Public Relations Tips

Success Stories Combining PR With Social Media

According to authors Reis and Trout, “The birth of a brand is achieved with publicity, not advertising. A new brand must be capable of generating favorable publicity in the media or it won’t have a chance in the marketplace. Anita Roddick built the Body Shop into a global brand with no advertising, but with massive amounts of publicity. On the other hand, Miller Brewing spent $50 million in advertising to launch a brand called Miller Regular. The brand generated no publicity and very little sales.”

PR or public relations is used to generate buzz about a brand using emotions to charge your senses. On the other hand, advertising’s use is to get you to purchase the product or service of that brand (built up brand if done correctly).

In today’s world of advertising, social media has been on the rise and it is here to stay. Moreover, there is one reason for this - conversation. Instead of companies telling you what to buy, you have ability to hear experiences/reviews from other consumers including yourself.

I have two successful examples of using PR along with Social Media to generate buzz. When you write a newsworthy and emotionally charged press release, you have the ability to use a distribution service such as PR News Wire to help you be picked up by major publications. In fact, this helps your SEO and other social media efforts by generating buzz of your compelling and shareable content.

In my first example, the national PR/online marketing campaign we executed resulted in media coverage from over 37 news stations and publications. In my second example, our PR/online marketing campaign for Help My Resume grew our consumer base by 37.2%.

More than anything else, PR is used to establish credibility and not hard sales. Advertising is used for more the latter. When your company or service is being searched, take advantage of PR and use it as part of your social media strategy.

Blog: http://MarketingByDeepak.com
LinkedIn: http://Linkedin.com/in/deepak5150
Twitter: @dgupta5150

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Reputation is All About Big Business, Isn’t It?

Reputations can be fragile. Only last week one of my current students contacted me through my blog to ask whether Steve Jobs had done a Good Job with iPhone4’s technical difficulties. My immediate thought was a yes he had. But more importantly why? And how can we apply corporate lessons to our own smaller businesses?

Jobs is in charge of an innovative business which has brought us the Apple Mac, iPod and iPhone which have revolutionized the way we communicate. Before Apple, Microsoft made us all master DOS. So in our hearts and minds, we thank Apple for giving us icon led technology.

It is for this reason above anything that ensures Apple’s survival when occasionally it slips up with the iPhone’s reception difficulties, the virtually redundant Air and the shrugging reception to the iPad.

Many have pointed to Steve Jobs’ presentation skills as the major factor. These help of course. Jobs reacted well to the crisis in his fireside chat oh I was just going fishing but thought I would call in on you guys first approach, promising all customers a protective frame while acknowledging that there was a problem.

The physical cost to Apple was millions. But very few of us have stopped using iPhone as, at the very least, the gauge by which we buy Android, Blackberry and any other pretender to the Smart Device throne. Apart from a few joyous train spotters poking fun at Apple, the blog fest has died down and iPhone sales do not appear to have been affected.

Contrast this to the battering BP and Toyota received over a period of weeks, not to mention billions of pounds in share value, and we can clearly see three major factors emerging.

1) Branding: Apple’s corporate brand is strong. Arguably BP and Toyota’s were too. But no corporation is impregnable. It will take months, probably months to recover customer and shareholder confidence in BP and Toyota and their flagship brands.

2) Speed: But Apple reacted quickly to their error. BP tried to but failed. Toyota didn’t even try, inexplicably waiting days before releasing mixed messages to a worried customer base.

3) Face: Apple had Jobs to turn to while the other companies fielded two very bemused looking chiefs who had to go before confidence could begin to be restored. In BPs case, add the US President to the equation and “Houston we have a problem.”

Note in this article not one mention of PR or “spin doctoring.” Reputation is PR. Stakeholders want to be re-assured that their decision to buy into the product was a sound one. If a company can do that, press releases are simply gravy. If you’ve got ‘em on your side, keep ‘em there.

So what lessons can be transferred to our small businesses? In part two, we will look at some ideas as to how your brand reputations can be enhanced with only a few tweeks to your existing processes - whether you are selling a digital product or a physical one.

Keith Thompson MA CMIPR PG Cert is a Senior Lecturer in Public Relations at Liverpool John Moores University after having spent 20 years in professional practice as PR and a TV producer. He runs his own blog at http://effective-media.co.uk and you are welcome to download a press release template at http://www.effective-media.co.uk/index.php/2009/08/16/press-release-writing-template/

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Avenue Marketing Press Releases

Avenue marketing is an essential to any size of business. You should think about writing a press release if you want to gain publicity. Therefore, you should hire a company to come up with a press release for you if you do not want to write one yourself. Hire a company that is well versed with press releases.

However, there are times that you may not be up for the idea of getting a professional to write them for you. There is nothing unusual about writing one yourself. The idea is to have one that can grasp attention. Here are simple tips that you can follow to get going as soon as possible.

1. Stay within a standard format.

Press releases have a certain prescribed format. These make the process easier for the editors to go through it and find out the gist of the write up. They will be able to pick out what is useful and what is not. Your contacts are very important at the time you present.

2. Have a catchy headline

Anyway, all press releases contain headlines. What will set you apart from the rest is a powerful one that will command attention. Do not let your headline sound like a medical prescription in the line of now running. Put some more swagger in it.

3. Drop the idea of using attachments.

The problem with sending attachments along with your press releases is that you will decrease the chances of your emails being opened because people fear getting their computers infected with viruses and trojans..

4. Crosscheck your copy for errors.

There is good grammar check software that will help you screen out all the errors you could have made. Most of these mistakes are avoidable and getting editors to take you seriously will depend in a way on this.

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