• Legal Issues
• Legal issues–especially investor-related legal issues–generally have specific requirements for what you can talk about, when you should discuss it, and how you need to distribute the news. If your lawyer advises you send a press release, don’t quibble.
• Corrections
• If you made a mistake in a previous public statement, it’s probably best to issue the correction in the same manner. No one likes eating ‘umble pie, but own up to the mistake and try to move on, and you’ll be better off than if you let the impression that you’re dishonest fester in your audience’s minds.
• Urgent news
• If your disaster is a real-life honest to goodness breaking news disaster of the “we need to recall our product before it kills someone” sort, alternative measures of PR may not be the solution you need. The wire services work hard to get your news out to journalists as quickly and accurately as they can, so you might as well make use of that skill set and stick by the traditional method.

Those are the three big areas of disaster where you definitely want to make sure that you’ve put a lot of thought into your decision before ruling out a press release as your method of communication. So when is it more appropriate to look at alternative measures?

• Community Management
• There are times when you’ve done nothing illegal and you don’t have immediately pressing lifesaving news. Maybe you’ve made a mistake less in the “we issued a factually incorrect statement” way and more in the “we screwed up” fashion. Press releases are a very impersonal tool to try and repair a relationship with your community. Look at a more direct means of communicating, then. One example I may talk about in a later post is using an open letter to repair community relations.
• Customer Service
• This is related to “Community Management”, but with a key difference. One of the nightmares that social media has brought to the average executive in a company is that social media means that if one of your customer-facing employees is having a bad day, you can quickly find yourself having a social media-driven PR nightmare. An example of this is the recent Ocean Marketing meltdown that more or less illustrated the perfect storm of “employee having a bad day” and “social media PR disaster” I’m talking about here. This wasn’t an example of a mistake made at the corporate decision-making level, and issuing a press release (which N-Control, the company represented by Ocean Marketing, did end up doing) isn’t going to fix the problem. When you’re trying to correct a customer-centered issue, take a customer-centered approach and talk to them in the same arena that they’re already in.
•  When Another Company is Involved
• Disaster management PR is tricky enough when one company is involved; when you have two or more, it gets even trickier. In that respect, whether you’re dealing with a public disappointment over an announced contract that fell through or you’re trying to put some spin on the fact that one of your big clients just elected to not renew a long-running contract with you, using channels other than press releases can help you maintain some control of the story without escalating the issue into a press release war. Those may be kind of fun to watch from the outside, but they look anything but professional.

At a macro level, it comes to this: public-facing disaster PR is frequently handled best via methods other than press releases. When you have other outside issues influencing your method of discussion, though, you would be ill-advised to ignore them.

It sounds an awful lot like social media PR to me.

It’s something I have to get off my chest. I run a social media marketing firm, sure. But many of the skills that I use, either in advising clients or in using the various channels, reads like what you should do when you’re being a responsible public relations representative who’s reaching out to a journalist to pitch a story.  Everyone’s a potential source of a sudden massive Twitter revolt, so you need to treat everyone you encounter online as if they had the potential to direct the attention of a hundred thousand potential clients at your brand. With that thought in mind, here’s a quick primer on how to convert those traditional PR skills into social media marketing ones.

• Participate in the dialog: Don’t try to hijack it.  In the social media world, you can’t try the old “interruption marketing” techniques.
  • Think of it like: Don’t be the guy who tries to pitch how your company has a useful slant on every story that’s trending.  When you’re using social media monitoring tools, only enter in conversations that your brand can be expected to engage in.
• Be useful: Posting the same link a dozen times a day? Not useful. Posting a dozen links a day to insightful articles & commentary? Useful. Just make sure that you know what your following considers “useful.”
  • Think of it like: Don’t pitch off-topic. Journalists hate it and the general public hates it, too.
• Be respectful: Everything you say on social media channels can be read, quite possibly, for the rest of your brand’s life. Make sure that you’re not saying things that you might regret in a week, a month, a decade, or even later.
  • Think of it like: Being respectful.
• Nurture relationships: There are thousands of people out there who are crucial nexuses in the ebb and flow of your industry’s conversation. Find them. Friend / follow / verb them. Nurture the relationship, because you never know when you’ll need it.
  • Think of it like: How you develop relationships with a good reporter. Citizen journalism is where a lot of the conversation’s moving to, so be prepared.
• Establish authority: Your brand needs a single voice that everyone knows that they can go to when there’s an urgent question. Social media is a slippery beast, and you can easily have eight different employees all messaging on your brand from different sources. Make sure that it’s obvious which outlet is the official one, and let your employees know when they should feel free to answer questions about the brand and when they should refer the questions to you.
  • Think of it like: Every company that’s large enough needs a communications policy. This is just an extension of that. Think long and hard about limiting all communications on social media channels; they’re rapidly becoming as essential to whole swathes of the population as email is, and surely you don’t think that employees shouldn’t have email?

