'Net Features : public relations

Cloud-Based Marketing Suite Comes into Vocus

Michael Garrity — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 23:00:00 GMT

Cloud-based marketing and PR software provider Vocus dropped Vocus Marketing today, a software suite for both businesses and marketers that was built to allow users to expand their businesses by combining various elements of public relations, social media and online marketing.

Among the new features of the software are a recommendation engine that provides easy-to-follow suggestions that make it possible for anyone to attract customers via search engines, generate buzz and visibility through media, engage with customers on Twitter or build a customized Facebook page, all within minutes.

Vocus Marketing will work to monitor Twitter, Facebook and other destinations on the social Web to help users attract customers through social media. The company promises that it will help "users stand out on Facebook, increase their fans, generate interest with offers and products, and turn fans into customers." It also helps by monitoring results and lets users check their success and track their increases in fans, followers and webpage visitors.

In addition, the software will alert users when a writer needs a source similar to them for a news story, so that they can create publicity and buzz and allow users to create easy news releases for the Web to put in front of customers and potential customers on search engines.

"The Internet now offers incredible opportunities for businesses to reach and influence buyers through social networks, online and through the media," says Vocus CEO Rick Rudman. "Our new software suite breaks down the final barriers to achieving business growth using online marketing -- lack of time and lack of expertise."

Rudman continued, "Our recommendation engine makes the full potential of online marketing available to millions of business owners and time-pressed marketers, all of whom can achieve huge results in just a few minutes a day."

NewsTrak Clips Enhanced at BusinessWire

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 18:30:00 GMT

Media distribution service Business Wire released an enhanced version of its media monitoring service NewsTrak Clips this week.

The service, which is finding itself competing with a deep pool of pure-play social media monitoring providers, now provides improved keyword searching and filtering of archived clips (by language, time frame, publication), dynamic creation of 3-D charts and graphs for media measurement, delivery of clips into individual folders (also includes drag and drop navigation for moving clips between folders), the ability to create a branded newsletter using retrieved clips, and the ability to export clips, charts or both to multiple formats.

Two other noteworthy features should make for a strong offering in the very competitive market, particularly for public relations and online marketing agencies.

- The service's social media monitoring has been enhanced to include crowdsourcing features that allow users to add new sources, revise data in existing sources, and identify sites as spam.

- Clips are permanently archived for as long as a user subscribes to this service that is powered by CyberAlert and provides a powerful search engine for highly relevant filtering, sorting, retrieval and sharing.

New PRWeb Analytics Reports

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 17:16:00 GMT

Online news distribution service PRWeb released new analytics reports for measuring results from news releases. If you've ever used a news distribution service (the wire) before, you know how absolutely atrocious the data you receive can be.

The types of analytics, which will be provided to cusotmers at all PRWeb distribution levels, include media deliveries (a list of the specific media outlets where the release was distributed), online pick-up (showing a listing of the differnet websites where he release appeared - interestingly the system is powered by Yahoo!'s BOSS [build your own search service]), and visitor interaction (including click-through data, prints, forwards, PDF downloads, and website interactions).

“These new reporting enhancements are all about helping our customers better understand what happens once their news release has been published on PRWeb,” said Jiyan Wei, director of Product Management for PRWeb. “They will now be provided with a much better sense for where it is sent, where it appears and most importantly, what people are doing once they read the news release.”

DIY PR – MatchPoint 1.5

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 19:15:00 GMT

Everybody knows that the best way to take your business (whether it is web-based or brick and mortar) to the next level is to secure media attention. A common way to do that of course is to develop outreach programs through the practice of public relations.

Finding those interested in your “story” however is a time consuming and often exceedingly frustrating task. The situation is made worse of course because of the often strained relationships between media and PR professionals that have developed over the years. For example, quite a bit of attention was paid to the blacklist of 328 PR professionals that was put forth by Wired’s Chris Anderson.

MatchPoint, an application that allows PR pros to identify appropriate reporters and bloggers for a specific story might be just what you need if you want some do it yourself public relations and avoid the glares of those lofty journalists. Yes! Technology to the rescue – take that Chris Anderson.

The service has added more information on the journalists and bloggers within its database for version 1.5. As of today (July 28th, 2009) over 196,000 journalist listings were included. What will make you pay attention (or should) about MatchPoint is that it really is a integrated platform for DIY PR. The system enables user to engage media folks with personalized messages (like pitch notes) or send full-on multi-media press packs. Users can even monitor those they find that might be interested in covering their businesses by including notes on activity. Plus, new to MatchPoint v1.5 is the ability for journalists to evaluate the usefulness of story pitches and “rank” the sender.

Looking for more powerful tools and resources to accelerate your Web success?
Request a professional-level membership from Website Magazine.

Creating Effective Press Releases for Power SEO

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 19:38:00 GMT

Press releases are an effective means to attract media attention, but it is also one of the most cost-effective munitions in the search engine optimization and marketing arsenal. With a solid grasp of the English language and some company and industry knowledge, the transition to being an effective SEO-PR master is easier than you might think.

The Many Benefits of an SEO-PR Strategy
If you’re not sending press releases through distribution services and directly to those you believe are the most influential in your industry, you should be.

Inexpensive: It’s costly to run display and search advertising campaigns and the amount of time it takes for traditional SEO can be immense. The expense of a press release, however, is limited to the time it takes to write it and then distribute it electronically. When the message is picked up by multiple outlets, the cost per impression simply cannot be beat.

