Archive for the ‘Social PR’ Category
What’s the Best Social Media Monitoring Tool? It Depends
Wednesday, October 13th, 2010Until fairly recently, keeping track of your organization’s online presence was relatively easy. Other than your company’s website, most mentions were likely in well-known online news sites or trade industry publication sites. Your PR team was aware of most of these as it often had a hand in generating those placements. A simple tool like Google Alerts would pick up most stray citations.
No more. The explosion of social media has led to a corresponding need for more sophisticated monitoring tools that can crawl the hundreds of social networking and bookmarking sites and millions of blogs across the globe. A rapidly proliferating collection of tools are being developed to meet the need. You can find a list of more than 150 social media monitoring tools here or close to 200 here, but—that can seem overwhelming. For those short on time and seeking a shorter list of tools to evaluate, below are nine tools at various price levels that may or may not be the best but are certainly among the most popular and capable social media monitoring tools currently available.
Budget: $0 (I have no budget, I need something free!)
Though limited (in terms of filters, number of search terms and results) in comparison to the fee-based version of the tool, SM2 Freemium is still an excellent tool for getting a snapshot of your social media landscape—discovering who’s talking about you, your competitors and your industry, what they’re saying, and where they are saying it. Results can be exported to Excel for further sorting and analysis. I’ve used this tool on behalf of small clients for finding hundreds of key influencers on Twitter, blogs and various other social networking sites and forums. The only caveat is that this may whet your appetite for the full version (see below).
UPDATE February 21, 2012: The Freemium version disappeared from the Alterian site. When I inquired about it, I received this response: “Thank you for your question. Alterian (acquired by SDL on January 27, 2012) no longer offers the Freemium version of SM2 online. If you are interested in licensing our product, the initial license fee starts at $18,000 per year.”
Another excellent free tool for finding relevant influencers across the social media sphere, Social Mention is a real-time social search engine that also provides alerts and a cool buzz-monitoring widget you can add to your website or blog. If Google Alerts had been developed with a focus on social media, this would be it. This tool is fast, easy to use, and offers a useful set of filters for finding mentions of a company or topic in specific types of social interaction (e.g. blogs, microblogging sites, social networks, etc.).
Budget: Under $500 per month
An easy-to-use, graphically rich tool that provides monitoring (who’s talking about you, your competitors, key industry terms and trends, etc., and where they are talking about it), sentiment analysis, and collaboration tools for acting on the information. It may not catch everything, but it finds a lot (via blogs, Twitter, social news sites and Facebook public pages) and presents the information through useful charts and graphs. Several pricing options are available, most under $500 per month.
Along with the monitoring and alert features you’d expect, Trackur also includes a proprietary algorithm for displaying the influence and reach of individuals discussing your brand or topic—so you can focus on power users and ignore trolls and spammers. Andy Beal and his team have built a nice tool that’s garnered favorable reviews from TechCrunch and other prominent tech sites. As with UberVU, several pricing / service levels are available under $500 per month.
Budget: $500-1,000 per month
Social Media Monitoring
The fee-based version of SM2 does everything the freemium version does plus providing unlimited searches and results, filters, boolean search strings and alerts. Its monitoring covers blogs, message boards, forums, microblogging sites, wikis, media sharing sites, social networks, online classifieds and review sites. SM2 provides enough social media monitoring power to be relied upon by some fairly large brands, at a price point affordable to midsized and even socially active smaller companies.
Popular with agencies as well as corporate users, Radian6 offers a rich set of tools for social media monitoring, responding, tracking, benchmarking and analytics. The Radian6 Dashboard enables you to monitor conversations in real time, while the Engagement Console lets you respond directly or route posts to appropriate individuals or teams and analyze the results of social media interactions.
