We saw this interesting Infographic on Twitter today, so thought we’d share it with you. We note that 76.9% of members surveyed said that LinkedIn has helped them research people and companies, and 37.2% say they’ve used it for increasing brand/marketing presence in the marketplace.
Of the top 10 favourite features, 58% rate the company information and 38.4% follow companies.
Contact us on info[at]proudpr.com if you want help with navigating this important B2B network.
Are you optimising your press release headlines? For the second straight year, our friends at Schwartz MSL Research Group have put together a study on the SEO of press release headlines using data from Business Wire releases. It has been previously noted that Google only displays roughly 65 characters in its search results and therefore releases with headlines 70 characters or under are best optimised for SEO.
This year’s study looked at the headlines of more than 16,000 Business Wire press releases from 2011. Of those, only 19.5% of all releases had headlines with 65 characters or fewer and just 23.7% were at 70 characters or fewer. This suggests that the great majority of press releases do not have headlines fully optimised for search.
The average headline length is 123 characters, which is the same as last year’s results. The study also looked at buzzword usage and completed a geographic headline face-off to determine which cities hosted the SEO-savviest press release headline writers. You can download the full report here.
Posted by Natalie Sutton
We were on a ‘synch-up’ call with a client’s marketing agency the other day; we were keen to kick off social media integration to the PR programme and they are tasked with enhancing SEO on the client’s new web site.
At one point, one of the marketing agency consultants remarked that he’d never met PR people who knew so much about SEO. Now, while it’s always nice to receive a such a compliment..especially in front of a client…(!) it did leave me wondering if there really is a widespread lack of understanding of SEO by PRs, and vice versa.
Where are the boundaries? Perhaps it’s something along the lines of SEO aiming to ensure that the brand’s website ranks well in search engine results for relevant search terms.
PR on the other hand aims to ensure the brand has a positive reputation amongst its audiences.
The Blog Battle
Blogs are a potential area of conflict. A corporate blog provides an ideal opportunity to post lots of keyword-rich copy on the company website to attract the attention of search engines. PR on the other hand will want to use it to publish thought leadership pieces and news announcements.
I say the two objectives don’t have to be mutually exclusive. If the SEO team is willing to provide key phrase insights, PR can make subtle use of them.
Different copywriting styles
Content generation can be a battleground too. SEO practice is based around reach and volume whereas the PR content should be more focused on careful messaging and quality.
Take the press release for example. The first aim of a press release is to ensure the story gets picked up by as many journalists as possible; the release is designed to catch their attention. When the PR writes press releases, their first audience is the journalist… not the client and not the search engines (although there’s no reason why the latter shouldn’t be a secondary audience).
Get your SEO and PR people working in synch, the results can be wonderful; I’ve seen it happen.
In most organisations there’s no shortage of people with the right skills, so the barriers to achieving this are largely political. It’s really just a matter of getting them to work well together.
Twitter is the most popular social network among B2B marketers, despite the fact that they admit LinkedIn creates the most leads, according to recent research.
Marketing automation provider Pardot discovered that 91 per cent of surveyed B2B marketers used Twitter. But that only 15 per cent claimed to be generating leads directly from their Twitter activities.
The research states that LinkedIn is the most effective social media lead generation tool, ahead of blogs, Twitter and Facebook.
Pardot has produced an infographic to summarise the findings of its research.
Over three-quarters of journalists believe social media is an important tool for their work according to a survey published today.
Over 900 journalists took part in the survey (see survey results press release) conducted by DWPub in the last six days. Perhaps to some extent participation was galvanised by the on-going superinjuction story which illustrated not just the importance of social media for news dissemination but also how it operates under different conventions than the traditional press.
The survey also found that little more than one per cent of respondents claimed they were using social media less than they were 12 months ago, confirmation that journalists reject the notion that social media may be a fad.
Perceptions of how the public relations industry uses social media could only be interpreted as negative, with only 24% believing that PR professionals make enough use of social media.