Compared to someone with a background in broadcast media advertising or in outdoor sales, a PR pro has a huge leg up when a client or member of your business is looking for someone to ride herd on social media. Make use of your people skills, communications expertise, and dive right in!

Related articles by Zemanta

• G5 Social Media Best Practices (slideshare.net)
• How to measure your social media marketing campaign ROI (mediapress.co.za)
• Social media advertising comes of age, gets regulated (thenextweb.com)
• The 9 Immutable Laws of Social Media Marketing (slideshare.net)
• Time and ROI are the greatest social media marketing concerns (smartblogs.com)
• Racepoint Labs Sets New Standard for Integrating Social Media into PR Programs (eon.businesswire.com)
• StrongMail Takes a Measurable Approach to Social Media Marketing with Industry’s Most Comprehensive Solution (eon.businesswire.com)

Since the holidays, I’ve been on the South Beach diet to lose some of those 20 extra pounds that magically appeared on my midsection this year (wonder how that happened!). That’s inspired me to start providing my social media clients with a lean, mean regimen for their social media program. It’s worked for them, and you can use it, too. While this is a post that’s more appropriate on my social media business blog (where it will get to eventually), it’s valuable PR strategy, too. It is lean, mean, and anyone can do it to get more out of their social media efforts.

Here’s your new social media workout plan:

• Hit up your social media services 3x a day for about 10 minutes each time. Identify which services are most effective for you and use those more often. I generally say 10 minutes before work, 10 at lunch, and 10 minutes after the day is done.
• If you’re using an analytics program like Google Analytics, use your natural search queries to tell you what phrases people are finding you for. Are those phrases you want to be found for? Then use them in your social media. Is your audience coming from keywords that don’t convert? Use better keywords in your social media.
• If you aren’t measuring analytics, go to Google.com/analytics and do so.
• Basic morning routine for Twitter:
  • Identify two or three twitter personalities that always have something interesting to say. Each morning, retweet something they’ve posted.
  • Find a blog or two that writes in your space. Tweet links to the interesting articles that they’ve written
  • Write a blog yourself? Make sure that you put your content in your tweets.
  • Look over your replies and DM’s and answer all appropriately
  • Finally, using a client like TweetDeck or Seesmic Desktop, set up searches for words or phrases that are pertinent to what you do. Reply to other twitter posters who post using those terms.
  • This should take 10 – 15 minutes every day, once you get it to a system.
• Basic afternoon routine for Facebook;
  • Check out your wall. Have you gotten new fans? Welcome them with a quick message.
  • Have you had any kind of event recently? Post pictures / video / whatever on it.
  • Run Facebook searches for terms that are pertinent to your organization. Have your fan page become a fan of other organizations that have similar interests.
  • Look over your wall for comments and reply; empty out inbox and reply as well
  • Post 2 -3 links to interesting information that is related to your organization
  • This takes 10 – 15 minutes when it’s done
• LinkedIn Evening routine
  • Look for questions on the groups that you belong to. Answer two that you can legitimately offer an interesting and informed opinion on.
  • Been to a networking event? Run searches on people who’s cards you have. Find them on LinkedIn and follow ‘em.
  • Has anyone in your network changed job positions or posted another important status update? Drop ‘em a note commenting on it.
  • This is 5 – 10 minutes of work.
• Blogging / Internet Evening routine
  • Set up Google Alerts on keywords that are pertinent to your interests. Get emails daily and check the links that Google sends you out. Generally, I recommend an alert on your brand, on your market, and on yourself as well.  Read the alerts for links / ideas for the other social media outlets and click through on the interesting ones.
  • Leave comments on any blog post that you actually read. Yes, every single one. They have to have something interesting to say, but don’t need to be Shakespeare.
  • This takes 10 minutes or so.

There’s your daily workout. Stick to it for 3 months and come back for a checkup.

The Feb 9, 2010 Daily Rundown.

Click on the stunningly good-looking man above to listen to the audio clip.

