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How To Get Great Publicity -- The Super Blog Secret
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), 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. One could also refer to these sites as "super
blogs". 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
http://www.intouchmediagroup.com
Article Source: http://www.simplysearch4it.com/article/14264.html
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