Streamlined online public relations

Business News - Friday December 14, 2007

ON MESSAGE

Streamlined online public relations

MATTHEW SMITH

One thing that people talk about when discussing online marketing and public relations is return on investment.

Because of the reach of the internet, it's possibly to increase exposure of a single activity and order of magnitude beyond what's done in traditional PR. While that's true and is the driving force behind the fast growth of digital PR, it's often overlooked just how simple it is to integrate these services into a traditional PR and marketing plan.

Digital PR and marketing works by taking the mainstay of traditional PR and marketing - information - and translating it into a language the internet understands. This is a language comprising readers, journalists, editors and search engine algorithms. Developing information that can reach all of those is not an easy task and is the reason IT firms and communications firms alike are now specialising in online marketing and PR. The language that communicates effectively to both people and machines is similar, but the subtleties are where communications consultants prove their value.

An interesting aspect of this is that usually information written for editors (traditional PR) can be kept more or less intact when it is optimised for search engines. That means this information can be used more than once - press releases and articles written for traditional PR can be utilised in online press release distribution on content syndication. What is often ignored or underestimated is that online distribution can greatly increase coverage while creating virtually no extra work for the internal communications team.

Vivaldi PR recently put together a distribution package for a client. One part of that package was an online press release. This release was the same given to the media the day before - then optimised by the IT team working on the project. With no additional development, save optimisation, the release went online to a host of sites.

Within just over 20 days, that press release had been read more than 100,000 times internationally. While that doesn't necessarily rival a domestic campaign, which can see readership or viewership in the millions, it does represent a significant additional amount of coverage for a modest investment in time. The total cost was roughly equivalent to the cost of one exclusive interview arranged by the company.

That additional distribution also has another significant impact: it helps to increase search engine rankings, making the client more visible online. This is a byproduct of how most search engines determine the importance of a given website. Among many other things, they check how many other (high quality) sites link to a given website. By distributing information across the web, it is possible to greatly increase the number of websites that refer to yours, therefore increasing its importance in the eyes of search engine algorithms.

Press releases are not the only information that can be adapted for the internet. General interest stories can be developed by utilising a company's expertise in a given subject. A real estate company, for a example, could develop information about current market trends, first-time buyer's advice or insights on real estate investment. This information can be distributed to a wide range of sites, giving the company extended exposure while delivering useful information to interested parties.

Matthew Smith is chief operating officer of Vivaldi Public Relations, a local public relations consultancy. He can be reached at matthew.smith@vivaldipr.com or see http://www.vivaldipr.com

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