Category Archives: Social Media

SEO a Must for Ad Agency News Releases

BurrellesLuce has some helpful tips for search engine optimization when writing a news release:

1. Treat your release like a mini web page. As always, a release needs to be crisp and meaningful. In today’s digital world, however, you should enhance a release with keywords, embedded links, and multimedia content.

2. Put your company name in the headline. If the release topic doesn’t lend itself to a headline mention, aim for the first paragraph or a subhead. These are also the best positions for placing relevant keywords or search terms.

3. Provide a hyperlink to the company’s website. Insert a hyperlink at the first mention of the company’s name, and in the release boilerplate.

4. Include additional search terms far up in the release. In the context of the entire release, however, keyword density should be limited to about two percent of total word count.

5. Add graphics, including your logo. Attractive graphics can help you stand out in a crowd. And use of your logo definitely heightens brand recognition.

6. Hyperlink key terms to related content on your site. Examples of key terms include a list of features, a product application note, or a product homepage.

7. Encourage distributors, user groups, and industry or professional associations to link to your release. Point out the value of your announcement for their customers and members. If your news is relevant enough, they may include the link. And the more links, the better the odds of moving up in search engine results.

8. Take advantage of the SEO enhancement features offered by your content distribution service. Among other benefits, those enhancements significantly extend the amount of time that your content can be found through a search.

9. Consider preparing twin releases. Not identical twins, but fraternal ones: a “just the facts” version for direct distribution to print editors, and an SEO version for web distribution, using the same core content.

10. Publish the release on your own website. Don’t forget this easy step, since your website is part of the media universe scoured by search engines.

Don Beehler provides public relations consulting services to small- and medium-sized advertising agencies and businesses.

Social Media Can Generate Qualified Leads for Ad Agencies and Their Clients

According to the Social Media Marketing Industry Report, nearly half of the marketers surveyed said social media generated qualified leads. Twitter, blogs, LinkedIn and Facebook were listed as the top tools used, in that order.

The study, which surveyed about 900 marketers, also found that while 88 percent use some form of social media to market their businesses, 72 percent have either just started or have been using it only a few months.

“One in three marketers indicated identifying the best practices, measuring results and knowing where to begin as their top questions when marketing with social media,” the report said. No doubt many marketers will be looking to their ad agencies for answers to these questions.

To see the full report, visit: http://marketingwhitepapers.s3.amazonaws.com/smss09/SocialMediaMarketingIndustryReport.pdf

Don Beehler provides public relations consulting services to small- and medium-sized advertising agencies and businesses.

Ad Agencies Can Use Social Media to Transform Their PR

To what extent is social media affecting the public relations industry? According to the Denver Business Journal, “in the past two years, social media has redefined the entire PR business.”

While I don’t think traditional print and broadcast journalists are going away anytime soon, it is true that social media such as blogs, Twitter and various networking sites have given PR professionals a whole new bag of tools to get their messages out to fragmented audiences.

With client budgets shrinking, using social media as part of your PR mix is a smart and cost-effective way to engage customers and prospects at a more personal level. And, as the article points out, creating online communities can lead to a surge in business, even in the midst of a recession.

To read the entire article, visit: http://denver.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2009/05/18/story6.html?b=1242619200^1829293&ana=e_vert

Don Beehler provides public relations consulting services to small- and medium-sized advertising agencies and businesses.

Agency Blog Most Important Social Media Tool?

Newt Barrett with Content Marketing Strategies lists six reasons why your blog is your most important social media tool.

Reason number one: “To have meaningful social media impact, you must provide a critical mass of content that will position you and your organization as thought leaders within your market niche. Nothing works better than a blog to achieve that objective. Over time, your blog will contain an increasingly rich and relevant reservoir of information that serves as a Google magnet. Thus, you will become more and more findable by those customers you need to attract.”

Read the rest of his reasons at http://contentmarketingtoday.com/2009/05/01/6-reasons-why-your-blog-is-your-most-important-social-media-tool

Don Beehler provides public relations consulting services to small- and medium-sized advertising agencies and businesses.

Is a Blog Tour Right for Your Ad Agency?

How do you know if a blog tour is right for your agency to promote a book, product or service?  The Blog Tour Spot (www.blogtourspot.com) provides some helpful questions to consider before deciding whether it’s worth your time and effort:

1. What is your goal(s) for the blog tour?
What do you hope to accomplish by doing a blog tour? Think about this in both general and specific terms. Remember that your goals should be specific enough that you can define what achieving them looks like, whether through your gut feeling or with hard statistics. So far, our studies have shown blog tours to be ineffective at selling books in a measurable way. They seem to be effective at initiating relationships and building upon networks, which may eventually translate into sales, but don’t expect a blog tour to give an immediate boost to the sale of your book or product.