Traditional PR + Social Media Monitoring
Cision combines its own PR tracking capabilities built on the former Bacon’s clipping service (older PR pros, you may need to explain to your younger counterparts what a “clipping service” was back in the day) with a white-labeled version of Radian6 to provide markets and PR professionals with a 360-degree view of brand mentions and trends across traditional and social media. Cision’s tools are designed to help organizations of almost any size that are active in PR and social media relations “plan their stories, connect with audiences, monitor media coverage and analyze results.”
Vocus provides a rich set of tools for traditional and social media monitoring, media outreach and news distribution. The company’s built-from-the-ground-up monitoring tools cover more than 50,000 traditional media outlets, every major social media site and 20 million blogs. Its database of 270,000 U.S. / 500,000 global media contacts is invaluable for connecting with the right writers and performing effective outreach. Through PRWeb, which Vocus acquired in 2006, it offers extensive news distribution and tracking capabilities. Social media monitoring can be purchased separately for $3000 per year (putting that tool effectively in the $0-500 per month category) though most users combine at least a subset of the PR tools with this.
Budget: We don’t need no stinkin’ budget
If you’re familiar with terms like product placement and slotting fees, and your brand is familiar to consumers through prime time TV advertising, you should probably evaluate this tool. If all of those things are true and your company is social media savvy, there’s a good chance you’re already using it. Nielsen’s monitoring covers more than 100 million blogs, social networking sites, discussion boards and other sites where consumers can post content. It provides capabilities for capturing customer insights, response, brand management and social media outreach tracking. Forrester Research has named Nielsen a leader in brand monitoring solutions, saying “the vendor has the strongest strategic vision and currently competes at a scale unmatched by any other competitor.”
These tools are among the best for social media monitoring, whatever your budget and needs. But, as noted above, the social media monitoring space is highly dynamic, with new tools and improvements to existing tools constantly being introduced. If I overlooked your favorite tool, leave a comment below.
Also, as a test—since this post is about social monitoring tool vendors, let’s see how many of them promote it or respond to it, either with a comment here or on other social media outlets, and how quickly they do so.
Best Social PR Guides and Tips of 2010 (So Far)
Wednesday, September 1st, 2010Social media has fundamentally altered the practice of public relations. And as any blogger can tell you, PR pros understand this, as witnessed by the incredible increase in blogger outreach “pitches” from corporate PR departments and firms over the past two years.
Of course, there’s more to (successful) blogger outreach than just pitching, and there’s more to the new practice of social PR than just blogger outreach. Like what? Read on to learn how social media is changing PR, how pitching bloggers is different from traditional media outreach, how to optimize press releases for search and online distribution, which tools should be in your social PR toolbox and more here in some of the best articles and blog posts on social PR of 2010 so far.
Will Traditional, Social Media Blend? by MediaPost Marketing Daily Commentary
Writing that “The most productive PR path…is a blended approach to social and traditional media,” Len Stein offers a quick but valuable process for obtaining and promoting old and new media coverage using multiple tools like social bookmarking sites, internal company distribution, your own website, marketing emails and more.
Pros & Cons of Applying Social Media to Traditional PR Campaigns by Howell Marketing Strategies
Amy Howell makes the case that “social media DOES NOT REPLACE traditional PR and marketing, but IT IS A WAY TO LEVERAGE what already works” through a series of pro and cons of applying social media stragies in a traditional business environment. For example, “PRO: Twitter gives us a great way to leverage PR. When we help clients generate news in the traditional news publications–both print and online–we will use Twitter to post links to those stories and give our clients a “shout out.” CON: It takes time to post all client news, especially when you have multiple clients (frequently) in the news…(but) It’s worth the extra time and effort and adds extra value on top of what’s already successful.”
How Is PR Changing? by Journalistics
Jeremy Porter writes a thoughtful piece on what hasn’t changed in PR (the need to communicate to and manage relationships with various audiences) and what has (dialog rather than monologue, metrics and measurement technology, the media landscape, etc.), and what PR pros need to do differently to succeed in this new environment.
