Bill Rice Internet Marketing > PR

Use Google Reader as Your PR Monitoring Tool

March 9, 2010 By

rss-reader.pngRSS and Google Reader can combine to be one of the few PR monitoring tools you ever need. The Google Reader does a great job of aggregating and organizing all of your RSS monitoring feeds. However, if you really want Google Reader to be a PR tool you need to learn a couple of advanced tricks.

Finding Journalist and Media

The first step to customize your Google Reader for PR is to fill it with feeds from the your important media targets. Most online and offline media outlets have RSS feeds of their content. This will allow you to quickly see the trends and be alerted to new stories in these various media outlets.

Increasingly, we are seeing journalist getting directly involved in social media. This adds an additional source of information to pipe into your Google Reader. These direct social media interactions by journalist (most often on Twitter) can also be subscribed to via RSS.

Tracking the Experts and Influencers

Don’t forget about the other experts that influence your media targets. They are obviously doing something right. Subscribing to their RSS feeds from blogs, Twitter, and other social media venues will bring you ideas and competitive intelligence.

Monitoring these people will also give you opportunities to engage in the community. Ideas and contributions you make by knowing and interacting with these people will be picked up and observed by the same media you are targeting. It might also be the quickest relationship building tool in your arsenal.

Monitoring Searches

If you really want get the most out of Google Reader as a PR and social media monitoring tool you need to add searches. Most of the popular search engines and social media websites allow you to turn your searches into RSS feeds. By doing this simple trick you can be instantly alerted to new results popping onto the Web, blogs, or real-time social networks.

Reporting and Analyzing Trends

Finally, and perhaps the most important role of the Google Reader, is to get the critical information out. You can use some of the rudimentary tools within Google Reader to track trends, topics, and sources you read the most. Then when you do find important PR tips and action items you can simply forward these items by sharing within Google Reader or via email.

You can also directly engage in many of the social media channels by using the sharing tools under each item. This will help get your social media engagement strategy underway.

Google Reader is one of the best starter tools for social media monitoring. It is simple to subscribe, read, and forward online content. This makes it an efficient way for PR professionals to do much of their job–looking for opportunities, identifying and connect with media, and monitoring and managing crises.

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: google reader, PR, rss, Social Media

Book Review: Putting the Public Back in Public Relations

February 15, 2010 By

As I await Brian Solis’ next book, Engage I thought I would pull Putting the Public Back in Public Relations off the shelf. I must say it’s a great re-read. But, what really made me want to review the book here was when I spotted this blog post highlighting:

“39% of those surveyed said they did not plan to use social networking in their marketing plan in 2010”

What? Are you kidding me?

Amy Porterfield, from Social Media Examiner explains this with these numbers from the same report:

“This number is likely tied to the finding that 31% reported that their customers do not use social media…”

My point is you need to read Brian Solis’ book. Regardless of whether you think your customers are using social media or not you need to get in the game. It seriously impacts your business.

Here are just a few of the ways, illustrated in Solis’, book that Social Media and PR 2.0 will get you more sales:

1. New Journalism – bloggers and journalist are not so far apart anymore. Even when there’s a distinction it’s obvious that social media is increasingly the “real” assignment desk. So, if you want customers to find you in new media and traditional media you had better have a social media presence.

2. Social Media Releases &  Blogger Relations – The press releases and wire services are fading. Social media and RSS are replacing this paradigm for industry news. You need to learn how to work within this new environment if you want your business covered. Again, even coverage in traditional media, which your customer is still reading.

3. Technology Does Not Override Social Sciences – Take a look at recent politics and it’s obvious that the technology may be changing, but the way affinity groups and communities rally doesn’t change. Your customers will be influenced by social media. Don’t you want to make certain you are there and well positioned when they arrive?

My recommendation is that you get (or dust off) Putting the Public Back in Public Relationsand then stand in line for Brian Solis’ new one: Engage: The Complete Guide for Brands and Businesses to Build, Cultivate, and Measure Success in the New Web.

Filed Under: Reading List Tagged With: brian solis, engage, PR, public relations

Using Twitter as a Powerful PR Toolkit

February 3, 2010 By

twitter-search.pngTwitter is a public relations professional’s dream or nightmare. It’s one of the simplest, but at the same time the most complicated of recent communication tools. This dichotomy has fueled much of the fear in the PR community. That’s why I thought I would give you a few simple tips to make Twitter a PR tool, not an adversary.

I will give you a few simple steps to remove the nightmare and emphasize the dream.

