SES Chicago - December 7-11, 2009

November 9, 2009

American Daily Newspapers Employ 25% Fewer People Than in 2001

I apparently caused a stir yesterday at the PRSA International Conference in San Diego. Actually, it was a disturbing fact -- or an inconvenient truth -- that I cited which caused the stir. So, don't shoot the messanger.

During the Q&A part of the conference workshop, "Looking Ahead: The Nexus of Social Media and Public Relations," Peter Himler, founder and principal of Flatiron Communication, asked a rhetorical question of the audience. I've known Himler for about 15 years, so I raised my hand when nobody seemed eager to speculate on when traditional media relations should be declared dead.

I'm presenting a PRSA teleseminar on Nov. 17, and I had been working on my presentation before heading to San Diego. So, I happened to have a data point at my finger tips that related to the question.

According to The State of News Media for 2009, which is published by the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism, 5,900 full-time newsroom jobs, 11% of the total at America's newspapers, were cut in 2008. By the end of 2009, newsrooms of American daily newspapers may employ 25% fewer people than they did in 2001.

Ad Age estimates that just under 150,000 people worked in magazines in 2008, down from about 170,000 in 2000. And in local television, news staffs, already too small to adequately cover their communities, are being cut at unprecedented rates.

So, that's why PR people need to embrace social media as quickly as they can. If they don't include blog outreach, YouTube marketing, Facebook marketing, and Twitter marketing within the definition of public relations, then PR will employ 25% fewer people than it did in 2001.

Okay, so maybe that was a little like shouting "fire" in a crowded theater. But facts are facts, and I was just telling the truth.

But some of the people in the room reacted like they were going through the five stages of grief described in the book by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, "On Death and Dying." They are: 1. Denial (This isn't happening to me!) 2. Anger (Why is this happening to me?) 3. Bargaining (I promise I'll be a better person if...) 4. Depression (I don't care anymore.) 5. Acceptance (I'm ready for whatever comes.)

To help the PR specialists in your company through the grieving process, you should have the SEO specialists take them to lunch. Eat some comfort food. And let them know that they will play a really important role in social media -- as soon as they get their arms around social media measurement.

Okay, that last part may be "tough love." They may not be ready to embrace social media measurement -- yet.

But, sooner or later, they have to move on. Sooner or later, they need to heed the advice of Cher in the movie Moonstruck: "Get over it!"

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 12:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

November 6, 2009

PRSA 2009 International Conference Features Two Online Marketing Heroes

I'll by flying to San Diego this weekend to speak at the PRSA 2009 International Conference next week. Lee Odden, CEO of TopRank Online Marketing and a member of the SES Advisory Board, will also be speaking at the annual Public Relations Society of America event.

Odden is speaking on Monday, November 9, at 10:15 a.m. about "Help Google Find Your Releases: Top 10 Search Engine Optimization Tactics for Public Relations Professionals."

Nine out of 10 journalists, reporters and editors use search engines to do their jobs, according to a recent survey by TopRank Online Marketing. In this environment, public relations professionals must understand the ins and outs of search engine optimization (SEO).

So, Odden will help PR people find out how to choose the best key words, optimize their newsroom and press releases, build better links, and sell SEO to decision makers. Plus, he'll share "the No. 1 SEO tactic to implement today."

I'll be speaking on Tuesday, November 10, at 11:15 a.m. with Laura Sturaitis, the senior vice president, media and product services, at Business Wire.

How do you know your press release delivers value? Are there ways to increase a press releases' ROI?

Sturaitis and I will discuss real live examples and techniques to get the most mileage for press releases, especially in the Web 2.0 world. We'll explain why PR people need to work hand-in-hand with their Web team to see how visitors are getting to their site and moving through it. We'll also examine Web analytics for compiling, tracking and measuring activity deriving from the press release via the wires and elsewhere.

If you want a preview, check out my post on the ComPRrehension blog, which is entitled, "Does Your Press Release Deliver Value?"

Odden and I also spoke last year at the PRSA 2008 International Conference in Detroit. Why is this useful information for search engine optimizers to share with their colleagues down the hall in the public relations department? SEO specialists and PR specialists need to work together to handle the opportunities and threats created by Google universal search.

When Google announced universal search in May 2007, Marissa Mayer, vice president of search products and user experience at Google, said, "The ultimate goal of universal search is to break down the silos of information that exist on the web and provide the very best answer every time a user enters a query."

This radically changed everything we knew about search engine optimization (SEO) and public relations (PR). If your webmaster isn't optimizing content for YouTube, Google News, or Google Images, then who is?

With more than 12.8 billion expanded search queries a month on Google Sites in the U.S., this isn't a rhetorical question. In other words, the SEO specialists and PR specialists need to get out of their silos to ensure that their organization is getting found in all the right places.