2. How does this fit into your overall marketing plan?
A blog tour should not make up your entire marketing plan; it’s only one small piece. Your blog tour should support your overall marketing goals and supplement the other activities you will conduct. Consider ways to leverage other pieces of your marketing plan to boost your blog tour and vice versa. For example, if you will be conducting a radio interview, consider mentioning your blog tour during the spot. Be sure to include the dates and times of your radio interviews within the blog tour information as well.

3. Why are you considering a blog tour?
This seems like an obvious question, but you really need to think through the answer. While a blog tour is cost effective because of limited overhead, it still requires dedicated time on your part. Designing and organizing the tour is definitely an investment of time if you want to do it well. Even if you hire someone to organize it for you, you still must be available for interviews, guest posting and making comments.

4. What are your expectations about the tour, how it’s run, how it’s designed?
Take a look at how other blog tours have run and decide what you like and dislike about their design. Think about your goals and consider the type of design that will best support them.  After thinking through these four questions, you should be in a better place to discern whether or not a blog tour should be a part of your marketing plan.

Don Beehler provides public relations consulting services to small- and medium-sized advertising agencies and businesses.

Ad Agency Tips for Web Page Usability

Dr. Jakob Nielsen, who has been called “one of the world’s foremost experts in Web usability” by Business Week magazine, says that people rarely read Web pages word by word; instead, they scan a page and pick out individual words and sentences.

To make Web pages more readable through scannable text, Dr. Nielsen recommends writers use:

  • highlighted keywords (hypertext links serve as one form of highlighting; typeface variations and color are others)
  • meaningful sub-headings (not “clever” ones)
  • bulleted lists
  • one idea per paragraph (users will skip over any additional ideas if they are not caught by the first few words in the paragraph)
  • the inverted pyramid style, starting with the conclusion
  • half the word count (or less) than conventional writing

Don Beehler provides public relations consulting services to small- and medium-sized advertising agencies and businesses.

Social Networking Provides Competitive Edge to Ad Agencies and Their Clients

With businesses increasingly turning to online social networking Web sites such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, ad agencies need to be a step ahead of their clients in understanding how these powerful communication tools can provide a competitive edge.

“Any business leader who wants to be successful in the future needs to become comfortable with social networking,” noted the chairman of a law firm in a South Florida Business Journal article about online social networking.

Read the article here: http://southflorida.bizjournals.com/southflorida/stories/2009/04/27/focus1.html?b=1240804800^1815122&page=1

Don Beehler provides public relations consulting services to small- and medium-sized advertising agencies and businesses.

Paid Bloggers Give Ad Agencies another Communication Tool

According to a Wall Street Journal article, there are nearly as many people making their living blogging as there are lawyers in the U.S.:   http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124026415808636575.html

 “America’s Newest Profession,” as the article dubs those engaged in paid bloggers, is exploding.  Interestingly, the Journal notes “as bloggers have increased in numbers, the number of journalists has significantly declined.”  Sounds like a trend worth watching.

Don Beehler provides public relations consulting services to small- and medium-sized advertising agencies and businesses.

 


New Ad Agency Specializes in Social Media

In what likely will become a growing trend, a new agency called Provenance Digital Media in Birmingham, Ala., is specializing in social media and search marketing.

You can take an interactive role in forming the agency by visiting: http://www.provenancedigital.com. A companion blog will chart its creation.

Don Beehler provides public relations consulting services to small- and medium-sized advertising agencies and businesses.

Targeted Blogs Can Help Ad Agencies Grow

Darren Rowse with ProBlogger lists 21 ways to write posts that are guaranteed to grow your blog:

1. Write something useful
2. Write something unique
3. Write something newsworthy
4. Write something first
5. Write something that makes those who read it smarter
6. Write something controversial
7. Write something insightful
8. Write something that taps into a fear people have
9. Write something that helps people achieve
10. Write something that elicits a response
11. Write something that gives a sense of belonging
12. Write something passionately
13. Write something that interprets or translates news for people
14. Write something inspirational
15. Write something that tells a story
16. Write something that solves a problem
17. Write something that gets a laugh
18. Write something that saves people time or money
19. Write something opinionated
20. Write something that is a resource
21. Write something about something ‘cool‘

Many of these tips meet the criteria for a good pitch to the news media as well: something unique, newsworthy, first, controversial, etc.

Ad agencies are increasingly growing their business through blogs that convey their expertise and reach particular audiences. If your agency doesn’t have a blog yet, make it a priority to start one in 2009.

To visit Darren’s blog, go to: http://www.problogger.net/

Don Beehler provides public relations consulting services to small- and medium-sized advertising agencies and businesses.