What Makes a Good PR Person?
Monday, July 24, 2006
While blogging, I've spent a lot of time discussing what Connors does for clients and what sets Connors apart from the rest. When it comes right down to it, people are what make Connors successful. The talented and sharp public relations specialists who work here make all the difference. So what exactly does it take become a good PR professional?
A good PR person is someone who has impeccable speaking and writing skills. It is someone who can look at a bunch of information and pick out exactly what is news and what of it matters the most. A successful public relations agent is personable and can "read" people well, picking up on subtle clues and implied meaning as well as stated comments. To do well in PR, you need to always be thinking, strategizing, and brainstorming. If one method doesn’t work, you switch to another and always do research beforehand. Most of all, a PR professional can’t be afraid to pick up the phone and must be able to accept no as an answer. Most outreach does not lead to coverage, but it is this process of outreaching and building relationships that will end up getting coverage for clients.
A talented PR person can come from any major or prior career track. Much of PR is utilizing the relationships with reporters that you build through time in the industry. This experience gives you a better sense of what each reporter is looking for and what news will appeal to each. It is through these connections and knowledge that a truly successful PR agent is formed and Connors pools its experience in the industry to cultivate this success.Labels: blog, Connors Communications, outreach, pr
The Buzz About PR 2.0 Firms & Technology
Sunday, July 23, 2006
It seems that PR companies "getting it" either consists of partaking in online dialogues via blogging, optimizing press releases, or word-of-mouth buzz. I went to a conference recently, and any time I would introduce myself as being from a PR firm, people immediately thought I was going to talk about the "buzz thing". Some of our peers out there that have done a very effective job of positioning PR as word-of-mouth bumble bees, real-time bloggers or press release optimizers.
While we believe in and partake in these practices, the PR industry has been so successful in getting these messages out, that it makes the challenge even more difficult for PR agencies that are technological innovators. Its one thing to be experts at using online tools, such as blog software or newswires, but it's an entirely different thing to have the insight and capacity to invent wholly new technologies and marketing methodologies.
And PR agencies such as Connors are doing exactly that with applications such as HitTail. And now that we have defined a new category of software, tools to help you write for the long tail of search, we have to get over the hurdle that we're branded as buzzers and bloggers and blasters... oh my!
HitTail fosters a decidedly softer sell that's more aligned to the true mission of PR--to get you publicity that you could never have paid for at any price--usually in the form of editorial coverage. You generally pay less for PR than large advertising campaigns, but the pay-off can be much greater. The favorite saying is what is a mention in The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal worth? Today, the equivalent is saying what's a top position in Google, Yahoo or MSN worth? PR and SEO are the same. And brilliant editorial coverage is what happens when the client's prospects FIND THEM in the due course of their research, vendor selection process, or the like. In other words, that taboo acronym: SEO, but made palatable to the mainstream marketers of the world.
So, the question is how does a PR agency formulatize the process of SEO? It needs the intimidating luggage that goes with that horrible acronym removed. And it needs to be executed in a reliable, confidence-building fashion, similarly to how the traditional process may involve positioning & messaging, SWOT analysis, pitching news to journalists, and staging newsworthy events.
PR's answer to online marketing is not merely making those same press releases more effective through search, though that helps. PR's answer is not just in opening a corporate blog and entering the online discussion, though that helps. And PR's answer is not merely in chatting it up online or off, though that helps. The answer is in incrementally and systematically dominating an entire conceptual area on the Internet. And since some conceptual areas are so difficult to penetrate in natural search, the answer is in finding the right starting point, carving out a niche, and continuing digging out from the niche in concentric circles until it grows into a crevice, then a cavern, then a canyon. This is not theory. It actually works. You can control a lot of quality traffic in your space this way.
HitTailing works because there's easy pickings out there in the long tail of natural search. If you pick a phrase that's at all off the beaten track and write about it in blogging software, you're almost assured a strong position in the search results. And it may pay off. The difficulty is in knowing where to begin and improving your odds. And a PR agency has the answer. A PR firm has such a deep strategic understanding of natural search that they were able to break out just a tiny piece of the SEO offerings that they offer to their clients, with that alone, potentially move the entire state of online marketing a large step forward.
