As I recently had the great pleasure of attending SMX Advanced, I listened to a presentation on how to use elementary PR tactics as an SEO tool. In addition, SEOmoz recently published a post outlining the potential dangers of SEO managing PR and vice versa: “At the risk of writing with very broad brush-strokes, the PR world still knows nothing about SEO. This ignorance is reciprocal. …As SEOs, we know very little about how public relations actually work, but we should. Applying PR fundamentals can turn your PR Agency into Linkbuilders on Steroids…”

On the surface that is fine; press releases and media relations can produce a lot of link juice if squeezed correctly. But when you begin approaching reporters or bloggers and pitching story ideas with the sole intent of getting a link to your content, you enter into dangerous territory.

Good tactics gone bad

At SMX, the speaker presented several tactics for engaging influentials to garner backlinks. One that he was proud of was to “Position yourself to be a counterpoint to a story.” While this may play well as an immediate hit, you need to consider your image agenda. Do you want to be the perpetual counterpoint? The long-lasting hits on your brand’s reputation might not be worth the inbound links you receive as a source of controversy.

Instead, add value to the influentials coverage, even if it’s not about you. Some industries such as real estate, restaurants and home rennovations lend themselves particularly well to strong media relations, even if you don’t have a steady source of “news.” (yeah, that’s my realtor, my mom’s restaurant and my cousin’s construction company, everybody needs a little link juice)

The speaker also promoted the use of embargoed stories and even exclusives to encourage journailsts to link to your content. As a practice, embargoes are a tough sell. A lot of tech blogs have explicitly said they will not answer them, while others rely upon an explicit agreement and quality relationship before they are even proposed. And I think that “Exclusive” is almost as meaningful as a “yes” RSVP to a Facebook event invite. It is losing its impact as a media outreach tactic and in the world that has “hamsterized” journalism has been losing traction as a content strategy.

Keep SEO in mind

So, how can you make SEO an active part of your digital communications efforts? There are a few key areas to keep in mind when preparing your content:

Link building

As much as it pains me to say it, press releases are still a good way to collect inbound links. Most wires publish press releases to many of the nation’s metro newspapers and news aggregating website. This is pure speculation, but I would imagine that the major search engines are on to this tactic and have devalued those links.

But, what is important is taking a moment to ask the blogger or reporter you’re working with if they could link to your site or announcement and even provide them with the HTML that uses the keywords you would like to rank for.

Keyword optimization

When you look for coverage on your company or client, what words do you enter in the search box? Those are the keywords you want to rank for and use in your content. Chances are, you’re not the only one putting them in the search box. Search Engine Land has compiled numerous keyword research tools and methodologies. Two of its best roundups are Search Engine Land’s Keyword Research Guide and The Giant List Of Keyword Tools. In addition, this is an amazing guide to keyword research.

As I mentioned earlier, focusing on your key messaging (also known as keywords) will help you create content that not only naturally ranks, but is easily linkable and sharable.

Make content that matters

As Scott Stratten, aka Unmarketing is fond of saying, “People share awesome.” By creating content that is actionable, sharable, helps readers solve a problem, you are making something that people will want to share. This is one of the keys  to not only obtaining inbound links, but also acquiring readers and brand advocates, which can help boost your quality metrics.

Tight, grammatically correct content that tells a great story about your market, customers or opinions are content that people want to share. People don’t want to share your press releases. They may read them and you may see the readership metrics that some of the press release distribution services provide, but they don’t want to share them.

As with any aspect of your overall strategy, SEO is just that. A piece of the puzzle. It solves a problem, not all problems. If your messaging is unclear or if your product or opinions are flawed, SEO won’t help.

Let me know your best SEO tactic that communications professionals can utilize in the comments!

But these errors, I can’t help but wonder if they’re the result of poor execution of if the embargo is inherently flawed. As PR practitioners, we want to have a way to get our news out to as many people as possible and having journalists who agree to them is a great way to do that. Plus they piss off journalists.

The challenges with embargoes are that some people like to break them, sometimes PR people screw them up and sometimes they’re not worth the effort. But what are they inherently flawed or are we as PR practitioners simply failing to do our jobs well?

In defense of the embargo

Timing can be everything in the public relations world. Our clients want to see the most results possible and depending on the scope and impact of the news item an embargo is a good way to go. The clients get to spend quality time with the reporter and go in depth into the news item.

When the embargo lifts, you can monitor the outreach easily and pull the coverage in a more efficient manner. But I think the great thing about embargoes is that they help keep the time line of an announcement intact. If news breaks before a Web site is ready or before an executive is ready to talk about it, the perception can quickly turn negative.

Proper execution

I think the best thing to do is go to your list of outlets and just ask them what they want. A simple concept that rarely gets acted upon. Talk to your influencer and know what he or she wants. That conversation, regardless of the outcome, will help you down the road.

So, how do you properly execute an embargo?

Plan. A proper plan makes all the difference in the world. Are you seeding exclusives? Are you looking for video? Radio? Print? How will you optimize for inbound interview requests? So many criteria can make or break an embargoed announcement.

Research. Executing a successful embargo partly depends on who is receiving the news. Have you worked with a particular reporter before? Does he/she have a reputation for breaking them? Making a tiered list of outlets that you wish to offer pre-briefs and embaroed news to is almost as important as the news you are sharing.

Have news. Not all press releases are created equally. Make sure the news you are trying to have released under embargo is actually newsworthy.

Communicate. Work with the writer. Make sure they have all of the information and materials they need in order to write the best post possible for their audience. That’s the key, making sure their audience is happy.

