Do-It-Yourself PR for E.Factor

Do It Yourself (Online) Public Relations (Questions via hash tag #diypr ) Chris Abraham President and COO [email_address] @chrisabraham US +1 202 657 4769 UK +44 20 81 44 56 71 DE +49 30 70 12 59 80 Site www.abrahamharrison.com Blog www.marketingconversation.com

Before We Start: Don't Be Seduced by the Lure of Astroturfing “ You may be attracted to covert online marketing: special ops, black ops, spycraft – “fifth column marketing,” if you will. Don’t be. The blowback that can result from using a false name, a false email (a Yahoo, Google, or Hotmail address created for the campaign and the false name), and a false bio, isn’t worth it. Even though your reputation online is more defined by your contributions to the conversations rather than who you are, the culture of the Internet doesn’t suffer being fooled, duped, or suckered.” If you are ever found out, you are screwed. Online PR and Marketing

“ Markets are Conversations”
“ Through the Internet, the people in your markets are discovering and inventing new ways to converse. They're talking about your business. They're telling one another the truth, in very human voices.”
“ These markets are conversations. Their members communicate in language that is natural, open, honest, direct, funny and often shocking. Whether explaining or complaining, joking or serious, the human voice is unmistakably genuine. It can't be faked.”
The Cluetrain Manifesto, 1999, by Chris Locke, Rick Levine, Doc Searls, David Weinberger
http://www.cluetrain.com/book/

Social Media Strategy
Set Goals
Listen
Find Communities
Find Influencers
Content Strategy
Pick Tools
Deliver Content
Engage
Facilitate
Measure

Platform Agnosticism
Public Relations needs to become as platform-agnostic as possible
Traditional PR has suffered tragically from an inability to be platform-independent
Radio, television, newspapers, co-op, telephone, newsletter, email, social networks, blogs, message boards, forums, email lists, etc...
Where are your potential customers? Go – and be – there!

Cross Pollination is Key
Messaging is a continuum
Prospecting and engaging is key
Create outposts “everywhere”
Meet people where they're comfortable, not where you want them to be
Help them find their way – and you – there! (Via web sites, email lists, blog posts, direct mailings, etc)
Make it – and keep it – super-simple

Widgets, Badges, Links
There are lots of ways to encourage participation
Twitter, Facebook, and others offer embed codes and scripts to allow you to cross-post and cross-pollinate between your social network profiles and your web pages and corporate sites – requiring little or no coding!
Work hard on getting your boss or your designer to build in links to your profiles directly on your site. Even Fresh Air Fund ended up taking the leap!

Never Build Up a Ghost Town
Once you initiate creation of a social network profile, page, blog, or group, mailing list or message board, commit !
There is nothing worse than leaving a ghost town or elephant grave yard
Most blogs and pages are abandoned
To the persistent and consistent go the spoils
Update at least once-a-week forever !

YouTube, MySpace, Flickr, Etc.
We're so obsessed with Facebook we often forget the power of Virtual Online Communities such as YouTube (yes, it is a community first), MySpace (it ain't dead yet), and Flickr (yes, also a community first, then a gallery space)
Remember the niche social networks as well! Where do you need to be? Golfers? Photographers? Boomers? There are hundreds of niche SNS's with passionate community members (remember Ning?)
Are you using the correct platform?

Brand Grab on Niche Sites
There are hundreds of social networks you have never heard of.
Grabbing your brand on each site is worthwhile, even if you squat
Join every new service you hear of (Google Wave! Aardvard!) because you never know which one will get big! Huge!
KnowEm http://knowem.com can help you register all of them for a quick $69
Update them using Ping.fm http://ping.fm

Engagement Gap The difference between the influence of the Internet in consumer decision making and the amount of spending and effort on the part of corporations, organizations and government agencies in trying to interact with and shape the thinking behind those decisions. Source: CMO Council January 2009

The Engagement Gap What we are seeing is much stronger sensitivity to engage directly with customers and learn more about what shapes, influences and impacts purchasing decisions and intentions to do business. The move to quantify "customer affinity" and increase "customer advocacy" has become a new measure of marketing effectiveness. Source: CMO Council January 2009

Monitoring Conversations Only 16% of US companies are monitoring the online conversations for mentions of their brand. Source: AdAge

What Is Influencing Your Audience Today?
Search Engines
News Engines
Other Websites
Blogs
Micro blogging
Peer Reviews
Comments
Feeds
Podcasts
Video
Social Networks
Social News Sites
Tagging

New Media Relations Strategy
Direct to the public
Bloggers
New online media properties
Online Journalists
Traditional Journalists
News Sites
Social News Sites

