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Posts by: Barbara Rozgonyi

Where PR Firms Can Find Lots of New Clients

Posted on February 20, 2012

Digital-PR-AgencyLooking to grow business in new directions? Here’s some advice from today’s guest blogger, Brad Shorr.

PR Firms Can Find New Clients with Digital Agency Partnerships

The firm I work for is an Internet marketing agency. We specialize in things like search engine optimization and social media marketing. And, if you are a traditional PR firm, we are not the enemy. On the contrary – digital agencies need firms like yours, and need them badly. There are a lot of (ugh, I hate this word) synergies that make collaboration practical and profitable.

The reason we need you is because our clients do business in the real world. We primarily handle online work for niche B2Bs in industries like credit card processing for non-profits and quantitative respirator fit testing equipment. Yes, people look for and buy these services and products online, but the companies that sell them also …

  • Attend trade shows and conventions
  • Speak at local educational events
  • Create news with new products and services
  • Receive awards for community involvement and industry leadership
  • Launch training programs and public service initiatives

All of these activities happen and affect people somewhere. Quite naturally, the companies behind them want more than an online press release and a new web page. They want things such as …

  • Stories placed in local, regional, national, and or international newspapers
  • Stories placed in leading industry trade journals
  • Monitoring of print publications for mentions and interview opportunities

For these three services and many others we often seek out a PR firm that is familiar with the client’s industry, has connections to the print media, and is comfortable collaborating with another agency.

In addition, we sometimes need help in creating and shaping a story line for a local event or award that has been received. We’re frequently asked to help coach executives in working with the media. On more than a few occasions we have been asked to develop a crisis management plan. These are all services where we can use the expertise of a PR firm.

Having traveled in digital marketing circles for a while, I’m quite sure there are hundreds of agencies just in Chicago that are faced with the same challenge: We can create an email marketing campaign that will knock your socks off, but we can’t place a story in the local newspaper to save our lives.

As I said – we need you.

Some digital agencies position themselves as full-service marketing and PR firms; on the flip side, there are established PR firms that claim strong expertise in various online marketing disciplines.

If the claims are real, that’s great. But, if agencies make sweeping claims merely to block out competition, collaboration is a better way to go. No agency can be all things to all people, and clients are sophisticated enough to understand this. As a client, I’d much rather work with the right team regardless of company affiliation.

Identify the digital agencies in your market. Talk to them; find out if they have a need for PR services that compliment what they do well. You may be presently surprised at how many opportunities there are to win new clients and sell new services to your existing ones.

Brad Shorr is Director of Content & Social Media for Straight North, an Internet marketing company based in Chicago. Connect with Brad on Twitter.

 

 

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Branding, Content Marketing and Social Media

Posted on February 17, 2012

Branding, content marketing and social media is the fifth episode in the social media marketing video series. Check out four ways dynamic content marketing can support your business and sales goals.

Whose content is it anyway?

One of the biggest fears companies have today is “letting people talk about their company.”

Whether you have a digital presence, or not, people can will say whatever they want about you and your company, openly and publicly. How does your company relate to social media?

How Dynamic Content Marketing Creates and Nurtures Customer Communities

Being afraid of negative comments can keep companies from fully participating in conversing with their communities. The good news? When you know what people are complaining about, you can respond right away. And, for most companies negative comments add up to less than 5% of their total communication.

The other HUGE fear: Companies don’t know what to say. They’re afraid to look stupid, so they either say very little or worse yet, nothing at all.

Dynamic content marketing fixes both issues.

Transitioning from a “push it out there” to an “always in touch community mindset” nurtures responsive communities. You listen, they talk, conversations happen.

Wouldn’t you love to have your happy customers make the sales for you?

Check out these ways dynamic content marketing can support your business and sales goals:

  • Profile your best customer demographics and psychographics
  • Plot out a publishing calendar for blog posts and social networking updates
  • Use a system to automate your postings – and alert you to comments
  • Build communities on your blog and throughout your social networks

How do you use content marketing to build your brand?

Thanks so much to Gary Bohringer of Bohringer Creative for producing the series. Since its beginnings in 1993 Bohringer Creative has focused on personal service.

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Events: Social Media Club Chicago – The Future of Community Mangement

Posted on February 17, 2012

Every been to an SMC Chicago event? If not, you’re missing out.* Next week, SMC Chicago presents a panel discussion on “The Future of Community Management.”  Beginning at 5:30 on February 23, the event runs until 8:30 at Google’s Chicago offices located at 20 W. Kinzie. Purchase SMC Chicago tickets in advance for $10 or pay $20 at the door. Tickets include Domino’s pizza by Ramon DeLeon and beverages.

The following day, the first ever Community Manager Unconference takes place on Friday February 24 from 12:30-5:00. Plan to go if you’re a community manger or interested in learning how to develop your skills. Students are welcome, with a discounted rate. Purchase Community Manager Unconference tickets. Congrats to SMC Chicago board member, founding mentor of My Community Manager and Lake County Social Networking founder, Tim McDonald, for organizing this amazing event!