As I told Michael Miller, the author of "Online Marketing Heroes: Interviews with 25 Successful Online Marketing Gurus," back in 2008, "For a good part of the 20th century, every part of the marketing mix was in a different silo. Advertising had its lingo and its metrics, and PR had its lingo and its metrics, and if you had a group that was focused on trade shows and events, they had their lingo and their metrics, etcetera. One of the things that is sort of a byproduct of keeping people in their silos is that things that the email marketing people learned ten years ago, or the search engine marketing people earned five years ago, the PR people in the same organization haven't learned yet. As a result, they keep doing what used to work but stopped working a long time ago, only nobody noticed."

I added, "To the extent that you can get the PR people interacting with the search people, they will discover that there are lots of things they can do together."

And Odden was also interviewed for Miller's book. So, your PR people will be getting the same advice no matter which online marketing guru they listen to at the PRSA 2009 International Conference -- or which chapter of Miller's book they read.

Odden and I both spoke at SES London 2008. Check out my video interview with him below.

Lee Odden, TopRank Online Marketing, at SES London 2008

And Odden and I are both speaking at SES Chicago 2009. So, there's no escaping our combined message: Get out of your silo; start interacting with other members of your marketing team.

Get it? Got it? Good.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 3:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

March 28, 2009

NYC Public Relations Firms: Give PR Jobs to CCNY Students

If top NYC public relations firms are smart, they'll give PR jobs or paid internships to The City College of New York (CCNY) students that I met last week. Why? Because most of these kids know something that most of us don't and it is crucial to our survival as an industry.

Let me explain.

I played reverse hooky last Wednesday afternoon. I attended school when I didn't have to.

Professor Philip Ryan invited me to visit his Introduction to Public Relations class at CCNY. He was covering Chapter 13 of Public Relations Strategies and Tactics, (9th Edition) by Dennis L. Wilcox of San Jose State University and Glen T. Cameron of University of Missouri. Published by Allyn & Bacon in February 2008, Chapter 13 is entitled, "New Technologies in Public Relations."

But, as one of the students in Professor Ryan's class pointed out, "There's nothing in our textbook about SEO PR."

So, I asked for a show of hands. "How many of you use Facebook?" Virturally everyone did. "How many of you use YouTube?" Nearly everyone did. "How many of you use Twitter?" Almost everyone did.

So, I observed, "Well, SEO-PR was founded 2003, Facebook in 2004, YouTube in 2005, and Twitter in 2006. So, just because these new technologies aren't covered in your textbook doesn't mean they aren't fundamentally changing public relations as we know it. I'm speaking at Search Engine Strategies New York this week and these new technologies are all on the agenda along with social media and blogging."

Another student observed, "When I Googled the term 'SEO' you weren't ranked #1."

I replied, "Well, that's not one of my target terms. Now, if you Google the term 'SEO PR', you'll see my firm is ranked #1."

The student countered, "But that's the name of your company."

And I responded, "The term 'SEO PR' gets about 320 searches a month. Not bad for a keyword that didn't exist in 2003. But, if you Google 'blog outreach', you'll also see my firm is currently ranked #1. How many of you think blog outreach is an important part of media relations services, especially with 900,000 blog posts every day?"

Then, I added, "Besides, what I really want you to do is conduct a query at Google News for the term 'Online Marketing Summit' and find the optimized press release that we distributed yesterday for ClickZ."

I think that's when they started cutting me a little slack.

Then, Professor Ryan asked, "How is contextual marketing changing public relations as we know it?"

I explained, "Contextual advertising is targeted to a Web page based on the page's content. This means there is the opportunity to create editorial content targeted at the contextual advertising that you want to attract to your news blog or YouTube channel."

Yes, these were tough questions from sophisticated students and their professor.

Which means these CCNY students are exactly the kind of people that NYC public relations firms need to hire if they are going to survive short-term or thrive long-term.

Yes, they are still acquiring the skill of writing a press release. But they already understand that an optimized press release can get a high ranking in news search engines.

Yes, they are still becoming acquainted with the fundamentals of persuasion and communications theory. But they have already mastered how to make friends on Facebook.

Yes, they are still beginning to recognize how PR relates to other fields of marketing. But they're already familiar with how to upload YouTube videos.

Yes, they are still learning the key ethical issues affecting the practice of PR. But they've developed an appreciation for the acceptable use ofand unacceptable abuse of Twitter.

Unfortunately, most NYC public relations firms won't give PR jobs or even paid internships to these CCNY students?

Why? Short term, the recession is the primary excuse. But even if there is an opening, most of the job descriptions in the public relations industry were written back in the 20th Century. So, these square pegs won't fit into the round holes.

For example, is your HR department trying to hire an entry level public relations specialist? Does the job description read: "Prepares and disseminates information regarding an organization through newspapers, periodicals, television and radio and other forms of media. May require a bachelor's degree in a related area and 0-2 years of experience in the field or in a related area. Has knowledge of commonly-used concepts, practices, and procedures within a particular field. Relies on instructions and pre-established guidelines to perform the functions of the job. Primary job functions do not typically require exercising independent judgment. Works under immediate supervision; typically reports to a supervisor or manager."

