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High Tech Public Relations
By Bruce Prokopets
With the rise of Blogs across the U.S., a new type of information
dissemination has grown to mammoth proportions-consumer
generated media produced by blogs. Pew Internet & American
Life study reports that 7% of the 120 million U.S. adults who use
the internet say they have created a blog or web-based diary. That
represents approximately 8 million Americans. Twenty-seven
percent of internet users say they read blogs, totaling 32 million
people. What most people don't know is that search engine
spidering technology is attracted to web sites whose content
¡°changes¡± constantly. This means that blog content has a higher
likelihood to find its way to the top of search engine results as
compared with static web site content. This is the primary reason
for the POWER behind the growth of the blog as a media outlet.
The birth of blog related consumer generated media has played
havoc with the fundamental goals of public relations firms. As late
as ten years ago, all a good PR firm had to do to control the image
of its clients was to maintain good relations with the three major TV
networks, the fifteen major hub newspapers that feed content to
hundreds of other daily newspapers, and the 3 or 4 major radio
networks. Currently, a PR firm has to contend not only with the
mainstream media, cable and radio networks, but also a tidal wave
of information flooding onto the internet from blogs.
This new wave of internet related content may not have been a
problem if the role of the World Wide Web had remained in the
hands of the universities library system and DARPA (Defense
Advanced Research Project Agency) where the internet was
spawned. Unfortunately for those companies recently targeted by
negative commentary via the blog network, the following chilling
internet user statistics are quite relevant. On a typical day at the end
of 2004, some 70 million American adults logged onto the Internet
to use email, get news, access government information, check out
health and medical information, participate in auctions, book travel
reservations, research their genealogy, gamble, seek out romantic
partners, and engage in countless other activities. That represents a
37 percent increase from the 51 million Americans who were online
on an average day in 2000 when the Pew Internet & American Life
Project began its study of online life. This trend is ONLY going up.
Another Pew study identified that fact that over 50% of all online
purchases are now PRECEEDED by an internet search. Thirty-six
percent of all internet users under the age of 30 say that they could
not live without internet search engines. This illustrates what many
ad agency executives now take for granted-that people, in higher
and higher numbers, are using internet information, not mainstream
media related advertising, to make buying decisions. Every day,
more and more people are turning on computers versus the TV set
for information and entertainment.
Public Relations Firms Must Adopt New Strategies
Public relations executives and professionals must begin to develop
new strategies for controlling what is said about their clients on the
internet. This can be done in one of two ways: 1) focus efforts
towards influencing bloggers in terms of what they are saying about
their clients and change any negative attitudes (the way PRs used to
address potential negative messages distributed through the limited
number of mainstream media outlets of yester year); 2) control what
is found on the first half dozen pages of internet search results when
their client's information is being looked up. The goal of the latter
solution is far more attainable than the first solution. With millions of
bloggers, and the number is growing hourly, pumping out terabytes
of information each and every day, control of their message is an
impossible task. Only through some revolutionary content control
techniques can a PR begin to win the battle with the bloggers.
This report will track the progress of one company, In Touch
Media Group, in its daily efforts to control client search results
through tools it has recently developed and streamlined
(www.intouchmediagroup.com
).
ITMG, one of just a few companies that have been awarded the
prestigious Google Adwords Qualified Company status given out to
experts in their technology, created a two-part plan to dominate the
initial search results found whenever someone was seeking
information on any of its clients. The process, known as Press
Direct, involves creating professionally written, interest grabbing
articles and press releases that are linked in terms of story content
and then distributing the articles to dozens of article content hubs.
These content sites provide news stories, articles, and commentary
to tens of thousands of users such as TV and radio news directors,
print editors, popular web sites, news sites and other information
destinations. ITMG subsequently distributes the related press
release, which is targeted to media contacts, after the prior articles
begin popping up all over the internet.
The article hubs aren't just any media outlets. These sites are
selected because of their substantial distribution reach and Alexa
ranking (Alexa.com is tantamount to the Neilson of the internet
world. Alexa ranks web sites worldwide in accordance with their
visitor traffic levels). Each article and related press release is search
engine optimized based on the most popular keywords connected
to a given industry so as to make it search engine friendly before
placement. Once the initial article is submitted and that same article
finds its way onto thousands of other web sites via the content hubs,
a press release version is distributed to major wire services and to a
large home grown list of media contacts owned by ITMG,
numbered in the thousands.
¡°We figured out that we should write an appropriate 'linked article'
in conjunction with a press release¡±, describes Bob Cefail,
Chairman of In Touch Media Group, ¡°and place the article into as
many of these article hubs as possible. The effect was breathtaking
when we saw that the article we had written was sweeping across
the internet¡±. What ITMG figured out was to first lay the ground
work for a press release through the use of a well designed article.
What ITMG didn't expect was that the article, placed in the hubs,
and the follow-up press release would completely dominate the first
few pages of any internet search on almost any topic; thereby,
pushing negative content back into the back pages of the search
results.
When considering the fact that huge article hubs have ever-changing
content numbering in the thousands of daily changes, one can see
why the search engine spiders are highly attracted to the article
hubs. One can liken these content hubs to ¡°super blogs¡± in terms of
their effectiveness in search engine ranking versus normal blogs.
The key to In Touch Media Group's success can be tracked back
to the ancient teachings of a Chinese Military figure named Sun Tzu.
The famous general wrote in his well known book, The Art of
War, that when one has a larger opponent, one must get a bigger
friend. By using what amounts to ¡°bigger blogs¡± in its efforts to help
its client, In Touch Media Group was able to out- create negative
consumer generated media produced by consumer blogs.
The Press Direct campaign also accomplished several other
significant results. With one movie company client, the Press Direct
service resulted in over 400 media pick-ups of just one press
release story over only a 7-day period as reported by
PRWeb.com. In another case, an ITMG faith-based media client,
whose Alexa ranking was 2,398,449, had its ranking bettered to
under 94,000 in less than a month!
With consumer generated media creating as much as 40% of all
search results presently, a substantial percentage of which is
negative in nature, potential candidates for search engine content
management and control includes politicians, entertainment, sports,
and large public corporations. Consumer product companies are at
particular risk as concerns negative blog commentary because their
products or services reach such a large mixture of clientele. If just a
small percentage of clients find reason to complain, a large
company's search results can be critically damaged and no amount
of traditional PR firm repair work can remedy their online image.
Only a highly targeted campaign involving the aid of article content
hubs, search engine optimized articles and press releases can stem
the tide of negative commentary.
Bruce Prokopets
Executive Editor
Press Direct International
About the Author
Bruce Prokopets is the executive editor of Press Direct International and is an expert in the areas on internet marketing and public relations. You can read more articles written by Bruce by going to http://www.pressdirectinternational.org
Article Source: http://www.simplysearch4it.com/article/12896.html
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