Utah Public Relations Agency, Utah PR, Online PR, PR For Small Business, Utah Social Media Agency, Social Media Marketing

I recently worked on a project that required contacting specific bloggers and asking if they would do a post about my client. This is an excellent way to build brand awareness and get others talking about and sharing your products with the world…However, if you’ve ever tried to do this you know it is a long and tedious process.

Many bloggers are just people working from home, talking about what they want to talk about and don’t necessarily want you to ask them things or give you their contact information. Some of them also sell their own products there and they in no way want to review a competitor. But if you can get these more popular bloggers to start talking, it can greatly increase your website traffic, popularity and even search engine rankings.

So what if you can identify all the popular blogs in your target using Technorati or some other online tracking system but still seem to be hitting walls like I was for a while when it comes to coverage?

Pay for them. I know, PR is supposed to be about free coverage. And there’s always the dilemma over real news generatiion vs. paid endorsements. But, baby, you need to get the conversation started!

To do that, you need a couple good posts with the help of a few different sites out that actually pay bloggers to talk about you. Some, admittedly, can be quite expensive to do this, but not all.

Reviewme.com is about the most expensive site I’ve seen for this so far. However, they are also the best at giving you the site’s popularity and rank. A typical paid post is about $100.

Blognlist.com is another fairly good site. The cheapest package they offer is $150, but it will get you a guaranteed 15 posts. It’s important to note this site has no way of guaranteeing that these posts will actually come from blogs that target your audience…but they might.

Payperpost.com is probably the best I’ve seen so far. You can set your own price starting at $5 a posting and send it to the bloggers with your target audience in mind. However, most bloggers out there, especially the more popular bloggers, don’t want to put together a post for a mere $5. The average here is anywhere from $10-15 per post (slightly higher than Blognlist.com). Basically you get what you pay for.

Hope this helps on your buzz-building journey.

The following is a great post from PR 20/20 about the latest PR trends:

The public relations industry is rapidly evolving. Technology is redefining the profession, and Web 2.0 — the new online world of mass collaboration and consumer-generated content — has given unfiltered access to the opinions and perceptions of target audiences (i.e. employees, customers, prospects, competitors, media, etc.).

Plus, through the use of blogs, optimized press releases, podcasts, videos, forums, social networks and other Web 2.0 tools, companies now have the ability to connect with their audiences in a more authentic, human voice.

For the PR industry, which traditionally has relied on pitching stories to mainstream media (i.e. TV, print, radio) in the hopes of landing editorial coverage and generating impressions, Web 2.0 has given us the ability to consistently produce a more measurable outcome — inbound links.

Through social media, search engine optimization (SEO) and self-publishing, wired PR firms are building inbound links, driving qualified Website traffic, generating leads, directly influencing consumers and having a measurable impact on the bottom line.

Here’s a snapshot of three public relations trends changing the industry:

1) Social Media
This is the most obvious and talked about trend in the public relations industry. PR professionals are communications specialists, and blogs, forums, online video and social networking offer the ability to communicate more affordably and efficiently than ever before.

2) Search Engine Optimization
Placement of targeted keywords throughout your Website, as well as generating inbound links to your Website, play an essential role in how your site ranks on major search engines, and in turn, directly impacts the quantity and quality of Website visitors. While SEO is not a traditional public relations practice, PR firms that don’t quickly integrate SEO principles into their services will become obsolete.

3) Self-Publishing
Press Releases, blogs, eBooks, white papers, by-lined articles, newsletters and online magazines are now being written with keyword-rich content and distributed with the goal of building Website traffic, inbound links and leads.

Web 2.0 has leveled the playing field for many organizations. It’s no longer about the size of your marketing budget, or how many impressions you can generate, rather it’s about how intelligent and innovative you can be in adopting emerging online technologies.

By concentrating on the activities that build inbound links, drive Website traffic and convert visitors into leads, your organization can grow smarter and faster than the competition.

To read more go to: PR 20/20

“64% of journalists say they use either Google or Yahoo online news services to follow the news.” -Slideshare

“Nearly half report visiting a corporate website’s news section at least once a week.” -Slideshare

If they can search for it, it can be optimized.

There’s a lot of competition to get an individual’s or company’s news in one of the more popular online news sites like Google or Yahoo. Optimizing (what we call SEO or search engine optimization) your news or press release greatly increases your rankings in these search engines. It is one more way to let reporters know you are out there, that you exist and have something new to tell them about.