Monitor. Sometimes mistakes happen. Be ready for those mistakes. Post published early? Have the release ready for the wire and be ready to react.

As I said before, the embargo can be a valuable PR tool if utilized properly. What do you think? Let me know in the comments!

I am currently working with the latest group of interns at the office. Some of the brightest young minds in PR (Seriously, I’m intimidated) are jumping face first into the world of PR and digital media. I got to meet with them today and we talked a bit about the importance of how you are perceived by your peers and the influencers you work with.

Brand your personality

Yes, I know, we don’t like the phrase “personal branding.” But it works. We know what it means, so I’m going to use it. If every interaction you have with an influencer is a pitch, how does that affect all future interactions? I think that it is important that a PR pro’s relationship with an influencer, from Kara Swisher to a hyper-local news blog, be symbiotic.

If both parties are benefiting, then the relationship is much more productive. This is especially crucial in direct-to-consumer efforts when you may be working directly with an influencer throughout an event or media tour. Your personality becomes one of the most important aspect of your professional repertoire.

Be yourself

I do my best to be myself around an influencer that I will be working with in the future. But what else can you do to help maintain your place in the wide world of PR? Here’s my ideas:

• Walk the walk. Start a blog, learn about SEO, go shopping, become a PR Geek. The point is if you share the passion and excitement of a product you want your influencer to share with his or her audience, it will be far easier to tell that story.
• Be seen. Get out and meet the people you want covering your clients. Be part of the community. Be active and engage with them.
• Be genuine. Hopefully you end up representing clients you like and getting involved is easy. On the off chance you are stretching yourself daily, I think that sometimes it is OK to admit you are learning the space or learning the products and admit you are not an expert.
• Reach out and touch somebody. Once you establish a relationship. Maybe it was a successful placement of a pitch; could have been a cocktail hour. Whatever the start was, it is up to you as the PR pro to continue the relationship. Tweet them, comment on posts and maybe even give a phone call.
• Have an opinion. In this industry, it is important to be forward thinking and it’s not OK to put that opinion out there. Start a blog or even ask me (or somebody far more popular) if you can guest post.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the type of persona you think a PR pro should have. Tell me in the comments and let me know!

Don't do this.

A new service just getting into Beta called put.io, which is a cloud-based storage service that allows you to stream your media, has this as a splash page if you try to sign up for its closed beta. In an attempt to be Web-developer cute, it took this tone in its image: “Dear friend. You are using Internet Explorer. Please don’t do that.”

You see, this is a great way to alienate an audience. A potentially paying, engaged, promotional audience. In this case it is also alienates more than 63 percent of Internet users, myself included when I’m at work.

What may be cute in Silicon Valley is not cute in corporate America or in most households that are connected to the Internet. My initial reaction was surprise.I was surprised that somebody allowed that to go public. I was surprised that somebody didn’t do the market research. I was surprised somebody was not thinking about a business model.

Please do this

I am an admitted Mac user at home. I run Firefox and at times Safari. But at work, I am on my PC. Running Internet Explorer. Like 63.27 percent of the country.

The lesson to this is to make sure the message you are curating is one that supports your core business model. Having a corporate personality is an essential part of today’s digital media landscape. But don’t do it at the expense of potential revenue.

I know that Internet Explorer has compatibility issues with some technologies and it does not have the robust external developer ecosystem that Firefox and Chrome enjoy. But insulting the user for the choice in technology they’ve made seems asinine.

This is an instance where a solid PR counsel would have raised this issue and helped this young company along its path to success. By offering guidance around messaging, market perception and helping to craft the language used, PR could have helped this company have at least one more customer.

UPDATE: It was just pointed out to me that the percentage of people who would be looking to try this app that run IE might be quite low. Maybe this is a case of “Know your audience” and I’m just being overly sensitive.

What do you think about this messaging and tactic?

Old tactics, new results?

This post originally appeared on PR Breakfast Club. Enjoy.

In the business world, thinking outside the box is the unofficial motto. In public relations, we’re tasked with being creative thinkers. Our clients want us to find different ways to get in front of influencers and, ultimately, customers.

But we are so quick to focus on what’s next, sometimes we do it at the expense of what’s current.

ADOS

Peter Shankman says he suffers from ADOS: Attention Deficit … ooooh shiny! And I think that as PR people we’re guilty of it too. Our clients sometimes push back on us with the charge to be “more creative.” But what is the cost of creativity?

It comes down to a simple ROI calculation. If clients value a mention in a metro print publication more than 50 tweets, perhaps your creative thinking time is best spent taking the metro writer out for coffee or trying to line up a desk-side meeting. If the time you spend trying to be “creative” outweighs the rewards of the action, then it is not worth it.

Defining creativity

I’ve embraced this newfangled “Internet” thing. I know how to hand-code a blog entry, complete with some SEO tricks and I know about metrics in the social media space. But I also know how to dial a phone, send an email or go to an event to connect.

My point is that depending on your goals, news or message you’re trying to send, each of those tactics could be called creative. What some of us consider a de facto tactic in any PR campaign, others would consider it experimental and risky. Again, it all comes down to knowing your client and its goals.

In order to define creativity, you need to be aligned with your client and its goals. Pretty simple stuff, right?

The creativity plateau

I think we might be in a creativity plateau. Hosting a blogger dinner is no longer innovative. A campaign to comment on influencers’ blogs is not cutting edge. SEO for public relations (see what I did there?) is an established industry.

I think we’ve hit a temporary plateau. And that’s OK. It is OK to use established and effective tactics to generate reliable results. It is not imperative that every PR campaign feature a door-to-door singing telegram for every reporter in New York. Actually, maybe that’s not a bad idea…

What do you think?