Trail of Breadcrumbs by PR-Squared
***** 5 stars
Quoting a recent study from Cision and George Washington University, Todd Defren reports that “an overwhelming majority of reporters and editors now depend on social media sources when researching their stories. Specifically, 89% said they turn to blogs for story research, 65% to social media sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn, and 52% to microblogging services such as Twitter.” In light of this, Todd views the PR pro’s role as “casting breadcrumbs” through social media for journalists and consumers/buyers to follow back to the PR sources.
Social Media, PR, and the Shape of Things to Come by CIO Zone
Michael Neubarth reacts to a PR Week piece in which Scott Monty details three ways in which PR pros have the opportunity to “shape social media’s future.” After reviewing these three areas, Michael contends that, “In the big picture, it is social media that is shaping the practice of PR more than PR is shaping social media.”
How PR Pros Are Using Social Media for Real Results by Mashable
Christina Warren takes “a look at how PR professionals are using social media (such as driving authenticity ad building brand loyalty) to achieve real results when dealing with business-to-business relationships…(and) some of the tools of the trade that PR pros are using to measure the success of their endeavors.” Among the tools noted are Omniture (web and social media analytics), Eloqua (marketing automation / demand generation software) and Twitalyzer (Twitter-specific measurement).
How to Reach Out to Bloggers by Chris Brogan
“Are you hoping to connect with bloggers and get the word out about your product or service?” If so, social media guru Chris Brogan has several helpful tips to make your outreach more successful, such as “Be there before the sale…If you want people to write about you, they should probably know about you first,” or what I term “warm outreach” (as opposed to cold outreach, where the first the blogger ever hears of you is your pitch).
SESNY: 5 Tips To Optimize Press Releases For Search by TopRank Online Marketing Blog
Adam Singer summarizes guidance from Meg Walker of PRWeb on how to search optimize press releases. Her advice includes knowing your audience (so you’re using the right keywords and story angle), incorporating images and video, and optimizing content elements like text links and image alt- tags.
The Top Free Press Release Distribution Sites by BigNews.biz
***** 5 stars
An outstanding list of the top 15 free PR distribution sites based on five criteria: Page Rank, distribution to Google News, Alexa traffic rank, cost of optional services, and rejection rate.
10 Free Social Media Tools Every PR Pro Should Master by Social Media Today
Adam Vincenzini reviews 10 tools that he believes “MUST be part of a modern communicator’s arsenal” including AllTop (for finding the most influential bloggers in any space), Social Mention (social media monitoring tool) and SWiX (an interesting tool though it appears to be no longer free).
10 More Online Tools Every PR Pro Should Master (Part Two) by Social Media Today
Building on his post above, Adam reviews 10 more key tools for PR pros including Addictomatic (social media dashboard), HootSuite (social media management platform) and Twitter Advanced Search, as well as a few worthy but less-known apps.
Best Interactive PR Articles and Blog Posts of 2009
Monday, April 5th, 2010Interactive PR, sometimes called social PR, is a combination of search-optimizing press releases, creating social media releases through tools like PitchEngine, blogger outreach and the use of social media to promote company news and announcements. Though the ability to distribute press releases online has been around for more than a decade, it’s only in the last few years that tools and techniques for combining PR with social media have really emerged, and they continue to evolve.
Here are some of the best articles and blog posts from last year on tools, techniques and insights related to interactive PR, from best practices in blogger outreach to helpful resources and the latest strategies.
Blogger Outreach
Blogger Relations by Sourcing Innovation
Interesting post detailing 10 “secrets” for effective blogger outreach. Good advice, and if you like this post, you may also find value in How to Get Coverage in Blogs – Really.
Social Media PR: Top 10 Ways Not to Pitch Bloggers by Pierce Mattie Public Relations New York
Shannon Nelson summarizes advice from several bloggers on Twitter about how NOT to pitch them.
