Message from Michelle

Greetings from Kimberling City. For the past week, I’ve been in Southwest Missouri visiting my family and relaxing.

It’s a much-needed break as my team and I have been busy this summer helping clients ramp up their publicity on- and offline. And it’s working. This past Sunday, our client Ears of Experience was featured in the Travel and Arts section of the Post and Courier. In addition to the article, within days after their optimized press release appeared online, they received four calls from prospects that saw the release.

In the past few months, more and more companies are contacting me, asking for help with promoting and marketing their companies online. This issue of S?mèr’s Secrets focuses on how to gain more exposure-both on- and offline-through integrated PR.

Connect With Me Online at:
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/writtenbysumer
Facebook: www.facebook.com/michelle.salater
Blog: writtenbysumer.com/articles

Feature Article:

Integrated PR: Redefining the Way Businesses Gain Exposure

When most people think of PR, they understand it to be the act of relaying news to a media source via a press release. They believe once they submit a press release, that’s all they can do. They wait to see what the press release can do for them. Too many people submit a press release to a variety of news outlets–thinking they have a great story the media will pick up–but they hear nothing back.

Instead, they wait, and wait, and wait. Nothing happens.

Ever since the first press release was published on October 30, 1906, public relations has been shaped and defined by more than a written release. Networking, relationship building, trustworthy practices, and brand presence are just a few additional elements that help define public relations.

Today, with a wide variety of news mediums to choose from, the public has spread itself across several channels. If you choose to convey your company message only through one medium, such print media, you may find the public is elsewhere and your efforts wasted.

If you’re not using online platforms to enhance your public relation efforts, then you’re missing an opportunity to expose your brand to the public, generate leads, increase sales, and boost credibility.

Some of the most innovative and effective ways to reach your target market online include PR 2.0 and optimized press releases.

• PR 2.0: By definition, PR 2.0 is a social media press release. This newly developed public relations tool was born from the rise in social media popularity. As more and more people use flickr, del.icio.us, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Digg, they are more desensitized to newspapers and traditional media outlets. Because of this shift, using modern media forms, in addition to traditional forms, is the most effective way to get across time-sensitive news items related to your business.PR 2.0 incorporates a variety of interactive social media elements including video, Twitter pitches, share options, bookmarking capabilities, photos, slideshows, bulleted information, links to your website, blog, and social media sites, and contact options. Because PR 2.0 is viral, the audience base you can reach with it is infinite.Click here to view one of our client’s latest PR 2.0 releases.

• Optimized PR: Also known as SEO PR, an optimized press release is search engine optimized to ensure it pulls up on search engine result pages. In other words, the press release is written to incorporate important keywords that prospects may be using as search terms. One of the most popular places the public and even the media go for their daily news dish is the Internet. Google News, Yahoo! News, and Bing, to name a few.

If you post an optimized press release in popular search engines, you can be sure to get some hits off of it. Similar to PR 2.0, an optimized press release is viral and has the ability to reach a countless number of prospects.

It’s obvious the public relations model has shifted over the years, but public relations still, without a doubt, embodies the same principles it did over 100 years ago: provide the people and the press with truthful, accurate information that is both newsworthy and valuable.

Want to see more marketing articles like this one? Visit Michelle’s marketing blog, S?mèr Blog.

Tip of the Month

According to WebProNews, PRWeb shared a case study that involved a firm that usually sees a 50% increase in website traffic after issuing a press release. One of their most successful releases led to a 400% increase in website traffic. In order to drive additional traffic to the releases, this same firm used social media sites to increase press release exposure.

Like this post? I’d love for you to share it on Digg, StumbleUpon, or the other social media tools found below.

Tags: attract clients, PR2.0, small business publicity, social media press release

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 18th, 2009 at 8:20 am and is filed under Online PR, SUMER BLOG, SUMER SECRETS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.