Brands as Publishers? Three Things You Need to Consider

n the rise of digital, credible media sources are not the only publishers of content. Brands have been gaining momentum as publishers by leveraging the power of shareable content on social platforms.

To demonstrate the point, recently, The New York Times shared that their organization does not feel threatened by the success of the shareable content news site, Buzzfeed. Media and marketing digital publication Digiday recently published that 76% of publishers are feeling pressure to think about how their story can and will be shared across social platforms. Shareaholic measured traffic across more than 200 sites of varying audience sizes and found that, as of September 2014, 29.5% of traffic to publisher sites was driven from social channels, with Facebook in a class all its own driving more than 22% of referrals to publishers, with Pinterest a not-so-close second.

In the face of real-time marketing, there’s pressure to not only create content that is engaging enough to be shared socially, but to create content quickly, in a flash to be first. As brands become publishers, they need to consider three things:

By: God-is Rivera for ICrossing 

- God-is Rivera, Sr. Strategist, Social Media, iCrossing

Follow on Twitter @GodIsRivera

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http://greatfinds.icrossing.com/brands-publishers-three-things-need-consider/

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5 Benefits of Social Media Business Owners Need To Understand

 

 

It's more than just hype. Here are 5 stat-backed benefits of social media marketing

 

While the importance of social media marketing is generally accepted, the fact that people don't question its value is all the more reason to think about exactly what its value is. The goals of social media marketing can't be just to gain likes, fans, and retweets. These things are not ends, but means to an end. Social media marketing is far more than an online popularity contest, and the better business owners understand that, the better they can use it for their companies. Here are five benefits to social media that business owners need to understand.


1. Increase brand awareness
One of the main benefits of social media marketing is the easiest to recognize: Social media is an excellent way to introduce people to a brand. Despite the Field of Dreams notion some business owners have that "if you build it, they will come," if people are unaware of a business or a website's existence, they can't shop there (Kevin Costner was dealing with ghosts, who have a lot of free time to meander around cornfields). Because social networks are used by more than two-thirds of the country, and given the way content spreads virally to others, social media is the perfect channel to promote a brand to potential customers. Relevanza reported that 78 percent of small businesses attract new customers through social media.


Research shows just how valuable this brand awareness can be. According to Adroit Digital, 75 percent of online Americans said product information found on social media influences their shopping behavior and enhances brand loyalty. They also report that social media is the second most likely way U.S. Millennials will learn about a new product (26 percent of respondents), just 3 percentage points behind TV advertising (29 percent). In the future, social media may be even more important than TV ads for introducing new products to consumers. Similarly, research from eMarketer has shown that 33 percent of consumers cite social networks as the way they discover new brands, products, and services.


2. Legitimize a brand
Another way social media marketing helps with customer acquisition is by establishing a brand as legitimate. When Internet consumers discover a business or retailer they want to use but know little about, they often check their social media page to learn more about it. Many small businesses have static websites that change little, if at all, after being initially set up by the designer. Social media pages, on the other hand, should be constantly updated with new posts, comments, etc. A website establishes that a brand exists, but a social media page establishes that the brand is active. Similarly, the number of fans shows how popular a brand is and Facebook reviews can reassure buyers by showing them that other consumers like a business. Research from Ballihoo found that 63 percent of consumers who search for local businesses online are more likely to use businesses with information on social media sites.

It's worth noting that poor social media marketing can also delegitimize a brand. If a new customer goes to a business's social media page and finds that a post hasn't been made in a few months, that customer may assume the business is defunct. If customers are asking for help in the comments and they're being ignored, they may assume the company has poor customer service.



3. Increase sales
In the end, social media marketing needs to help increase sales and revenue. That's why it's called social media marketing and not simply social media public relations. To be fair, improving brand awareness and legitimizing a brand should, by themselves, help increase sales. But there are ways to use social media to directly steer consumers toward the sales funnel. For fans of the business, business owners can write posts that link to products, sales, etc. Marketers can also use promoted content and advertisements to sell products to target audiences who haven't become fans of a brand yet. The ability to target particular audiences is one of the greatest benefits of social media marketing. Social networks know a lot about consumer interests and demographics, so even though there are hundreds of millions of fans, marketers can accurately target the right people with the right message.

