Unless you’ve got a time machine, it’s not always realistic to achieve a sustainable CPA (cost per action) by way of paid cost-per-click online marketing channels alone. This post offers a pragmatic multi-channel scenario to prove the significant financial benefits of SEO, social media, and public relations for CPA-pumping traffic and conversion. In the early days, target CPAs were usually attainable solely by paid online advertising. That said, for years we’ve advised clients to establish their customer base while advertising costs in new channels remained low. For instance, in 1999 and 2000 the rising cost of Overture PPC blew our doors off as the bargains waned. Early adopters who had already built their brand with inexpensive/high yield pay per click were already hooked up.  Others were left in the dust.

The phenomena of continual cost increases, commensurate to new advertising channels’ growth, proved especially radical in 2003 and 2004 as Google’s AdWords search PPC program steadily increased in cost. The 2X-4X per-click cost upsurges were no surprise to those early adopters, who realized the emergent PPC channel’s value. Starting in 2008, aimClear counseled clients to leverage Facebook’s massive growth before the general business public caught on to the might and focus of social graph PPC. We were oh-so right. The $0.30 cent click in August ‘08 now can cost upwards of $3.10.  Hate to say, “We told ya so…”

Yes, there have been killings to be made for online marketers who embraced nascent channels and rode them to glory, but those splendid days are long gone. For many products it’s just no longer possible to attain reasonable target-CPAs with paid advertising alone. Sure, AdWords, Facebook Ads, Microsoft Ad Center, YouTube, boutique CPM banner buys, emergent mobile networks, trade desks and other paid advertising channels offer fertile and focused marketplaces, but the cost of these channels alone or in combination, in many cases is just too high now.  More than ever, diluting the CPA to a reasonable price absolutely requires SEO (search engine optimization), social media, public relations and other classic means to drive focused website traffic and conversion.  Ready? Get our your calculators out marketers. Here we go!

Make Projections, Channel By Channel
More and more, prospective paid advertising clients are coming to us with a target CPA and projected conversion volume that’s based on fantasy as opposed to what can actually be accomplished with only paid. Don’t get me wrong… we’ll strive for any goal remotely possible with vim and vigor. That said, you might wish for 5,000 monthly conversions at a sub-$15.00 CPA and less then $80K of total monthly expense including agency fees, but wishing does not make it so. The reality is that these days target-CPAs are evermore dependent on other marketing modes a la SEO, PR and PR driven news.

The best starting point to determine how much organic lift is required is to look at each paid channel and do realistic projections. As a caveat, be mindful that projections in any channel are vertical-dependent and should be expressed as a range of possibilities. One marketer’s overpriced conversion is another’s insanely cheap win. We’ll start with reasonably attainable numbers in an “average” vertical, if there is such a thing. In each channel we may be able to sharpen both CTR (click through ratio) to lower the CPC and then tweak landing page conversion. But for now, we’ll examine reasonable projection points to start the discussion. For the purpose of this exercise, we’re aiming at monthly numbers that are on the lower side of very good.

Let’s start with Google AdWords. We’re commencing with only 400K monthly impressions because, for our hypothetical KPI, we’ve limited the fruit of our keyword research to true “shopping” searches where users clearly demonstrate conversion intent.

Great! Let’s do projections for the next paid channel, in quest of our target-CPA and conversion volume. Facebook Ads are an entirely different animal. Featuring high impressions and much lower CTR, when done properly, conversion can rival search. Interestingly enough the high impression volume tends to impact search channels with branding power. Realistically, to be most focused, conversion count from Facebook Ads may be lower with a higher CPA. It stands to reason. As awesome as FB social graph targeting can be, it’s still contextual or “walk by traffic” and not quite as focused always as search laced with obvious intent. The numbers below are a bit ambitious but doable for shrewd marketers.

When wielded in the right hands, Google’s contextual product, the “Display Network,” can yield results roughly analogous to Facebook display. We’ll project 12 million impressions. The statistics below are common. The Display Network’s targeting is not quite as focused as Facebook Ads so, in our experience, it converts at a slightly lower rate. Again, keep in mind that every one of these channels is vertical-dependent and should be projected in a range of scenarios. Higher CTR in the Display Network is possible.

For some products, especially B2B that can be targeted to certain occupations, LinkedIn Ads can be an effective channel. LinkedIn Ads are overpriced but can be used to push conversion volume and brand if you don’t mind hurting the overall CPA a bit. Volume and branding matter so let’s include LinkedIn. We’ll keep things totally focused and only plan on 2 million monthly impressions. The CTR will be lower and CPC higher. Though the overall expense is relatively low, LinkedIn would be the first channel to eliminate to lower the cost in this scenario. However, our tests show that LinkedIn’s branding effect seems to lift search CTR and conversion enough to justify the small amount of conversions at a higher CPA.  That’s a whole blog post in itself.

Dial in typical Bing/Yahoo! search.  The impressions are less than Google. Since it’s search, the CPA will likely be attractive compared to other channels in the paid advertising mix.

SEO Factor: Existing Organic Blended With CPC Channels
Most of these paid case studies also include at least one organic traffic source at some level. Often the main website is not fully optimized for discoverability, CTR from SEO and conversion, but still performs to an extent. Once your credentials are verified, Google Webmaster Tools provides a high level overview of impressions and CTR data for the most prevalent organic queries driving traffic to your site. It’s not a complete picture, but is still quite helpful.

Here are metrics of an established site sporting SEO results that could be considered underperforming. The fact that there are only 20K monthly visitors is not a red flag on it’s own, though we’d like to see a higher visitor count. The low organic CTR and conversion site-wide are much bigger problems. Perhaps the title tags are optimized to rank and not focused on incenting clicks. Or worse, they’re not optimized at all. The site itself most likely does not have much of a conversion focus. Still, traffic and conversion that already exists count towards the overall CPA. Factor in existing SEO traffic. For perspective on organic impressions, Google Webmaster Tools reports that aimClear Blog had 300K organic impressions from June 29 to July 29 with approximately a 1.8% CTR site-wide. The projections below are for an established industrial site with many more pages and a much lower CTR.

Add It All Up! The Average CPA, Paid & Existing Organic
Add it all up for a look at the overall CPA and conversion volume.  This assumes your team can execute AdWords search, Google Display Network, Facebook Ads, Microsoft AdCenter and LinkedIn Ads in-house… possibly a tall order.

Calculate Agency Fees
It’s rare to have a company, spending only a half million a year on paid advertising, that has the kind of expertise to accomplish the numbers put forward in these projections. Let’s be real and add in $10K a month in agency fees, a relatively low price for that much paid-channel work at least in the first six months. The agency fee, in this scenario, increases the CPA by about 17.5% from $23.85 to $28.90. It always cracks me up when prospective clients try to negotiate down from our first-six-months price proposal for this much work. Each $1K of agency fees only effects the overall CPA by approximately 2%… hardly enough to squabble about if the agency can actually figure out how to achieve sales or generate leads on the Internet.

The SEO Effect
Now comes the fun part. Great organic CTR is (of course) dependent on well-written title tags and either well-crafted descriptions or, in this case, social buzz that recommends the content.

