The New PR Toolbox

The New PR Toolbox

Tom Becktold, SVP, Marketing, Business Wire

August 12, 2009

If you’re tweeting from this event…

Hash Tag #bwevents

The Tools You Know and Love

• The Press Release• The Web Site• Media Relations• Press Events• Reputation and Crisis Management• Marketing Campaigns

And the New Tools

• Blogging

• Twitter

• Podcasts/Vidcasts

• RSS

• SEO/SEM

• User-Created Content

• Social Networks

• Social Bookmarking

• Wikis

• Crowdsourcing

True or False: Social Media is Bad for Brands

• False. Social media is just another channel for brands to communicate with their customers.

• Brands who use social media right---like Dell, Comcast, & Southwest Airlines---have greatly enhanced their brand image.

What Do I Need to Know?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

• SEO is about making the content you can control as relevant as possible for specific search terms, so Google ranks them high on a search engine results page (SERP)

• Why is it important?

Organic Ranking Visibility(shown in a percentage of participants looking

at a listing in this location)

Rank 1 – 100%

Rank 2 – 100%

Rank 3 – 100%

Rank 4 – 85%

Rank 5 – 60%

Rank 6 – 50%

Rank 7 – 50%

Rank 8 – 30%

Rank 9 – 30%

Rank 10 – 20%

The Importance of Search Ranking

First Step: Pick Your Keywords

• Looking for the keyword variations users most often use to find your site or release

• Free keyword research tools– Google External Keyword Tool– Wordtracker.com– Business Wire’s Press Release Builder Tool

Press Release Builder

Press Release Optimization

The Press Release.It’s not just for journalists’ eyes anymore.

These days,

if you’re not writing for ,

Your release might as well be invisible.

Press Release Optimization Tips

• Focus on keywords in the headline, subhead & first 2 ¶s

• Don’t try to be cute---search engines don’t get puns or plays on word

• Link spokespeople to company bio or LinkedIn

• Link out as much as possible in the first 2 ¶s• Link deep to specific pages on your website

Formatting Adds Google Juice

• Bold, Italics, Symbols *@ #• Subheads and bullet points• Improved Financial Tables• Anchor Text and Hyperlinks• Foreign language characters• Social Networking Tags= FREE Improved Search Engine Visibility

Logo branding, formatting, multimedia content and links built into the release

from the start

Logo branding, formatting, multimedia content and links built into the release

from the start

Smart links & anchor text

Smart links & anchor text

FormattingFormatting

Social media sharing linksSocial media sharing links

Releases on many web sites will include photo,

logo, links and formatting

Releases on many web sites will include photo,

logo, links and formatting

Yahoo FinanceYahoo Finance

Google NewsGoogle News

Blogs• What can blogs do

for brands?– Help reinforce brand

image– Humanize a brand– Position a brand as a

resource, expert or thought leader

– Be a customer service channel

www.businesswire.com/blogwww.businesswire.com/blog

Who is Blogging?

ExpertsExperts

AgenciesAgencies

News MediaNews Media

BrandsBrands

“Executives should only be allowed to blog if they can be trained to have a personality again.”

- Greg Peverill-Conti (@gregpc), VP of Emerging Technology, Weber Shandwick

Should CEOs Blog?

A Few That Do it Right

Sun Microsystems – Jonathan’s Bloghttp://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/

Marriott – Bill Marriott’s On the Movehttp://www.blogs.marriott.com/

Dallas Mavericks/HDNet – Blog Maverick

http://blogmaverick.com/

Podcasts• Great examples of PR/marketing podcasts

– Managing the Grayhttp://www.managingthegray.com/

– For Immediate Releasehttp://www.forimmediaterelease.biz/

– American Copywriterhttp://americancopywriter.typepad.com/

– Or check out ours… All Things Press Release Podcasthttp://businesswired.wordpress.com/

category/podcast/

Social Networks

Brands & Social Networks

• The rule for brands on social networks: Provide Value.

• Opportunity to engage with customers at the grassroots level– Give brand evangelists a place to do flourish– Provide access for those customers who want

to talk to you

Great Brands on Facebook

CoachCoach

Susan G. Komen Race for the CureSusan G. Komen Race for the Cure

Great Brands on Twitter

DellDell

ComcastComcast

Southwest Airlines

Southwest Airlines

Social Bookmarking

• Powerful tool for driving traffic to websites, press releases, blog posts, etc

• Also helps SEO by associating content with more general categories (e.g. ‘health,’ ‘tech,’ ‘business,’ etc)

Crowdsourcing

• Very popular platform right now, allows users to suggest ideas for the brand & lets other users vote them up & down…the brand then implements the most popular ideas

• Dell IdeaStorm (http://www.ideastorm.com/)• MyStarbucksIdea (http://mystarbucksidea.com/)• UCSD AlumnIdea (http://ucsd.alumnidea.com/)

MyStarbucksIdea

Social Media News Release• Ford Example (brand-produced)

http://ford.digitalsnippets.com/environment

– Provides easily downloadable multimedia, including photos & embeddable video

– Easy-to-pull facts, quotes, suggested tags & links to additional info & related discussions

– Convenient social media sharing links– Brand-produced SMNRs tend to be costly

Brand-Produced SMNR

Business Wire’sSmart News Release (SNR)

• Logo/Photos/Multimedia downloadable in multiple resolutions

• Embeddable video & audio• Social media sharing links• Company profile• Permalink archiving

Smart News Release

Smart Marketing Pages

It’s Not About the Technology• The most important thing to remember about

social media for brands is: it is not an item on a checklist.

• A blog, or Facebook page, or Twitter feed, is not always going to be the best thing for that particular brand.

• Know where the conversation about your brand is. And go there.

Thank You! Questions?

Tom Becktold, SVP, MarketingBusiness Wire Los Angeles

Twitter: @becktold

Follow Business Wire on Twitter! @businesswire