PRSA #PRSAdiconf keynote presentation by Danny Sullivan of SearchEngineLand.com & MarketingLand.com - focuses on managing PR crises on social media, owning more real estate in search results, and how NOT to pitch journalists.

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The New PR Front
Search Engines & Social Media
Danny Sullivan
Founding Editor
Marketing Land & Search Engine Land

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I’m not a PR professional
(nor do I play one on TV)

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I have been a
journalist for 20 years
(newspapers, then web)

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I’ve dealt with all types of:
Pitches
PR People

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Mashup!
My personal thoughts
My world of search & social

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Let’s Talk Paula Deen

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Bad press, get ‘em on TV!

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And maybe bad news
will go away or be buried…

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But stories are read and seen
outside traditional media…

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How I saw
the latest
news

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How I might also have seen it:

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If I went looking, where’s Paula?

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What’s Paula Doing?
How did that go?
What did you say?
What did @TheRevAl say?
Retweet him?
Others you should
retweet?
Where is it?
Why did you pull it?

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Social Media
is Media
(just like news media,
TV media, print media…)

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Social Media
is also first-tier media
Not “after-thought media”
Not “echo-chamber media”
Not just for discussing “real media,”
like appearance on Today

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Some Perspective
Viewers: 4.6 million
Facebook Reach: 1.3 million
Facebook Reach: 2.6 million
Circulation: 1.9 million
Facebook Reach: 3.1 million
http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/morning-show-ratings-week-of-june-10_b184793
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_in_the_United_States_by_circulation

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Are you using your media,
social media, to talk directly?
(You should!)

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Your fans might even help you

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Woah! Support every few seconds
When it’s not pretty

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Careful, however…
What you hide
might not be hidden
See What’s Been Censored From Facebook Pages With “Hidden Post Explorer” Tool

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Search is also media
People “reverse broadcast”
what they want to know…

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What’s Paula
doing in response?

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Nothing. She “owns” one listing

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Home Page - Nothing

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Blog - Nothing

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Video – Nothing (Gone)

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Or unofficial, or posted by others…

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If your apology isn’t there…

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SEO in
one slide:
“It’s the
content,
stupid”
(have lots of
great content)
The Periodic Table
Of SEO Success Factors

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A few tactical tips

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Get your executives on Twitter!
Even if they don’t tweet,
gives official presence over fakes,
easy to reference them in mentions

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Who’s Lynton? With 140 characters,
no room for full name, title + what he said:
If had Twitter account, anyone could click
for his full name, title, bio –
it’s like a Twitter business card

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Get on Google+
(because you’ll own more real estate)

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It helps you rank better if you’re
followed

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Google Authorship
provides visibility benefits,
maybe future ranking boosts
The Definitive Guide To Google Authorship Markup
Author Rank, Authorship, Search Rankings & That Eric Schmidt Book Quote

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Facebook Graph Search?
Still watch-and-see, but for people research,
might be new tool for PR pros

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Some personal thoughts, from
the other side of the pitch…

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Blog your news
Blog your press release
I want to point readers to you;
make it easy for me – give me a link!

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No PDF press releases:
speak web; speak HTML
(when you want attention, why let some
Acrobat update get in the way?)

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Don’t get cute; be clear;
live or die by your headline

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“What the…?”
I don’t know,
so I’ll read
others
who will
tell me

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“Oops. We exposed six million
emails or phone numbers”
“We aren’t sharing customer data to PRISM”

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Please reduce the buzzwords!
“dynamic, big data, aggregated
crowd-sourced semantic
folksonomy system”
sounds like:
“blah blah blah blah blah blah something”

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Things I hate to hear…

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“Shall we do a call on Tuesday?”
(maybe it works for some;
to me, it’s pushy, assumptive)

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“Have you got five
minutes for a call?”
(it’s not going to be
five minutes, and you know it)

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“Can I send you something?”
(You just did. Unless you want an embargo
agreement, save us all time, send it all at once)

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Please, please, please, please,
please, please, please, please…
Do
Your
Research

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People pitch things
we’d clearly never cover,
if they’ve read our sites

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People pitch things using the
wrong name of our sites

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People pitch things using the
wrong name of editors

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Now, a reading, from the amazing three-
part series Ted Ives did for Search Engine
Land:
Public Relations For SEO: The Complete Guide
Public Relations For SEO: How To Target Journali
Public Relations For SEO: How To Pitch Journalist

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The ultimate journalist that every tech marketer would kill to have
an audience with has got to be, hands-down, Walter Mossberg
at the Wall Street Journal….
I read everything Walt had written for the last six months. In one
of the articles, he mentioned “the burning of the Gaspee” ….
It’s something that is celebrated yearly in Warwick, Rhode Island
(not far from where I live), but almost no one outside the state is
aware of it. So, this stuck out like a sore thumb. Why would he
mention this obscure incident in such an offhand way?
I dug into his biography and found that he had started out his
career as a writer for the Providence Journal in Rhode Island —
here was my angle!

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I sent him an email pointing out that I was a Rhode Islander and
would he be willing to talk about this new Search Engine we
were launching.
His response was (I’m paraphrasing here) “sure, I’ll talk to
anyone from Rhode Island any time — come down to
Washington D.C. and meet me in my office.”
This resulted in an hour-and-fifteen-minute meeting where he
gave me a great lecture on Nathanael Greene’s role in the
Revolution (Walt is a huge Revolutionary War buff) for half of it,
and the other half of it, he listened to my pitch
and gave me great feedback.

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See also the excellent series from
former reporter Elinor Mills:
How I became a 'flack’
Goodbye news, hello PR
Five myths about PR

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Working with
a good PR person is
GOLDEN!

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• Study our content, to pitch appropriately
• Offer unique story ideas
• React quickly & efficiently to requests
• Offer tips & tidbits that might be useful
even if not for an existing client
• Are positive, fun & either enjoy the job
or give that impression
• Twitter is a great place to shine,
show a sense of humor
Good PR people

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Good PR people also silently
suffer the self-important,
prima donnas also known
as “journalists”

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But a good journalist does want
useful, constructive feedback,
good or bad, if it’s fair & valid.
Honest.

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Takeaways
• Social & Search are first-tier media,
not after-thoughts
• Social lets you talk directly to an audience &
draw back directly from them
• Search lets you tune-in to a reverse broadcast
of interests, questions & concerns
• Content, clarity & research are keys to success
with search, social & PR generally

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Linkaways
http://searchengineland.com http://marketingland.com
The Periodic Table Of SEO Success Factors
The Definitive Guide To Google Authorship Markup
Public Relations For SEO: The Complete Guide
What Is SEO / Search Engine Optimization?
What Is Search Engine Optimization? The Three Minute SEO Video!