Ask someone what Online PR is and the usual response refers to distributing press releases online via a newswire service, possibly with some keywords included. But in truth, true online PR is much more than this and if done well it can have an incredible impact, not just on the traditional benefits of PR around brand awareness, but on the measureable and definable benefits of your search engine rankings, advocacy, traffic and sales. In this seminar from Internet World 2010 Lucy talks about how we've achieved long lasting creative editorial links for our clients on authoritative sites like the telegraph.co.uk, bbc.co.uk, ivillage.co.uk, dailymail.co.uk and guardian.co.uk. Lucy also delves into the realm of media mapping, persona targeting, building strong relationships journalists and how important it is to develop expertise in these areas to guarantee a positive impact on your search rankings, ultimately driving brand awareness and additional revenue. Read the rest of...

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"...Brands now have a need to consider every online touch-point and how they can influence purchase decisions beyond the virtual front door of their corporate website" Quote from the "The Search and Social Media Report" from the IAB and Microsoft Advertising In a social media obsessed industry the cold hard fact remains that search engines are still the most influential gatekeepers of links (that you can directly influence!) between your brand and consumers. The brilliance of search engine marketing is that behind every search query is a person that fits into a well defined segment based on their motivation to search at that time. As a refresher it's good to think about the concept of the "intent" behind a search query. Read the rest of this entry...

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This week an Italian court surprisingly convicted three Google executives over the uploading of a video in which an autistic teenager was bullied. Despite removing it within a matter of hours after being notified by the Italian police, David Drummond, Peter Fleischer and George Reyes were all found to be guilty of violating Italian privacy laws. This is not the first time the Google giant has had problems with privacy laws. Just last week Google's new social networking site Buzz came under fire from The Electronic Privacy Information Centre who lodged a complaint with the US Federal Trade Commission claiming Google breaks consumer protection law. It will be interesting to watch how that develops. However, this latest development threatens to set a dangerous precedent in Italy in which sites can be held accountable for what's hosted on their servers. This could have major ramifications for sites which rely on user-generated content such as social networking sites. Read the...

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If you’ve somehow remained unconvinced that social networks can profoundly affect people, organisations and businesses all over the world, then there were a few social media campaigns that during 2009 that probably grabbed your attention. Forget the frantic rush to log-in to Facebook and un-tag yourself from a Christmas party photo, something much bigger happened this year that will should pave the way for even more powerful campaigns in the future. Whilst there are of course much more important issues that the UK Christmas number 1, the Facebook campaign to get Rage Against The Machine to the top of the charts ahead of the X Factor winner is perhaps the biggest demonstration yet that social networks can have a fundamental influence. Part time DJ Jon Morter started his Facebook group as a ‘bit of a giggle’, but the campaign went stratospheric when comedian Peter Serafinowicz urged his 268,000 Twitter followers to join in and  “Killing In The Name” went on to sell over ...

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As a leading online and social marketing agency, customer insight is at the heart of everything we do.  Using our unique revenue potential model and persona insight tool as part of a strategic planning phase, we identify the most lucrative keyword areas and ensure we build a holistic view of our clients’ brand, their customers and their journey. How does this influence how we create an online PR campaign? Persona insight is a crucial part of our strategic planning phase and shapes our clients’ overall marketing strategy, but it also determines so much more in terms of online PR. Our online targets, the tone of voice we use, what content we create and what messages we put into a campaign are all determined by the results of the Persona Insight research.  So before we develop any content for online we always conduct a media audit and evaluate this back to our client objectives and targets.  This ensures the content we produce for online not only captures the attention and...

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Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Bebo, LinkedIn, whatever you or your clients subscribe to or depend upon, there is an increasing use of social networks for successful PR campaigns. Here at Propellernet, we manage social media campaigns to build relationships with the media and strengthen the overall communication strategy for clients. We recommend that your target market is identified first and then a strategy put in place to communicate with them. Over the past 18 months we noticed the media were often  writing about tweets they had seen and even having real-time debates on social networks that would appear in the press the next day. Also a whole new concept of writing was born when travel writer, Benji Lanyado, piloted the first TwiTrip – a travel adventure powered simply by twitter users recommendations. We already have clients with pages on Facebook and we use the likes of twitter for our own PR, but some clients have been fearful of joining social communities. They had seen...

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Working within an industry that changes direction in real-time and advising our clients on the best route to take can be tough for us online marketers. Whether PPC is dying or traditional PR skills are history we're constantly being bombarded with the latest industry trends and everyone's views on it. What we do all need to do is to remember to stop, take stock and focus on the goal. I attended an E-Consultancy round table earlier this week discussing Online PR & Social Media and the outcome was interesting. It was also peppered with a lot of questions and statements such as; We need developed measurement, We must move our clients forward within Social Media, Should our clients use interactive games to communicate with their customers? Whose responsibility should it be to interact with customers through social network platforms? In my opinion, the answer to all of these questions should be considered with; What will meet my client's objectives and what is my client...

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As I'm sure Richard Branson would agree, social media can be a bit of a monster at times and a rather difficult beast to tame. The scope and speed offered by networks such as Twitter and Facebook, coupled with the ever expanding blogosphere, allows user-generated content to travel faster than a transatlantic flight to New York City. Whether it be a poor customer experience, a brand simply getting it wrong or rogue staff playing a prank - social media has given a voice and a platform to everyone with a keyboard and mouse: and they're certainly not afraid to use it! Here is a collection of some recent high profile examples of the staggering power of social media from the last few months, highlighting the potentially damaging effects it can have on big brands: Read the rest of this entry...

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Social media has sparked a range of pledges and charity initiatives that are demonstrating social media's ability to achieve social change. Tuesday 24th March saw the first ever Ada Lovelace Day and the campaign was a huge success. The campaign was initiated by Suw Charman-Anderson and was designed to draw attention to women excelling in technology. Ada Lovelace was one of the world's first computer programmers, having written a programme for Charles Babbage's "analytical engine" and had a vision for computers that extended beyond even his own. Suw pledged to publish a blog post about a woman in technology, only if 1,000 others agreed to do the same. This target was far exceeded, with over 1,980 signing up to the campaign. Ada Lovelace Day served an important purpose, by highlighting women's achievement in technology across the world, both past and present. A contribution often overlooked. Read the rest of this entry...

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This week saw the culmination of a 48 hour Twitter popularity campaign between British Comedian Russell Brand, and the US talk show host, Jimmy Fallon. (Watch the tv interview here) Before the campaign began, Fallon began with a distinct 200,000 follower head-start but it was Brand that actually achieved more in the build up to his TV appearance on 'Late Night with Jimmy Fallon' where he plugged his US stand-up and book signing tour. A combination of blog posts, tweets, retweets, Facebook updates and video pleas resulted in Russell increasing his followers by 23%, that's an additional 17,000 people he can now directly inform of his latest tour, book, movie etc. Read the rest of this entry...

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