It’s not uncommon to achieve 15%-18% organic CTR for queries with an average rank in the top 2 positions and 1.8% CTR site-wide total across all organic impressions from any average rank. We’ve seen even higher CTRs, upon occasion, for longer tail searches.

Aside from classic and emergent SEO ranking factors, focus search engine optimization on optimized title tag writing for CTR and landing page conversion.  Design those ads to earn qualified clicks and not just comma delimited SEO junk.  We’ll also start a modest content program to attain traffic from even more mid and long tail keywords. There are many on-page methods to lift conversion, including standardized form locations, phone number placement, contextually relevant calls to action in the header, etc…

A good principle to keep in mind is that, in SEO, every page is a landing page. Treat every page in the site as such.

Let’s raise the agency fees to $12K a month over the first six months and dial in the improved performance bump. Over six months the additional $12,000 tacked onto our agency of record deal is fair. Assume that we are able to increase the traffic about 28.5% but pump CTR and conversion in a big way.

Against agency fees, the CPC for the additional 36K SEO monthly visitors is about $0.05 (5.5 cents?) and overall SEO CPA will now be $2.60. Of course, the reason the SEO work only costs $12K over six months is because it’s an add-on to the agency of record paid advertising deal. The SEO by itself would be higher standalone, but still a great value. Terrific! Now the average CPA is falling and conversion count rising.  Still, we’re shy of that fantasy sub-$15 CPA and we don’t have enough conversion yet. Time for good old fashioned PR and social media!

Public Relations, News & Social Factors
Straight up: PR and social can pay richly. At the end of the day well-organized buzz matters a ton, financially. Like SEO, public relations and social media are far from free, but are a great value. That New York Times article or on-site content that goes incredibly hot on Facebook and Twitter can move the needle significantly.

It’s not uncommon for a major media mention, on-site viral event or mainstream article to drive 100K visitors in a month. In reality the traffic blast can be much higher. The visitors are often highly qualified, showing up on the site with conversion in mind. We’re projecting a relatively modest 2.8% conversion rate for the PR/social/buzz/news traffic. It could be higher.

Awesome! Increase the six month agency of record deal to $20K a month and factor in the additional conversions. There’s your 5K per month sub-$15 conversions, calculated after agency fees.

It should be no surprise that the cost of online advertising has risen to a point that it is no longer less expensive than legacy channels like television and mainstream print. The massive adoption of online since the mid-‘90s represented a shift of where consumers are reached, of epic proportions.  These days, there are very few traffic “steals” out there in paid advertising land.

For that reason, attaining affordable and sustainable target CPAs requires organic conversions from SEO and PR. These clicks are not “free,” but even when factored in with agency costs associated with driving the conversion, still dilute the CPA of pay per click only marketing significantly.  Happy hunting, marketers!

Marty Weintraub is author of Killer Facebook Ads (Wiley/Sybex 2011) and CEO of aimClear®, an online marketing agency that has managed Facebook ad campaigns generating over 10 billion impressions internationally.

Header Image © Helder Almeida – Fotolia (dot) com

The St. Paul Art Crawl in downtown St. Paul started with a flourish and ended in a bang. Excited art crawlers marauded the streets of the city and wandered through the participating buildings, anxious to bask in the excitement of seeing the work of new and established artists alike. aimClear was thrilled to contribute to the event by hosting the work of several artists in our St. Paul office. Read on for more!

On Friday, April 29th, the event kicked off with eager art crawlers coming and going, asking questions of the artists and perusing the art on display, until 9 P.M. Day Two began promptly at noon and lasted until early evening, with featured artists on hand to mingle with and chat up interested attendees. The final day of the crawl, Sunday, May 1st, followed Saturday’s schedule and culminated in a successful weekend for all. aimClear was proud to feature the artwork of three talented artists, Kyron Robinson, Steve Berger and Brian Netten, and sit down with each artist individually to ask them about their work.

Kyron Robinson, known for his bold color choices and broad brush strokes, featured six pieces of art during the weekend, with two of his pieces in our space. His affinity for painting wildlife spurs from his passion for life and his fear that endangered wildlife will soon become extinct. Originally from Freeport, Bahamas, Kyron got his start painting portraits of people on the beaches of the Bahamian islands. As time wore on, he dabbled in painting old, Cuban cars that were forbidden to be imported into the country once Castro came into power – he loved the big, bright style the Cuban artists embodied and cherished, and he still holds this style of painting today. With such a robust spectrum of talents and interests, Kyron’s artistic style and subjects continue to evolve as he explores his own mind and tests his limits.

One blustery winter not too long ago, Kyron was forced to decide whether to pay for his rent or his electricity: he opted for rent. He recalls that the frigid nights and below zero temperatures fostered some of his best art work to date; he holds this period in his life close to his heart, saying it allowed him to reach an unchartered level of spirituality that he strives to achieve every day. If Kyron could be granted one wish, he would feverishly rub the genie’s lamp and request two more hands to help him work on his large, recycled canvases such as the giant lion below:

The next artist whose work was displayed throughout our space was Brian Netten, impasto extraordinaire and creator of “La Forêt Enchantée,” an exquisite work of art through which Brian hopes to garner a sponsor. The term “impasto” refers to a thick, textured application of paint that almost appears to be three-dimensional, a characteristic of a large majority of Brian’s artwork. As a child, Brian always loved art class, inspiring him to take several art classes throughout his adolescence. He aspired to a career where he could use his creativity and get paid for it. Brian graduated with a degree in graphic design from Iowa State, moved to St. Paul and immersed himself in its thriving art community. He has participated in the St. Paul Art Crawl every year since 2003 when a friend suggested he showcase some of his work.

With subjects ranging from the human form to the Virgin Mary to abstract work, Brian paints it all—his “La Forêt Enchantée,” featured below, was an exercise in perfection. Making the human form look realistic and proportionate is one of the greatest challenges artists face, and Brian hopes to make a series of paintings of this nature and size.

In an effort to unite the art community in St. Paul and to create a forum for discussion, Brian is in the process of creating a website that will allow artists to showcase their work, advertise upcoming events within the art community, and discuss and support the work of artists in St. Paul.

The final artist featured in aimClear office space was Steve Berger. Steve studied under the late Reverend Edward M. Catich, a well-known artist and author of, “The Origin of the Serif: Brush Writing and Roman Letters.” A unique artist who covers a wide range of subjects, Steve believes it is important to be a well-rounded person: a reader, writer, and former illustrator and creative director in the corporate world, he paints everything from famous Minnesota landmarks, presidents, variations of the American flag throughout history, Minnesota baseball, and celebrities. All Steve needs to create a piece of art is inspiration, and a unique quote or well-written piece of American history such as the preamble to the Constitution can be found in various pieces of his work.

Steve is motivated by the desire to portray everyday scenes in a unique way; whether it be to paint the Wayzata depot at night, to capture a different angle of the state capitol, or to present a scene as it was before the landscape was developed, you can be sure his paintings will make you think of ordinary subjects in a new light. With over twenty pieces of his work on display at this event, Steve looks forward to participating in more art crawls and showcasing his work in the future.