Start Monitoring

The first logical step in any social media strategy is to start with listening.

Just like at a cocktail party, you should respectfully listen in on the existing conversation before jumping in. If you do this, it’s far more polite and your comments are certain to be more valuable to the group.

Social media isn’t so different from the cocktail party. I always recommend to clients, “get your social media monitoring in place before you say a single word online.” It really is just common courtesy. But perhaps even more importantly it creates an important feedback loop when you do start engaging.

Identify and Follow Key Journalist and Media

Since you’re in PR your first step should be to find the people you want to influence the most–media. Twitter makes it really easy for you to find and follow people you probably already work with (or wish you did). A simple search for publications and media outlets important to you will reveal most of these Twitter handles.

The other important thing about this step in setting up your Twitter PR is that it will give you a good survey of what these folks are interested in. They often talk about upcoming assignments and topics of interest. I have also found it helpful to survey who they talk to the most and who talks to them. These are people with “access.” Following these folks can improve your own access to important media persons.

Identify and Follow Important Influencers

I sort of already broached this important step, but there is a little more to it. Of course follow those people that seem to have access and influence your target media. However, it’s also important for you to identify those that get quoted the most or are perceived as experts. These are people that you not only want to follow, but also need to build a relationship with. You want them to know about you and begin to see you in a positive (ideally evangelical) light.

Get Engaged in the Conversation

Knowing and following all the right people is only half the battle. Now you need to be seen as one of the group. If you are really good they may forget you are PR and just think of you as one of the crowd.

The best way to make this happen is to offer valuable information and data to the community. This will build up credibility, have others see you as a contributor, and gain you significant influence within the group.

Getting engaged can also give you a competitive advantage. By setting a high bar of participation other PR competitors zooming in for the quick hit will get an ugly backlash from “your” community.

Build Relationships

If you really want Twitter to be a big hit for you, build relationships! Not just on Twitter, but through a variety of channels–on their blog, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, whatever other social channels are important to them. And if you really want you zoom your Twitter influence turn those online relationships into offline ones as well.

The real key to making Twitter an asset to your corporate PR strategy is to build relationships and platforms now. These are points from which you can fight PR crisis later. Or, even better assets that you can leverage to build great positive PR campaigns.

Twitter can be one of the strongest tools in your PR strategy. Just dive in, listen intently, engage genuinely, and watch it pay-off when you need it. Social media should be every PR professional’s best friend.

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: PR, Social Media, twitter

Social Media Monitoring, Using Twitter as a PR Early Warning System

January 12, 2010 By

http://www.flickr.com/photos/smartjunco/1767685272/Social media monitoring is increasingly important for public relations departments and agencies. The social Web is often the battlefield of modern PR. These social networks of companies, customers, and employees are naturally flowing important stories. That makes it all the more critical that PR professionals are monitoring these new media channels.

One of the most important of these channels is Twitter.

What is Twitter?

Think of Twitter as the party-line telephone of old. You may dial in to talk to one or more people, but everyone is potentially listening. That means both the interesting and salacious conversations move quickly through the community.

Much like other social networking, Twitter is compelling to people because it is an interesting and efficient way to communicate with a large audience of “followers.”

To the average consumer that means there friends are chattering about things they are doing, interesting products and services they are buying, and the experiences they are having–both good and bad.

To marketers, this smells a lot like a targeted audience. People who have already connected and identified their interests. And more importantly are willing to spread the word.

To public relations, this is the whisper wire. Twitter is where you hear things as they are happening, before they rise to the noise level of traditional media.

Why is Twitter Important to PR?

Public Relations is about controlling and monitoring the interaction between the organization and the external parties it associates with: clients, customers, vendors, shareholders, and other interest groups. Twitter contains conversations between these interest groups–some critical and others not. Twitter is influential in building or shaping a brand, corporate image, and also communicating to various parties and individuals within these groups.

Tapping into these open conversations is like being a fly on the wall. Tuning into Twitter can give you the jump on opportunity and crisis.

How Do You Monitor Twitter?

Twitter is an open community, which means you can listen in on your customers talking to friends and family. Why wouldn’t you want that kind of insight into your brand perception. Twitter is also becoming a very popular way to syndicate and interact with news. Again, all the more reason to be monitoring Twitter. If it happens, its newsworthy, and it’s going to impact your brand–it’s going to show up on Twitter. Make sure your social media monitoring is tuned in.

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: monitoring, PR, Social Media, twitter

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