Social Networks Engagement

Does the separation of work and home life exist? Should it?
People are attracted to the flaws in other people.
Being human is a selling point.
“ Wearing your baseball cap to the office”
“ Attend the party in your bowler hat”
Controlled openness
The Bowler Hat Versus the Baseball Cap

Like Social Networks, dinner parties are fun
Candor and insight are valued at dinner parties
Dinner parties are civilized events
“ Don't discuss religion or politics in polite company”
Don't be scared, but realize, always, your vicar and boss are “in the room”
That said, there's a lot to be had at a PG rating!
Dinner Party with the Boss and the Vicar

Twitter Engagement

Twitter doesn't care if you believe in Twitter
Twitter allows anyone to do anything with twitter and use it any way you like – except hurt others
I guess Twitter is a Libertarian!
You can use Twitter however you want: news feed, “what I'm doing,” for business, pleasure, engagement or voyeurism
Twitter Behaves Like a Digital Dial Tone

There are many “best practices” that people are writing about Twitter
Reject Twitterati dogma!
Only rule: “do no harm”
Create ten account or one! @chrisabraham @robochris @abrahamharrison @marcon
Try one for your business and one for yourself
Have some fun!
Don't Take too Much Advice on Twitter

@FreshAirFund as Exemplar

Following People on Twitter

Following-Back and Unfollowing Non-Followers

Follow the Influencers and the People They Follow

FAF Twitter Message Modeling

Crossposting Retweets via Ping.fm

Seesmic Desktop is our new fave tool to help manage, update, and respond to multiple campaigns from one desktop too.
TweedDeck now offers multi-account tools and a web services that allows you to maintain state across multiple platforms and machines (Apple and PC)
Managing Multiple Twitter Accounts

Automating Tedious Twitter Tasks

Resist the Auto-Welcome DM Temptation

Twitter is Now: When You Should Tweet
While they may call Twitter a microblogging platform, please don't confuse tweeting with blogging.
Twitter has more in common with IM, ham radio, and commercial radio than it has with blogging

Growth of @FreshAirFund Over Time
Since we have implemented the strategies we have outlined, we have been able to blow the carbon out of the @FreshAirFund Twitter campaign.
Cross-promoting the @FreshAirFund Twitter account via email, Facebook Groups and Pages has helped accelerate the profile of their Twitter account.

Twitter Isn't a Broadcast Medium

Twitter Isn't a Broadcast Medium
#followfriday is a weekly opportunity for tweeple, tweeps, and Twitterers to share the people who they're currently following who they recommend for others to follow. What a gift of support!

Search and Engage with Your Tweeps

Search Twitter for mentions persistently:
Search for company: “Abraham Harrison”
Search for services: “digital PR” or “social media marketing,” “blogger relations”
Search for products: “blogger outreach”
Search for staff: “chris abraham”
Search for locale: “Berlin,” “Washington”
Search for yourself: “abrahamharrison”
Search for questions you can answer
Follow them, answer questions, reach out, say hello!
Search and Engage with Your Tweeps

No Twitter Community-Building Panacea
All community-building takes time
There are many promises but few panaceas
If you're a big celebrity or brand already, you're golden!

From Your Blog to Twitter's Sphere

Facebook Engagement

Facebook is awesome & everyone uses it
FB is a walled-garden
I have over 4k friends
You can only reach people who are your friends – remember that
Profiles are for people only; other uses break Terms-of-Services
Choose Pages for corporate work
Facebook Profiles Versus “Fan” Pages

What you do is who you are, or part
facebook.com/chrisabraham
Feel free to share with your friends
I accept all friend requests and have over 4,000
My FB friends are as valuable as a lobbyist's fabled “Rolodex”
Both many friends and a broad base of friends
People don't read everything but they get to know you as a person
Facebook Personal Profiles

Pages are more like Personal Profiles than ever and becoming more like Twitter too
Personal URL with > 100 fans
faceook.com/abrahamharrison
All updates run through the same status updates personal updates to, now.
Pages can be open to the Internet
Very hard to prospect for new fans short of promoting for money through Facebook
Facebook Pages

On Facebook and Twitter – and on your blog – your followers and friends will tell you where the line is
Update your status too often and your friends will ask you to cut it out, in the best case, and will unfollow you in droves; in the worst case, they'll block you and report you as spam!
Aggregate too many RSS feeds in or Retweet badly or cross promote wily-nilly, and the same thing, or worse
Please don't be afraid, experiment, just listen!
PS: I have made all the mistakes and I am still OK.
Your Followers Will Tell You When Not To

Blogging is Not Dead!