So, don't blame your HR department if they aren't looking for someone who can prepare and optimize information regarding an organization through news search engines, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

And who is at fault if someone who doesn't have a bachelor's degree gets filtered out during the screening process even through they could have brought knowledge of new concepts, practices and procedures to the table?

And ask yourself, honestly, do you want someone who relies on instructions and pre-established guidelines to perform the ever-changing fuctions of the job? Or do you really need someone who doesn't typically exercise independent judgment in an emerging field that didn't exist when you went to college?

In other words, are you giving PR jobs to the people you will need in 2009 and the decade after this? Or, is your HR department rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic?

Now, if I were you, I'd find a way to play reverse hooky at CCNY.

Other "guests" to Professor Ryan's class have included Garrett Glaser, a corporate communications consultant and former reporter for CNBC, and Rena L. Lewis, the Director of Brand Management, Industries & Marketing, at KPMG, and will include David Grant, President of LVM Group.

And television journalism icon Dan Rather will deliver the Spring 2009 Samuel Rudin Distinguished Visiting Scholars Lecture at The City College of New York on Thursday, April 2. Mr. Rather, who was anchor and managing editor of the CBS Evening News from 1981 to 2005, will speak about "Democracy and the 24-Hour News Cycle."

This kind of "higher education" doesn't fit on the normal resume.

That's why it's time to overhaul the job screening process at most NYC public relations firms to ensure that you're giving PR jobs to CCNY students and others like them who are crucial to the survival of the public relations industry.

But, hey, what do I know? I'm not even mentioned in the college textbooks.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 12:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

December 12, 2008

Online PR Industry in UK Can Learn Lessons from SEO Industry

E-consultancy has just issued an Online PR Industry Benchmarking Report, based on a survey of 300 UK marketers and PR professionals who work for both in-house company teams and for agencies.

Among the key findings: A surprisingly large percentage of retained PR budgets are being spent on Online PR. Company respondents report that 39% of their PR activity is online whilst agencies report that 47% of their clients' retained fees come from online PR.

The results also show that when companies outsource Online PR to agencies or specialists, 51% of companies are using PR agencies but a significant percentage are using search marketing agencies (29%) and web development agencies (22%) to develop and deliver Online PR strategy.

Deeper in the report was another interesting news nugget: "Agencies and specialists should note that levels of client satisfaction are not encouraging and they may need to improve their Online PR knowledge and offering. A fifth of clients (20%) are very satisfied with their agency‟s level of Online PR knowledge, 28% are moderately satisfied, 19% are neither satisfied nor dissatisfied, 15% are mildly dissatisfied and 13% are very dissatisfied. Equally, clients recognize that their own knowledge could be improved with 49% saying that their Online PR knowledge is good and 12% poor."

So, where can PR agencies and clients go to improve their online PR knowledge?

As I mentioned a week ago in my post, "Half of British and Irish Marketers Use SEO for PR Purposes," all marketers need to do is attend Search Engine Strategies London, February 17-19, 2009.

Since then, some of the speakers at SES London 2009 have been posted to the site. And, yes, I should disclose that I'll be speaking at the "Online Video Update - The Next Wave" session on Tuesday, Feb. 17, the "News Search SEO" session on Wednesday, Feb. 18, and the "Beyond Linkbait: Getting Authoritative Mentions Online" session on Thursday, Feb. 19.

But there are a number of other sessions at SES London 2009 that PR agencies and clients should attend to improve their online PR knowledge. This includes:

-- Universal & Blended Search -- SEO Through Blogs & Feeds -- Video & Podcast SEO -- Link Building Basics -- Keywords & Content: Search Marketing Foundations -- Brand & Reputation Management -- Search Term Research & Targeting -- Duplicate Content & Multiple Site Issues

Now, if some of these terms aren't familiar to PR people yet, well that's why they need go to the conference. I've been combining SEO and PR for almost six years. And during one of my presentations at SES Chicago 2008, I shared five case studies of press releases that generated a measurable ROI: -- $200 million in B2B leads for Symmetricom, -- $2.5 million in ticket sales for Southwest Airlines, -- 1.3 million searches for “florists” on SuperPages.com, -- 450,000 unique visitors to The Christian Science Monitor, -- 88,000 entries into a photo contest for Parents magazine.

So, I think that SES London 2009 is exactly the right conference to attend to improve your Online PR knowledge and offering. And who am I to make such a bold claim? I'm the guy in the photo above with the sock puppet on his hand at SES London 2008. The one on the left. (Have I disclosed that SES London is a client?)

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 10:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

November 13, 2008

SEW Experts: Use Online Public Relations for Link Marketing

Make the most out of these rocky economic times by utilizing your staff during idle time for online public relations. In today's linkbuilding column, "Use Online Public Relations for Link Marketing," Justilien Gaspard offers some ideas for things you can do to build links and increase sales simultaneously.