The technology is necessary, filling a major missing hole in online marketing tools. Why? Because, if you begin in the wrong part of the long tail of keywords, you're going to be doing a whole lot of writing for nothing. But if you start in the right place, then you're going to start growing traffic and improve the accuracy in your decisions of where to go next in that endless long tail of potentially lucrative, but mostly time-wasting long tail of search. This technology is 50% automation, and 50% hard work, because you can't automate the craft of writing original content.
But I find myself constantly having to knock down the buzzing and the blogging and the news blasting hurdles, which were the first PR attempts to master online media. It has actually given the some SEM firm counterparts a lot of ammunition to discount PR agencies as limited in technical capabilities. As practitioners of warm & fuzzy relationship building, there's no way we can consult about search on a strategic level, some say. In fact, they plan on making the search discussion so technologically intimidating, that they scare away traditional agencies, and reduce the competition in the new media agency space.
Connors has actually made the deliberate decision to deliver paid-search through partners, and to focus instead itself on genuine editorial search coverage. This is the proper domain for PR, and is ever more widely acknowledged by industry observers as the most valuable company asset. Those who master natural search--especially ACROSS engines--are not beholden to anyone. As engines come and go, their asset and very strong posture will remain. With properly executed public relations, a strong presence in search is not the result of an advertising campaign that only lasts as long as you're buying the media. Instead, it persists, just as with the genuine reputation that comes from repeated exposure from trusted sources.
Connors has developed technology to do exactly that. It's different from the type of software you'll find in the SEM world, such as bid management tools, because it's not a media buy. It's a media seize--but in very small, smart increments. Results will be completely measurable, and over time, you can grab bigger and bigger pieces of the editorial media. Eventually, such small grabs will build enough critical mass within your site that making the big keyword grabs becomes possible.
What do I mean by that? Well for example, search for PR firm in any major search engine. Connors was not able to achieve the first page position across all major engines over night, even though it's the subject matter of the main homepage. We first had to start with smaller concepts. We used HitTailing to build up the content of our website and our blog. And over time, the concept of PR firms kept coming up, and natural links started to occur to us from people discovering our site, and they would reliably refer to us as a PR firm, without any prodding on our part. It's a 100% organic process that led from obscure HitTailing to spot-on cross-engine top positions on a paydirt primary keyword that PR firms much larger than us would kill for.Labels: blog, Connors Communications, Google, HitTail, HitTail Plus, MSN, outreach, pr, SEM, seo, Yahoo
Boutique Agency
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
You may recognize by name the big public relations institutions that are located in New York City and elsewhere. These firms have lots of clients and a cookie cutter PR plan. Numerous employees can contact all sorts of media…for a large firm fee.
When a PR plan requires a bit more finesse, a smaller and more personalized PR firm may be more effective. A boutique agency like Connors Communications can create a strategic plan that fits your needs precisely. With highly experienced PR agents who have personalized contacts with media, your message will get out to exactly the audience you're looking for. Connors is especially experienced in emerging technology, being able to execute launch outreach, explain new technology to interested press, and outreach to traditional as well as online outlets.
With a boutique agency, you can get more attention and a more companied-specific outreach plan than at some of the larger firms. You know exactly who is working on your account and know you can trust each and every member of your PR team. A boutique agency like Connors Communications can create and execute a carefully-crafted PR strategy that will garner media interest in your company.Labels: Connors Communications, outreach, pr
Marketing Communications
Monday, October 10, 2005
In business, the word communications can mean a lot of different things. To some it means telecom, yet we use it more to mean in the realm of marketing (sometimes called marcom). While marketing can broadly apply to both advertising and public relations, it is a field in and of itself which can lead people to be confused. As a public relations firm, Connors helps companies craft their messages to be found by reporters, consumers and analysts through our established relationships with people influential in the industry along with tools like newswires and search engines. Yet we do not do so through advertising in any medium (be it print, broadcast, or paid search). Though advertising can be effective in reinforcing your brand, to some it is more of a one-way communication vehicle. Public relations, on the other hand, is concerned with facilitating credible, two-way dialogue between experts and researchers (which could be either journalists or the general public). In essence, PR and natural search help people find what they're looking for while advertising tells them.Labels: Connors Communications, outreach, pr
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