News and Information Blog

SEO and Social Media Matter for Press Coverage

When businesses think about search and social media, a great deal of the time, they are thinking about traffic, customer engagement, and brand awareness. While these are all good things to consider, there may be more to that last one that you have spent much time thinking about.

Brand awareness goes beyond just having a random customer find your site in a set of search results or through a link from their Facebook news feed. Have you considered how channels like search and social media are used by media outlets and journalists? The fact of the matter is that journalists and bloggers alike utilize both to a great extent while covering their beats.

Do you take press coverage into consideration? Comment here.

Search and social both play significant roles in PR. This is a topic that WebProNews recently discussed with TopRank Online Marketing CEO Lee Odden. Odden calls journalists customers, and in many ways they should be treated as such when it comes to getting your product or site in front of their eyeballs.

Odden says to look at what it is you can do as a marketer to make it easier for the journalist to do their job. Optimize your content for what a journalist is looking for. This is one way you can potentially increase your media coverage, which can obviously increase brand awareness.

Odden makes a great point online journalists often having tighter deadlines, and turning to blogs and social networks for sources and quotes. For example, the real-time nature of a Twitter search might be just what a journalist or blogger need to find someone who's talking about the subject they're writing about, at nearly the moment they're looking for it.

For that matter, Google's real-time search can help for the same reason, and most journalists and bloggers frequently use Google to search for what they're looking for. If what they're looking for happens to be related to a newsy topic, they just might see Google's real-time results literally before anything else. If that topic happens to be related to something you're talking about, you just might end up in those results too. Google is also indexing updates from Facebook Pages here now, by the way.

The point is, if you are looking for increased media coverage, there are ways to increase your chances of getting in front of the right people, and it is certainly not limited to real-time search. Sometimes journalists/bloggers will simply tap their contacts within their social networks (or email of course) to find sources. This is as good a reason as any to engage in social media on a regular basis and network with lots of relevant people.

If attracting media attention is what you're after, consider these five tips I offered in a SmallBusinessNewz article last year:

1. Do something that's different - Simply do something that makes you stand out: something that gets people talking. If it creates enough buzz, the media coverage will likely follow.

2. Look for niche publications - the more niche the publication, the more likely they probably are to cover you.

3. Personalize your message - When you're writing an email to a publication to talk about your business, for example, personalize the message for the specific person you're contacting, so they know it's not just a manufactured piece that you're sending all over the web. Journalists like exclusivity.

4. Find multiple contacts - If you can find more than one contact for a particular publication, it may be wise to send your story pitch to them. This will increase the potential visibility among the publication's staff.

5. Provide plenty of details - When sending such a pitch, it's a good idea to include as many details about the product/story as possible. The more details available, the less research is required, and time is more valuable than ever, especially for a journalist.

Another piece of advice I would give is to not let your press center hold back your marketing opportunities. I've seen a lot of companies fail to keep their own press centers up to date with the latest news, even as big announcements are made, and even if they have issued press releases. Often times, these releases won't even be available on the site until later. If you want to increase your chances of more media coverage, you should always have your latest news readily available in your press center, or via your blog - wherever you make announcements. And always provide contact info.

Share your tips for increasing press coverage.

Read more here

Rocky Point Foundation hopes to beat developers

A new foundation wants to convert the 83 acres that until 1995 were home to the Warwick amusement park into a public waterfront oasis.

Read more here

Google Acquires DocVerse, Takes Aim At MS Office

The acquisitive arm of Google reached out again today, and this time, grabbed DocVerse, a company that specializes in the real-time sharing and editing of documents. The unusual thing is that DocVerse doesn't deal with just any documents; instead, it focuses on Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, and Word documents.

A post on the Official Google Enterprise Blog explained the purchase by stating, "[A]s we continue to improve Google Docs and Google Sites as rich collaboration tools, we're also making it easier for people to transition to the cloud, and interoperate with desktop applications like Microsoft Office."

Then here's another important piece of information, hinting that a significant integration or upgrade already in the works: "Current DocVerse users can keep using the product as usual, though we've suspended new sign-ups until we're ready to share what's next."

Anyway, DocVerse sold for $25 million, according to Jessica E. Vascellaro, which would appear to make it less expensive than Picnik and Aardvark, two other recent Google acquisitions.

It should be interesting to see what happens next, considering this development could correspond to either a small Google Docs upgrade or a major move against Microsoft's software empire.

Read more here

Marketing Tips: How to Transfer Big Video Files

We look at ways to store and transfer large files over the Internet, affordable stock photos, and a tip from the OutBack restaurant that you can easily adapt to your small business marketing strategy.

Read more here

Isis Biopolymer gets $3M for trials, R&D

Medical device firm Isis Biopolymer Inc. said Friday its investors put another $3 million into the company last month to fund clinical trials, manufacturing, and research and development.

Read more here

Looking for Mobile Apps? AT&T Can Help

AT&T opened a mobile apps portal designed specifically to help small businesses find the right mobile tools for the job.

Read more here

Google Apps Billed As Disaster-Ready Solution

We'll let you decide whether, given the recent loss of life in Haiti and Chile, Google's timing is a little off here. But for better or for worse, the search giant picked today to promote Google Apps in a blog post titled "Disaster Recovery by Google."

A few points in Google's defense: it created a Person Finder tool in response to the earthquake in Haiti, which it pulled out again following the earthquake in Chile. Also, the company used its homepage and official blogs to solicit aid donations and spread awareness both times around.

So on to the new development. In a lengthy post on the Official Google Enterprise Blog, Rajen Sheth, a senior product manager over Google Apps, asserted that the service can save businesses from losing any information in the event their hardware is damaged or destroyed. Physical backups will only help businesses restore things up to the latest backup point.

Sheth then noted that storing information with Google Apps can be cheaper than relying on physical solutions and storage area networks, too.

He at last concluded, "No one likes preparing for worst-case scenarios. When you use Google Apps, you have one less critical thing to worry about."

Read more here

R.I. eyes new Web site for firms’ filings

Secretary of State A. Ralph Mollis, left, wants to bring all 307 forms state agencies request from new businesses under one roof with a new Web site. He needs $250,000 to do it, but says he has support from the governor and leading lawmakers.

Read more here

Magic Squares

Here is a fun JavaScript game. Try to put the squares back in order. The '0' repesents the empty spot, and click a square next to the 0 to make them trade places! Get the squares back in order and you win!

Read more here

Facebook To Position Public Policy Experts In D.C.

It looks like Facebook will soon begin trying harder to bend the ears of our nation's leaders. Listings for a public policy manager and public policy associate have both been posted on the social network's "Open Positions" page, and Facebook's decided that these people will work in Washington, D.C.

This isn't a simple matter of having a couple of folks sit around, answering questions and maybe defending the company when necessary. Facebook wants the new hires to be quite active.

The public policy manager will be expected to "monitor legislative and regulatory matters at the state governmental level, participate in federal policy discussions, and lead company's interactions with consumer organizations," according to the official listing. He (or she) is supposed to "[b]uild coalitions to advance policy goals of Facebook," too.

As for the associate, this individual is meant to attend Congressional Committees, deal with nonprofits, and help with Facebook's "election and voter action activities," whatever those may be. Plus have a sense of humor that his or her boss isn't required to possess.

Anyway, Cecilia Kang, who deserves a hat tip, noted, "Those jobs would bring Facebook's staff in Washington to five. It recently hired journalist Andrew Noyes for public policy communications and Tim Sparapani from the ACLU, who is now director of public policy. Adam Conner began the office and deals with lobbying and policy issues including privacy."

Read more here