» Full story

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

October 16, 2008

SEW Experts: Obama is Winning the Internet War

Election Day in the U.S. is fast approaching and it's anyone's guess who will win...or is it? Based on five key indicators on the Internet, maybe we already know who will next be sitting in the Oval Office. In today's building brand equity column, "Obama is Winning the Internet War," Erik Qualman looks at these indicators and shows how they can be applied to your business.

» Full story

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 29, 2008

SEW Experts: Press Releases and Search Engine Optimization

Issuing press releases without regard for SEO is a wasted opportunity. In today's organic search engine optimization column, "Press Releases and Search Engine Optimization," Mark Jackson shows that combining press releases with SEO efforts can help gain presence in the editorial results of the search engines, even if it's not a direct presence for your actual domain.

» Full story

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 16, 2008

Blended Search Increases Your Visibility - Jupiter Research

Jupiter's recent study confirmed what we all suspected: search engine users click specialized content within general search results more than they do within vertical search results.

* 36% click "news" results within blended search results * Only 17% click a "news" result after conducting a news-specific search * 31% click "image" results within blended search results * Only 26% click an "image" result after conducting an image-specific search * 17% click "video" results within blended search results * Only 10% click a "video" result after conducting a video-specific search

Images are the most clicked type of result after a vertical-specific search, but news items are the most clicked type of result within blended search results. Even in blended search images are the number two choice. With 36 percent clicking news and 31 percent clicking images this is a huge PR opportunity.

Many marketers have thought that since searchers don't pay that much attention to vertical search there's no need to optimize news and images. It's definitely time to rethink that one.

"Marketers have a great opportunity to claim more search shelf space by optimizing their news, image, and video assets," says Robert Murray, President, iProspect.

The study also revealed where searchers click:

* 68% of search engine users click results on the first page * 8% review more than the first three pages prior to clicking on a result

PR takeaway: Optimize all your news content for search and make sure it is visible in the search engines. A news story on page 4 or 5 does you no good. Add images to all your news content. Optimize any images you already have on your website.

"Blended search increases a marketers' available inventory and their chances of being found amongst the clutter," said Murray.

Posted by at 10:22 AM | Permalink

March 21, 2008

The Other PR that influences search ranking

Our panel at SES NYC yesterday was about how to get authoritative links and what that can do for your search ranking. The moderator was Sage Lewis, panelists were Lee Odden, Chris Boggs and me.

Chris took the more traditional approach and explained how to leverage directories, associations and sponsorships.

Lee and I spoke about the other PR - public relations. SEO-PR is a term that has been around for about 4 or 5 years now. When optimizing press releases first became an option the PR industry did not adopt the practice. SEO firms immediately saw the value, but they lacked the PR and 'newshound' skills needed to create a great news story.

Those who attended this session really got how using PR skills to create great content and then pitchi that news story to relevant online news sites and bloggers can have a huge influence on your search ranking.

When you understand that Google's PageRank and "links as votes" system is basically a PR model of third party endorsement and trust, this makes perfect sense.

What is an authoritative site?

* One with a large number of pages * One that has themed content * One that has links in and out to similarly themed content. * One that has a high PageRank

News or media sites are authoritative sites. And as any PR person knows, mentions in the media carry a lot of weight as a third party endorsement..

So the trick is to find a news angle in some piece of content you already have, or some activity within your company. Here are a few examples:

A company that supplies business phone systems had a product that assists call centers to track who they call. When the Do Not Call list became an iaaue and the Supreme Court ruling came out they sent out a press release about how their software could keep a call center compliant with this new law. It got a lot of coverage and built them a ton of links.

HerRoom.com a leading online retailer of lingerie, had a series of videos on their site that show how effective various makes of sports bras are at reducing breast movement while exercising. A bit of PR digging to find the news angle in this content turned up the fact that Dr. Joanna Scurr, a professor at the University of Portsmouth in the UK, has been doing scientific research in this field and some large media sites covered the story.

HerRoom contacted Dr Scurr and hosted a live interview with her about her research. She spoke about breast movement during exercise and the probl;em of breast pian. She also shared results from a medical study in the Uk that found that the best way to deal with breast pain is with a good sports bra.

HerRoom tied in their Bounce Test Videos as a service to women. Now they can see which bras offer the best support, reducing movement and breast pain.

A good press release with the links, podcast and video gor picked up in some major media sites. Bloggers wrote about it. - mommy bloggers, exercise bloggers and health bloggers..Women recommended it.

The podast was registered at podcast sites.

The result in terms of SEO? That page on their site has moved from not in the first 100 a month ago to #14 on page two. And it is still climbing. We have a few big media sites and influential blogs we expect to run the story in the next few weeks. Those links should push it onto page one.

