published articles on your company, bios on key personnel, photos of products and executive staff, online brochures, etc. A Fact Sheet is a quick reference page that provides a summary of your company location, philosophy/mission statement, product listing, and contact person. Keep this kit updated. Create a special area on your website for PRESS ROOM.

PRESS RELEASES and ARTICLES. When writing publicity releases for your pr client, keep the information limited to the facts and do not use sell copy. Put yourself in the reporters position. If you receive a well-written article filled with facts, and benefits for customers, you would be more likely to publish the release. Even more so, you might call the company to get more background and information. Limit your press release to one page if possible.

PR Clients usually to want include everything making the release a 4 or 5 page document. You should also optimize your press release. If you are writing a release or article for a local company, consider the local media and reporters. You can distribute the release nationally, but always work with local reporters so they get to know about your company and products.

MEDIA LIST. Very important and critical to any distribution. Your list should be updated on a regular basis. Have different categories for the types of reporters and media.

OFF-THE-RECORD. Never say this to a reporter and then tell them something you did not want published. There is no such thing as off-the-record.

SOCIAL NETWORKING. If you have not included social media in your list of distribution, then do so. This includes bloggers, online publications, Google News, and so on. Businesses should use their Linkedin and Facebook accounts to let their network of people know what the company has been doing. It is an ideal way to spread the word quickly and get immediate feedback. Even Twitter can have links to your website or published articles.

These are only a few of the many things you should be doing to increase awareness for your company. If you want to know more, just call George Carson at 949-477-9400. The free consultation could help improve your company’s image and make prospects more aware of your company. Visit us at Carson Marketing, Inc.

Mainstream Media Embraces Bloggers

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It may have taken more time for the mainstream media to learn that blogging and the people behind the words are here to stay. The impact this social group has is proven its staying power this week when the LA Times article titled “Newspapers, bloggers now engage on same page”. Even though this is in a Publicity Orange County section of the paper, it is nationwide.

Why has this old form of communication (newspapers) changed their outlook? My guess, they see the writing on the blogblogging and media wall. Whether it is local orange county media, or local publicity in orange county, newspaper editors, reporters all over are noticing their shrinking market. They also see that these amateurs are getting a lot more reading attention than their own bylines. But let’s not get too crazy with the papers embracing the bloggers. It is all attached to a financial reason.

If you read the LA Times article, you will see the story addresses the Washington Post has added a sponsored blog roll to its website, a directory of links to blogs that specialize in travel, technology and health, plus more. So as you see, it just took time for these money hungry papers to discover how they can get more revenue from their shrinking profits doing dailies, weeklies. To prove this point, the article mentions Caroline Little, chief executive at Washington Post Newsweek Interactive. She said most ad buyers don’t want to take the time to buy space on dozens of blog sites, and since their staff stories are not plentiful, they turned to blog rolls. This just means they don’t loose the dollars to other competitive bloggers, etc.

This proves again, if your pr marketing strategy, or pr agency isn’t including a blog site for your company, then it is time to re-think how to communicate. No, it doesn’t mean you stop your normal means of pr communicating that is now working, just means to enhance it with a blog program. Blogging is not a side job, nor a part-time assignment. To get noticed, you need to keep this activity daily. You need to have the RSS feeds, and all the optimization to your blog site in order to get noticed, ranked high and compete. Get into a blogging campaign now. Contact Carson Marketing, call George Carson for help. He can get your company noticed in the right places. Or if you wait, he may just be helping your competitors who will pass your by.

Social Media for PR Clients

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No longer do the words “social media” mean to go to a media party to meet the publishers, editors, reporters, writers from the press. It now describes how you work the Internet to gain maximum media exposure.

In order to maximize your social media on the Internet, you need to learn how to Optimize your social media. In case you are unfamiliar with the term social media, it is the posts that you have on your company blogs, podcasts and vlogs. It is how businesses are now making their customers aware of their products and services. PR clients need to include all forms of social media into their marketing and publicity plans.

Make sure you have someone at your company to be the coordinator of these social media activities. Or at least make sure your PR Agency provides this service.

Optimizing your social media is very similar to optimizing a web site. PR Clients who have a web site may already have this in place. But let me list a few points to help you keep your social media on track.

I came across a blogger who has done a good job in listing what he calls the 5 rules to optimize a social media site. When you visit his blog, you will notice that many other people added to his list. But for now, I will give you some of his choices, then you can check out what the other bloggers added.

For example, rule one is to “increase your linkability“. Having static links is ok, but he professes to use white papers and other content to help make the links non-static.

Second, make tagging and bookmarking easy. Include tagging within your own site that are to your popular pages. Use “add to” buttons that point to relevant sites.

Antother rule is to reward inbound links. Get good links with other bloggers, and other high ranked sites as inbound links. This will add to your sites credibility.

As I mentioned earlier, there are many other rules, or suggestions that can help your social media and your current business web site gain maximum exposure. If you are a PR Client, you just need to implement them. If you don’t have time, then hire an outside company that understands social media marketing, and as a pr client, you will soon see the rewards.

Blogging as a College Course

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More than a fad, blogging is a business tool

It is still amazing that clients tend to back off when they hear the word blogging. Why? Probably because they recall stories about bloggers writing about their jobs, venting about bosses, or friends.

Most company CEO’s and presidents do not yet understand the power of this marketing tool. And by the time they do, some other techno development will become the new marketing tool.

For today and many more years ahead, in my opinion, blogging will be the exciting marketing tool to help companies gain awareness faster than traditional publicity.

Don’t get me wrong; you still should maintain a solid pr program contacting the various media. But you should include a blog program to enhance the efforts.

To prove my point that blogging is a serous business tool, look at the University of California, Berkeley’s new course. It is "Blogging". The course is incorporated into their journalism classes. Now you know the world of blogging is part of our lifestyle.

In addition, pitching publicity is being done through blogger’s writing about company’s products, or the company themselves.

An article by Loyd Trufelman and Laura Goldberg, titled, "Pitching Blogs: Latest Type Of Online Media Vehicle May Provide Valuable PR Opportunities", discusses the ways bloggers are being called by journalists, reporters about story’s. In the article Loyd and Laura state:

"…many bloggers have no experience at being pitched by publicists." And continued saying, "What was striking throughout the pitching process was the discovery that most bloggers were rarely, if ever, approached by PR professionals."

The article is a good read, so check it out. And remember to give blogging serious thought as how it can impact your company. Contact us if you want to discuss this marketing tool.

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