Blogging Still Rules!
The demise of blogging has been greatly exaggerated!
I encourage students to blog their way into jobs
I encourage companies to blog their way into:
Their own online conversation
Respected authority
Internet celebrity (#114 on Power150)
Organic search domination

Why Blog?
Zero barrier-to-entry – free services like Wordpress.com and Blogger are as good and as prestigious as fancy blogs – and sometimes better!
Blogs are highly-textual – blogs have more pages, more text, and more links than your corporate web site, quadruply so if your site is Flash
Blogs are application – they offer comments, RSS news feeds, permalinks, user-readable URLs, social tools, and so much more!
Blogs are like cat-nip to Google!

Using Your Blog to Flirt
Search for all the blogs and bloggers in your industry and space, even competitors
Subscribe in Google Reader, etc.
Read their posts once-a-day (both for news and to foster ideas for your blog)
Visit their blog and make yourself known by commenting
Even better, blog a response and link back

Using Your Blog as Cred
The reason why I am so successful in digital PR is because I am a blogger
The Law of “Who the Hell are You?”
Bloggers use Google and will Fisk!
Blogger engagement by bloggers is key
The who concept of “By us, for us.”
Otherwise, you're a shill or a user...

Blogger Engagement

Blogger Harvesting and Prospecting
Who do you need to reach?
Activists, animal lovers, educators, parents, moms, dads, politicos, the faithful, shoppers, travelers, sports fans, marketers, democrats, environmentalists, foodies, greens, Los Angelinos, New Yorkers, college grads, Pennsylvanians, etc…
Where do they spend time and doing what?
Are they bloggers, on Facebook, Twittering, on YouTube, etc…

Blogger Harvesting and Prospecting
3. Develop lists of blogs and their bloggers
Search Google for exactly what you want “Top mommy blogs,” “best green blogs”
Leverage blogrolls like you would endnotes
Bloglines’ Most Popular Feeds, http://www.bloglines.com/topblogs
Technorati Top 100 Blogs, http://technorati.com/pop/blogs
Technorati Blog Directory http://technorati.com/blogs/directory/
AllTop http://alltop.com/

Topic Universe Example

We have tried many different styles and this is where we are:
Short, terse, minimal, highly textual, with a clear message and a clear request
Any verbiage that sounds like it is selling or marketing must be removed
All assets, graphics, movies, or videos are collected into a “microsite” or “SMNR”
Do not include conversion GIFs, hyperlinks, hot emails, images, or attachments
Example of an Outgoing Message

Example of an Outgoing Message

The SMNR (Steal this Content)
As you might have noticed, our pitches are very spare
We offload all content, message, keywords, images, links, and videos onto what is essentially a microsite
It is convenient for our clients and handy for our outreaches
We can get metrics and not have to change our clients’ websites

SMNR For Fresh Air Fund http://freshair-newsrelease.com/

Respond Quickly & With Love
At Abraham Harrison, we don’t use autoresponders or let emails wait until morning. When we send out an email outreach, we staff the INBOX almost constantly over the next hours and days
If a blogger gets pissed off by a pitch, we have only minutes to respond
A personal, immediate, and human response can make the difference between earning a blog post or being forwarded to Bad Pitch Blog
When you respond, never lock horns or rise to the bait – people have busy, complex, lives:
"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle" -- Philo of Alexandria
Always respond with either support or desperate Mea Maxima Culpa!

Respond Quickly & With Love

Tracking Responses & Mentions
Be sure to always track who replies.
Also, be sure to remove anyone who asks immediately.
Don’t hesitate to ask your bloggers to pop you the link to their post when they say that they will
Also, don’t hesitate to hold a blogger accountable for posting if he offers

Follow-Up Boldly and Proudly

Proof is in the Pudding

Earned Media Mentions

Metrics & Reporting

Metrics & Reporting
These charts represent volume of social media mentions over time
The green dots represent our blogger PR outreach
Spikes in conversation map perfectly with our digital PR engagement

Metrics & Reporting
This chart compares the same time frame in two different years

Metrics & Reporting
This chart breaks online mentions into social media platform

Reputation Management

Online Reputation Management Defined
Online reputation management , or ORM , is the practice of consistent research and analysis of one’s personal or professional, business or industry reputation as represented by the content across all types of online media. It is also sometimes referred to as online reputation monitoring, maintaining the same acronym.
AKA Search Engine Image Protection (SEIP) Also known as Search Engine Reputation Management (SERM)

Online Reputation Management Defined
ORM partly formed from a need to manage consumer generated media (CGM)
The Cluetrain Manifesto speaks to the ease with which one may initiate and amplify conversation online …
You need to participate, engage, communicate!