In “The Right and Wrong of PR Pitches“, he discusses what is probably the perfect example of what good PR should be from the journalists perspective. Since it’s Yelp that did the PR work (and they get social media) it doesn’t shock me to hear that they impressed John. He talks about what he liked from the PR outreach side, there, but let me go into a little detail one of the points that he quickly sketches over because he probably assumes that you know what he’s talking about:

First PR lesson – track, filter, and engage brand mentions.

In my articles on the sidebar, I go into using Google Alerts to track mentions of your brand (and that’s a great start), but you should also look into using some other services on top of that now.

• TweetBeep or TweetAlarm are both  good services for keeping on top of Twitter mentions of specific phrases or words, but I’m personally fond of the Seesmic Desktop to keep running searches of the phrases and words that matter to me.
• If you’re like me and follow roughly a hojillion different blogs, a service like FeedRinse can be invaluable, letting you search and organize your feeds so that you only read what interests you.
• Filtrbox is an excellent paid solution for someone who’s looking to maximize his or her brand engagement across blogs, Twitter, and other social media.

That said, I promised you 5 ways to use these tools to slow pitch to the media as John Jantsch recommends. Here you go:

1. Keyword-Based Searching: Pick out keywords that your brand (or yourself!) can speak on with authority. When people write about those words or phrases, respond to ‘em. (That’s more or less what John Jantsch recounts in the above blog article)
2. Brand-Based Searching: Not quite the same as “keyword based”, since you’re looking for any instance of your brand being mentioned on the ‘Net, instead of people writing about a topic. Whether they’re rants or raves, you should make sure to engage the consumer when they talk about you; it will frequently turn an unhappy customer into a happy one, and a happy customer into a thrilled one. Just knowing that someone’s listening is a big help for many consumers.
3. Information Gathering: Once you’ve found media outlets who write about what it is that you have to say, you should still make a point to contact them with more information as you gather it. Keep it timely, of course, but if you find out something about a new product or initiative that’s launched recently and which is applicable to a recently-covered topic, then go ahead and pass it on.
4. Trending Topics: Through Twitter and Technorati, it’s easy to keep on top of what’s breaking on the ‘Net. If your brand has a legitimate stake in a trending topic, sending out a friendly note to journalists & bloggers with whom you’ve previously corresponded with both an overview of information as well as a note on what it is that your brand has to offer as commentary will help you get ahead of trends and keep your brand in the news.  (Note that your brand needs to have a valid opinion on a trending topic lest you find yourself mocked on something like the Bad Pitch Blog)
5. Identify New Influencers: Using your keyword and brand-based alerts, you’ll obviously see who’s talking about you. Something you should be taking notice of, though, is how often you’re seeing a particular blog or twitter profile posting about your subject or brand. Notice who’s got a growing following (which you can check on Twitterholic or Technorati, depending on whether you want to see someone’s twitter following or blog reach, respectively) and cultivate them as a contact. When they’re looking for a new quote or a topic idea, they’ll turn to you. And that’s really what the slow pitch is about achieving: a relationship with journalists and bloggers where they come to view you as a source for information and a person whose emails or calls they know will e valuable to them.

The “slow pitch” builds over time and increases your reputation and reliability with news outlets until they are happy to hear from you. It takes time, but ask yourself this question after reading John’s article: the next time Yelp sends John Jantsch an email, what do you think the chances are that he’ll open & read it? Pretty good, I imagine.

Now go out and find the people who are having conversations you care about and start a dialog.

Further reading:

• Ten Free Tools To Kick Your Social Media Cynicism to the Ground (nettiehartsock.com)
• Three Best Ways to Use Social Media (online.wsj.com)
• What’s In Your Twitter Toolbox? (twitterrati.com)
• Managing Your Reputation Online: 5 Essential Tools (computerworld.com)

Kicking off IZEA Fest the evening before it starts, “Blogger, Meet Marketer. Marketer, Meet Blogger.” is a chance to learn how to approach a blogger (if you’re a marketer) or a place to learn the care and feeding of marketers (if you’re a blogger).

Whether you are a blogger, marketer, PR agency or a company looking to gain exposure on the hundreds of millions of blogs on the Interwebs, this session will give you an inside look into the mindset of all the parties involved in generating online buzz and ROI through effective blogging. Join doterati and our excellent panelists or an afternoon of networking, education and a free cocktail!

