Content Marketing Today

Jump Start Your Online Public Relations for Free

They call it public relations for a reason.  Although PR methodology has focused primarily on getting the traditional media to write about your company or your client’s company, the goal has always been to influence ‘the public', that is those members of the population that you want to impact positively.

Thanks to the infinite reach of the Internet, you have the capability to extend that influence dramatically.  But, you need to change your approach and your toolkit as part of a 21st century PR strategy.

If your primary public relations strategy still amounts to sending press releases to a finite number of media contacts, you fail to take advantage of the Internet.  You are not reaching the new influencers, to use Paul Gillen’s term.

You need to do do more than reach those influencers. You need to take advantage of the emerging power of social media by creating a new kind of release to reach a much broader audience.  We have written previously about Shift Communications’ template that offers a useful template on which to create your news content: Social Media Release Template Makes It Easier to Get Social.

Now, another powerful tool has emerged: PitchEngine, which lets you create and share social media releases for free.

What You Can Learn from Their Response to My Critical Commentary on Their New Instant Coffee Launch

Last week, I wrote a fairly skeptical post about the launch of Starbucks new instant coffee, Via Ready Brew. I suggested that it might suffer from a sad fate similar to that of 'New' Coke in 1984, in spite of the massive amount of research that both companies have conducted prior to the new product introductions.

In fact, I used the instant coffee launch to illustrate the power of the blogosphere for a mini case study with a class of PR strategy students from Florida Gulf Coast University.  As a guest lecturer, I spoke to the class about content marketing and the growing importance of social media components such as business blogging.  My Starbucks article and the company's good-natured and gracious response  perfectly illustrated the importance of monitoring and responding positively to the blogosphere.

6 Lessons to Learn from a Young Mom Who Has Built a Successful Clothing Brand While Learning Business the Hard Way

Heather Nolte is a self-described 5' 1" Texas firecracker who launched her fun and fashionable  clothing company with tons of energy, but not a shred of entrepreneurial experience.

She targets moms and their very young kids who are desperate for clothing options that are not the same old same old "mommy and me" choices. Her tagline tells the story: "From the crib to the catwalk."

Although Heather was able to get her company up and running on just $2000, she has always had big dreams. Those dreams and her business naivety led her to make some expensive and damaging marketing mistakes very early on.

Instead of conceding defeat, she immediately set out to learn absolutely everything about building a successful business with a combination of creativity and frugality.  What she learned about marketing has made all the difference.

Terrific new book from Paul Gillin takes the mystery out of using online conversations and communities to connect with your customers.

Nothing is more rewarding than to read a book that is at once valuable, timely, and engaging. Secrets of Social Media Marketing is all that and more.  Paul has a genius for making the complex simple enough to understand without oversimplifying.

Is there a need for this book?  You bet!

"There has been more change in the media world in the last five years than in the previous 500."--Peter Koran, President, Media & Advertising, IAC

Understanding social media marketing is so difficult because it seems to be so different.  For decades, most of the rules of communicating with customers stayed the same.  You figured out who you were going to sell to.  You did your best to create a product or service that would have value for that target audience.  And then you blasted out your marketing message in print, on billboards, on radio, and since the 1950s on TV.

Now, and in the future, much of those old methods go right out the virtual window. Happily, Paul's book teaches you exactly how to put social media marketing to work by telling you what to do and precisely how to do it.

My co-author,Joe Pulizzi, delivers a persuasive presentation to Cincinnati PRSA.

Public relations practitioners, like most of their marketing colleagues, are struggling with the new realities posed by the decline of traditional media and the rise of unfamiliar new approaches.  The effective use of content marketing will almost certainly replace much of traditional public and media relations. 

Joe's presentation to the Cincinnati PRSA did a terrific job of explaining why these fundamental changes are happening--and how to leverage content marketing to best serve client marketing needs.

You won't be able to engage and interact with your visitors if they don't click through.

I've been paying a lot of attention recently to the potential power of social media news releases as an effective content marketing weapon.  These releases appeal both to traditional news organizations and to the broader blogosphere.

Marketwire's Social Media 2.0 Plus is a fascinating tool to enable small to medium-size companies to compete for attention with the big guys.  But it will work only if compelling, customer centric headlines lead visitors to access the news release. I was pleasantly surprised to see that a significant percentage of the headlines really did the job. 

As they rush to make their deadlines, be sure reporters can find great content on your website.

Just because your customers are consuming less traditional print news and feature content does not mean that don't still crave information that helps them find solutions to their problems.  Thus, a great news story or feature article that includes information about your company, its people, and its products can drive a ton of new business your way. After all, that's what public relations is all about.

Although you may not have a budget for a public relations staffer or a PR agency, you can still increase the likelihood that you will get solid press coverage by creating a virtual home for reporters. Make it easy for them to do their job by creating a reporter-friendly online media room.  Think of this strategy as content marketing designed to provide relevant and compelling content--not to your customers--but to reporters.

Check Out These Gigantic Goofs So You Can Avoid Them in 2009

We all love top 10 lists, whether they are of the wonderful or of the woeful variety. We can learn from both. 

In that educational spirit and with thanks to the folks at Fineman PR, who put together this hall of shame, here is the list of really awful public relations gaffs from a year that is happily almost over.

1. AIG All-Expense-Paid Retreats ... Paid By YOU

Mere days after receiving an $85 billion federal bailout package, American International Group Inc. dropped nearly half a million dollars on an executive retreat to the posh St. Regis resort, complete with "spa treatments, banquets and golf outings," according to the Associated Press. Public reaction, as many watched 401(k) and other investments deflate, was heated. Ousted AIG CEO Robert Willumstad condemned the fete as "very inappropriate" when questioned by Congress, and presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama said participating executives "should be fired" during a debate with Sen. John McCain. AIG compounded the damage when it proceeded with an $86,000 New England hunting retreat. New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo promptly launched a fraud probe, saying "our message to AIG today is simple: The party is over."

Learn from their mistakes so you can score an 'A' on your news communications

You don't have to be a billion dollar bank to send out an effective news release.  But you can learn from their mistakes without having to spend a nickel. 

The folks at HubSpot have created another useful--and free--tool to assess whether your press releases deserve a passing grade within the all important web environment. We had previously written about their awesome website grader.  Click here to read that article.

Unfortunately, Fifth Third Bank scores a dismal 29 out of 100 based on HubSpot's analysis. Their tool evaluates Internet press releases by examining the elements that make it easy to read and respond to the release.

Our readers flocked to a broad range of content marketing-related issues over the past 12 months. In fact, the breadth of topics surprised me. Here's the Cliff's Notes version of what you can find:

• Unlearn Traditional PR
• Transform website into sales machine
• The Secret to Online Marketing
• Authenticity at Starbucks
• Sexy Headline Secrets from Cosmo
• A Really Bad Website Concept
• 6 Reasons to Publish an eNewsletter
• 5 Reasons to Launch a Blog-powered Website
• 6 Ways to Survive the Recession with Content Marketing
• Is it Time to Abandon Yellow Pages Advertising

Read on for a quick take on the posts that readers like you made made most popular.