The survey coincides with the launch of DWPub’s latest whitepaper which examines the impact of social media on the work of journalists. Written by Financial Times interactive producer Martin Stabe, the whitepaper is entitled How social media is changing the role of journalists.
In the whitepaper Martin covers in detail how journalism has adapted to social media as a tool for newsgathering, directing traffic to media sites and profile building for individual journalists. It gives considerable insight to PR professionals wishing to use social media as a way of communicating with journalists.
Yesterday we wrote about a new app called The Social List, which has been launched by The Sunday Times and is boxing in a similar area as Klout and PeerIndex.
Here’s how it is being positioned: “The Sunday Times Social List is set to become the definitive measure of the most influential people within the social space.”
Tricky. The trouble with measuring ‘influence’ is that it is incredibly difficult to do so in an automated way. I think it’s virtually impossible to make any real statements about who is and isn’t influential without some form of human analysis.
These tools are of course works in progress, and as they stand they are certainly indicators of something, but I’m not sure they’re indicators of true influence.
A common definition of influence is that it reflects the ability of a person (or a thing) to change behaviour, or mindsets, or to persuade someone into taking some form of action. Influence is relative, and it is not the same thing as reach.
I attended the launch party for The Social List last Friday and the first thing that struck me is that the algorithm appears to be heavily linked to activity (yours, and that of your followers, which is in part determined by how many status updates you push out).
If you go on holiday for a week your score will definitely drop. This is no indicator of influence. The genuinely influential do not become any less influential following a week of lazing around on a beach.
We have already proved that Klout scores can be gamed by bots, and until these apps can apply the right kind of weightings and ranking factors they will be at risk of spam. And spam is one of the biggest issues they face. They are no different from search engines in this respect.
Take the Econsultancy Twitter feed as an example. We see spammers on a daily basis, who retweet our articles in batch (sometimes we’ll see 50 retweets coming through in a matter of seconds, all from related spam accounts, which we block and report). Twitter needs to deal with these losers, and so do the ‘influence’ measurement apps. This kind of activity should not be be reflected positively in any scoring of @econsultancy.
Well, kind of. It isn’t your activity that these apps should be interested in, but rather the activity of your followers (and their followers, and the followers of those people, etc).
Influence is partly about persuading people to take some form of action, which on Twitter might crudely be measured as a retweet or @reply. Note that some retweets are more valuable than others. This is something that these activity-based algorithms need to better understand.
A retweet isn’t always a recommendation. An @reply can sometimes consist of a “You suck” message, or worse (after reading such a message a human observer might suggest that the recipient has lost influence, whereas an algorithm might assign points for the @reply).
Yet both retweets and @replies are somewhat nano in scope… what about the more macro actions of the influenced, way beyond the realms of Twitter (and the other social networks that are tracked)?
If somebody within your social circles retweets your tweet then maybe this is indeed a sign of influence. A surer sign would be if you are retweeted by somebody outside of your circle.
But other factors come into play, such as reach. Aren’t people with a lot of reach are perhaps more likely to attract more retweets from strangers? In absolute terms, yes they are, such is power of the network effect.
Take Lady Gaga as an example. She recently surpassed the 10m follower mark on Twitter. This makes her the most popular person on Twitter. But popularity is not the strongest sign of influence, only of reach. I have no doubt that Gaga is influential, but it is perhaps too early to make sense of the precise nature of her influence. Also, she never seems to @reply or retweet anybody, which isn’t a great sign for automated measurement algorithms.
Who are you influencing, and how? This is, for me, one of the key things to consider. Consider the fate of theVelvet Underground, who while active as a band only sold a handful of records and had almost no reach. But they had huge influence and deeply inspired the likes of David Bowie, Roxy Music, The Fall, Pixies, Kraftwerk, My Bloody Valentine and so many other (influential) artists.