St. Paul is a Mecca for artistry and creativity. Artists travel to St. Paul for the sole purpose of meeting other artists and getting the opportunity to break into the art scene. The St. Paul Art Crawl was started in 1991 by the St. Paul Art Collective as an avenue for artists in the area to show their work in a public forum, and it has become one of the largest and most successful of its kind. aimClear is proud to support the art community in St. Paul, and we look forward to showcasing more art work later this year during the St. Paul Art Crawl’s Fall event.

Artists Kyron Robinson, Steve Berger and Brian Netten

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For more photos from this past weekend’s St. Paul Art Crawl, check out  the aimClear Facebook page.

OK, PR pros, it’s confession time. How many of you have clients that have asked, “Why aren’t we showing up in Google Alerts?” Or how about this gem: “We started a blog, but no one’s reading it. What should we do?” If you were like me several years ago, you probably responded with some shifty non-answer like, “Google Alerts don’t matter; they don’t result in more sales,” or, “Your readership will grow with time.” Is this a not-in-my-job-description situation or a sign it’s time to get back in the classroom?

Those are extreme examples, but they illustrate a problem in the public-relations industry. PR increasingly involves online tactics, but many PR pros are still approaching it from an old-school mentality. They proclaim that this is all stuff they know how to do; the only difference is it’s online instead of in print. If you’re one of the stubborn ones, or freely admit you’ve got a lot to learn, you’re in the right place. Welcome to the first installment of our series PR & Online Marketing: Navigating the Conflux. In this post, we’ll explain why PR pros should give a hoot about online marketing. We’ll cover the role of search in the sales cycle, and end with a preview of several SEM-meets-PR tactics to whet your wondering whistle.

The alchemy of online marketing is conversions—a fancy word for a desired action such as a purchase, enrollment, request for information, and the like. PR pros need to think about strategy from an online marketing perspective because, ultimately, the goal of any PR program is to increase or prevent a decrease in conversions, typically sales, but also registrations, sign-ups, etc. To support the sales effort, think about how people buy. Let’s look at an über-simplified version of the sales cycle:

1. Awareness: A potential customer learns about a product/service/opportunity.
2. Interest: The potential customer seeks more information about the product/service/opportunity.
3. Purchase: The customer buys/joins/enrolls.

At the awareness stage, the potential customer might learn of a product in a number of ways:

• Word-of-mouth (friend, family, co-worker, etc.)
• Salesperson/someone in-the-know
• Advertisement
• Direct mail (catalog, flyer, etc.)
• News coverage
• Social community
• Search (customer searches for a solution to a problem)

At the interest stage, the potential customer might seek more information by:

• Searching online/visiting provider’s website
• Asking a current customer/user/owner
• Researching in-person (looking at product packaging at store, asking salesperson for more information, etc.)

Then y’all know what happens at the purchase stage.

PR executives, at least the ones I’ve worked with, have many a tactic up their sleeves for increasing awareness. Most are awesome at generating news coverage, and many are great (or getting better) at social media involvement. But they typically fall short in the interest stage, specifically the search component. Some PR folks would argue that’s not in their job description, that it’s the SEO firm’s responsibility. But guess what: The content that customers find in search results? Yeah, that’s your job. Would you trust anyone else to write that stuff?

Search is important for consumers to evaluate a potential purchase. Think about the last significant purchase you made—a car, LASIK, maybe a hotel reservation. Chances are, you researched online for reviews, recommendations, photos, options, packages, sales, brochures, specifications, etc. Considering the Internet’s role in consumer purchasing behavior, it would be negligent to go about PR sans search, right? Glad I convinced you.

Incorporating search into PR isn’t really a step-by-step process (save for the initial step). But to boil it down, everything you do needs to be optimized, which starts with keyword research. The posts in this series will explore some of the ways PR pros can start thinking like an SEO. For example, are you pursuing search and contextual coverage? Developing a content marketing program? Exploring PPC for PR? Including web analytics in your measurement?

Before we get ahead of ourselves, we should start from the very beginning: keyword research for PR! That’s the topic of our next installment, coming atcha next week. Until then, ciao!

Photo credit: ggjsmith

Recently, I read a Search Engine Watch article by Jeremy Bencken that focused on the link-building benefits of PR. The post shared some sweet tips that any PR practitioner should implement, but some advice centered on PR primarily as a link-building tactic, neglecting the fact that PR is a strategy in and of itself: to drive the awareness that leads to the search. In other words, a story placed through media-relations efforts might not include a link, but if it led a reader to search for more information, it did its job. More on this concept after the jump.

The article amassed a decent comment thread, albeit mildly controversial. No doubt, many folks’ feelings on the matter echoed the remark shared by one commenter, Nick Stamoulis:

“Some PR professionals are worried that SEO is trying to take over their territory, so they’ve been a little reluctant to make their industry SEO friendly. The simple truth is that one is never going to replace the other, but the two have to work together to create the best possible results for a client.”

In the spirit of continuing this dialogue and figuring out how PR and online marketing can play nice, allow me to introduce a new aimClear mini blog series: PR & Online Marketing: Navigating the Conflux.

Check back for fresh installments coming atcha in the next several weeks. We’ll dish up the goods on:

• Why PR pros need to think about strategy from an online-marketing perspective
• Why traditional PR still matters and how to get coverage
• Traditional PR tactics vs. “new” tactics
• How to use keyword research for PR
• How to leverage earned media placements

I, for one, am pretty stoked. Why? My background is in traditional public relations (primarily media relations) for companies large and small, B2B and B2C. At aimClear’s awesome St. Paul office, I’m quickly getting schooled in all things online. This fascinating intersection, where PR meets online marketing, is what I’m all about.

See you back here for installment #1. Until then, cheers!

Day 1 of #BlueglassFL in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. While 9AM is hardly “butt-crack” early, many a search marketer were visibly feeling the effects of last night’s… networking event. For the conference attendees struggling to hoist peeper lids up over their pupils, a straight shot of espresso was top priority before taking seats in the first session on the BlueGlass agenda. Turns out Online PR – The Art of Getting Your Business Talked About was a healthy surge of awesome on its own– heavy with memorable sound bytes and on-point suggestions all from stellar panelists Lisa Buyer, Brian Clark and Peter Shankman. Loren Baker, smart as he is tall, moderated the session in an open discussion format.

The conversation revolved around what it takes to position an online marketing campaign for “needle moving” PR successes. aimClear live-tweeted gems from this inspiring dialog…read on for a condensed version of the discussion packed with speakers’ key takeaways & unforgettable nuggets of advice.

Q: What does online PR mean to you?

Brian Clark – The new PR is about the concept of persuasion from the people you already trust. Understand that big wins in online PR are about being able to become part of the media instead of relying on the media.

Peter Shankman - PR now is getting other people to say how great you are rather than you telling people how great you are.

