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Tips for Optimizing Your News Releases

Posted by Jason Swartz on January 29, 2010 at 11:13 AM

By now, optimizing your news releases may seem a bit "101." However, many companies continue missing the boat by writing great content that no one can find. Before drafting your next release, consider the following tips. These should help increase the visibility of your release, help drive qualified traffic to your site and even help your site's organic search rankings.

Start with keywords - Before writing your first word, develop a list of potential keyword phrases that are relevant to your topic. Once established, cross-check those keyword phrases with a tool like WordTracker or Google's Keyword tool, which will give you an idea of how many people actually search for that term and how competitive it is. From there, you can decide on three or four relevant phrases to inject throughout your release.

Cut the cute titles - The title of your release is one of the most important areas to inject relevant keywords, as it's one of the first places search engines will look to find content matching someone's search query. A lot of releases I've seen have cutesy titles, which wastes this valuable keyword space. Instead, try writing a title that's more direct, to the point and contains relevant keyword terms. Also, try keeping your titles to 65-70 characters. Lengthy titles will get overlooked by search engines and can be hard to read by your audience.

Links - Links are another important part a good optimization strategy. Consider each link to your Web site as a "vote." When search engines see that your site has a lot of "votes," they give you more relevancy and will rank you higher than your competitors for certain keyword phrases. Adding a few text links throughout your release by linking relevant keywords to specific pages on your Web site will help increase your number of inbound links, especially as your release is picked up by other sites. Try limiting these links to two words or so.

Write keyword-rich copy - Your release should be beefed up with relevant keywords. Ideally, these should be placed in the first couple of sentences, and then throughout the release where they're relevant. Don't over do it or try to force keywords where they don't make sense.

Use headers - Try breaking up lengthy paragraphs with keyword-rich subheads. Your copy will be easier to read and you'll have injected keywords into another important area search engines look when trying to find content to serve in their results for a given search query.

Use multimedia to tell your story - Your news release shouldn't be a dissertation. If you've got a lot to say, try using images and/or video to help tell your story. Most of the major wire services offer a platform to support multimedia, so you should take advantage. Not only will it help tell your story in a more interesting way, but it can also help expand your visibility through image searches and video searches -- in addition to the standard list of search results.

Add Social Media Sharing - In addition to making your release easier to find, you should also make it easier to share. Having icons for Facebook, Twitter, digg, delicious, etc. will help readers promote your release through their favorite social network and drive organic buzz for your story.

Cross Promote - Don't forget to use your other Web properties for some old fashioned, shameless self promotion (assuming it's not ALL about you). Post the release to your own Web site, blog, LinkedIn profile, etc. This will expand its visibility.

Keep it simple - A good, optimized release will be short, simple and to the point. It will also contain the above ingredients top help make writing it worth your while. Don't spend too much time trying to find the "perfect" keywords or stress about whether or not you've place keywords in the exact location for top rankings. Search engines are constantly changing the way they serve content, so there's not a silver bullet. Start by getting your feet wet with the above tips and you'll be well on your way to becoming a news release SEO wizard.

Again , most of the major wire services will offer some type of platform to help make the optimization of your release very easy. Many even have their own keyword tools, templates and analytics tools to help measure your efforts.

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The Art of the Apology as told by GQ Magazine

Posted by Matt Kucharski on January 23, 2010 at 10:26 AM

New York Observer and sometime GQ columnist Jason Gay has a nice little piece in the 2.10 issue of GQ on why men are so lousy at apologies. While he's talking about your average person, he could be talking about your average company and how it acts in the face of a crisis.

In case you don't have time to pick up the magazine (do it -- there's a great piece on cooking essentials too), here's a summary of Gay's top 10 rules for apologies along with commentary from yours truly -- average people and average companies take heed:

Rule 1: Don't just apologize to feel better -- apologize to move on. It's about changing the dialog from what happened to what will happen going forward.

Rule 2: At the risk of sounding obvious, actually apologize. No, folks, explaining why you did what you did is not an apology.

Rule 3: Don't let pride get in the way. Everyone makes mistakes. Leaders admit them.

Rule 4: No, you cannot apologize via email. The more serious the transgression, the more personal the apology must be. I'm guessing that text I sent my wife when I missed her birthday didn't cut it.

Rule 5: Tell the whole truth. If you tell a partial apology, you'll just have to tell another one later. And another one later. And another...

Rule 6: Know when to shut up. Variation on Rule 1. That apology can be so cathartic that you want to do it again and again. Resist the urge. The more you explain, the more you have to explain...

Rule 7: Don't expect instant forgiveness. An apology doesn't automatically make everything better. Your 401k is gonna take some time to come back. So's your reputation.

Rule 8: Get back to work. What you do is ultimately going to determine your recovery much more than what you say.

Rule 9: Don't expect your spouse (or your customer) to stick by you. Apologies don't mean that people won't be pissed off. You've done some damage. Some will stick by you, some will bolt. Those who bolt shouldn't be criticized for leaving. You're the one who screwed up.

