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Media Relations
By Bruce Prokopets
Everyone knows that good publicity is the best advertising. A well
placed article, a positive radio show, the right interview on TV, these
are all what good publicists dream about. A public relations firm that
can CAUSE these events at will, well, they are worth their weight in
gold. I followed such a firm, InTouch Media Group
(www.intouchmediagroup.com ),
during a one week period, as it used an array of high tech PR tools to
build great publicity and high volume web site traffic for its clients.
What was surprising was not just the results, which were
undisputable, but how methodically they achieved what they set out to
do. In addition, they accomplished their goals during one of the most
traumatic periods in US history-the virtual destruction of the gulf coast
by Hurricane Katrina. Getting effective press for ones clients during
this period, through the media storm of this national catastrophe, was
a testament to a system that works.
My assignment began the day after InTouch Media announced the
release of this new high powered publicity service. ITMG prides itself
on the fact that every online marketing service it sells is tested
successfully on itself first. I was shown the results of the pilot program
that ITMG did using its chief technology officer, Steve Blom. The
Chairman of InTouch, Bob Cefail, described the challenge he had set
out for his company. ¡°I knew that Steve was virtually invisible on the
internet so if we could get some publicity for him we knew we had
something¡± stated Cefail. ¡°The big challenge was the fact that there
was ¡°another¡± Steve Blom, some marketing Guru¡± warned Cefail, ¡°and
we would have to dislodge and replace him with our Steve¡±.
ITMG dreamed up an ingenious two part plan to virtually guarantee
success. Instead of simply sending out a press release on some wire
services, they put themselves in an editor or program directors shoes.
¡°We knew that an editor has a publisher they have to answer to¡± said
Intouch Media Group's Vice President of Operations, Kris Nickerson,
¡°They may like what they see in a press release but that won't be
enough. They would do searches on the internet to potentially proof up
their story concept¡±. What was then developed took me by surprise.
Apparently there are large article sites, Nickerson calls them ¡°content
hubs¡±, that are repositories for tens of thousands of articles. Reporters,
authors, and writers submit content to these sites allowing limited or
full use of the articles. Tens of thousands of users access these hubs
to supply their own sites with content. Once an article is placed in a
content hub the piece can be picked up by hundreds, if not thousands,
of sites with the article proliferating across the internet.
¡°We figured out that we should write an appropriate ¡°linked article¡± in
conjunction with a press release¡±, describes Cefail, ¡°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. The test subject,Blom, is well known for his knowledge of
search engine technologies. He publishes a highly respected Google
training search engine advertising training blog
(www.adwordstraining.org ) and he
describes how he used some ¡°special sauce¡± to assist the test
program. ¡°We use software that allows us to look down the internet
cloud and find popular search terms on any subject¡±, lectures Blom,
¡°We then can ¡°seed¡± an article with these terms making it search
engine friendly¡±. By adding Blom's special sauce to the article it
becomes a search engine magnet, attracting the attention of the likes
of Google and Yahoo.
Once the article is placed and stretches across the internet, the press
release is ready for submission. Well, not before Steve's sauce is
added to the press release itself. This extra fire power makes the
ITMG article/press release weapon a truly deadly combo. Now, when
an editor or program director does some side checking on a press
release, through a search, they find an avalanche of articles moving
steadily across the internet, This causes the ¡°I don't want to be left
behind¡± effect, compelling the decision makers to act now, and book
shows with people involved in the press release. So goes the theory.
Here is where this story gets interesting. Cefail was ready to show me
the results of the initial test involving Steve Blom and a brand new web
site used for the test. Remember Steve Blom's blog? The site,
adwordstraining.org, had no past history on such internet ranking sites
as Alexa, which is considered by many to be the Neilson rating
system for the internet (www.alexa.com ).
ITMG wanted to find out if its new publicity service could raise the
overall traffic rankings of any company's web site. Here was yet
another challenge for ITMG--get a brand new site to move up the Alexa
rankings in a significant manner.
The first thing we did was to see if we could even find Blom on the
internet. That question was answered immediately and demonstrably!
ITMG's Steve was everywhere. The ¡°guru¡± Steve Blom was now
thoroughly displaced by the new Steve Blom in page after page of
search engine results.
Then we went to Alexa to see if Blom's site could get close to
breaking into the top 5 million sites worldwide. Remember that the
total web sites across the planet could number in the billions. Many
search engine optimizers try to get their clients in the top 500,000
sites on Alexa, typically without success. Here is what we found.
Awordstraining.org reached as high as one of the top FIFTEEN
THOUSAND SITES on Alexa-in just a matter of weeks!
What happened on the publicity end? Within 48 hours of the
submission of the press release Steve Blom was booked on a national
business talk show broadcast to over 400 stations. For weeks to
follow, Blom was booked on a host of various media outlets. While on
assignment at ITMG headquarters, I watched as Blom was booked for
two more shows.
While interviewing Intouch Media staff about their new publicity service,
I watched as one high profile client after the another signed up for this
new public relations breakthrough. The creators of the highly
acclaimed 9/11 documentary, Answering The Call, which was just
being released the following week, signed up to use the service. The
World Christian Times founder, Rodney Sampson, contacted ITMG
about the use of its new publicity service to help promote a Hurricane
Katrina relief organization.
One particular client caught my eye though. Although I am unable to
say exactly who the client is, I can reveal that it concerns a national
political announcement involving a potential candidate. I watched as
the ITMG editorial staff developed the story line, and I was allowed to
review the draft article just prior to insertion into the content hubs. I
can safely say this story will make big news.
I can report that the results for the movie release were no less
surprising than those for the test involving Blom. At last count the
Answering The Call press release had been picked up by
approximately 370 media outlets. Needless to say the producers of
the documentary, Lou Angeli and Bunny Dubin, were ecstatic about
the results. The press release distributor, Prweb.com, reported that
the press release itself had been accessed over 37,000 times. This
was all happening during the period when news about Hurricane
Katrina was at its zenith.
Another public relations organization involved with Dubin and Angeli,
was surprised at the response from the submission of the movie
company's press release to PRWeb's news distribution service
(www.prweb.com ). They asked Cefail
whether or not he was using some type of new service that PRWeb
must be offering. ¡°I told the company that we not only had our own
direct list of over 500 media contacts¡±, describes Cefail, ¡°but that we
also were using article content hubs¡±. Cefail followed this comment up
by telling me that the PR company in question wasn't even aware of
what a hub was.
What Cefail didn't say was that ITMG now uses over 120 different hubs
when they submit their client's articles. He also didn't talk about
Blom's ¡°secret optimization sause¡±, which adds to the potency of every
article and press release they distribute. I wonder if there any other
secrets that Cefail and ITMG didn't ¡°mention¡± as I moved around their
offices. I bet their competitors will soon find out and will be scrambling
to discover ITMG's recipe for publicity success.
Written by,
Bruce Prokopets
Executive Editor
Press Direct International
www.pressdirectinternational.org
About the Author
Bruce Prokopets is executive editor of Press Direct International and an acknowledged expert in the area of internet based publicity. Go to http://www.pressdirectinternational.org to view additional articles by Bruce.
Article Source: http://www.simplysearch4it.com/article/12942.html
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