Via @RyanJones: “PR is like dating. Don’t tell girls how great you are, have others tell girls how great you are. #blueglassfl @petershankman”

Lisa Buyer - Online PR is a combination of blogging and social media. It encompasses blogging while taking advantage of different social media channels with a consistent message across each.

Q: How would you pitch differently to a blogger as opposed to a journalist?

Brian - If I receive a mass pitch from you and it’s apparent you’ve never read anything I’ve written, I mentally burn your name and then I delete you. Get your PR pitches read by appealing to the blogger’s ego.  Long story short: mass pitches wreak, you can smell them a mile away. Be personal and show the blogger you’ve given their work the time of day.

Via @SocialMichelleR: Beyond being deleted, you will be remembered with shame if you demonstrate you’ve NEVER read anything I wrote @copyblogger #BlueGlassFL

Lisa - If you’re going to pitch a journalist, read them. Get familiar with them. Reach out to them on a personal level. Also recognize that journalists are either going to start or end their search on Google. Write a good press release, couple it with good SEO and show up in the SERPs when they do. Peter emphasized this point when he mentioned never to underestimate a well-written press release, seeded with good SEO.

Peter - Your first interaction with a reporter should NOT be a pitch. It should be something helpful to them.

Q: What About Using Social Media to Drive Traffic…

Peter – Passion is the key to getting people to follow and interact with you. If you write well and love what you’re doing, people will respond to that. Remember, good writing is brevity and brevity is social media.

Via @AmyVernon: Spandex is a right – just like u have a right to post sh#!!y content @petershankman – doesn’t mean u HAVE to. #BlueglassFL

Brian - Really work at establishing permission-based relationships. Know exactly who you’re trying to reach, what they’re interested in and meet them there with something of value. Determine the right mix.

Lisa – Meet your audience in whichever social channels they’re in, but ultimately, all roads should lead back to your blog or website. Also, don’t get too caught up in social media and forget that traditional media is still there.

Big thanks to the lively panelists for their thoughtful advice & plentiful notable quotables. To follow live coverage of Blueglass Florida monitor the hashtag #BlueGlassFL & check for tweets by @SocialMichalleR, @aimClear & me, @mannyrivas.

To celebrate the opening of our St. Paul office, we decided it would be super cool to profile local public relations players in our (new) second hometown. After all, we’re neighbors now, and there’s not much more of an Internet fishbowl than the PR community. There will be plenty of time for y’all to get to know aimClear and our services a bit better.  For now, let’s highlight Minneapolis/St. Paul agencies that have bubbled up to prominence from the primordial PR soup.

We understand growing an agency at the intersection of PR, search & social media has its challenges and perks. For one, we get to stick fingers in a variety of exciting and fruitful sects of online marketing and reap dynamic benefits each provides. These days being a   “complete marketer” means integrating all online marketing disciplines, including blended search & social demographic research, search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC), online reputation management, social media marketing, targeted press release distribution, custom training, SEO analytics monitoring & consulting, copywriting, data-driven community management and more. Skill-sets should not only be offered, but mastered.

Without further adieu, here’s a list of PR & social marketing companies that come from our own backyard: the Twin Cities of Minnesota.

Risdall McKinney Public Relations | www.risdallmckinneypr.com
Based in New Brighton, Rose McKinney heads up this team of 24 employees. Since 2006, Risdall McKinney Public Relations has offered specialized services for reputation management, branding and key messaging, marketing communications, crisis communications.

Check ‘em out on:

• Facebook: facebook.com/pages/Risdall-McKinney-Public-Relations/74263097669
  • Fans: 81
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/companies/396505
  • Followers: 33
• Twitter:  twitter.com/RMPR
  • Followers: 911

Weber Shandwick | www.webershandwick.com
Founded in 1986, Weber Shandwick specializes in consumer marketing, digital, tech & corporate communications, financial services, health care strategies, public affairs, media training, and crisis preparation. This Bloomington-based company boasts 2,700 employees in offices around the world.

Check ‘em out on:

• Facebook: facebook.com/WeberShandwick
  • Fans: 1,835
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/companies/weber-shandwick
  • Followers: 2,513
• Twitter: twitter.com/weberShandwick
  • Followers: 4,269

Carmichael Lynch Spong| www.carmichaellynchspong.com
Since 1990, Carmichael Lynch Spong has offered a variety of marketing services, including on B2B, cause branding, consumer PR, corporate branding, events management, financial relations, internal communications, media relations, product and brand communications, social media, lifestyle marketing, experiential marketing.

Check ‘em out on:

• Facebook: facebook.com/pages/Carmichael-Lynch-Spong
  • Fans: 1,835
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/companies/carmichael-lynch
  • Followers: 454
• Twitter: twitter.com/cl_spong
  • Followers: 228

Exponent Public Relations | www.exponentpr.com
Founded in 1935, this Minneapolis-based company offers brand PR, media relations, media training, public affairs, social media, and experiential marketing services to clients around the country.

Check ‘em out on:

• Facebook: facebook.com/ExponentPR
  • Fans: 114
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/companies/exponent-pr
  • Followers: 22
• Twitter: twitter.com/exponentpr
  • Followers: 616

Padilla Speer Beardsley, Inc. | www.psbpr.com
Headquartered in Minneapolis,  Padilla Speer Beardsley, Inc. offers services in the areas of search engine marketing, B2B & consumer marketing, crisis & critical issues management, creative & interactive, and employee & mobile marketing communications.

Check ‘em out on:

• Facebook: facebook.com/PadillaSpeerBeardsley
  • Fans: 72
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/companies/padilla-speer-beardsley
  • Followers: 174
• Twitter: twitter.com/padilla_psbpr
• Followers: 160

Public Affairs Company | www.pubaffairsco.com
This St. Paul-based 14 person company is lead by Steve Knuth. Since 2003, Public Affairs Company has been issue advocacy, ballot campaigns, grassroots and grasstops communications.

Check ‘em out on:

• Facebook: facebook.com/Public-Affairs-Company
  • Fans: 460
• Twitter: twitter.com/PublicAffairsCo
  • Followers: 854

Himle Horner, Inc. | www.himlehorner.com
This 18-employee company is based in Minneapolis. Since 1989, Himle Horner has provided services including PR and public affairs for the health care, transportation, energy, and financial services industries.

Check ‘em out on:

• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/companies/himle-horner
  • Followers: 15

Karwoski and Courage Public Relations | www.creativepr.com
Glenn Karwoski heads up this 22-person Minneapolis- based PR firm, which was founded in 1992 and focuses on influencer marketing.

Check ‘em out on:

• Facebook: facebook.com/karwoskicourage
  • Fans: 89
• LinkedIn:  linkedin.com/companies/karwoski-%26-courage-public-relations
  • Followers: 20
• Twitter:  twitter.com/karwoskicourage
  • Followers: 48

Haberman | www.modernstorytellers.com
Haberman is based out of Minneapolis, MN and was founded in 1994. Fred Haberman leads the 35-employee team that offers services such as business strategy, branding, media relations, cause-related campaigns, interactive marketing, Web and graphic design, investor relations, as well as event strategy and management.