The moral of ths story? Next time you hire an intern look for one who has a PR background, a nose for news and can write great content. You can teach her the SEO part.

Posted by at 7:45 AM | Permalink

March 13, 2008

American Express Advises Clients to Avoid SEO

Interesting that an American Express Web site was the subject of a Search Engine Watch Experts site clinic last month.

The current edition of AMEX's 'A Practical Guide for Business Growth' cautions its readers against seeking professional search engine optimization help for their websites, advising them not to "waste money on so-called Search Engine Optimization (SEO) specialists"

Seems they took their own advice - to their detriment. When you search credit cards AMEX is not in the page one organic listings.

In the site clinic SEW Expert Mark Jackson points out that although they have decent title tags the content is in Flash so it does not support the tags.

"American Express could do a lot better with their SEO efforts," said Mark. "Too bad (according to their public affairs contact) they believe SEO is a matter of "opinion."

At the PRSA "State of the State of PR" event held in January, search was singled out as the one area that PR people really don't understand. That would certainly seem to be the case here.

PRSA is making an effort to educate theri members - they hold regular teleseminars about how to use SEO for PR. So does Bulldog Reporter's PR University.

Apart from the obvious business benefits of being found on page one in the organic listings, the PR and brand value of the text in those listings is definitely a communication function.

Perhaps AMEX feels SEO is not important. After all, when you search American Express you're not liikely to find competitors. But they do seem to think that page one on a search engine is a good place to be - they have the top sponsored ad when you search credti card. But their site does not show up on page one in the organic listings.

I wonder how much those ads are costing them? I'll bet it's less than the cost of a good SEO expert! And I wonder how they'd feel if they looked at the eye track study on how people view a search page and where they click.

Posted by at 8:53 PM | Permalink

November 28, 2007

Defense of the social media press release

Yesterday afternoon, the prosecution asked, "Is the Social Media Press Release a Meatball Sundae?"

A short time later, the defense made its case on the PR 2.0 blog in a post entitled, "Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, The Social Media Release is not a Meatball Sundae."

As a member of the jury, you should read both posts -- and then look forward to both the prosecution and the defense calling expert witnesses to take the stand. Each of these witnesses will be asked to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

The prosecution will not rest until all the facts in this culinary disaster have been examined.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 9:08 AM | Permalink

November 27, 2007

Social Media + Press Release = Meatball Sundae?

According to Seth Godin, a meatball sundae is the unfortunate result of mixing two good ideas. In this case, the meatballs are the press releases and the sundae toppings are the Technorati tags, Digg buttons, del.icio.us bookmarks and other Web 2.0 features. In today's SearchDay, "Is the Social Media Press Release a Meatball Sundae?," Greg Jarboe puts the social media release on trial, and finds it guilty.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 4:51 PM | Permalink

October 15, 2007

Newsforce Launches Standalone SEO Tool for Press Releases

Newsforce today launched a new standalone service for SEOs and public relations pros looking for an automated way to optimize press releases for search engines.

The tool does not create an optimized release, so much as it guides users through the process of doing so themselves, Greg Jarboe, partner in Newsforce and in SEO-PR, a full-service PR optimization agency.

"There's no such thing as faerie dust to make a press release optimized," he said. "What the tool does is ask the hard questions, and then give expert advice and feedback."

Once a user submits a press release for Newsforce to analyze, the tool asks a series of questions, beginning with which keywords the user is trying to target. It will then offer data from Trellian's Keyword Discovery tool to show how often those terms have been searched for in the last month, to help users decide if those are the best words to target.

The tool will then point out some of the important areas where keywords should be located, such as in the release's title and first paragraph. The user can choose to heed the list of suggestions, or ignore it.

"Sometimes, a user is happy to just optimize for one keyword, if they're under a tight deadline," Jarboe said. Using the tool often helps a user know if they've done "good enough" given their time constraints, or if it's worth pushing back the schedule to improve the release, he said.

The tool cannot replace the skills of choosing the right keywords, or telling a clear story in the release, warns Jarboe. "We automate what's easy to automate, but we don't do the strategic thinking for you," he said.

Newsforce's tools have been available to Business Wire clients within their suite of tools for more than a year. With today's beta release, a user can subscribe to the service for and then distribute the finished product on any news wire. After an optimized press release is distributed, Newsforce provides ranking reports on Yahoo News and Google News at three intervals: the first hour, the first day and the first week.

Newsforce is available as a one-off service for $20 per press release. Monthly subscription fees start at $59 for four press releases per month.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:17 PM | Permalink

July 2, 2007

Google Blogger Attacks Sicko, Backtracks

On Friday, Google Health account planner Lauren Turner tried to rally healthcare advertisers against Michael Moore's latest documentary, Sicko, by advising them that they should increase their presence in the search results in a blog post on the Google Health Advertising blog, "Does negative press make you Sicko?"