The same thing is said of the Sex Pistols gig at the Manchester Free Trade Hall. Everybody who was there apparently went on to form a band (The Smiths, Joy Division, etc). And yet there were less than 40 people in the audience.
Influence and reach are hugely confused. To properly understand how influential somebody (or something) is you need to measure the activity of the people they have influenced, and the nature and scope of that activity. It’s not a numbers game in absolute terms, only in percentage terms. And some actions are much more powerful than others.
There’s something to be said for having a lasting influence, rather than being influential for half a summer (not that brief flash in the pan trends are to be entirely discounted). Bebo was hot for a while. So was Debbie Gibson. Are they still considered influential? Were they ever?
Earlier today I invited my cherished Twitter followers to define influence, in 140 characters or less. Here’s what they suggested… there are some common themes:
@LordManley The extent or capacity to effect changes in behaviour of others.
@krisdoubleyou The act altering of another person’s opinion, either deliberately or subconsciously.
@Florina_B The ability to have a message with a high impact, depending on the channel you use, looking fwd to that blogpost.
@mari7305 @Econsultancy @lakey impacting another’s thinking, choices, and preferences?
@BenjMartin Having an altering effect on other peoples actions, thoughts or behaviour through own actions, thoughts or beavhiour.
@_RosieT Worth listening to.
@tlonuqbar Being thought worthy of attention on a given topic by informed insiders.
@timcaynes It’s what those that don’t respond to definition requests have.
@whdigital Galvanize or sway perception, opinion or action. How? Size of network, strength of medium or sheer determination.
@chummers69 The ability to create interest and the effect others.
@MarkJWBoyd The capacity to have an effect on the character, development, or behavior of someone or something, or the effect itself.
@TomOCrowley Inspiration leading to action.
@vysia Ability to cause action.
@rishil The ability to nudge peoples perceptions away from or towards preconceived ideas through ones own reputation.
@PiponSolutions Influence is the ability to exert and maintain power on the actions and behaviour of others.
@katyhowell Power to impact opinion, ideas, habits, behaviours, motivations, actions, and attitudes.
@Trendshed “Influence”: Small fish bosses a large pond
What do you think? Is it possible to measure influence in an automated way?
[Image by Funkdooby via Flickr, various rights reserved]
Originally published by Chris Lake, Director of Innovation at Econsultancy.
Love it or loathe it, Twitter is now part of our working lives. But this doesn’t mean it has to be an obsession. Use it effectively, and it needn’t take up huge chunks of your time, and can be the source of valuable contacts and information. Just make sure that you dip into it rather waste hours on it, and that you follow relevant people. It usually makes sense to follow those that follow you, but there is no obligation if you don’t like the sound of their business, after all there are some strange ones out there! Here are 12 other top tips from experts to help Twitter work for you:
1. Keep your name simple: Think carefully about your Twitter identity and what it says about you, in the same way that you are careful about your email address. “Although Twitter does allow you to change your Twitter handle, the more people there are on there, the less options that you’ll have. Take variations on your name and set them aside so no one else can use them and add to the confusion.” Ged Carroll, director of digital strategy at Ruder Finn
2. Don‘t say anything compromising: “Remember that your Twitter feed may come up top of a Google search, and could be the first thing new clients see of you. Offhand comments about your ‘disastrous day’ won’t fill anyone with confidence in your skills …” Beth Murray, account director, at PR firm Lansons Communications
3. Don’t be afraid to ask for advice: “You can put a plea out for views and opinions on the more emotive issues to get a feeling of what people think and also to get an explanation for a phenomena that you are not familiar with or simply get suggestions for a venue or a contact.” Rob Davies, consulting director at communications consultancy oneonone
4. It is more important to listen than to speak: “It is totally acceptable to be an inactive Tweeter, but it is essential to be following. To watch and learn from other brands – seeing what the latest digital campaigns are and keeping an eye on how global (and competitor) brands are interacting with their community.” Nik Thakkar, senior digital publicity manager at PR agency Exposure