Who should come:

• Bloggers
• Marketers
• PR Pros
• Small Business Owners
• Digerati

Event Details
Who: doterati
What: Blogger Meet Marketer, Marketer Meet Blogger
When:Thursday, October 1st
Panel Discussion   1pm-4pm
Cocktails and Networking   4pm – 5:30pm
IZEA Bus to Howl O’Scream   6pm
Where:
Renaissance Orlando Hotel at Sea World
6677 Sea Harbor Drive
Orlando, FL 32821
Register at: http://izeablogpanel.eventbrite.com/

Cost
$39 for Doterati Members, IZEAFest Ticket Holders, Orlando Ad Fed Members & AMA Members

$49 for Non-Members
Attendees receive one free drink ticket.

Contact Info
VP Marketing Greg Rollett
marketing@doterati.com
doterati.com
321.438.4442

About doterati
Doterati is a 501 c 6 organization from Orlando, FL whose mission is to advance the interactive marketing, media and technology community by serving as an association for professional development, education, community networking and overall inspiration for our digital society.

Become a member and expand your personal and professional network, accelerate your knowledge and embed yourself in the layers of our growing interactive community. Volunteer and gain access to front-row action at events, planning and organizational think tanking. Our radar sweeps for digital brand marketers, Web developers, agencies, creatives, students, entrepreneurs, consultants, start-ups, big-thinkers and everyone in between. Learn more at http://www.doterati.com.

Asheville, NC (PRWEB) August 12, 2009 — There’s no question that luxury cruise lines are offering deeper discounts now than they ever have before, with savings of up to 70% off regular pricing and air included, but if you’ve got the opportunity to take a luxury cruise this year, which one should you choose?

Let award-winning travel journalist give you his considered opinion at www.avidcruiser.com. His article, “The Razor’s Edge: Who’s The Best? Luxury Cruise Lines Square Off” (http://bit.ly/fuwvA) tackles this issue from the perspective of a journalist who has sailed on more than 200 cruises and written more than 500 articles about cruising.

In the past few months, Grizzle has cruised with Crystal Cruises, Regent Seven Seas Cruises, Seabourn Cruise Line, Silversea Cruises, and SeaDream Yacht Club. His article discusses which of these lines he enjoyed the most, as well as which luxury line he thinks does the best job at delivering an up-market cruise vacation.

“Many of the visitors to my web site, as well as people I meet during my travels, have asked me which luxury cruise line is the best,” Grizzle says. “Of course, there is no easy answer, because the luxury lines are all so good at what they deliver. That said, before you reach the final period indicating the end of my article, you will have your answer.”

About The Avid Cruiser:

The Avid Cruiser is a one-stop source for information about cruises, with photo essays, interviews with friendly staff members, and even a full glossy print magazine that covers the new destinations, ships, cruises, and adventures that any cruiser–avid expert or first time traveler–can set sail on to bring home memories that will last a lifetime. For more information, visit www.avidcruiser.com or www.avidcruiser.com/blog.

About Ralph Grizzle:

An avid traveler and an award-winning journalist, Ralph Grizzle produces articles, video and photos that are inspiring and informative, personal and passionate. A journalism graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he has specialized in travel writing for more than two decades.

Contact:

Ralph Grizzle
Avid Travel Media, Inc
828-398-0570
www.avidcruiser.com

(Berlin, Germany) – July 10, 2009 – Twitter, the new Internet service that lets you speak your mind in 140 characters or less – has proven a communication boon for many. One of the newer trends that’s just emerging in Twitter, though, is a growing effort to use the social media tool for charity. While some people turn their twitter images different colors in support of a cause, or try to get their fellow “tweeple” to click on a link to raise funds, Christian Rubarth of Berlin Germany is looking to accomplish something that uses Twitter for charity more directly.

“I want to get 999,999 followers on my twitter account 999999Followers,” Christian says. “Once I’ve gotten that many, I will give my twitter account to a charity. Since Twitter lets you change your name, they won’t have to keep the 999999Followers name once I give the account away.”

Which charity will get the twitter account? Everyone who follows 999999Followers on Twitter will be given a chance to vote for which charity he or she feels is most deserving at 999999Followers.broken-monitor.com, and the charity with the most votes will receive it. Tying the reach and interactivity of social media with a desire to do good, this web designer is aiming high: he wants to get all 999,999 followers before Dec 31, 2009.

It may seem like an odd thing to do, giving a charity a twitter account with a giant following, but it makes a lot of sense in this new world of social media. Giving a charity a list of just under 1 million contacts all across the globe who are service-minded and web-savvy is a huge resource pool that any charitable organization could make good use of. Only a few Twitter users have followings in the millions, such as Ashton Kutcher and CNN News, and they’ve seen the power of Twitter to raise funds and awareness.