The post was an attempt to educate healthcare advertisers of the benefits of search in reputation management, but many accused Google of going too far with its apparent partisanship, and by Sunday, Turner was forced to recant.

The healthcare industry is no stranger to negative press. A drug may be a blockbuster one day and tolled as a public health concern the next. News reporters may focus on Pharma's annual sales and its executives' salaries while failing to share R&D costs. Or, as is often common, the media may use an isolated, heartbreaking, or sensationalist story to paint a picture of healthcare as a whole. With all the coverage, it's a shame no one focuses on the industry's numerous prescription programs, charity services, and philanthropy efforts.

Many of our clients face these issues; companies come to us hoping we can help them better manage their reputations through “Get the Facts” or issue management campaigns. Your brand or corporate site may already have these informational assets, but can users easily find them?

Turner reminded advertisers that place text ads, video ads, and rich media ads in paid search results or on Google's content network could provide "a platform for educating the public and promoting your message."

On Sunday, Turner backtracked a bit, making it clear that the opinion of the film she expressed was her own, not Google's, but reiterating that search could be an effective way to manage a company's or an industry's reputation:

But the more important point, since I doubt that too many people care about my personal opinion, is that advertising is an effective medium for handling challenges that a company or industry might have. You could even argue that it's especially appropriate for a public policy issue like healthcare. Whether the healthcare industry wants to rebut charges in Mr. Moore's movie, or whether Mr. Moore wants to challenge the healthcare industry, advertising is a very democratic and effective way to participate in a public dialogue.

The film, according to the NY Times, attacks the American health care system and calls for its complete overhaul. Moore's goal is reform: the creation of "a single-payer system, with the government as insurer, that would guarantee access to health care for all Americans and put the private insurance industry out of business."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:18 AM | Permalink

June 29, 2007

Presidential Candidates Need Some Help with their Reputations

The majority of U.S. Presidential candidates have a negative reputation on search engines, according to a new study by Andy Beal of Marketing Pilgrim. The 2008 Presidential Election Candidate Reputation Study found that 15 of 18 candidates had negative results within the first 20 when a user searched for their names on Google and Yahoo.

Democrats Barack Obama and Mike Gravel, and Republican Ron Paul were the only candidates with no negative search engine results.

“The study demonstrates that with more than a year to go until the 2008 presidential election, candidates are not fully managing their search engine reputation,” said Beal, founding principle of Marketing Pilgrim. “As the election race heats up, voters will be influenced by what they discover on the web. A single negative Google result could be enough to lose the election.”

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 10:51 AM | Permalink

June 6, 2007

New Rules of PR Podcast with Greg Jarboe

I recorded a podcast with Greg Jarboe a few weeks ago about the new rules of PR. The conversation focused on strategies for using PR to promote your site.

One of the big shifts that Greg sees is that there is much more of an opportunity to use PR to talk directly to your end customers. In the past, PR activities focused on communicating with media people, hoping that they would write an article about your news, and then you would reach your end audience through them.

So while media people, including both traditional media and bloggers, remain very important, services like Yahoo News and Google News have made it really easy for non-media people to directly access streams of news related to their interests.

In this new world, you might do some press releases that you would not have done before. For example, a special fare offer by Southwest Airlines (for example, a $29 fare from Boston to Philadelphia) may not be that interesting for media people to write about, but you can bet that many consumers would be very interested in that information.

Posted by at 8:00 AM | Permalink

October 30, 2006

Press Releases: Legitimate SEO Tools or Manipulative Spam?

The first press release was issued 100 years ago, and today there's a spirited debate raging about the value or legitimacy of press releases in a search marketing campaign. In today's SearchDay article, The 100th Birthday of the Press Release, guest writer Greg Jarboe offers a brief history of the press release and frames the debate over using press releases in online marketing campaigns.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 2:17 AM | Permalink

October 9, 2006

Coke Counters Bad PR With Search Ads

Coca-Cola Counters Critics With Search Ads from MediaPost covers how Coke is using search marketing to get the word out about a court victory where it was accused by a Colombian trade union of intimidating and assassinating union leaders.

A search for coke on Google, for example, brings up the Killer Coke site ranked third, which covers the allegations. Now Coke is fighting back against that -- sort of. A search for killer coke brings up this ad:

Coke Lawsuit Dismissed Suit against Coca-Cola bottlers in Colombia dismissed. Read more. www.coca-cola.com/presscenter

That leads to more information about the victory from Coke, right alongside the "anti" natural search result that appears, like this:

But c'mon. This is Coke being savvy? A regular search for coke on Google doesn't carry this ad. That means plenty of people are seeing the Killer Coke site ranking well but not getting a counter message from Coke itself.

Perhaps it is an oversight, though it might be intentional -- trying to target those specifically searching for "killer coke" with a positive message without trying to be too in the face of those doing regular searches who might not know about the allegations.