The Very Basics of Blogger Outreach by Social Media Today
Kevin Briody provides seven tips for successful blog pitches, such as building a solid list up front, personalizing your email and keeping your message concise.
Interactive PR Resources
PRChannel
***** 5 Stars
An extensive list of resources for online PR pros, including how-to articles, free and paid distribution services, tools, industry news, career listings, PR associations and more. Two other helpful resources from PRChannel are 6 Must-Read Books for Public Relations People and 5 Questions to Ask When Considering a Media-Monitoring Service.
50 Free Press Release Submission Websites by Internet Marketing
This is Avangate’s Top 50 press release submission list, the most trusted sites where you can publish a press release, all of them free of charge. This list was initially created in 2007, but has been updated periodically since then.
15 Online Press Release Distribution Sites by sitepoint
Another helpful list of online PR distribution sites.
Downloadable List Of 120+ Press Release Sites by SEO Tips & Opinions Blog
Joseph Alvini provides yet another list of online PR sites, a mix of free and paid services in both online and downloadable formats.
10 of the Best Social Media Tools for PR Professionals and Journalists by Mashable
Sarah Evans offers her list of resources for keeping up on social media trends and performing online PR tasks more effectively, including PitchEngine, BeatBlogging.org and Twellow.
Interactive PR Insights and Tactics
Optimizing A Press Release by PRESSfeed
A detailed 11-step process to optimize press releases for search.
9 Steps for a Public Relations Plan in 2010 by The 60 Second Marketer
Ann Pruit offers tips for maximizing the impact of online PR ranging from providing journalists with tips and insights to creating seasonal angles.
SideWiki changes everything by The Digital Content Blog
Mark Borkowski explains why he believes “SideWiki will change the lives of beleaguered PR folk. In time, this tool will significantly change the way brands strategise, think and exist,” and what PR pros should know and do about this tool.
PR and Media, from Begging for to Earning Attention by Conversation Agent
Valeria Maltoni makes the case that “There is opportunity…for PR and media to step up their game and go from begging for to earning attention (because) both groups worry about circulation, in different ways,” and then provides guidance on how to get more PR coverage in the crowded online news space.
15 Ways PR Agencies Can Help Companies With Social Media by Dave Fleet
Dave Fleet details tactics the PR firms can use to help their clients succeed in social media, from audience research and policy development to influencer outreach and design/creative work.
10 Reasons Media Relations Will Get Easier in 2010 by Journalistics
Jeremy Porter predicts that social media, research tools, expanded media options, improved filtering and other developments will help get journalists interested in your stories.
How to Get Coverage in Blogs – Really
Monday, March 22nd, 2010B2b marketers and PR pros know that getting coverage in an industry-specific blog is highly beneficial. Blog links are valuable for SEO. Relevant blogs can drive targeted direct traffic from the blogger’s social media sphere of influence. And coverage from independent bloggers enhances a company’s reputation and credibility.
Numerous bloggers have written about how to pitch blogs, such as B.L. Ochman, Christina Kerley, Cece Salomon-Lee and Laura Moncur. Such posts often take the form of “do’s” and “don’ts” for successful blogger outreach. Best practice recommendations generally say that you should:
- • Personalize pitches with the blogger’s name, blog title, and some indication that you’ve read the blog;
- • Explain why your topic is important to the blog’s readers;
- • Keep pitches short and compelling;
- • Include links to related media (video, photos, screen shots);
- • Offer an interview with a company executive;
- • Explain how you’ll promote the blogger’s coverage, if you get it; and
- • Follow up after 3-4 days if you haven’t heard back.
These posts also frequently include guidance on practices to avoid when pitching bloggers. For example, don’t:
- • Send out an impersonal mass mailing;
- • Send only a press release, or a release with just a brief introductory note, and expect coverage;
- • Take a “shotgun” approach, sending irrelevant announcements to a large number of bloggers; and don’t
- • Ever, ever, EVER include a press release as an attachment (many bloggers will automatically delete unsolicited messages containing attachments).