Rule 10: Time heals all wounds - even wounds by having sex with lots of people in Las Vegas. The author was referring to Tiger Woods. Please don't read anything into the fact that I'm writing this from my hotel room in Vegas at this moment. Honey, I'll text you later...

AND A LITTLE BIT OF VALUE ADD -- here are Gay's 5 worst apologies in history -- and he's nailed it:

1. Jimmy Swaggert. The first one ("I have sinned against you Lord") was surpassed by the second one after being caught with a hooker ("The Lord told me it's none of your business.")

2. Mel Gibson. "I was drunk and that's why I called you a dirty Jew."

3. Michael Richards. "Jerry will apologize for me in person. I'll just join from this comfy, safe satellite feed."

4. Allen Iverson. I can't begin to describe this one. I'm sure there was an apology in there somewhere.

5. John Edwards. Yes, I had sex with her, but the kid can't be mine. Well, maybe it can be...

6. (A freebie from me) Dick Cheney's apology for shooting his friend -- 5 days later -- on Fox News. Sort of like apologizing to the mirror.

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Using current events to fuel marketing campaigns.

Posted by Tony Morse on January 15, 2010 at 10:07 AM

I'm all about seizing the moment and taking advantage of real life events to help enhance a marketing campaign. Several weeks ago Tiger Woods was the theme many PR firms used to highlight poor crisis communications. For a moment I thought Minneapolis-based Parasole would provide a great example. Before I Tweeted their novel approach, however, I did a little digging.

The back story - Monday afternoon two guys landed their planes on a Minneapolis lake to get lunch. Turns out Minneapolis lakes are illegal to land on, unlike lakes in most other cities. The police met the pilots at their planes after lunch and issued tickets. News reports said they got a burger, but not where they went. I actually gave it a moment's thought to what restaurants are in that area, but that was about it.

Current events meet promotional opportunity - Wednesday I received an email from Burger Jones (a Parasole restaurant). The subject was "Burger Jones Honors Naughty Pilots" and offered an opportunity this Saturday to order "The Mile High Club Burger" and make a donation to the defense fund for the pilots. (Each of the two pilots face up to a $1000 fine). Creative, huh? Tweets from Burger Jones (@burgerjones) refer to many ways to get there (bus, car, plane...). I like it. I also like that it creates a way for the restaurant to help the pilots pay for a lunch that ended up being VERY expensive.

After some digging - As it turns out, that's not quite the story. A Star-Tribune article reported that there isn't a defense fund for the pilots. Restaurant spokespeople said that if people give money, they'll donate it to "a favorite women's charity [they] support."

If only they'd actually given any donations to help the pilots, it could have been a very cool campaign. Timely, empathetic and a little edgy.

Instead it feels like they're just taking advantage of the pilots, doesn't it? What other campaigns could the restaurant have created? Can you think of other campaigns that successfully leveraged current events?

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Get your boss on the Twitter highway.

Posted by Bob Brin on January 10, 2010 at 5:22 PM

When your boss looks at Twitter, she may see drivel in an indecipherable shorthand akin to gang graffiti. To get her attention, you'll need to show her the dialog she's missing out on. Partners talking to competitors. Analysts talking about the company or products. Maybe people talking about her. Once you've shown her there's a big world out there, give her a crash course in the rules of the road, including your corporate social media guidelines. Then set her up on TweetDeck or some similar dashboard to make it as easy as possible. Here are some suggestions to get your boss rolling.

Practice in the parking lot
Start your boss tweeting in a safe, confined area with just a few colleagues & employees. That gives her a chance to learn the shorthand and the difference between a tweet, a retweet and a direct message. Of course, unless she keeps her posts protected, there's a "risk" that someone could shout "Hey, the CMO's on Twitter!" So make sure she's ready to carry on a conversation.

Circle the neighborhood
Next, broaden the circle to some friendly faces outside the firm. Business partners and customers with whom he has a close connection will be both engaging and beneficial for your boss. He'll quickly see how the lines between business and personal blur.

Merge onto the highway
Next, it's time to broaden beyond those who HAVE to respect your boss to those whose respect he must earn. These might be industry influencers, such as analysts, bloggers or reporters. Start with those familiar faces that he already follows in traditional media and conferences. Who does he respect? How about leaders from unrelated industries? Whose circle does he want to be in? Who does he want to listen to him?

Head for the big city
Now it's time to venture into the big city. Your boss could consider following competitors. Especially those with whom he shares a cordial relationship. It's not always appropriate, and it may even be against your social media guidelines, but it can yield some great information and other potential connections. Plus, it sends a signal of mutual respect. At the least, he should begin following prospects. Then look for opportunities to engage them in conversations.

Most execs already have the tools for Twitter: confidence, something to say, great networking skills and common sense. With a little coaching from you, they should be able to see beyond the drivel to what drives business.

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