Curious, I checked out the trend of searches for killer coke versus coke on Google Trends. As you can see, practically no one is searching for "killer coke:"

Overall, if Coke thinks spreading the word is important, I'd have gone with an ad targeted to Coke as well. Then again, since the company already has three different ads running for its My Coke Rewards program, the main Coca Cola site and the official Coca Cola store, maybe it felt a fourth ad would finally trip Google's rules against multiple ads from the same company:

To provide the best possible experience for our users and advertisers, Google does not permit multiple ads from the same or affiliated company or person to appear on the same results page. We believe that pages with multiple ads from the same company provide less relevant results and a lower quality experience for our users. Over time, multiple ads from the same source also reduce advertiser performance and lower their return on investment.

Of course, Coke does seem to meet the exception to this rule:

  • The destination site for each ad offers different products or services (for example, a large manufacturer with two product sites, one solely for stereos and one solely for computers, both running on keyword 'electronics').
  • Each destination site has a different layout and design, and each URL and domain is different.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:07 AM | Permalink

September 12, 2006

Big Brands: Do You Know What Wikipedia Saying About You Via Google?

Steve Rubel produced a small study on the top 100 advertisers, according to AdAge, to see where in the Google rankings does the brand's Wikipedia entry fall. For example, a search on the well-known automobile brand Chevrolet shows a Wikipedia entry for them at the number four result. What that Wikipedia entry says about your company can have a huge impact on your brand, given that Google will be driving traffic to Wikipedia. The study showed that the Wikipedia entry listed in the Google results for the top 100 brands, on average was at position 11. But Steve Rubel explains that many of those brands have listings within the top 10 and some even the top 5 for their brand name.

Steve explains that if you have a lot of domain names for your company, then the Wikipedia entry will most likely be pushed down the results. Also, he said Yahoo, MSN and Ask all have similar responses, but they are not documented in his study. He finally links and summarized an adAge.com article named Your Brand on Wikipedia.

FYI - this is part of online reputation management.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:41 AM | Permalink

August 15, 2006

103 Links About SES San Jose 2006 (AKA The Big Recap)

Couldn't make it to last week's monster Search Engine Strategies show in San Jose? Well, maybe next time! In the meantime, I've compiled a list of coverage from across the web, even somewhat organized into topic areas.

Our San Jose show is always tough for me, as I arrive a week earlier to visit with the various major search engines out there. That means two weeks of news and email to dig out from, since you can never get it all done on the road. All that digging out means I know I don't have everything listed below. But you'll find plenty to keep you entertained.

General Recaps

Eric Schmidt Appearance

Eric Schmidt & Search Privacy

Click Fraud Panel & Related Coverage

Yahoo's Panama Ad Platform Preview

Social Search & Related Topics

Organic Listings Sessions

Search Advertising Sessions

Issues Sessions

News, Blogs & Public Relations

Big Sites/Budget Sessions

Small Sites/Budget Sessions

Conversion & Metrics

Other Sessions

Google Dance & Parties & Pictures

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 4:50 PM | Permalink

May 5, 2006

Ad Agency Sues Maine Blogger Over Search Accusations

Ad Agency Sues Blogger for Defamation from Ad Age covers an ad agency promoting tourism for the state of Maine suing a Maine-based blogger for defamation. The search connection? The blogger, Lance Dutson, had highlighted out broad matched search ads were hurting his own clients or not perhaps attracting the audience the state wanted. And a further search connection. The ad agency, WKPA, is concerned that searches on its name will now bring up Dutson's criticisms.

Dutson has a variety of posts on the subject on his blog, most in this category. WKPA lacks its own blog. Expect that to change when it discovers that search marketing has two components -- the ads you buy and the PR you get from natural organic results (which aren't helped by its all-Flash site).

Meanwhile, Seth Finkelstein looks at how the broad matching ads may have been misinterpreted by the Maine Department Of Tourism as an accusation, rather than an explanation of poor targeting.

Postscript from Jennifer Slegg: Maine State Rep Stephen Bowen is calling for the Maine Office of Tourism to suspend its contract with WKP, pending the results of the lawsuit, in order to distance itself from the agency.

Postscript from Barry Schwartz: The ad agency backed down from the lawsuit, more details here.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:21 AM | Permalink

March 8, 2006

Tips On Monitoring Online Reputation

If you missed my coverage of the Reputation Monitoring & Management session from the this past conference or the conference last December you can get some great tips from Andy Beal, one of the presenters on the panel, at his Online Reputation Monitoring Beginners Guide. Catherine Seda wrote a SearchDay article on this topic back in November 2005 named Using Search for Public Relations & Reputation Management as well.