Check ‘em out on:

• Facebook: facebook.com/modernstorytellers
  • Fans: 363
• LinkedIn:  linkedin.com/companies/haberman
  • Followers: 66
• Twitter:  twitter.com/modernstories
  • Followers: 881

Tunheim Partners | www.tunheimpartners.com
This Minneapolis-based company was founded in 1990, and today offers services including online strategy, public affairs, media relations, event marketing, B2B, recruitment & retention communications, consumer & retail crisis communications, energy & environment, health care, education, and transportation industries. Kathryn Tunheim heads up the 35 employees at Tunheim Partners.

Check ‘em out on:

• Facebook: facebook.com/tunheimpartners
  • Fans: 255
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/companies/tunheim-partners
  • Followers: 65

ASI Communications | www.a-s-i.com
Founded in 1980, Mike Brown heads up this 35-employee team out of Minneapolis. ASI Communications focuses on marketing, branding, advertising, public affairs, PR, design, interactive, events, alternative media, investor relations.

Check ‘em out on:

• Facebook: facebook.com/pages/Minneapolis-MN/ASI-Communications/6674142733
  • Fans: 43
• LinkedIn:  linkedin.com/companies/asi-communications
  • Followers: 36
• Twitter:  twitter.com/asi_was_saying
  • Followers: 716

Goff & Howard, Inc. | www.goffhoward.com
Goff & Howard is a St. Paul-based 14 person company founded in 1994. Led by Chris Georgacas, this company specializes in PR, public affairs, media relations, lobbying, crisis communications, community relations, grassroots organizing, event planning, media training.

Check ‘em out on:

• Facebook: facebook.com/#!/pages/Saint-Paul-MN/Goff-Howard/53875466268
  • Fans: 117
• LinkedIn:  linkedin.com/companies/214249
  • Followers: 14
• Twitter:  twitter.com/GoffHoward
  • Followers: 391

Broadhead + Co, Inc. | www.broadheadco.com
Broadhead + Co. was founded in 2001, and today is lead by Dean Broadhead. Based in Minneapolis, Broadhead’s 30 employees offer online services with a strong focus on agribusiness, food safety, energy, finance, and government.

Check ‘em out on:

• Facebook: facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=23459256680&ref=search
  • Fans: 32
• LinkedIn:  linkedin.com/companies/971608
  • Followers: 26

Beehive PR, Inc. | www.beehivepr.biz
Founded in 1998, Beehive PR offices in St. Paul, MN. This 13-employee company offers services including media relations, social media marketing, executive and spokesperson coaching, message development, crisis management, corporate communications and is led by Lisa Kolrud Hannum.

Check ‘em out on:

• LinkedIn:  linkedin.com/companies/217921
  • Followers: 28
• Twitter:  twitter.com/beehivepr
  • Followers: 1,827

Strother Communications Group | www.scgpr.com
Strother Communications Group was founded in 1992 by Patrick Strother. This company, based out of Minneapolis, has 15 employees specialized in advertising, branding, research, B2B, direct marketing, interactive, design, media relations, and collateral.

Check ‘em out on:

• Facebook: facebook.com/pages/Strother-Communications-Group/100439932592
  • Fans: 41
• LinkedIn:  linkedin.com/companies/65813
  • Followers: 21
• Twitter:  twitter.com/patrickstrother
  • Followers: 13,152

Kohnstamm Communications | www.kohnstamm.com
Founded in 1991 by Joshua Kohnstamm, Kohnstamm Communications is an 11 employee team that focuses on consumer PR, including food and beverage, higher education PR and professional services PR.

Check ‘em out on:

• Facebook: facebook.com/pages/Strother-Communications-Group/100439932592
  • Fans: 13
• LinkedIn:  linkedin.com/companies/82577
  • Followers: 18
• Twitter:  twitter.com/Kohnstamm
  • Followers: 833

Olson| www.oco.com
Olson is headquartered in Minneapolis, MN– its 180 employee team is led by John Olson. Founded in 1992, this company specializes in advertising, brand anthropology, brand design, interactive, strategy, PR, media, and social networking.

Check ‘em out on:

• Facebook: facebook.com/OLSONagency
  • Fans: 1,543
• LinkedIn:  linkedin.com/companies/165296
  • Followers: 484
• Twitter:  twitter.com/OLSONagency
  • Followers: 2,100

Nemer Fieger | www.nemerfieger.com
Based out of St. Louis Park, Jim Fieger heads up this team of 27 employees. Nemer Fieger was founded in 1957, and currently provides clients with services including media relations, event marketing, creative production, media buying and planning, and hotel trade, primarily for franchises, restaurants, and the entertainment and automotive industries.

Check ‘em out on:

• Facebook: facebook.com/Nemer.Fieger
  • Fans: 156
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/companies/nemer-fieger
  • Followers: 59
• Twitter:  twitter.com/NemerFieger
  • Followers: 351

Misukanis & Odden | www.misukanisodden.com
This Spring Park-based company was founded in 2001 by Susan Misukanis. With 15 employees, Misukanis & Odden provides services for media relations, online marketing, marketing for results, outsourced marketing services, and pay-per-click management.

Check ‘em out on:

• LinkedIn:  linkedin.com/companies/64302
  • Followers: 4

Maccabee Group | www.maccabeegroup.com
Minneapolis-based Macabee Group was founded in 1996 by Paul Maccabee. Nine people make up the PR company, which focuses on media relations, social media and online reputation management, event marketing, and marketing.

Check ‘em out on:

• Facebook: facebook.com/maccabeegroup
  • Fans: 81
• LinkedIn:  linkedin.com/companies/maccabee-group
  • Followers: 29
• Twitter:  twitter.com/maccabeepr
  • Followers: 703

Snow Communications, Inc. | www.snowcommunications.com
Minneapolis-based Snow Communications was founded in 1985, led today by Joshua Schneck. With 7 employees, Snow Communications is specialized in PR, advertising, marketing, industry analyst relations, and public affairs, primarily for the food and food technology, high technology, medical technology, and professional services industries.

Check ‘em out on:

• LinkedIn:  linkedin.com/companies/695495
  • Followers: 6

McFarland Cahill Communications | www.mcfarlandcahill.com
McFarland Cahill Communications is based out of Prior Lake, MN, and its team of 7 employees is lead by Teresa McFarland. Founded in 2002, this company specializes in public relations.

Check ‘em out on:

• Facebook: facebook.com/pages/McFarland-Cahill-Communications
  • Fans: 159
• LinkedIn:  linkedin.com/companies/377726
  • Followers: 4
• Twitter:  twitter.com/mcfarlandcahill
  • Followers: 72

Clarity Coverdale Fury | www.claritycoverdalefury.com
Clarity Coverdale Fury is lead by Tim Clarity, and was founded in 1979. This 60 employee company offers a variety of services including advertising, brand development, digital marketing, brand design, social media, PR, and guerilla marketing.

Check ‘em out on:

• LinkedIn:  linkedin.com/companies/clarity-coverdale-fury
  • Followers: 54

KC Associates | www.kc-associates.com
Founded in 1988, KC Associates consists of 10 employees led by Kirsten Chapman. This company specializes in PR, Web marketing, lead generation, and go-to-market execution.

