Press Business

If you want to make the most of social media marketing today, you better sign up with Facebook. According to a recent report from the Orlando Business Journal, Facebook has far outpaced its competitors in the first quarter of 2009, garnering 78 percent of US social network participants against MySpace’s 42 percent, LinkedIn’s 17 percent and Twitter’s 10 percent.

Worldwide, Facebook was reported to have 307.1 million unique visitors in May 2009 while MySpace had less than half with a mere 123.2 million unique visitors. According to Facebook, its members are sending each other one billion chat messages each day.

As early as 2008, a study done by Internet Retailer and Vovici showed that most online retailers in the US chose to use Facebook as a social media network to help boost sales. A separate study done by Rosetta among the top 100 US online retailers showed that 59% had set up a Facebook fan page. Among these retailers were Best Buy, Kohl’s, Wal-Mart and Toys “R” Us.

In order to make the most of your company’s Facebook fan page, though, you should familiarize yourself thoroughly with social media marketing as a whole, and with the way Facebook itself works in particular. It would be wholly counterproductive to make an online faux pas and earn ill will. Each social media network has its own temperament, after all, and its own set of rules and online etiquette. Members and users also have certain expectations from other members and users.

Perhaps it would be best for a company not to risk experimentation by assigning this task to a newbie. Learn from the mistake of the New York Times whose new social media editor had no extensive knowledge of Twitter before diving in. As a result, her repost meant to point other Tweeter users to an online article ended up taking them to Ebay instead. Do not make the same mistake in Facebook or you will get a lot of negative comments instead of the favorable ones you need. It would be best to leave the task of handling your company’s social media marketing efforts to the experts.

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Using a press release is a fantastic way to drive traffic to your website in a short amount of time. It doesn’t have to be about a major news story; it is merely a way to let the public know about any new developments, or to let them know about the launch of a new website.

When you write a press release, it can get easily picked up by Yahoo or Google news. If it does get picked up by a big player, you can get an instant traffic explosion.

In order to get noticed by the top guns, your press release is going to have to be very well-written, and here are a few tips to help you do it the right way.

Press Release Writing Tip # 1: Keep It Short

It is best to keep a press release short and to the point. Most are about 500 words, which gives you enough room to write everything necessary.

A long and lengthy report will not be accepted by many news sources – it should be a brief clip that encourages the reader to search out more information by clicking on the link you provide.

Press Release Writing Tip # 2: Write It Yourself

It is really not that hard to write your own press release if English is your first language and you feel comfortable writing. The best thing to do is to follow the formatting of other press releases.

You can read about formatting and structure, but until you actually visually see one for yourself, you will not appreciate how easy it is to write it. If you don’t feel comfortable doing it yourself, then outsource the writing to a writer who is experienced with press releases.

Press Release Writing Tip # 3: Write A Captivating Headline

The headline should be a grabber that makes the reader want more. It should be bolded and the font used should be bigger than the body.

Remember to use the keywords that you want the search engines to pick up right in the title, while keeping the spark in it.

Press Release Writing Tip # 4: Get The Reader Hooked

You have one or two sentences to get the reader hooked and reading the rest of the press release, or you will lose him.

Without adding anything fancy, state exactly what the press release is about. Heavy use of adjectives and a sales tone will turn off any reader that is looking for newsworthy information about the topic.

Keep it simple at the beginning; let them know what you are going to talk about and why they need to read this press release.

If possible, insert your keywords strategically throughout the article; but don’t overdo it and do it in a way that does not affect the natural flow of the content.

Press Release Writing Tip # 5: Keep The Sales Out Of It

Make sure that the press release doesn’t come across as a sales pitch. It must be written as a news story.

It can contain a link to a site that has been set up to market a product, but the release itself cannot have a sales tone to it. Anything that has a sales tone will not be picked up by any major news sites, and will not spread as you want them to.

Press Release Writing Tip # 6: Use Factual Statements

In order to retain credibility, you must include factual statements that can be verified. You do not want to beat around the bush with any innuendoes or theories, but only present the facts in a crisp concise manner. A factual presentation is what is needed and wanted with a press release.