There are also a lot of ways that retailers can sell products directly from social networks. On Facebook, business owners can set up a Facebook store with apps like Ecwid or Beetailer. On Twitter, retailers with Amazon.com pages can allow Twitter users to add products to their Amazon checkout straight from their Twitter feed. There are also ways to sell products on Pinterest, YouTube, and other social networks.


4. Improve customer service
Another benefit of social media that's easy to overlook is customer service. Even if a business has a dedicated customer service department, telephone number, or email, it's important to handle issues via the method of communication the consumer prefers. The fact that people use social media to ask customer service questions is reason enough for businesses to ensure their ability to help customers through social media. This also goes back to establishing a brand. One of the key concerns of consumers when they shop online is the responsiveness of customer service. People want to be assured that if they have a problem, they can easily find help. By being receptive to customer needs, business owners can increase customer loyalty to a brand.


5. Distribute content
Social media should be a part of any content marketing distribution system. Social media accounts for a huge portion of referral traffic on the web. People are looking for content that interests them and they want to share it online. A joint study by AOL and Nielsen found that people spend more than 50 percent of their time online with content and an additional 30 percent of their time on social channels where content can be shared. Business owners who want to gain customers through content marketing need to use social media and promoted content to make that happen.


All of these points and data show that social media marketing is a huge benefit for business owners, and exactly what the benefits are. Besides increasing brand awareness and establishing the legitimacy of the brand, social media marketing can affect the bottom line of a business by increasing sales. Learning about the importance of social media for marketing should also underscore why these efforts need to be continuous and the harm it does when social media marketing isn't up to consumer expectations. Long story short, social media marketing is something that every business needs to do and needs to do well. For more statistics that show the benefits of social media,


BY Peter Roesler (@Webmarketing007) for Inc.Com

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http://www.inc.com/peter-roesler/5-benefits-of-social-media-business-owners-need-to-understand.html

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Why Public Relations And Media Relations Don't Mean The Same Thing Anymore

Don't get stuck in the past. PR folks need to keep up with the ever-evolving digital world to stay relevant.

Public relations is evolving faster than an out-of-control science fiction character. Yet many PR companies in my experience are stuck in the past.

They still think of public relations as straight media relations with maybe a dollop of social media added, along with a sprinkling of branded content.

Don’t get me wrong. Media relations remains a viable part of public relations. But it’s just part of what the profession can do. Unfortunately, companies that don’t recognize that are missing a major opportunity.

“Today PR often encompasses everything from social media to content marketing and even native advertising in some cases,” says Rebekah Iliff, chief strategy officer of AirPR, the PR marketplace and technology platform.

While once the stepchild to its more glamorous sibling advertising, PR today can in fact far surpass the performance of advertising thanks to its ability to turn more traffic into leads.
For example, AirPR's data show that PR generates conversion rates 10 to 50 times that of advertising conversions.

A recent Nielsen-inPowered study showed that earned media--which is just a fancy word for PR--is more effective than branded content at all stages of the purchase funnel.
This isn’t a prescription to overdose on PR. But PR, because of its third-party endorsements, adds built-in credibility. A mistake some companies make, however, is to think third-party validation means only the media and maybe a few celebrities.

“Many people just consider industry luminaries and the ‘rock stars’ when thinking about influencers,” Sarah Skerik, vice president of strategic communications and content at PR Newswire, told me.

Skerik says she’s had better results by getting something shared on LinkedIn than by having it retweeted by big names on Twitter.

Adjusting To Today’s Digital World

The challenge today for public relations is adjusting to the constant drum of news from social media and mobile. No longer are episodic, big budget launch campaigns the ticket to success. Instead, brands must widen the net and maintain an always-on presence. This means using a combination of third-party validation, along with branded content and social.

As Heidi Sullivan, senior vice president of digital content at PR software company Cision, told me, “There is no silver bullet today. Getting mentioned in a big daily newspaper doesn’t reach your entire audience.”

At the same time that the role of public relations has morphed into a bigger job, technology is helping to transform PR into something you can measure.
No longer do companies have to rely solely on media placements as the only evidence of PR success; today armed with the right tools, they can understand the impact of PR on leads and ultimately sales.
Yet many companies in my experience would as soon measure their employees’ bathroom habits as they would their PR effectiveness.