Check ‘em out on:

• LinkedIn:  linkedin.com/companies/117664
  • Followers: 2513
• Twitter: twitter.com/KC_Associates
  • Followers: 419

Bonus PR Blogs

• Minnesota Public Relations Blog
• Public Relations Society of America
• International Association of Business Communications

Watch for upcoming installments featuring social media, SEO, advertising and other agency models from around the country. Got a company we should consider sharing? Drop us a note on Twitter @aimClear.

In a world where 140 characters can make or break a brand, where customers expect instant gratification 24/7, there’s little (if any) time for self-doubt or antiquated mindsets when it comes to marketing your company. You’ve got to study up, spread your wings and soar into action– armed with an iron-clad PR strategy advised and amplified by search and social media.

The Search, PR and the Social Butterfly session at #SESSF looks to deliver informative insight & tactical takeaways, featuring  Lisa Buyer, President & CEO, The Buyer Group, Sally Falkow, President, PRESSfeed, Brett Tabke, CEO, WebmasterWorld, Kristjan Mar Hauksson, Founder and Director of Search & Online Communications, Nordic eMarketing, and moderator Susan Bratton, Co-founder, Personal Life Media. They were set to talk about the more contemporary alternatives to traditional press kits and media lists,  as well as best practices for optimization and feed syndication, and the audience was ready to learn.
Susan Bratton took the mic and kicked off this lively discussion on the intersection of social & search, a vital area of growth & opportunity. Apparently, the session layout was inspired by a wealth of crowd-sourced questions that poured in prior to SES. Thematically, many of the questions revolved around “being a content manager,” so that’s just what the panelists sought to explore.

• Sally would be explaining why you need to think about yourself as a publisher.
• Lisa would take us through tools for managing content & coping strategies.
• Brett was set to share a case study about how you find influentials, track sentiments and see proof of results.
• Kristjan would wrap up with specifics about how to track efforts with his case study about… Beyonce.

Google Caffeine Jacks up the SERPs
Sally hit the stage first, pointing out one glaring change search has recently undergone: Google’s Caffeine algorithm, which unfurled in all its glory this past June. With this algo update, Google began to place greater emphasis on real-time & social content– indexes are constantly looking for fresh content with ample citations. (Citations, Sally explains, are instances of someone “mentioning” your name / brand in the social web, not necessarily a live link).

To rank well, you have to not only create content, but systematically deliver content. This alone literally makes you a publisher, so you better start thinking like one. As a publisher, you can reach your audience directly– you can be the media and cut out the middle man. But of course, you still want to be found in media, you should still aim to be picked up by bloggers.

Sally’s big takeaway: you should absolutely have a feed on your website that syndicates your content – not just blog posts, but everything.

The Impact of Universal Search
It’s been a while since page 1 of SERPs simply consisted of “ten blue links.”  Universal search mashes video, news, images, products, maps and now real-time search results all together in the prime restate that is the top of page 1. Sally cited studies (oy, say that 5x fast) that show visitors tend to look at images, video & news results first, above organic web results. By syndicating various mediums of content, you’re able to better saturate Google as well as get in front of content-hungry bloggers.

[Resource freebie: Sally cites Social networking sites: 10 mistakes organizations make -- check it out.]

The Big Hit vs. The Right Hit
Sally warns us not to  get stuck on trying to hook the big influencer… sometimes, it’s the little guy/gal blogger who can drive serious traffic to your site. Check out Seth Godin’s “Meatball Sundae” – featuring a section about 14 trends that are changing the world (all of which, Sally says, apply to what we’re talking about). As Seth points out, it’s not about getting 1 million eyeballs, it’s about getting the right eyeballs.

Next up, the delightful Lisa Buyer. The theme of her preso: publicize, optimize, socialize. “The old world of PR is changing,” she says, “and it ain’t coming back!”  Customers nowadays are search & social-savvy, but so is the media. The majority of reporters and journalists now depend on social media for their story ideas and sources. Citing a Cision George Washington study from January 2010, Lisa points out that:

• 89% of reporters & editors are now turning to blogs for stories & research
• 65% use social networking sites, ex: Facebook
• 52%  use microblogging sites, ex: Twitter
• 100% of journalists use google as a tool when working on stories. (Not surprising, but still neat.)

Publicize
Lisa recommends you leverage paid services, social media news rooms, corporate news rooms, news sources for ample distribution of content.

Tip: have a PR strategy. You should be publishing & distributing a PR at least every 30 days to stay in Google News.

Optimize
Lisa quotes Lee Odden: “If it can be searched, it can be optimized.” PRs, blogs, videos, images, posts, tweets, profiles can (and should) be optimized.

Socialize
Schmooze with the media– schmoozing forms and platforms have changed.  Go to tweet-ups. Check out the conversation happening at #journchat. Socialize with the media on Facebook & LinkedIn. Also, schmooze with your customers via tweets, blogs, FB, 4sq, etc.

Is foursquare the “new PR darling” ?
If you’ve got a brick & mortar biz, Lisa strongly recommends claiming your listing on  4sq, using it to promote in-store specials, reward your customers, know who’s coming into your store…

Lisa’s Top Tips

• Have a content strategy. Break it down to daily/weekly/monthly strategies.
• Add social media IDs/ links to press release.
• Add sharing tools in the news room.

[Freebie: For cheap PRs, Sally recommends The Open Press - $20 per PR - you will be indexed Google News in 10 minutes. Whoa.]

Next up was Brett Tabke. He shared a story about how PubCon targeted influentials via social media, not PPC.

Gem Quotations

• “SEO is not a profession, it is a lifestyle.”(Oh baby. That tweet got some serious RT-love, especially with the ad-lib hashtag, #geeksforlyfe.)
• “People tell you to optimize this or that. I say, optimize everything… make it part of your day-to-day life.” (Yes!)

Facebook vs Google
Compete stats showed in April 2010, Facebook finally surpassed Google for most uniques per day (stats may have been slightly skewed because every time you log into FB– maybe 7x each day… its counted as a unique).

“What a changing of the guard we’ve had in the last few years,” Brett noted. “What we’re in now is EVOlution, not REVOlution. As SEOs/SEMs, we are in a unique position to see what’s leading edge and adopt it before it reaches a tipping point.”

Twitter & Influentials: The PubCon Story
Background: PubCon spent $65k on PPC ads over 4 years. Tragically, they could not track a single sign-up for the conf from a single PPC ad (and there were over 200k ads served up… yikes.)

“We realized people were not going to sign up for a conference based on a PPC ad,” Brett admitted.

With the crash of 2008, the economic downturn, sales flat-lined, and there was a serious conf crisis. So PubCon reevaluated every part of their marketing strategy. Conclusion: it was time for the marketing conference to get serious about marketing.

Trust & Recommendation
A survey showed people invest in / sign up for a conference based on a recommendation from a friend/association etc.  The opportunity for PubCon was with word of mouth marketing. So, they took a second look at Twitter… and behold, PubCon’s AH-HA moment!

