18. Fire drill
1.Quantify the issue. Is there really a fire?
2.Call in the wider teams
3.Define and own your message
4. Use the PR Tools at your disposal
Editor's Notes
Brief intro – explain how prior to 8 years in search early career 5 yrs in PR industry. How this has shaped tMF approach to ORM. Similar to Jons approach, not to bury, but to own the message. We’ll look at the PR toolkit available to SEOs to help with that.
As SEOs’ our gut reaction to SERP-invaders may be to bury the things outside of our control; but depending on the person, product or brand we need to cast aside our personal standpoint and assess the impact from a strategic perspective. One persons bad-ass is another persons hero.
Additionally, what may be seen as “bad publicity” is often part of a brand or personality strategy
Ryanair is a low cost airline operating out of Ireland. Their entire strategy is about notoriety and courting negative and occasionally scandalous behaviour (recite examples).
Ryanair is not no1 for cheap airline, low cost airline, cheap flights, budget airlines (though they are page 1) but trust me – they don’t need to be…
Ryanair global searches = bigger than Michael Jackson
Far from being about the nature of the message – it is all about how we manage it, how we own it and how quickly we can deliver it
I agree with this. I’m yet to see a true example of bad publicity as the root cause of failure. It is bad message management, wherever/however that message is delivered that kills the career, the brand, the product.
Take the career-killing move from U.S. Congressman Anthony Weiner, who publicly tweeted a picture of his “manifesto” apparently meant as a DM for someone other than his wife. Personally misguided or under appalling advice he denies fault and blames hackers. Resigns under pressure June 2011. It is not the issue, or the transgression. People have very short memories. It’s not even culpability or fault that breaks a career. It is how the message is owned and handled. (Cue picture of Clinton). Disgraced family man or lovable rogue – either outcome was perfectly possible.
Let’s examine the tools at our disposal that allow instant response and volume message ownership
There’s a reason that PR people are colloquially referred to as “spin doctors”. I’d recommend that if your client is of the size as to have external or in-house PR – this should be your first port of call. An experienced PR can help you quantify the brand impact from a message perspective; can help devise the responding position and can leverage powerful media relationships to help get the best platform for authoritative response. If you’re working with smaller brands and clients once your position is known there are a number of PR tools at your disposal, allowing you to take ownership
Search for “chicago gay pride” two weeks ago – controversial and some may say defamatory results all over the serp
Jan 6th a formal response is issued via PR Newswire – using OVP means a minimum of 250 online results for your message. Links can and should be included. Look at the arrangement of the title here. Leading with “holy name cathedral” – taking this message back. Don’t expect a huge impact on your rankings – this is a “known quantity”; but consider the impact and opportunity from brand SERP and message management perspective
Rainbow sash movement forced the Cardinal to own their message. News and brand serps have become like a game of chess particularly since the freshness update of a couple of months back. Tools like PR Newswire mean anyone can play, with almost instant moves. Turn around from send to SERP in my experience is a couple of hours.
Described as a “social newsroom” MyNewsDesk acts as a push and pull press release service integrating social media publishing. Paid and free versions, covers some markets specifically and those not yet covered are catered for as “international”. Strengthens brand matrix, acts as a content hub, follow links on profiles and in press releases and after your first release, I’ve seen Google alerts hit my inbox a second after I hit the publish button.
Whilst there are some other great tools for PRD that exist including things like PR Web, that’s stuff that everyone is very familiar with, and this isn’t about press release distribution, but instant message ownership in a way that allows you to take control instantly and in a way that also positively impacts your own SEO activities. To summarise this is our simple ORM fire drill
When it comes to ORM our fire drill is as follows… quantify the issue – is it really bad for the brand? Call on wider team if you have one at your disposal – define the response, put it in context, then use your tools and fight as hard as you have to.