“This is the one thing I see missing the majority of the time,” Iliff told me. “A company says to a PR pro ‘we want to see our sales go up' but then gives them no access to how to actually make that happen."

By: Wendy Marx (For Fastcompany.com)

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http://www.fastcompany.com/3034498/the-future-of-work/why-public-relations-and-media-relations-dont-mean-the-same-thing-anymore

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5 Signs You’re Going To Make It Big One Day

We’ve all got dreams of making it ‘big’ one day, but how many of us actually follow through with those dreams? We make excuses for our lack of success, saying things like, “Life got in the way,” or “I can’t handle anymore rejection. ”But not you! You’re on the fast-track to fame and success. Or are you? Think you’ve got what it takes to make it big? Here are some signs you’re right:

1. You’ve Got A Dream (A Big One!)

What’s your vision? What do you want to accomplish? What are your hopes and dreams? Having a dream – even if it’s a little vague – is crucial for success. Before you can start your journey, you need to have a goal in mind!

In the words of Walt Disney, "If you can dream it, you can do it." (And before you can do it, you've got to dream it!)

2. You’ve Got A Road Map, But You're Prepared To Take Detours

They say success is where preparation and opportunity meet. So, when opportunity comes ‘a knockin,’ you’re going to want to have your plan already in place. Think of it as your road map to making it big!

What steps do you need to take to get where you want to be? Who do you need to know? What skills do you need to have?
But, let's be real here, nothing EVER goes exactly according to plan. You need to be able to adapt to whatever life throws at you. Think of those things as detours. They're not a huge deal as long as you figure out how to get back on the main road!

3. You’re Extremely Curious

You need to have an innate fascination with whatever it is you’re working toward. You've got to learn as much as you can about the industry, the people, the culture, and so on. You need to want to be consumed by it. You've got to understand the problems and be excited about finding solutions. You’ve got to be passionate, excited, and curious about all areas of the biz.

When Larry King made his debut in radio, he made a point to become consumed in the biz. In addition to doing his own show, he did the weather reports, the sports updates, and the news broadcasts. He even volunteered to fill in in for people who were out sick, and took on double shifts.
Why? He wanted to learn all there was to know about the biz. He wanted to practice. He wanted to be good at what he did. The only way to do that was to explore and go above and beyond what was asked of him. He called it "taking extra batting practice."

4. You’re A Little Cocky (Just A Little)

If you really want to make it, you’ve got to have confidence in yourself and your abilities. Without confidence, you can so easily get crushed by negativity and criticism – things you will have to deal with once you hit the spotlight.

You have to be confident. You have to trust yourself. And you have to have a deep understanding that you’re going to make it. For actress Jennifer Lawrence, that understanding came at a young age.
“I always knew that I was going to be famous,” she told Vogue magazine. “I honest to God don't know how else to describe it. I used to lie in bed and wonder: ‘Am I going to be a local TV person? Am I going to be a motivational speaker?’ It wasn't a vision. But as it's kind of happening, you have this buried understanding: Of course.”

5. You Realize Failure Is A Minor Setback, Not A Game Changer

If you’re even thinking about making it big one day, the word “quit” can’t be in your vocabulary. In the end, you don’t succeed because you don’t fail; you succeed because you don’t give up. The second you quit, you’ve lost.

Take Michael Jordan, for example. He has a famous quote, "I've failed over and over again in my life, and that is why I succeed." The only reason he succeeded was because he didn't let those failures discourage him to the point of quitting. Why? Because he realized his failures were only minor setbacks - not game changers.

I guarantee you that everyone you look up to has failed at one point or another, but did that stop them from picking themselves back up and moving forward? No way, Jose. And that’s why they’re successful.

By. Ariella Coombs (http://www.careerealism.com)
Twitter: @AriellaCoombs
Click for Original Article

https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140619132958-79588522-5-signs-you-re-going-to-make-it-big-one-day


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8 questions to ask before you design your website

When clients or friends tell me they plan to design a new website, I get curious and excited. What colors are they going to go with? What are their SEO goals? What layout are they using?