Here are a few other ways to spread your word and increase the chances a reporter will pick it up as a story:

Press releases
Online op-eds/letters to the editor of online news site
Media kits
Targeted media blogs (nearly every journalist has their own blog these days)
Research reports/white papers
Podcasts and internet radio shows

I am often asked by friends or family with a business idea how I might go about marketing that idea. Most people I talk to have great ideas, they just don’t know how to go about selling them to the rest of the world. This is what I usually tell them to start with:

Any good marketing plan begins with good PR. I’m not just saying that because I am a PR professional. Although, I am a little biased. But, think about it. It’s better to get other people (the media, mainly) to condone your product or idea for you, to tell the masses all about it first, than to buy one billboard or magazine ad for thousands of dollars each month and hope somebody who doesn’t know anything about you or your compay calls and buys.

PR lays the ground work for you. It builds brand recognition with your target market. If they know who you are, it’s a lot more likely they will buy from you when you go to sell your idea to them.

But before you go to the media, the first step in your plan is knowing who your target market really is. Ask “Who is most likely to buy my product?” or “Who would be most interested in my idea?”

The second thing you want to do is find a good one line message that says who you are and what you do. This is what we call a tagline or slogan. It gives people something they can remember your company by. Examples: Nike - “Just do it”, Payless -”You could pay more, but why?”, Barak Obama - “Change you can believe in”.

Once you know your audience and can define yourself, you need to think of a good hook for a story. Make your product newsworthy. Just that you are a new product isn’t newsworthy if you are yet another vitamin dealer or clothing line. Is there something revolutionary about your product or idea? First of its kind? Is it something people need? Is there something different, zany, interesting about it? What is different about your product that would grab your target audience’s attention? Maybe you are a local clothing line bucking the trend of the big box stores. Maybe your clothing is made out of 100% recycled plastic. Maybe your clothing, like Crocs, are heinously ugly, but they’re flying off the shelves, despite their appearance. Give the media something interesting to chew on.

Try these steps out. You won’t be dissappointed when you hear people say “Oh ya, I heard about that.” Or “Did you know they have this such and such a product out now? I saw a story about it on the news.”

Got an idea for a business or product but have no idea where to begin? Contact me. I may be able to help.

We are on the verge of something big. Huge! In public relations. And I want you to be a part of it. This video is from a seminar given by Seth Godin, marketing guru and author of six best-selling books, including “The Dip” and “Meatball Sundae”. The answer at the end is online public relations marketing. Watch it. Think about it. Become a part of it.

So someone told you that your company should have a blog. They say this will keep fans of your products coming back for more. Well, that’s true, yes. But a blog can do so much more to promote your products and services than just that. It can increase your company’s overall visibility by attracting new customers, making potential clients aware you exist and establishing you as the expert in the field. But first things first, people also need to know you have a blog. Here are two really good tips to help you get started with that.

1. Blog a lot. Adding entries and updating your blog on a regular basis makes you very attractive to the search engines, especially Google. You are fresh, new and knowledgable at all times. They love this. It also increases your websites search engine visibility (known as SEO or search engine optimization).

2. The second thing you can (and must) do is get together with technorati (it’s basically the search engine of all search engines when it comes to blogs).

You can view my technorati blog page here: Technorati Profile

I have a snow cone stand. A deliciously refreshing snow cone stand where I can serve up any flavor from tigers blood to toxic waste with whip cream on top. I bought it mid-summer and placed it in an area that seemed like a good, high traffic spot. What I didn’t realize, though, is that while that grocery store parking lot I had it in was on a busy road, the neighborhood around it was really rough. I actually had a woman customer warn me to not stay open at night because it was so easy to get robbed. She told me she worked in the area and had been robbed of $80 just the other night. I asked where she worked and she told me the streets. Seriously! And the snow cones I did sell hardly brought in enough money to keep the operation going.

Needless to say, the shack was in trouble and it needed a little grass roots PR to save it.

I had some neighbors with a big backyard, a projector and a movie screen. Another friend of mine was an excellent DJ. I gathered them together, explained the situation and “Save the Snow Shack” was born.

We used tools of the internet to spread the word. Evite invitations were sent, events were created on Facebook and other social networking sites and masses were gathered. We were able to update them about time changes, movies we’d watch and other fun activities as well as spread the word on what this event was for. We also sent out mass texts to everyone we knew to inform them about what we were doing. Some people even blogged about it.

All of our efforts made for a pretty good showing. We even raised enough funds to help me pay off some of the people I owed for helping my shack get up to date with the health department (a completely seperate issue from the bad neighborhood it was in). This event was so well attended and successful we decided we needed to do it again in a few weeks.

What I’m saying is we have these excellent technological tools to help our business out these days. We don’t just need a press release. PR goes beyond that, way beyond that, with the power of technology. Any new product you have, design, or failing business can use these tools to spread their message to the masses. You don’t have to wait and hope some newspaper reporter decides to give you a break and run your story. You have the power to use the grass roots techniques of modern technology. And there are tons of them out there.

Want some strategic ideas to help spread the word about your business or new product? Click here