PR experts combine blog outreach and media relations services

By blending blog outreach with media relations services, PR experts from SEO-PR are improving communications, generating publicity, building awareness, getting inbound links and increasing internet traffic.

At first glance, it might appear that combining blog outreach with media relations services is a “meatball sundae.” What’s that? Seth Godin, the author of Meatball Sundae, says it’s: “The result of combining two perfectly good items that don’t go well together.”

PR experts from SEO-PR are not trying to slap cool toppings on hot commodities; instead, they’ve spent time:

analyzing both traditional media and non-traditional media
evaluating a classic concept of marketing and a web-based software application
developing effective public relations strategies and tactics
pioneering new PR metrics and types of media relations measurement

As a result, SEO-PR’s approach to interacting with bloggers and journalists is not only getting news media coverage; it is generating Internet traffic.

The blogosphere and mainstream media

After analyzing traditional media as well as non-traditional media, SEO-PR’s PR experts declared, “Blogs Are the New Trade Press.”

“In many industries, the trade press has imploded,” Greg Jarboe, SEO-PR’s president and co-founder, wrote in Search Engine Watch. Many industry trade magazines have folded and most of the industry trade publications still being published “are much slimmer than they were a decade ago,” he added.

Meanwhile, the blogosphere has exploded. According to Advertising Age, “There are about 15 million active blogs read by 57 million people, a number that gives bloggers great credibility, power and influence as sources of information for everything from news to corporate reputations to product purchasing.”

However, much of the talk a few years ago – that blogs would supplant mainstream media – seems antiquated now.

A Pew Internet & American Life Project survey found 85% bloggers read newspapers, while a Fusion PR survey found 78% of technology journalists read blogs.
While some of the most popular bloggers are being assimilated by mainstream media, 35% of technology journalists maintain their own blog.
According to The State of the News Media 2007, “The relationship between blogs and traditional media, in the end, may be more complementary, even synergistic, as time moves on.”

Opinion leadership and BuzzLogic

This is where one of the classic concepts of marketing – opinion leadership – comes in. According to Everett M. Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations, “Opinion leadership is the degree to which an individual is able to influence informally other individuals’ attitudes or overt behavior in a desired way with relative frequency.”

PR experts from SEO-PR understood some bloggers and journalists have more influence than others, but they found it difficult to identify who is influential within specific conversations taking place in social media such as blogs.

In September 2006, SEO-PR experts became beta testers of BuzzLogic’s web-based software application. BuzzLogic calculates and surfaces the influencers who are shaping and driving specific conversations in social media with algorithms that analyze relationships, such as who connects to whom, about what is happening and who is listening.

Webinar best practices

BuzzLogic’s index uniquely follows influence outside the realm of social media. It counts blogs, social networks and other social media (YouTube, MySpace), corporate sites and approximately 8,000 mainstream media outlets.

But no application can automate your blog outreach and media relations services. PR experts from SEO-PR also developed effective public relations strategies and tactics to unlock the power of BuzzLogic. For example, Jamie O’Donnell, SEO-PR’s vice president and co-founder, developed several webinar best practices to use with outreach programs. This has enabled clients with real news and relevant information to hold virtual press conferences with influential bloggers and journalists.

Windows Secrets and Wharton School

SEO-PR’s combination of blog outreach and media relations services has proven successful in:

improving communications
generate publicity
build awareness
get inbound links
increase internet traffic

SEO-PR helped Windows Secrets get 15 influential blog posts and online articles about a “Windows Vista activation” workaround. These generated 155,681 unique visitors – and 3,528 new subscribers – both weekly records for the newsletter.

SEO-PR also helped the Wharton School get 19 posts from influential bloggers about the Wharton Economic Summit, which generated 119 additional posts from other bloggers who follow them. This generated 89 inbound links to the website for the event, which got more than 1,100 attendees – a record in the school’s 125-year history.

PR experts from SEO-PR have combined old ways of getting news media coverage and traditional types of media relations measurement with innovative ways of generating Internet traffic and new PR metrics. But, no, it’s not a meatball sundae.

If your company wants to talk with SEO-PR about blog outreach and media relations services, click on SEO PR search engine optimization public relations inquiry form and complete the form.

Source: BuzzLogic, February 27, 2007