Creating a personal or business website requires serious thought and attention. There’s a lot more to it than deciding what font you plan to use. To help people who are starting a business and are looking to build a public face of a new organization or those looking to redesign be a bit less overwhelmed, here are some crucial questions they can ask themselves before, and while, creating the new website design.

1. What is the purpose of your website?

It seems obvious, but knowing the true purpose of your website will determine everything that it does and how it looks. Make sure you lay out clear objectives and goals for your website before you start on the design.

2. What will your domain name be?

Your website title should be easy to remember. Also make sure you know which domain will be appropriate (.net, .com, etc.).

3. What technology will you use for your website design?

Find a platform you’re familiar with and that is easy to use. (I recommend WordPress and/or HTML5.) If you understand how to do the basic coding, then you can make minor edits without the help of a website designer.

4. What will your content be?

A personal website will usually have content that is more about blogging and personal tastes and interests. A business website will feature content about the business itself: An “About Us” page, a blog, contact information, and pages devoted to products and/or services. It’s essential to feature content that is SEO focused, such as vivid images, creative videos, and keyword-friendly copy.

5. Who is your audience?

Every website design is a little different, and you can always tell those who know their audience well and those who don’t. Website designers who understand their audience use appropriate colors, targeted SEO (keywords, images and videos perfect for that audience), and a clean, uncluttered layout. Make sure it’s immediately clear whom you’re trying to reach when your website pops up.

6. Is your website viewable in all browsers?

Your website should not become distorted depending on the type of browser someone is using. Be sure to test your new website on Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Safari, and Internet Explorer.

7. What social media channels will you promote?

Linking to your social media accounts will not only boost website traffic, it will also give you major SEO points.

8. How will you track your website traffic?

You can’t increase SEO if you’re not clear about where you have to make changes. Try using Google Analytics to see where you can improve and where you’re doing well. These are just a handful of the many questions and decisions that go into building a website, whether it’s for personal or business purposes. What other questions do you think are important?

By Paige McDaniel (For PRDaily.com)

Click for Original Article

http://www.prdaily.com/Main/Articles/16670.aspx


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You Need A Social Media Manager On Your Team

There is added value in having a strategist and a communicator representing your company's brand

There are two job titles floating around the business world: social media manager and community manager. While they bear similarities, a community manager is the public face of brands, interacting with a community and generating buzz for their companies. A social media manager is a strategist and communicator, with the ability to measure and analyze effectiveness. Large companies will have both an SM and CM, while startups and small businesses are lucky to be able to fulfill even one of those positions.

Many small business owners have adopted a “do-it-myself” mentality when it comes to social media. This just leads to greater burn out. The reality is that you need someone on your team –be it a social media manager, a community manager, or a combination of the two–who represents your company on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Google, etc., and who is responsible for responding to comments/questions.

Below are just a few reasons why your business needs team member handling social media:

Act As Voice of the Brand. You want to have someone who is charged with managing your brand’s social media accounts in order to generate traffic and conversations. They’re the voice of the brand and act as the brand, not as their own persona. Also, this is the person who would work to create or add to the community, by generating leads and sales.

Create and Manage Accounts. This includes developing and posting content, such as Facebook updates, Twitter messages, and Instagram photos. Also, this is about following and interacting with other social media accounts, especially “influencers” and “thought leaders” in your field.

Share Video Content. If you have YouTube, a social media manager would post videos, respond to comments, and interact with other YouTube accounts, including commenting on their content and adding their videos to your company account’s playlists.

Increase SEO. In the social media training process, a strong manager will understand what it takes to boost SEO and improve your search rank. They will be able to create unique content and be able to navigate through search engines and other social media platforms that will help your company’s productivity.

Build Campaigns. This person also should be able to develop campaigns and strategies from the ground up and to see through the company’s social media endeavors. He or she should have the proper social media training to monitor campaigns in order to see what is working or what is not working and strive to improve the company’s online presence.

Focus On Automation. You want someone on board with social media training who is well-versed in different management tools and strategies (apps and content automation tools) to maintain a strong online presence for your company.

Monitor Trends. You also want someone who can stay ahead of the game by focusing on social media trends and researching best practices. This person should be able to implement new techniques for boosting your company’s online reputation and progress.