Blogging vs. Tweeting
Blogs live forever – tweets don’t. Back up: what IS tweeting? Brett looks at it like a one-time broadcast event. Retweeting is when the event enters reruns. PubCon switched to an “all Twitter all the time” strategy in 2009. They spent zero dollars on marketing and ads.

The results: attendance for PubCon rose 30% during a time when other conferences were seeing declines in attendance. Wow.

Retweet Reach
PubCon has 26,000 followers. Those followers have a collective total of 22 mil followers. That’s a helluva reach!

Tweet & RT Trends

• 20% of tweets have links
• 70% of retweets have links
  • This makes RTs technically seem more educational, informative because they contain links to resources.
• Afternoons are RT-heavy
• Highest tweet day = Wednesday
• Highest RT days= M & W, 2:15-3:30 pm EST
• #1 Twitter city = London, England

Brett’s Tips:

• Follow all your competitions followers. They will follow you back .
• Put tweet it buttons everywhere! Make sharing your stuff super easy.
• Leverage Klout.com to identify influentials. (Klout is like page rank for Twitter.
• Track retweeters, thank them. Keep score. RT your friends. Share, share, share!
• Leverage social media monitoring tools like Radian 6 & Trackur (great sentiment analysis!).

Last but not least, Kristjan shared some more time-based stats for indexing news based on a case study about yes, Beyonce. So. Beyonce was recently accused of stealing fashion design.

• The story went live 9:10am
• Google picked up at 9:12 am
• The 1st organic visitors came through Twitter 9:29 am
• Google News returned the 1st visitor at 10:41 am
• News media comes in at 1:31 pm

Findings & Action Points

• After checking out 2 million visits, it shows that Google web is still #1 research tool.
• Google News is #2, but it stands to show that news results are in blended web results.
• Know what type of analytics are you using to monitor your site.
• Don’t focusing on overall trends– look instead at who’s actually coming in- where are they from, what their language is, their vernacular.
• When sending out PRs, use Google KW tool & Google Trends to incorporate the best words for your target audience.

So what do you say? Are you ready to spread your wings, open your mind, and leverage both search & social to propel your PR campaigns?

Esteemed moderator Sally Falkow, President of PRESSfeed introduced Cluetrain Manifesto. The book, written ten years ago, phrophesized the changes the internet would bring to marketing and public relations. We are living in those predictions now. Look forward to the next five years with these industry experts: Beth Harte, Community Manager of MarketingProfs; Duncan Alney, President and Social Media Strategist of Firebelly Marketing; Marty Weintraub, President of aimClear, and Andy Beal, CEO of Trackur.

Beth Harte started things off discussing the integration of SEO, marketing and PR.

PR is not just press releases, that’s publicity, and it’s a small sliver of PR. PR is the relationship companies have with their consumers.

Seven Areas of PR:

1. Media relations (blogger relations, too)
2. Advertising (Take out ads when the story isn’t told in the right manner)
3. Press Agentry (ie Tiger Woods’ publicist)
4. Public Affairs (Government & Organizational)
5. Issues Management (people using Twitter to monitor brewing situations. Note: one little blip isn’t a crisis)
6. Lobbying
7. Investor Relations

In the past, people rallied and used pamphlets, now they use the internet, leveraging social media platforms such as Twitter, Blogs, Facebook etc.

Press releases don’t work anymore. What does work:

• Listening
• Being found (SEO)
• Communicating (constituents buy into your brand for a reason)
• Partnering (understand what your market wants)
• Telling your story (it’s all in how you do it. How are you spinning it?)
• People talking (buzz positive or negative)

Social media tools will change, but people wont stop being social.

Harte was followed by Marty Weintraub, sporting some seriously cool SEO rock-star glasses.

Strategy is essential. SEO is all about attaining data-motivated prominence in organic SERPs. This means all the different channels moving at different speeds. Open your mind to whatever platform users are engaging on.

PR = proactive dissemination of germane information.

Any discussion of SEO is ALSO a discussion of links.

O is for optimization. Optimize for everything. Choose Words and tags strategically.

PRWeb is a great too. “You can buy yourself a ride up and down the SERPs.” Google respects it and it’s trusted. It’s the one way Google will allow you to buy a high ride in the SERPs for a couple days.

If you link build to PRWeb you can affect the sentiment of various SERPs when searched for.

Social Media Profiles Rank! They enjoy the trust of the “mothership” and the more friends you get the higher up it goes in the SERPs! Therefore, it’s important to choose your profile names strategically.

Use interviews with third-party publications:

• Optimize responses (you get to write the interview!)
• Verbal or written
• Thoughtful preparattion in key
• Build links to interviews

When Guest Blogging:

• Give links to yourself and others
• Optimize for indexing
• Build links to posts
• Incite rebroadcast! Invite people to rebraodcast in a viral environments (Twitter Facebook Chicklets like in PRWeb)

Charity is HOT (ie. “we’ll give <this> to <them> for every RT”)

• Giving is Eternal
• Broadcast Cool shit (and Optimize!)
• Make link acquisition a primary objective
• Require the use of web pages
• Give Give Give Links. Then give more.
• Sponsored events
• Philanthropy

Spin Crap into Gold

• Re-purpose horrible links with damaging anchor text
• Redirect traffic based on real-time analytics
• diffuse relevance
• Mirror PR with video and universal search
• Advise tagging by organic objectives
• Build links to video
• Transcribe text with the talking heads

What’s next?

• The organic universe will expand, it will be EVEYWHERE and Google wont be indexing a lot of it
• Rebroadcasting be at people’s fingertips
• PR of masses- word of mouth will blend further
• Conversations will be even more fragmented

Duncan Alney followed Marty saying “If Marty is Ridley Scott then i”m Darren Aronofsky.” Rather appropriate for the man talking about video PR.

Online video is used more than all the major TV networks (wow) 250 million users on YouTube, Facebook, Myspace in a month.

User generated content is growing exponentially.

Online video is EXPECTED, by everyone, even your grandpa.

Top video destination portals:

• YouTube
• Hulu
• Facebook
• Google Video
• Yahoo Video.

Under-produced content is well received by the masses. In many cases it is seen as more authentic and credible.

What if your video is in the stream but you’re not getting any traffic? Sorry, it’s not democratic. Just because it’s quality, doesn’t mean you deserve to rank in SERPs or become viral.

Video = Power

Video presents the whole story. Alney gave an example of the Lincoln that parallel parks itself (wicked cool). Lincoln tried to create buzz in print but consumers didn’t buy it until they saw it in a video.

Videos can be found easily! They’re everywhere.

Good video pulls journalists. But you have to make it easy to share with an embed code or chicklets.

Integration will matter most video + search + social + PR.

Both strategy and execution are essential. Experience will make all the difference with accurate tags and descriptions.

Experience will make the difference. Tag it correctly, make sure it accurately represents what it is.

Alney’s take on the future? Tools that allow you to stay on top of the swelling river of information will make the difference in PR.

Andy Beal tied the session together discussing the measurement of PR.