It’s a lofty goal that Christian has set for himself – and the Twitter community – but if other Twitter users like Ashton Kutcher can get a million users just for fun, he figures that he can accomplish the same thing for charity.

Want to help? Log in to twitter.com or sign up if you don’t have an account and tell your followers something like: “Chris from @999999Followers is looking to get 999,999 followers by Dec 31 & give his acct. to charity. Follow him & please RT!”

Contact:
Christian Rubarth
press@broken-monitor.com
http://twitter.com/999999followers

Skype: pr999999followers

About @999999followers
The 999999Followers Project is the brainchild of 40 year old web designer Christian Rubarth of Berlin, Germany. He wants to get 999,999 Twitter users following him by December 31 so that he can give his account to a charity at the start of 2010. Help him out by following him at http://twitter.com/999999followers and spreading the word through Twitter, Facebook, or anywhere else you hang out online.

(13 July 2009) ORLANDO, FL – Doterati, (www.doterati.com) an Orlando-based organization dedicated to advancing the interactive media community, is hosting an event on Thursday, July 16 2009 that will help explain to advertising agencies and small businesses alike to benefit from the differences between online and traditional media marketing.

As budgets for advertising and marketing decrease, it is increasingly crucial that businesses make the most of their advertising dollar and use the natural advantages of interactive and offline advertising and marketing to mutual advantage. As more and more marketing and advertising move online where results are more measurable, everyone who advertises needs to learn how to use it effectively, and doterati’s luncheon is designed to help.

Featured speakers Bob Klomp and Lindsey Lawson are both digital marketers for WESH.COM/ CW18TV.COM. They will be presenting a keynote on core objectives they use to ensure client success with their traditional and online advertising packages ad services. This event will include lunch and offer a Q & A session for our speakers and audience.

Event Details:

Who: doterati
When: Thursday, July16th, 2008 11am – 1pm
Where: Crowne Plaza Orlando – Downtown
304 W Colonial Dr
Orlando, FL
Free Parking and Free WiFi at the Crowne Plaza
Register Here – http://interactivegap.eventbrite.com/

Event Pricing:

Pre-Registration: Members $20 (with Member Code); Non-Members $25
At Door: Members $25 (with ID), Non-Members $30

Contact Info

VP Marketing Greg Rollett
marketing@doterati.com
doterati.com
321.438.4442

About doterati

doterati is a 501(c)6 organization from Orlando, FL whose mission is to advance the interactive marketing, media and technology community by serving as an association for professional development, education, community networking and overall inspiration for our digital society.

Become a member and expand your personal and professional network, accelerate your knowledge and embed yourself in the layers of our growing interactive community. Volunteer and gain access to front-row action at events, planning and organizational think tanking. Our radar sweeps for digital brand marketers, Web developers, agencies, creatives, students, entrepreneurs, consultants, start-ups, big-thinkers and everyone in between. Learn more at doterati.com.

Special HARO offer!

Any HARO member who orders his or her first press release from OvernightPR before the end of June gets free release distribution through PRWeb as well as 1 month’s free hosting for their release on PitchEngine. That’s a $130 value included in the price of your release.

The OvernightPR Difference

OvernightPR writes fast. How fast? Fast enough that I guarantee my delivery to you with a promise of money back. If you purchase a press release from OvernightPR and we don’t get it back to you within the time frame your package gives (look at the Pricing Page for more information on this), I’ll refund you the price of your press release and throw in free social media distribution to boot.

Help A Reporter Out is one of the coolest communities around, and HARO and its community have been a great help to me and my clients. By way of saying “Thanks” to the HARO community,  I wanted to reach out to you guys with the special offer above.

While You’re Here…

While you’re here, if you’d like to read some of my blog’s PR tips, you can start by reading the most recent set, or download my older articles in PDF format by visiting the sidebar under “Downloads.”  Also take a moment to sign up for the monthly digest of OvernightPR.com’s blog articles by entering your email in my signup form to the right or visiting the online form instead. Or, if you’d rather, subscribe to my RSS feed.

My Email Policy:

I give my articles away for free to help you make informed decisions on your press release needs.

If you’d like to receive a monthly digest of the topics that I discuss here at OvernightPR, please sign up and be sure to opt-in so that I’ve got you on my list. If at any time you want to stop receiving my article notices, you can do so with the “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of every email that I send.

All emails are sent through MailChimp (if you need an email list manager, you should give them a look, because they are awesome), which has a pretty strict no-spam policy that all senders must uphold, so this is not just me, some guy on the internet you’ve never met, saying this.