Broader Reach (and Links): Perhaps the most noteworthy benefit in distributing press releases is that many Web publishers post them on their websites. In many cases, they do so verbatim from the original and, in some cases, include your original links. The result is that your message is seen by a broad group and influences search result rankings.

Expedited SEO: Nearly every search engine optimization agency I’ve come across in the past few months leverages press releases for their clients. Why? Fast indexing for one, but the ability to “control the content” means that you’ll be able to include the keyword rich content you want to rank for, ultimately influencing your site’s search ranking. Add a compelling title and your URL (with anchor text, of course) and you’ll see your release appear in the search engine results pages in short order and many times over – even for competitive terms.

Now that you’re sold on the benefits of SEO-PR, how do you construct an effective press release? Let’s look at a few best practices that make press releases such a powerful SEO strategy.

Get to the Point Quickly
Attention spans on the Web are decreasing. Unlike an article when you have an opportunity to “set-up” the story, in a press release it is essential to include the most important information right away – at the very beginning of the text.

The intent of a press release is to supply information to the media in hopes that traditional editorial gatekeepers will find it relevant enough to share with their audience. This is true for consumer-focused outlets and service providers, as well as for companies that follow a B2B model. Since search engines index content in a “top-down” fashion, get to the point quickly by including a synopsis (most services provide this feature for clients).

An effective press release is written clearly and uses concise text to announce news. Ask any editor: if they take the time to look at your material, it had better get to the point right away. Drawn-out leads written to “suggest” editorial featuring a certain company only irritate busy gatekeepers. With literally thousands of press releases received each week, there's no time to read 150 words before the main idea becomes clear. All that does is increase the chances of your e-mails being filtered into the abyss. Once that happens, it’s not likely you will be able to gain audience with that editor again through e-mail.

More Elements of a Good SEO-Friendly Press Release
There is no shortage of advice on how to create a press release, but little in the way of information on creating search engine friendly press releases.

Develop Compelling, Keyword-Rich Headlines
Well-written press-release headlines grab the attention of the user and include the most important facts to summarize the body content. Titles also influence how search engines determine relevance for user queries so include descriptive keywords (the ones you want to rank for), repeat them periodically throughout the body of the release and you’ll see you release indexed quickly.

Lead Readers With a Strong Lead
A concise lead paragraph should support the headline and incorporate as many of the key facts as possible. The lead should entice the editor to continue reading. Oftentimes, a good lead paragraph that conveys pertinent points will be picked up verbatim for publication placement.

Present Fact-Based Copy
Perhaps the most vital part of a press release is fact-based body copy. The body copy should include market positioning, key features and benefits to the end user. By including information that supports the release, editors and bloggers are more likely to use that data and the information you present in tandem. That means your company will be positioned with information that matters to people reading it.

Provide Contact Information
Another component critical to an effective press release is providing names, titles and contact information to identify the sender and another person who can intelligently discuss the content in detail. If possible, a direct quote from a company official that encapsulates the release should be included. For example, a release announcing a new executive vice president should identify the president to offer supporting statements. When introducing a new product, the director of engineering would be more appropriate.

Provide Background Information
The last element in an effective press release is a boilerplate paragraph about the company that describes its products and services, markets served and when it was founded. This should identify the full, proper name and location of its headquarters. If the company is publicly held, list the exchange, ticker symbol and the most recent annual revenue.

By supplying all of this information in a simple press release, editors will have ample resources to further research the company if they deem it editorially necessary. Consider the content within the press release you create to be a search-engine-optimized page on someone else’s site and you’ll master the art of SEO-PR.

A Blogger's Dream: PRTube

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 18:40:00 GMT

One of my favorite press release distrubution services, PRLeap, announced last week the launch of PRTube, a way to embed, share and track press releases on any blog or website.

"PRTube takes the social media press release to the next level by allowing anyone to embed the press release on their website, blog or social network profile, making it viral," said Merrick Lozano, co-founder of Condesa, the company behind PRLeap.

Using Adobe Flash, PRTube is essentially an embeddable press release viewer. Where the system will really stand out is in its statistics and tracking capabilities. PRTube features real-time monitoring and tracking, allowing a Web marketer or publicist to see where the press release has been embedded and how many times it has been viewed. This is in addition to the web analytics already available on prleap.com.

For bloggers looking for content, finding it through PRLeap and displaying it through the PRTube interface might be a good option.

PRTube.com is scheduled to be launched as a separate platform and set of tools in the spring 2009, although it's available now within all PR accounts and in distribution of all press releases.

Internet PR & Video Email

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 14:22:00 GMT

Tech public relations firm Softscribe launched its Video Email Snacks social media product, aiming to help its clients reach out more effectively to key audiences. The video emails are essentially just brief personal messages from a company executive that can address or link to more in-depth material. There is no new technology here, however, so there's nothing really to get excited about, other than the idea of sending video email itself. Unfortunately, no real guidance was offered on how to make that happen.

There is some value in video and video email, I suppose: educating consumers quickly (diffiult concepts as well), establishing tighter client bonds, driving clients to existing content on forums or social media sites, etc. SoftScribe managed to develop an example ("Twitter - Are Your Customers There Without You") which is worth a look, but in the end it's little more than a video and most serious marketers have been leveraging that platform for many years.

"Video Email Snacks are short, entertaining, high value 'face mails' that a viewer can access at the best time for them during their day," said Michael Squires, president of Softscribe Inc., which provides marketing and communications programs for green tourism and hospitality, green government and related markets. "It works. In a case study on how to add video to an email, Marketing Sherpa reports up to a 25% jump in conversions."