Google Alerts & Tweet Beep
Google Alerts are your friend
Use it liberally
Learn Google search arguments
“ chris abraham”
[chris abraham]
chris+abraham
chris OR abraham
Chris-abraham
www.google.com/alerts

Mandatory Alerts and Monitoring
Negative conversation can still start on message boards
Twitter can be like wild fire
Blogs are still powerful
Keep your eyes on the Web!

If You Can't Remove It, Hide It

Countermeasure: Decoys, Chaff, Flares
A countermeasure is a system (usually for a military application) designed to prevent sensor-based weapons from acquiring and/or destroying a target.
Preemptive action of countermeasures is directed to generally prevent lock-on of a threat sensor to a certain target. It is based on altering the signature of the target by either concealing the platform signature or enhancing the signature of the background, thus minimizing the contrast between the two.

Reactive action of countermeasures is directed toward break-lock of a threat already homing in on a certain target. It is based on the tactics of signature imitation, augmentation, or reduction.
One or more of the following actions may be taken to provide softkill :
- Reduction of signature
Going stealth or going offline
- Augmentation of signature
Duck decoys, squid ink, anti surface-to-air missile flares and chaff
Countermeasure: Decoys, Chaff, Flares

Preemptive Countermeasures: Inoculation
Chris Abraham Blog
Marketing Conversation
Abraham Harrison LLC
Twitter Page
Facebook Profile
LinkedIn Profile
YouTube Director
Flickr Profile
Friendster Profile
Jaiku Page
Pownce Page (RIP)
Tumblr Page
Utterli Profile
Friendfeed Profile
QIK Profile

Dominate Your Search Results

Cleaning Up a Crime Scene
Most clients want a clean up
Generally, clean ups are done after the reputation “crime” occurs
Sometimes, we're retained during the crime, to minimize exposure
Crisis management ORM campaigns are like repairing homes during a rocket attack

Case Study: The Poor Maligned Pig

Each Search Engine is Very Different

Chum Thyself into Social Networks
autoki.com
autoki.de
bebo.com
blip.tv
blogger.com
blorkut.com
bluedot.com
broadcaster.com
buzznet.com
classmates.com
crackle.com
cyloop.com
dandelife.com
del.icio.us
digg.com
en.netlog.com
en.sevenload.com
facebook.com
flickr.com
flixster.com
flugpo.com
friendster.com
gather.com
gawkk.com
hi5.com
hollywood.com
imdb.com
imeem.com
indenti.ca
jaiku.com
jappy.de
kewego.com
librarything.com
librarything.de
linkedin.com
livejournal.com
livevideo.com
login.live.com
lusitaniansonline.com
megavideo.com
metacafe.com
migente.com
multiply.com
my.opera.com
mychurch.com
mychurch.org
mycorners.com
mygrito.com
myspace.com
ning.com
photobucket.com
ping.fm
plazes.com
plurk.com
quepasa.com
rateitall.com
searchles.com
shelfari.com
skyrock.com
sonico.com
soundpedia.com
spaces.live.com
spanglish.ie
spock.com
stumbleupon.com
tabulas.com
tagged.com
takingitglobal.org
travbuddy.com
tumblr.com
twango.com
twitter.com
upcoming.yahoo.com
utterli.com
viddler.com
video.msn.com
video.yahoo.com
videos.google.com
vidoosh.tv
vimeo.com
vostu.com
vox.com
wamba.com
wordpress.com
xanga.com
xing.com
xuqa.com
yahoo.com
yasni.de
yelp.com
youtube.com

Domain Name Strategy
Google indexes domain names the way it indexes page text.
Domain names are the cheapest part of the entire online reputation game
$6-$25/year, depending
Registrar?
Private registration?
Too many folks get frugal here

Every URL is Sacred

Defensive SEO
We'll often populate a number of domains with a number of blogs using a number of platforms – by hand over time...
Our job is to promote deep links that are positive and neutral and ignore negative listings
We'll create between 5-25+ of these “aggregator” and “boing boing” sites in order to bring attention to deep, old links

Defensive SEO
The goal is not to promote the sites we build
Our goal is to promote everybody else's sites
At least all the POS and NEUT stuff!
We only use real content.
We promote all listings that are positive and neutral, even “off-brand”
Deep search results are pretty spacey
“ Chris Wilson of 235 North Abraham Lane”

Thank You for Attending Today!
To get slide show decks and videos , check here:
http://www.slideshare.net/chrisabraham
http://youtube.com/chrisabraham
Chris Abraham President and COO [email_address] @chrisabraham

Do-It-Yourself PR for E.Factor

by Social Ally on Jul 24, 2009

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Do-It-Yourself PR for E.Factor — Presentation Transcript

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