PRWeb is a useful tool, not only for links, but also measurement:

• Where your release is being opened
• Which countries
• What search terms were used
• Allows the ability to compare headlines

Find the experts to send Press Releases to:

• Identify influencers
• Google ranking
• Blog links (Technoratti)
• Who get’s quoted in your relsease?
• Compete.com data

Advanced technology for monitoring

• Identify industry trends
• Competitors buzzwords
• Track reach of your announcements
• Identify allies (we have this new product which would be cool for your customers…)
• Google Alerts/Trackur.com

Find the Big Dogs on Twitter

• Check Twitter Lists
• Look at Follower Counts
• Check their engagement (do their tweets get Re-tweeted? do they hold conversations or just broadcast?)
• Klout.com (Statistics on Tweople)

Take a look at your analytics

• What keywords bring most ROI (not necessarily CTR)
• Look for single source increases (Look for spikes in pages or key phrases it’s good indication you’re being talked about somewhere)
• Change in top entry pages?

URL Sharing

• Make it easy to share links (make them small)
• Track clicks, shares, re-tweets
• Bit.ly (use company)
• Build your own URL shortner with Awe.sm (!)

Don’t hold too tight to your web content

• RSS via feedburner
• Videos on YouTube or Blip.tv
• Images on Flickr
• Delicious.com Link Page
• Presentations on Slideshare.net

What’s Coming Next?

• Dynamic content in Press releases
• Ability to test different headlines
• Change keywords
• Fix typos
• Update content
• Link tracking across platforms
• Performance based press release pricing (Like Pay-Per-Click )
• RFID for your content

The old reputation management adage is “want to know how to get 2 FDA.gov, 2 WashingtonPost.com, 1 CNN.com & 2389 blog links this week?” The answer (of course) is to accidentally injure people with your product.  Trust us, getting the ensuing horrible results pushed off search engine results pages (SERPs) will be much tougher than placing them in the first place.

Clients come to us wondering why they are unable to easily squeeze down negative search engine results for brand names, after PR debacles or other difficult incidents. In other words after the news results clear the SERPs, why do negative .gov, news or some prominent blog pages STILL rank above corporate controlled or “friendly-sentiment” content for direct brand searches ( i.e. “Brand Name”)? Such questions torture CEOs and CMOs alike.

Simply put, in order to expunge any result from Google, content of equal or greater “relevance & value” must be created and/or built. Google’s index mirrors real-world authority and informational structures in physical life.  It takes a seriously powerful SEO event and/or incremental link building to usurp extremely high authority sites.

The reason FDA.gov content remains permanently prominent in Google’s index, speaks to the realities of physical life.  Have an objective look at at what news transients have affected search results permanently.  In most brands, it’s plain to see that the Google’s unpersonalized page 1 simply houses some of the top PR/social/news events all time for that brand.

We like to say that the events were either created “in-house” or “out-house.”

For instance, you can see that Dunkin’ Donuts has done an good job  brand building to blow ugly content far enough out of Google SERPs for the crucial keyword “Dunkin’ Donuts.” As with many major food brands, there are a lot of nasty results out there.  It’s cool that they’ve been able to generate more authoritative goodness buzz than all the icky chatter out there. They win.

The first questionable result, which is worse than neutral in terms of sentiment,  Shows on page 2. Otherwise page 1 is all about bakeoffs and selling franchises.

Kesso Foods on the other hand has not generated enough positive buzz in real life, to counter the results stemming from a recent FDA recall of ingredients in the SERPs. The same powdered milk FDA recall Dunkin’ Donuts had to deal with. Heck, they don’t even seem to have their own website. Check out position 6.

In fact there are 3 damaging results on page 1. That’s not what Kesso Foods wants their customers to see. Page 2 is really a bummer, with recall results totally obscuring good.

The bottom line is that all SERPs defense plans should be about creating indexable permanent PR/news/social events and hybrids thereof of good things.

Here are a few tips and tricks for doing so:

• Tweak content for the existing subdomains already in use and optimize them for ranking on the brand term. We see subdomains indexed alongside the mother domain for keywords. It only makes sense to optimize them.
• If there is a reasonable purpose for a new subdomain, don’t rule it out. They’re loosely associated with main domains according to latest correlation data. They receive and confirm some authority to/from the mother ship. Channel some power right out of the gate in the SERPs
• Be open to additional domains, using brand terms. Just make sure there is a legitimate purpose for the domain’s existence. Be very careful not to set up link farms.
• Work to an appropriate feed accepted to Google news. Though news rises and falls in cycle over the course of days and often does not remain, the transient wave impacts users’ daily perception of brand in the SERPs.  Also some authority news does linger and/or last permanently as representative artifacts of incidents and events.
• In order to counter high authority results, a brand’s high authority results must exist. In order to create those, links from high authority content must be built.
• In order to achieve this, significant public relations (or content followed by holistic link building) must be generated and synchronized with search.
• Integrate video creative and strategies with search objectives. Engage in YouTube and build external links to YouTube assets for indexing in Google’s organic SERPs by way of Universal Search. Surround the video with multi channel public relations when possible. Video buzz can garner major links to both YouTube and feed assets.  Either way it’s all good.
• Make PRs objective to build reasons for extremely high authority sites like NYTimes, WP, etc…to cite either events, methods, ANYTHING unique about the brand. Typical ideas include “value intersecting with quality in a recession,”  “brand’s approach in social media, the 7 classic nodes of public relations, etc…”
• Those efforts are can be rooted in the brick world currently with PR firm. Always encourage 3-way dialog between search objectives, brick PR players the community manager. Each needs to reflect to others’ to total benefit.
• While social media program can be glossy, engage customers to an extent and very pro looking, there is not always a systematic approach to engaging mid and big time writers who would write about the brand and link. Even in some established programs, PR benefits of social media programs remain to be mined.
• Take what Google and other mainstream engines freely give. Use social media profiles for their raw ranking power. Much has been written on this topic.
• Use a professional search-marketing agency to provide training in these types of strategies. Objectively (and respectfully), pros are the most equipped to provide these types of services and/or training.
• We recommend the community manager take training in using the feeds to bait writers, on and off line, who are included in Google News along with other feed marketing techniques.

Tune in to Webmasterradio.fm and hear yesterday’s interview. David Szetela and I described a reputation management crises we handled for a client together, that tallied 32 million targeted “emergency PR” Google pay per click impressions for less than 4K.

We had a client with a bad “problem-word.” The nasty verbiage also existed in annoying permutations like “problem-word” + DirectBrandName. Mission one was to serve the public with timely information. There were thousands of news articles in the SERPs, ranging from major sources to po-dung radio station sites.

We helped our client stave off predatory attorneys and the tactic delivered with laser-beam-like precision at an extremely low cost, using “negative calls to action” and David’s industry leading Content Network targeting techniques.

PPC just might be one of the world’s most efficient public relations tools in times of serious reputation crises. Tune in to learn about the “Negative call to action” as a secret to incredibly inexpensive Google advertising.

Disclaimer: data is approximate, so as to respect our client’s confidentiality.