Manage Company Reputation. In the social media world, this means monitoring location listings like Google+ Local as well as tracking and responding to mentions of your company’s name and relevant keywords and reviews on sites like Yelp and Foursquare that get pushed to Twitter. A social media manger would respond to reviews as needed.


by Carolyn M. Brown  (For BlackEnterprise.com)

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http://www.blackenterprise.com/small-business/you-need-a-social-media-manager-on-your-team/


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6 PR lessons from Mr. T

I didn't know it at the time, but many of the lessons that have shaped who I am today came from the TV shows I watched as a kid. In some cases those shows taught me a bit about my future career, too.
Yes, I am saying I learned PR lessons from '80s television.
Those of us who grew up in the '80s recall our favorite sitcoms with great pleasure; they were full of heartwarming, yet humorous, life lessons. As a child growing up on an apple orchard miles from town, TV meant the five channels that came in via a rabbit-ear antenna. But it was all I needed for hours and hours of Saturday morning cartoons and an endless number of sitcoms.
Of these, one of my favorites was "Silver Spoons." Starring the great Ricky Schroder as Ricky, "Silver Spoons" began running in 1982 when I was 10 years old. During the fourth episode we were introduced to a celebrity who would become a childhood hero: Mr. T.
Here are a few PR lessons from the great Mr. T:

1. Stay on message.
"First name 'Mr.,' middle name 'period' and last name 'T'!"
Mr. T played a bodyguard whom Ricky's father hired to protect Ricky from a bully. In an inspired scene, Mr. T shows up to class to protect Ricky and has a run in with the teacher who inquires about his name. Mr. T's response was simply brilliant: "First name 'Mr.,' middle name 'period' and last name 'T'!"

There you have it: a PR lesson from Mr. T. In that statement, Mr. T exemplified the art of staying on message. Sure, he could have offered a long answer about how his real name was Laurence Tread, but as a professional bodyguard he was known as Mr. T. But that sort of explanation didn't make sense for Mr. T's character or brand. He needed a clever, terse and funny response-and he delivered.

2. Words matter.
"Love is a verb… and verbs show action."
Mr. T, let's be clear: "Love" is also a noun, but we get your point. Love is not just a word—it's an action. OK, yes, that is a life lesson rather than a PR lesson, but the PR lesson is that words matter. Mr. T had a true hold on words and used them well. While he could be brief, he was on message and usually made sense. He clearly stated his point in a manner that even children understood.

3. Don't miss a big opportunity because of cost.
"You gonna lose a deal over $35? That's chump change! My lunch cost $35!"
The PR lesson here is simple: Some things are not free, so don't lose a story or deal based on minor expenses. Sure, none of us want to pay for PR—earned media is our holy grail—but we should never think of PR as free. Earned media is earned. With that in mind, we always need to be willing to absorb a cost, whether it be it dollars or time, to get the results we want.
If something costs more than you expect but the value of the story is high, don't miss out. For example, when I was in consumer product PR, I cannot tell you how many times I rushed to FedEx to get my package into the last overnight shipment to make sure my product was in the hands of a producer or reporter the next morning. The cost was high, both in shipping fees and time spent rushing to the airport terminal, but the reward-often as awesome as a "Today Show" feature-was almost always worth the trouble.

4. Don't hate your competition.
"No, I don't hate Balboa, but I pity the fool."
This is fantastic Mr. T advice from "Rocky III." We have competition, but we should never be haters. Always take the high road.
When you are neck-and-neck with the competition for coverage, or featured side-by-side in a story, never hate. Just love them for making you a more competitive person, and then pity them because you are awesome and will obviously win.

5. Stay focused.
"I got no time for the jibba-jabba."
This is good advice, Mr. T. The life of a PR pro is very busy; we do not have time for distractions or "jibba-jabba." We need to stay focused and save the idle conversation for later. And as any good PR pro knows, jibba-jabba can often lead to over-sharing and going off message. We certainly don't want that.

6. Face your fears.
"I ain't getting on no plane, Hannibal!"
On "The A-Team" (another great TV show of the '80s), Mr. T learned one lesson time and time again: Face your fears. B. A. Baracus, his character on the show, was terrified of flying on planes, and the other characters often tricked him into flying. Every time, Mr. T realized it wasn't so bad. He didn't usually admit it when things worked out, but you could see he knew it inside. I always believed he was proud that he'd tackled a fear.
PR folks need to confront their fears every day. Our fears are wide and varied, ranging from the fear of rejection when pitching to the fear of public speaking or failing on a project. But we can, and must, overcome them. Face the fear head on.