Press Release Writing Tip # 7: Make It Stand Out

Writing a press release does not have to mean that it is completely boring. You need to find some kind of hook that makes the reader want more information.

Look at what you have to present, and then think about it from different angles. What can you add to this press release that will make it shine above the rest and be picked by major news sources?

Search engines love press releases and you can get a lot of traffic from them. If you write a good one and it starts to circulate around the web, you really have no idea how far it can go. It can appear on thousands of websites in the blink of an eye.

There are people that specialize in writing press releases for a living; and if you have a website that is taking off and have something to tell the world, you may want to find a specialist and get them to write it for you.

A press release is a powerful advertising tool and should not be underestimated. Use it for all it is worth, and watch your traffic and profits build. All of the Internet marketing pros use press releases, and anybody that is just starting a new business on the Internet can use them as well.

You don’t need to feel intimidated – anybody can issue a press release. You do not have to be a major company, just somebody that has something important to announce and make known.

Marketing is misunderstood and much maligned. The industry is dogged by pejorative associations with concepts such as ‘spin’, ‘hype’, ‘gimmick’ and ‘ploy’, and it is not uncommon for fellow board members to refer to the marketing director as ‘the chief flower arranger’.

 

So it’s perhaps not surprising that when times get tough, marketing gets it in the neck from governments too. Marketing is seen as an agent of consumerism, and is, therefore, an obvious scapegoat for major societal problems such as obesity, binge drinking, global warming and debt. It is much easier for governments to publicly ‘punish’ marketers with legislation that restricts their licence to operate, than it is for those governments to tackle some of the issues themselves. Marketing and democracy provide similar benefits, as I and my fellow author Katherine Jocz outline in Greater Good – How good marketing makes for better democracy (Harvard Business School Press, February 2008). For example, marketers give consumers information and choice, they seek to engage them to earn their loyalty, they try to bring quality and innovation to the masses. Marketing also provides ‘social glue’ via successful exchanges, and improves living standards and consumer wellbeing. Similarly, democracies depend on informed citizens participating in the political process and making choices among political alternatives.

 

They also promote the welfare of all citizens, which leads to improved prosperity. But marketing is better than democracies at providing these benefits. For example, while consumers in the commercial world ‘vote’ every day at the cash tills, citizens have to subsume their individual preference to a collective will, and consume the policies of the party that has been elected. Marketing is also quicker than democracy to spot and embrace new trends, while strong brands can forge the kind of long-term loyal relationships with their consumers that politics, with its mass market approach and lack of any real competition, can only dream of.

 

Marketing is also being used as a force for social good – witness the rising popularity of Fairtrade goods and the commitment to tackling climate change by brands such as Marks & Spencer. Indeed, you could argue that the practice we get as consumers every day in the commercial marketplace makes us better, smarter citizens – which may be why our politicians are frequently such a disappointment to us. The difference in the way politicians and brands ‘advertise’ themselves is further evidence of marketing’s more highly evolved status.

 

Brand advertisements knocking the competition are frowned upon in the commercial world – marketers know that a tit-for-tat war of words turns consumers off the category as a whole – but they are par for the course in politics. The penalties of this approach were obvious in the US Democratic race, where Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama took every opportunity to undermine each other’s credibility. Their subsequent efforts to present a united front against Republican John McCain in the Presidential campaign were met with understandable cynicism.

 

It is time governments, NGOs and the general public sat up and recognised the positive social and economic impacts marketing has on society as a whole. It contributes significantly to economic development, for example. In the US alone 17 million people hold marketing, sales and customer-service jobs. Marketing also supports the pillars of democratic society. It funds our diverse media, including the internet, giving citizens access to information about political figures, policies and programmes. And marketing knowhow helps public policy makers change citizens’ behaviours by, for example, encouraging seat-belt use, good nutrition and responsible drinking. So instead of treating them merely as taxpayers, donors and voters, politicians should treat citizens as well as marketers treat their customers. They could improve the democratic process as a result.

 

Previously published in the Business Review, Impact Executives

 

Interim Management