All of this advice is as relevant today as it was two years ago. The problem is that it’s no longer enough.
As more PR firms have discovered the value of getting coverage in blogs for their clients, the practice of blogger outreach has spread exponentially and the volume of pitches has exploded. Based on anecdotal evidence and personal experience, as little as two years ago the “hit rate” for blog pitches was fairly respectable, at least among B-list and C-list bloggers, because these writers received few pitches and many were flattered by the attention suddenly being paid to them by PR firms. But in 2009, the volume of pitches began to rise dramatically. Today, it’s not unusual for a C-list blogger to receive several pitches per week, and B-list bloggers to get 10 or more per day. I can only speculate on how many pitches an A-list blogger like Chris Brogan, Brian Solis or Erick Schonfeld must receive.
The vast majority of bloggers write part-time, and there simply aren’t enough hours in the day to even respond to each pitch, much less write about each. Consequently, as the volume of outreach has risen, the hit rate has declined. What to do about this if you’re in PR, or a client seeking coverage in industry blogs?
First, recognize that the advice given above is focused on “cold” outreach, that is, where you or your client has had no previous contact with the blogger. The first step in increasing effectiveness is to shift to “warm” outreach, where you establish a relationship prior to pitching. This requires more time and effort, but can pay off in more coverage.
Follow your targeted bloggers on Twitter. Retweet some of their posts. Provide relevant and helpful comments on some of their blog posts. Help them promote their content through Twitter and other social media tools. Join the same LinkedIn groups they belong to. This will get their attention and establish a social, online relationship with them. Once you’ve done this, a well-crafted pitch, following the rules laid out above, will have a greater chance of cutting through the inbox clutter.
The most effective means to coverage, however, is to offer a guest post. Even TechCrunch accepts guest posts, though that isn’t the place to start. Begin by approaching C-list bloggers, the easiest place to get coverage. Provide true thought-leadership content (not thinly-disguised marketing collateral) that establishes your expertise in your industry. Use your presence on these blogs to build credibility with B-list bloggers, then move to the A-list.
Guest posts turn the idea of blog pitching on its head. Instead of asking a blogger to take time out of their busy schedule to write about your company, product or service, you’re offering to save them time by providing valuable, relevant content for the blog that he or she doesn’t have to write. It’s a win-win-win; you get your name and link on blogs, readers get a helpful and interesting post, and the blog authors get useful content plus a day off.
As the social media landscape continues to evolve, interactive PR practices must evolve along with it. Smart PR firms, and their clients, will focus less on “cold” pitches and more on establishing relationships and creating thoughtful content.
Best of 2008: Interactive PR
Sunday, January 3rd, 2010What are some of the best tools for implementing PR 2.0? How do PR, SEO and social media work together to build name recognition and credibility for a company? What are the best (and worst) practices in interactive PR? How should marketers and PR professionals adapt to the decline of traditional publishing and the rapidly increasing influence of social media?
Find the answers to these inquiries and more here in some of the best articles and blog posts about interactive PR from 2008.
Thankful For PR 2.0 by THINKing
Harry Hoover calls out some of his favorite PR 2.0 tools, technology that has made the practice of PR more effective and transparent. Included on his list are Twitter, Peter Shankman’s Help a Reporter Out (HARO), and online social media release service PitchEngine.
Digital PR and SEO Series: Part 3 Social Media Monitoring by Online Marketing Blog
The prolific, mercurial Lee Odden explains how to integrate media relations, SEO and social media to optimize your brand’s online presence, reputation management and engagement with key audiences.
Dirty PR, Sexy Keywords and Outsmarting the Search Engine by PitchEngine
Noting that “there have always been bad PR practices out there, but thanks to this digital era of communications, new methods of PR delivery are making it increasingly tricky for journalists to weed out the good from the bad,” Jason Kintzler explains how PR professionals can use SEO and social media properly—for relationship-building, not trickery.
