Thursday, April 9, 2009

How to Create a Winning PR Campaign

I love public relations. I consider it to be a scientific art form because it is both a precise technology with definite laws and specific results as well as a means of communicating ideas, beliefs and feelings as if it were a fine painting or a beautiful concerto.

A professional well trained in the tools of PR can weave a tapestry of such fine and delicate communication that the fate of a person, a group or a nation can be changed for the better.

So why do some people smirk when PR is mentioned as if it leaves a bad taste in their mouths?

My guess is that at some point in their life they were the victim of or witness to the misuse of the technology of public relations. PR is essentially communication. The communication is delivered through a vast array of tools. These tools include the old standbys or press releases and events as well as the new Internet darlings such as social media, Twitter, Facebook and countless others. However in order to truly communicate the message must be based on fact.

A fundamental law in PR is that what is communicated must be true. Now that I have the Internet to get out my client’s messages I am even more aware of the need for campaigns to be based on accurate and factual information. Campaigns based on fact win and those that don’t leave a lot of people smirking.

So before you send out the next press release, Twitter the next tweet or simply update a status on Facebook, remember that you have one chance to create a true work of art.

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Quick Tips for Effective Search Engine Marketing

First, Google is the top search engine by far and controls over 70% of the Internet market. The second largest search engine behind Google is Youtube and 1 in 5 searches currently being done are for images. Youtube and image entries are also now showing up in straight Google searches so they are key to page ranking. The Internet is a fast paced and ever changing world so you must stay on top of the latest trends in order to put together a campaign that gets good results quickly and efficiently. To do otherwise can mean a lot of wasted time and effort.

Second, the Internet is becoming more and more important to a business. Currently, over 70% of American adults are online and when they want to know something 80% of them go to the Internet BEFORE they buy, try, go to, etc. With that said the average person never even makes it off the first page of a search and unless you are in the top five entries you may very well miss out. This is one reason why your online reputation must be constantly tracked to ensure that what is being said about you and your business is what you want your target audience to know.

Finally, it is imperative that you have a complete PR and marketing campaign laid out before you start. This is the biggest mistake I see made on any attempt to raise page ranking or handle online reputation issues. Without a campaign you are simply engaged in a hit or miss game of creating endless profiles, joining countless networks, groups and directories and keeping your fingers crossed that what you have done will keep you ranked highly on the search engines.