By Marc Cowlin (for PRDaily.com)

Click For Original Article

http://www.prdaily.com/Main/Articles/16730.aspx#



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A guide to measuring social media ROI

There's a popular misconception that it's difficult to use targeted metrics to measure social media's return on investment (ROI). That's not true. Nor is social media only good for measuring brand awareness.

The fact is social media can offer some of the best metrics for measuring ROI. All you need to do is set your success guides—what you want to achieve and how long it will take—and measure your results against them.
Here are six simple metrics for the main social networks that you can use to measure your social media ROI across earned, owned and paid media:


1. Blogger outreach
A key component of many (if not most) social media campaigns, blogger outreach programs can offer some of the best results of any marketing tactic. Measuring your success isn't too difficult, either. All you have to do is determine the answers to the following questions:

• How many bloggers wrote about you?
• How many comments did these posts receive?
• How many social shares did the post get?
• What was your traffic pre- and post-outreach?
• How much product did you have to provide to bloggers, and how many sales did you receive?

2. Twitter
Twitter not only offers instant eyeballs, but great returns. Again, measuring your impact is relatively simple:

• What was your retweet value (cost of manpower and resources versus followers who take action)?
• How often did people use your hashtag?
• How many times did people click your vanity URL?
• How many new (genuine) followers did you get during your promotion?
• If you used something like sponsored tweets, what was the cost versus the click-throughs and conversions?

3. Facebook
Although it has its critics (including me), Facebook offers some great built-in tools and demographic options to help gauge a campaign's success:

• How many new, worthwhile fans did you make, and how many did you target?
• How many times did people like or act on your promotion message?
• If you built a Facebook application, how many times did people install or share it?
• Did you successfully reach your target demographic? (Facebook Insights can help.)
• How much did you spend on a Facebook ad, and how did click-throughs and new sales/customers compare?

4. Google+
While we don't quite know the effectiveness of brand pages on Google+ and in-line Google Ads complement Google+ content, there are ways to measure your activity:

• Has Google+ raised your profile on search, as well as resulting traffic to your site?
• How many circles have people added you to?
• How many +1s do your comments and discussions receive?
• How active is your community?
• How many ripples do your discussions create?
• How many attendees take part in your hangouts?

5. YouTube and other video sites
More than just a fun place to see kids hurt themselves on bikes, YouTube is a key tool in any marketing campaign—just ask the companies that used it during this year's Super Bowl.
Here are the questions you should ask:

• How many views did you get?
• How many likes and favorites did you receive?
• How many downloads did you get (on video sites that allow downloads)?
• How many embeds has your video seen elsewhere on the Web?
• How many subscribers did your channel attract?
• If your video had a call to action with a vanity URL, how many times did people click through?
• How many social shares did you get on the social networks your target demographics use?

6. Mobile
As marketing evolves, the different ways to reach an audience combine to create new outlets. Mobile marketing is the perfect complement to social marketing, and is easy to measure:

• Did you use a push SMS system to drive traffic to a mobile-friendly site? If so, how many views did it bring?
• Did you use QR codes? If so, how many times did people use them?
• How many downloads did your mobile app receive?
• How many times did people check-in on Gowalla and Foursquare?
• What was the most popular operating system? (This can tell you a lot about your audience's demographic and buying options.)

These questions offer just some of the immediate ways you can measure your social media success. There are more ways to measure your success, including monitoring tools and more defined analytics. Which ones you use will depend on the goals you've set and how you define success.
No matter how you collect the information you need, it all comes down to comparing man hours and financial outlay to your return.
It's important to remember that marketing can come down to luck and circumstance as much as brilliant strategy-timing and a welcoming audience are key. The one thing you can control, however, is measurement, and with social media and mobile marketing, measurement has never been easier.


A version of this article originally appeared on DannyBrown.me.


About us:
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company focusing on publicity, radio promotion,
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There is no such thing as online PR

As we all know, digital marketing ceased to exist last year. In January 2013, Forrester announced it was to be the year that ‘digital marketing’ became just ‘marketing’.

