Having gone through the persuasion scenario in the previous article Vol.16 – How to Effectively Optimize Transactional Landing Page?, the author now would like to discuss the PR/newsrooms in the web 2.0 online world as a follow-up of the previous article Vol.7 – The New Rules of Marketing, PR and IR in Web 2.0 Online World because it is one of the fields that are going through drastic changes with Internet and web 2.0 technologies.
1. What is the essence of PR in Web 2.0 online world?
Transparency is the new PR (Public Relations) in web 2.0 online world and PR has truly become “public”. In offline world PR targeted only mass media and journalists but it was something exclusive and not truly “public”. However, in web 2.0 online world in which individuals have equal access to information and can organize, publish and protest on their own without using any professional media outlet online, also directly target consumers and buyers as well, and it needs to be more open and responsive, i.e. transparent.
2. What is the ideal news release in web 2.0 online world?
In web 2.0 online world, the ideal news release, the basic and primary tool, can be summarized as search engine and browsing optimized with rich content, reaching directly to all web audiences to drive people into the sales process. From the author’s experience, possible methodologies of creating such a news release are as below.
1) Target all web users and gain broad exposure.
In the Internet world, all web users can and will access to press releases of companies, so news releases should target directly them all, including bloggers and buyers as well as traditional journalists and publishers. This means to leverage news releases for broader exposure, and composing news release suitable for variety of targets. This is also about 2) below.
2) Optimize content.
First, defining and building buyer persona as mentioned in the previous article Vol.10 – How to Successfully Develop Web Content to Directly Reach Buyers, and based on the buyer persona defined create a clear message and content including possible offering and story the buyer persona may find appealing. Make sure to deliver the story in the words of the buyer persona, including their “trigger words”, and never use jargon etc. When story is delivered in such a way, they would be able to understand and find it, and also define tools and methods to share and broadcast.
3) Perform social media SEO while using trigger words.
Ciolek’s article “Top 6 SEO Strategies for 2010” (2010) encompasses well points that are usually not mentioned in SEO (Search Engine Optimization) article. Among social media SEO strategies, the following 2 are the primary strategies that need to be implemented in composing news releases.
(1) Use optimized keywords and phrases, and social media tags.
This point is usually mentioned when people discuss SEO. Carefully define keywords and phrases that make news release rank high up, and include them in titles/headlines, text and social meta tags. However, such keywords and phrases may not be “trigger words” for the buyer persona, as explained in the previous article Vol.15 – How to Effectively Optimize Reference Landing Page?. In addition to key words and phrases, define and include trigger words of the buyer persona, and if they should not be the same, “balance” the two in the headlines as much as possible.
(2) Create relevant, high quality content and post frequently.
Content needs to meet the expectation of the web users clicking the search result link thus the content needs to be relevant with the key words with high quality satisfactory to them, as explained in the previous article Vol.11 – How to Successfully Drive Web Users to Web Contents?. Such content would encourage web users to share e.g. making links, broadcasting etc., which would give positive effects in terms of SEO.
In addition, posting news releases frequently is also a SEO tactic, meaning it would be more effective to send news releases of relevant content whenever good reasons exist rather than sending only at occasions of big news/events. Finding good reasons should not be a big problem because when all web users are regarded as targets, stories of the company, large of small, can be found with more ease.
4) Optimize integrated links for optimized browsing.
Insert links to drive web users to marketing and other related web pages/contents such as product information and reference/transactional landing pages with the objective of driving them to persuasion scenario (buying/selling process) mentioned in the previous article Vol.13 – How is Landing Page Optimization Related to Persuasion Scenario?. This is an extremely good example of converging marketing with PR. Moreover, integrated links would encourage web users visiting back to the websites.
5) Leverage social media ecosystem.
There are many other concrete social media ecosystems realized by web 2.0 introduced in the previous article Vol.5 – What Social Media Ecosystem Does Web 2.0 Realize? that can be leveraged to create or support press release and its pages. Some examples of concrete social media tools are as below.
(1) Audio, video and livecasting
Many companies already leverage audio and video by uploading podcast and streaming contents (e.g. company message, financial announcement webcast) in their website.
(2) Search
Continuous improvement in search within the website/press release section is important and is what all companies have been doing.
(3) RSS
Some company websites already has RSS, as well as distributing e-newsletter to subscribers.
(4) Blogs
Some companies leverage blogs to complement company message and helping promoting engagement with web users.
(5) Social networking, microblogging, and their widgets
Companies will need to become more social by making official account for social networking sites (e.g. Facebook) and microblogging (e.g. Twitter) and leverage in their PR (and marketing) activities, like what some companies already have strategically doing. Also, locating widgets to help web users share the information is another say of becoming more social.
In this article, the author focused on the ideal news releases in web 2.0 online world, and would like to introduce a blog article by Helmer (2009) “The Ultimate Guide to Creating Social Media Press Releases“. This pinpoints what PR in web 2.0 online world offers, and the article itself leverages the social ecosystems mentioned above. The blog article also introduces useful tools and online services that are helpful for effectively creating and distributing press releases.
In the next article, the author would like to discuss how PR activities in web 2.0 online world need to be changed from traditional PR activities in offline world.
References:-
Ciolek, Joanna (2010), Top 6 SEO Strategies for 2010
http://www.linkedin.com/news?viewArticle=&articleID=101442807&gid=2359145&articleURL=http%3A%2F%2Fjoannaciolek%2Ecom%2Fwordpress%2Ftop-6-seo-strategies-for-2010%2F&urlhash=-tpe&trk=news_discuss
Eisenberg, Bryan & Jeffrey with Davis, Lisa T. (2006), Waiting for Your Cat to Bark? Nelson Business
Helmer, Gail (2009), The Ultimate Guide to Creating Social Media Press Releases
http://www.gailhelmer.com/2009/11/18/the-ultimate-guide-to-creating-social-media-press-releases/
Safko, Lon and Brake, David K (2009), The Social Media Bible – Tactics, Tools & Strategies for Business Success. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Scott, David Meerman (2007), The New Rules of Marketing & PR. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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