Steve Rubel on how blogs are changing the face of PR by iMedia Connection
Lori Luechtefeld talks with PR pro and blogger Steve Rubel about the importance of focusing on your audience and message rather than shiny, sparkly new online tools. Among other points, Rubel contends that the press release will evolve rather than disappear, that blogging has permanently altered the media landscape, and that transparency is paramount in building relationships with a broader range of constituencies.
PR Firms: Spend your Money on SEO by Orange Soda
A helpful, if perhaps somewhat controversial, post about what’s dead in PR (e.g., press releases, inviting reporters to lunch) and what’s hot (e.g., blogging and SEO). Some of the points made are spot-on, but as the posts above from Jason Kintzler and Lori Luechtefeld note, the press release is much more likely to evolve with changing practices than to disappear.
Building Relationships is More Important Than Building Links Alone by Search Engine Journal
Blog links have become a valued commodity in the PR world, so much so that popular bloggers receive a constant stream of pitches by email. Loren Baker contends that the best way to generate links is to think beyond the one-off pitch and build relationships with key bloggers in your industry. Following his strategy and the steps he lays out in this post, “one can cut past the boilerplate emails and link requests, and build not only a business relationship with a publisher, but also a long term friendship.”
To Succeed Small Business Marketers Must Unlearn Traditional PR by Content Marketing Today
Newt Barrett expands upon the core idea presented by David Meerman Scott in his invaluable book, The New Rules of Marketing & PR: that PR and marketing professionals need to shift from writing company- or product-centric press releases to customer- and market-centric content that has real value to the company’s prospective clients. In Newt’s words, “if your PR strategy is driven with a customer focus that is backed up by a rich set of customer-centric content, you will generate news.”
Brave New World of Media Pitching: LinkedIn by PR Meets Marketing
PR 2.0 expert Cece Salomon-Lee follows up on her post about Twitter pitching by explaining how LinkedIn can help with PR, such as through forging new connections and researching reporters.
Online PR – Is there any value beyond the links? by Search Engine People
Search marketer Jennifer Osborne answers the provocative question posed in her title with a resounding “Yes!,” detailing six ways to measure the impact of interactive PR, from links and increased traffic to SEO rank and increases in offline inquiries.
Optimizing Press Releases – It All Starts with the Lead by StraightUpSearch
This brief but valuable post offers several simple tricks to help get your news releases not only found but actually read online.
How To Pitch To Bloggers by Pick Me!
The tireless Laura Moncur, author of a half dozen blogs, gives PR practitioners priceless advice on how to effectively pitch bloggers, such as doing some research first, understanding how bloggers differ from traditional journalists, proiding review copies when applicable, and being “prepared for the truth.”
Words to Write By: SEO Tricks for Press Releases by Speak Media Blog
PR strategist Jennifer A. Jones recommends using SEO keyword tools to discover the most popular current keywords when writing news releases. At the time she wrote this post, “sex,” “money,” “secret” and “trick” were among the top attention-getting words (it’s not clear if that means used separately or in combination…hmm) while gobbledegook words like “solutions,” “leading” and “cutting edge” are pretty much worthless.
Social Media Newsroom for How Best to Avoid Dying
This is the social media newsroom page for the book How Best to Avoid Dying
Press Releases and Search Engine Optimization by Search Engine Watch
SEO and web design expert Mark Jackson offers step-by-step guidance on how to maximize the value of press releases for SEO, from writing the release through distribution and publishing.
Facebook Connects Your Brand Across the Social Web by PR 2.0
Brian Solis, principal of Silicon Valley-based PR firm FutureWorks, reviews a presentation by Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and cites the platform as key to online reputation management, noting that “With just a bit of code, Facebook Connect enables seamless integration between Web sites, pages, communities, and networks and the Facebook identity system.”
