Archive for category: Uncategorized

Remember those humorless military twins in Good Morning Vietnam?  These military intelligence drones were constantly redlining or editing the news that shock joc, Adrian Cronauer, portrayed by Robin Williams, wanted to read on the air. The reports came across the tele-type or wire service. While your news may not turn the tide of a war or soften the image of the US to the public, you nonetheless want to try to get your message in as many of the right places as possible.   

A little thing called the Internet

Modern day wire services have a tremendous advantage over their predecessors; a little thing called the Internet. No longer are you limited to a copy boy/girl sitting inside a news room waiting to tear freshly printed headlines of the big black box printer in the corner. The advantage is the rapid impact on your brand’s search engine optimization or “find-ability” on the World Wide Web. Think Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

Wire services now automatically push your news to their partner news associations. This and the “lasts forever” factor of the Internet make your news stay around longer than the print edition of today’s newspaper (assuming you did not run over that paper on your way out the driveway this morning).  Herein sits the issue. Is it “wire worthy”

If you are looking to impact search and search alone, the simple answer is yes. If your motives are deeper, such as garnering a feature story, reporter site visit or fostering a stronger relationship with an editor, then you might choose a more personal follow up.

What do you really want to happen?

 While not the main subject of this article, note that sending a release is not the only way to build name recognition via media. The easiest way to look at this is to examine your release goal. What do you want to happen when someone/anyone reads this release? Do you want simple regurgitation of your copy, the reporter to call for an interview or to be featured on their cover? Wire services are good for getting targeted media to be more aware of your firm, but consider “servicing” the release or what we call old fashioned follow up.

All services offer distribution options for you to choose. Is your news specific to a region, state or country? Specific targeting also exists by industry sector, type of news outlet and reporter titles. Choose carefully, as the more you expand your reach, the more you impact your budget. The services also provided ever-increasing data about your news, who is seeing it, from where and even what browser they are using. This data is an absolute must share with your SEO Team.

You get what you pay for

While it would not be fair to compare and contrast all the service choices, know that you often get what you pay for. More established services with editorial teams and 24/7 customer service are some of the factors to look for while choosing pay to play distribution. Ask them what they do to impact the optimization of the release. How often is their journalist database updated? Do they proof read and even make editorial/grammar corrections? What about their security policies (many of the services have been duped into releasing invalidated or downright detrimental news). If they are strict with you, it’s for your own protection.

Can you accomplish your goals without a wire service? Certainly. It all depends on the tactics and tools your publicity team is choosing to employ.

Rob Felber, President of Felber Public Relations & Marketing is responsible for the development and implementation of measurable advertising and public relations campaigns for manufacturers.  RobFelber@felberpr.com or (330) 963-3664

Social media has been popular since the early 2000s, but there are plenty of businesses that have not taken advantage of this online power tool. The over-arching question is normally “How can social media really benefit my business?”

Here are the top five reasons that social media can benefit your company and enhance your online visibility:

> Enhancing consumer engagement

You know those customer service advertisements where the customer expects a voice machine to respond, but is then startled when they hear an actual person on the other side? Customers appreciate personal interaction with businesses, not a robot. They feel good knowing that your business is willing to listen to their feedback. Social media, especially, gives them another option to share their thoughts, and for your business to respond instantaneously. The more your audience connects with your business, the more they will want to work with you. “How will you engage your customers?”

> Promoting your business and products in a cost-effective manner

Spending money on paper and commercial advertisements shouldn’t be your only option. Social media platforms allow you to easily and quickly disseminate information about your business. This, too, enhances consumer engagement. Social media can help you continually interact with your consumers and make sure your business is sharing the right information out to your target audience. “What do you want your customers to understand more thoroughly?”

> Taking advantage of current news trends

Social media platforms give you easy access to the latest industry trends. For example, Twitter has a search box where you can easily look up industry news. Using hashtags to search such as “#manufacturing” will give you the relevant conversations happening on Twitter. “What trends will you discover via online searches?”

> Driving website traffic and encourage recommendations

The best PR tactic is receiving third-party endorsements. As more subscribers follow your social media pages, the more likely they’ll visit your website and refer your business to a colleague. Facebook features a recommendation comment box for your page where customers can publicly display their positive feedback. “How will you encourage and reward positive feedback and bask in the glow of happy customers?”

> Measuring return on investment

Here’s the bottom line: Implementing social media to your business strategy measures your return on investment. There are social media measurement tools where you can analyze and measure your return. For example, if you implement an online advertising campaign that offers a promo code or link to a landing page on your website, you can absolutely attribute the resultant revenue from the campaign and calculate ROI. “What gets measured gets done; what will you measure?”

We can help deliver all of these social media essentials to your business. Take a look at our publicity checklist and we will help you sort through the maze of social media tactics and tools.

A few months ago, we sent out a tweet briefly describing our services. A twitter user replied a few hours later describing their similar services along with our post. Rude. Has that ever happened to you?  Have people hijacked and/or spammed your posts before? Although it is not explicitly written as “social media law,” there is such a thing as social media etiquette.

Imagine that you’re a door-to-door salesperson posting flyers that describe your services and you are personally answering any questions along the way. Another salesperson, who offers the same services as you, drops by the same neighborhood and places their flyer over yours. The competition may be “fair game,” but it is not a fair game when they place their ad over yours.

To avoid potential negative press, here are nine golden rules of social media etiquette (list provided by Charlotte Varela’s Virally Blog):

1. Don’t “air your dirty laundry” – Be professional when you write. Don’t post grievances about colleagues, acquaintances and clients for everyone to see. No one wants to see/hear that.
2. Don’t be ignorant – Self-explanatory.
3. Don’t constantly push sales – No one likes it when salesmen follow and hover around you offering their help. This concept applies to social media too. Keep it at a minimum.
4. Don’t let your page go stale – Visitors can “permanently tune out” if you have nothing to offer. Think about the window shoppers. Imagine what they’d like to see at first glance.
5. Don’t spam people – As mentioned before, don’t hijack someone’s post to deliver the same message, but for your own benefit. You have your own social media platform.
6. Don’t link inappropriately – Varela says it best: “Posting social media updates that only link back to your homepage will only serve to infuriate your following and make your brand look hopelessly unprofessional.”
7. Don’t use bots to gain followers – Manually follow people to ensure that every follow would be interested in your content. Besides, this technique is more personal.
8. Don’t run competitions that clash with guidelines – In general, make sure you are aware of social media rules and guidelines!
9. Don’t stuff with keywords – “Keyword stuffing is considered as web spam. Keep it real and just write.”

Want to make sure you’ve got the hang of it? Here are some other great resources to watch what you write and how you write:

• Social Media Etiquette: 10 Commonly Overlooked Best Practices in Social Media
• Social Media Etiquette: 12 Step Checklist