I’d like to posit that something similar happened to PR. In fact I think it happened earlier, though we have yet to have had the debate.

There’s no doubt that the internet has changed marketing’s function and activities, but its impact on PR has simply been to expand the discipline’s footprint.

In a world where everyone is a communicator, PR’s influence is all-pervasive. It’s for this reason that I find the term ‘online PR’ to be so reductive.

More than links

As PR people have rushed to get their heads around SEO, and SEO people started undertaking activity that might traditionally be called PR, we’ve seen the term ‘online PR’ increasingly bandied about. 

What it tends to mean in this context is content generation and influencer relations, with one goal in mind: building links. And link building, as a goal in itself, is dead, or at least dying. 

And deservedly so. Call me old fashioned, but I like my search results to be a representation of the best content for what I’m looking for, not what an SEO (or PR) professional has managed to get the most links to point at. 

Google happens to agree with this, so link building, and by extension what tends to get called‘online PR’, is diminishing in effectiveness.

The focus now needs to be more firmly on just creating good content, with the emphasis on forming relationships with those that might link to it taking a back seat. 

By Ian McKee (For Econsultancy.com)
 

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https://econsultancy.com/blog/64281-there-s-no-such-thing-as-online-pr#i.vxngio45ydjwz0

 

 

About us:
L&B Consultation: is a full service Multimedia Marketing & Consulting
company focusing on publicity, radio promotion,
brand identification, brand management

Check out www.LbConsultation.com
Follow us on Twitter @LBConsultation

Facebook Is Putting The Focus Back On Direct Response And FBX-Powered Ads

Facebook has focused a lot of its paid ad products on branding — ads that tout a business and build positive feelings about the brand. Search, meanwhile, has always been the primary digital format for direct response ads — ads designed to get customers to take an immediate action based on what they've already shown interest in.

But now Facebook is going after the search space pretty aggressively, with a new presentation for ad partners emphasizing Facebook's strong role as a direct response ad format.

That means Facebook Exchange (FBX) is about to get a lot more attention. It's Facebook's proprietary real-time bidding exchange and it marries Facebook user data with data from third-party platforms that track user web browsing behavior. FBX then uses these two parameters to serve hypertargeted ads in the desktop News Feed and right-rail. 

Recently, BI Intelligence took an in-depth look at FBX to understand how the Exchange works, which players are partners, and how the ads it serves perform. We also put FBX in context in terms of its size and performance.

The real-time aspect of FBX is crucial. It's impossible to target a user who is interested in living room furniture with personalized ads when they open their Facebook page unless he or she can be identified and served a relevant ad in milliseconds.

Here are some of the key details from our report on FBX: 

FBX is becoming a huge player in the real-time bidding space: Millions of ads are sold and purchased on FBX every second with the help of demand-side platforms that plug advertisers into FBX, and billions of impressions are served every day. Facebook already accounts for about half of the retargeted ad clicks on the Web. The real-time aspect of FBX is crucial It's impossible to target a user who is interested in living room furniture with personalized ads when they open their Facebook page unless he or she can be identified and served a relevant ad in milliseconds.FBX fills a certain niche, a very specific marketing objective known as "demand fulfillment," nudging shoppers to complete a purchase they've already shown interest in.The platform was fast out of the gate: FBX produced stellar early results for advertisers, both in terms of cost and performance. Eventually, the price and performance bar will be set higher. That's already starting to happen for better-performing News Feed placements.Despite FBX's huge weight in the retargeting space, it still constitutes a small share of overall Facebook revenues.FBX is not yet available on mobile, though this may be coming soon. Additionally, Sponsored Story social-native ads, which are at the heart of Facebook's ad ecosystem, aren't accessible via FBX. As Facebook makes direct response more of a priority, however, this could begin to change.

By Cooper Smith (Business Insider)

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http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-is-putting-the-focus-back-on-direct-response-and-fbx-powered-ads-2014-5

About us:
L&B Consultation: is a full service Multimedia Marketing & Consulting
company focusing on publicity, radio promotion,
brand identification, brand management

Check out www.LbConsultation.com
Follow us on Twitter @LBConsultation