SMC Chicago Presents The Future of Community Management

Expect a lively panel discussion that will take you inside the inner workings of community management.

Tim McDonald, Astek senior community manager will moderate the discussion by these panelists:

Amy Ravit Korin, Google Chicago community manager

Jessica Murray, Social Media Club community manager

Sara Altier, EventBrite event evangelist

Sam Ogborn, Walgreen’s community manager

Google Chicago will be giving away a Samsung Galaxy Tab. Contest is open to Social Media Club Chicago and Community Manager UNconference participants who write Google Places reviews between Feb 8 – 24.

About the Social Media Club Chicago Chapter

Established in October 2008, Social Media Club’s primary mission is to expand digital media literacy, promote standard technologies, encourage ethical behavior and share best practices. We bring together journalists, publishers, communications professionals, artists, amateur media creators, citizen journalists, teachers, students, tool makers, and other interested collaborators. Essentially the people who create and consume media who have an interest in seeing the ‘media industry’ evolve for everyone’s benefit. We are more than just users, we are the reason the tools exist – we are the people who communicate our thoughts and ideas near and far. Join us and let’s shape the future together!

Disclosure: I, Barbara Rozgonyi, serve on the SMC Chicago board along with Jeff Willinger, Tim McDonald, Amy Ravit Korin, Jeannie Walters and Carolyn Martin. The video is from our September 2011 Social Media Week Chicago Icons event.

*If you’re not in Chicago, but would like to watch what’s going on around here, follow @smcchicago on twitter.com

How about you – when do you get involved in community management?

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Public Relations and Social Media Marketing Video Tips

Posted on February 16, 2012

Public relations and social media is the fourth episode in the social media marketing video series.

Looking for video tips? Check out these three in a guest post, originally run here in April 2011 by Bob Tripathi, the Founder & CEO of Internet Marketing Training company Instantetraining.com.

3 YouTube & Video Marketing Tricks You Should Not Miss

by Bob Tripathi

YouTube has changed the video landscape with user generated video content and as a result grown so fast that it prompted Google to pay $1.5 billion to acquire the company.

According to ComScore, in March YouTube drove about 143.2 Million unique viewers with an average user spending 275 minutes watching videos on YouTube.

If YouTube were a search engine then it would be the second biggest search engine after Google.

On YouTube, a video can go viral almost instantaneously, if optimized correctly, and generate huge amount of video views. So I met up with Greg Jarboe, Author of “YouTube & Video Marketing: An Hour a Day” and trainer for our upcoming Social Media for Business training workshop to get his insights on optimizing video.

Based on my conversation with Greg Jarboe here are my top 3 takeaways:

1. Embed Video in a press release

Greg narrated the story of Journalist Jill Carroll of Christian Science Monitor who was held hostage in Iraq and was going to do an 11 part series about her experience.

While promoting this 11 part series for Christian Science Monitor they came across some video outtakes of Jill Carroll’s interview video with ABC News. While going through the footage, Greg and team came up with the idea of embedding the video in a press release to give people a feel of what was coming.

Two things they did were:

1) They hosted the video on YouTube and

2) embedded the video in the press release.

Turns out Greg and team were stunned at the number of views their video got on YouTube and the buzz generated through the combination of video and press release.

The point is lot of us are announcing news through press releases almost regularly but not leveraging video. I would say if you can create a press release then you can also create a video.

2. Do Keyword Research on YouTube and not on Google

[I love this one! - editor]

Search engines play a huge role in driving quality traffic that converts. This is due to the fact that search is mainly used when the customer is closer to the purchase decision mindset. As a result, optimizing text in a document or the text surrounding the video can be huge.

On YouTube that means optimizing video title, description, and inserting the right type of keywords as tags.

A common fallacy for search and social marketers is to go straight to the Google keyword tool and use the same keywords that they would use for optimizing non YouTube related content. Instead, Greg suggests using the YouTube keyword tool. This way you get keyword intelligence based on what people are searching for on YouTube.com and not on Google.com

3. Share your video on social media

Besides optimizing your video by using right keywords in tags, description, and title, your video will rank higher in YouTube results if you have a high number of video views and ratings.

This, in YouTube’s eyes, is the popularity factor and one good way to kick start this process is sharing the video with the group you are already popular with. That would be your Facebook friends, Twitter followers, LinkedIn contacts, and so on. This way your video starts getting some traction with video views and with proper optimization as described above hopefully it will start ranking higher on YouTube.

Thanks so much to Gary Bohringer of Bohringer Creative for producing the series. Since its beginnings in 1993 Bohringer Creative has focused on personal service.

How do you incorporate public relations into your social media – or vice versa?

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Search Engine Optimization and Social Media

Posted on February 15, 2012

Search engine optimization and social media is the third episode in the social media marketing video series.

Thanks so much to Gary Bohringer of Bohringer Creative for producing the series. Since its beginnings in 1993 Bohringer Creative has focused on personal service.

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