5. Subscribe to journalist Twitter feeds: “Twitter is far more effective for me when I subscribe to journalists’ Twitter feeds. Often there will be a Twitter feed saying, ’I am looking for a quote on X or I am writing an article on Y can you help?’” Jeremy Walters, independent PR consultant
6. Chat with journalists, don’t overwhelm them: “Twitter is all about building relationships, and can be really useful for connecting with journalists. If you just use it as an avenue to bombard journalists with pitches, you’ll irritate people and quickly damage those relationships.” Beth Murray, account director, Lansons Communications
7. Be recognisable: “No one will follow an egg! Make sure you include a suitable picture and also your biog is completed – this is vital if you are at a conference/networking event and have been inspired by a Tweet and you want to find that person in the room.” Lara Leventhal, managing director, at PR agency Onlinefire
8. Manners matter: “Thank the RTs and acknowledge the DMs. Be generous with credit and stingy with spite.” David Gallagher chairman of Ketchum Pleon London and president, Ketchum Pleon Europe
9. Use TwitPic: “Once we’ve distributed a press release, we use TwitPic to provide images to accompany it. This means we don’t get on the wrong side of the media by emailing out an attachment and those that want to run the story can choose from a selection of images.” Alastair Turner, managing director of agency Aspectus PR
10. Take part in “Follow Fridays”: “Follow Fridays are one of the best ways of recommending people on Twitter as these tend to be trusted and taken on board. As such, make sure you look at who your followers are telling you to follow and make sure you are doing it too. Giving journalists a spotlight every Friday is also a nice way of strengthening relationships.” Aaron Huckett, digital manager at PR agency Publicasity
11. Use Twitter to meet people face to face: “Look out for opportunities that you can get involved in such as networking meets and greets.” Pamela Lyddon, founder of digital agency Bright Star Digital
12, Keep it in perspective: “Remember it’s just one of many channels that can build your own or your business’s reputation and profile, don’t ignore the real world.” Richard Watts, social media specialist at PR agency Brazil
Originally published by PRMoment.com
In this video Social Media Examiner interviews LaSandra Brill, the social media marketing manager at Cisco. She talks about the cool stuff Cisco is doing with social media.
LaSandra shares insights into how Cisco reached 90 times the audience at one-sixth the cost on a recent social media product launch and how they did this compared to a similar launch using traditional marketing. You’ll also hear about other ways Cisco uses social media to deepen relationships and connect with customers.
Here are some of the things you’ll learn in this video:
sme_bw2010_lasandra_brill_v1 from Michael A. Stelzner on Vimeo.
Enjoy.
Originally published by Michael Stelzner, Social Media Examiner, April 2011
A story from econsultancy.com exposing the detailed expenditure on Google AdWords by the world’s biggest brands intrigued me recently.
Natalie Sutton
With brands such as AT&T Mobile spending a suggested $8.08m on AdWords in June and the University of Phoenix-operator Apollo Group ($6.67m), Expedia ($5.85m) Amazon ($5.85m) and eBay ($4.25m) investing large sums of money, it’s fascinating to see just how much money is spent, why and to what effect. Contemplating AdWords, it’s easy to see why people consider it as the first port of call for direct sales and lead generation; however this is not necessarily always the case. Perhaps it has value as a PR tool?
This summer BP certainly highlighted the PR value of AdWords. The Company certainly fought a sizeable PR battle to say the least, and to date, BP was one of the leading spenders during the month of June. It went from spending a five-figure sum per a year to $3.5m in June alone, all in aid of substantially increasing their positive public image.
Basically, BP created an AdWords campaign to counteract the negative publicity it was getting following the Atlantic oil spill. The AdWords allowed the Company to position itself in the top rankings on page one of the appropriate Google searches with paid for, positive links.
So, we can consider Google AdWords a seriously impressive tool in the crisis management toolkit I guess.