I personally use many of these tactics on a daily basis for my company and online ventures. I mostly track my name, my company's name, my blog's name and other related names and keyword phrases to monitor what people are saying about my businesses and industry.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 1:22 PM | Permalink

November 8, 2005

Search Engines and Reputation Management

Many companies cry foul when competitors or activists manage to get top search rankings with negative or false information about the company. Whining to the search engines usually isn't an effective way to cope with this type of situation. Instead, try getting proactive by using alternative search marketing strategies, including blogs, press releases and other tools to counter the negative messages. A panel of experts at a recent Search Engine Strategies conference offered specific advice on how to do this, and guest writer Cat Seda covered the panel for today's SearchDay article, Using Search for Public Relations & Reputation Management.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 5:37 AM | Permalink

September 19, 2005

New Reprise Feedcast Tool To Get News Publishers Quickly Into Paid Search

Reprise has a new Feedcast tool out designed to scan articles and other newsworthy content and create paid search campaigns for related topics automatically. In short, imagine you are a news publisher wanted to get ads out quickly, to attract interest in a recent news stories. Feedcast is designed to make that happen quickly.

The link takes you to a page with more info, including a helpful Flash demo. Introducing Feedcast on the Reprise SearchViews blog has more info. A SEM Tool for Content Creators from ClickZ has details on those already using it through a private beta.

Somewhat related, Leverage the News for Search Engine Success is a fresh look at why publishers and others might want to ensure they're tapping into news searches as a means to reach an interested audience.

And spotted via Threadwatch, Forbes.com Aims to Improve Search Rankings looks briefly at how publisher Forbes is tapping into SEO via company 360i -- and in particular, free listings rather than paid ones as the New York Times and Washington Post do.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 12:41 PM | Permalink

July 5, 2005

Survey Looks At PR Aspect Of Search Listings

Brands suffer from negative PR on Google from NetImperative looks at a survey that examines not how companies are placed in search results but how well the PR spin is for them, based on the top results. Coca Cola, for example, was found to have 4 of the 10 ten pages in a search at Google UK for on its name containing negative comments about the company.

The research was done by Market Sentinel and Weboptimiser, both of which have obvious vested interests in wanting people to consider the PR aspects of how they are listed. And I do sense some skewing going on.

In the case of Coca Cola, the white paper (PDF file) reporting the research says it's showing the top 10 results for coca cola on Google UK. However, it's really the results for coca cola uk that the illustration shows, as far as I can tell.

Go back to the coca cola search, and from what I can see, there are no negative comments about Coke showing up at all. That makes me think that results for coca cola uk were used, because they better illustrate the problem trying to be proved. And it is a problem for that particular search. But when Yahoo UK reports only 292 in May 2005 searched for "coca cola uk" on sites in its paid listings network versus nearly 8,000 who searched for "cola cola," the problem isn't as big as you might think.

Nevertheless, the PR aspects are definitely something anyone should consider -- and the white paper has a number of useful tips and advice, from what I can see with a quick skim. So check it -- and your own listings -- out.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 12:18 PM | Permalink

June 1, 2005

New Article Looks at SEO "Gone Bad"

Companies subvert search results to squelch criticism from the Online Journalism Review looks how companies are trying to squash bad public relations in search engines.

From the article:

It's not illegal, but it's SEO gone bad. Companies such as Quixtar are using Google-bombing, link farms and Web spam pages to place positive sites in the top search results -- which pushes the negative ones down.

and

"I don't have any problem with search engine optimization, and businesses have every right to do it. But my complaint is that this is something that you don't want everybody to know about, because you know that it's deceitful, and it's not about providing value for people. It's not about providing a great information resource that will be the #1 site on the Web. It's about flooding the Web with crap, and in that sewage, [they're] going to bury everyone else. That's my main concern. The implications go across to other businesses like Scientology." -- Eric Janssen, proprietor of Quixtar Blog and online creative manager for the Memphis Commercial Appeal's site

Posted by Gary Price at 8:25 PM | Permalink

May 2, 2005

CNN Accused Of Blog & Search Spamming To Improve PR

CNN gets accused of blog spam and search engine spamming. CNN on the Spam Attack? from Wired explains how blogger Nick Lewis spotted what he felt was a strange post that was pushing CNN programs. He spotted similar posts on other blogs.

That's the blog spam part, and pretty easy to see why you could think that's a guerrilla PR campaign going on, though CNN denies this in the Wired article. But the search engine spamming part? That's a bit more tricky.

Lewis claims that along with comments were a string of repetitive keywords, which he shows in his explanation of what was spotted. For example:

blog blog blog blog cnn cnn cnn blog blog cnn cnn cnn

He suspects this was placed on this blog to make it seem like he was keyword stuffing, to make his pages attract a spam penalty. The idea is that by doing this, his page would get knocked out of "the first hundred results for the google search 'CNN Blogs'"

Frankly, if he wasn't in the first 10 results, CNN wouldn't even care. No one would -- he's virtually invisible to anyone doing that search. More important, while possibly such a tactic MIGHT work, it was be far easier simply to fire up 10 official CNN blog and do optimization and link building to push whatever anti-CNN sites you disliked out of the top results.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 6:35 PM | Permalink

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