Express Marketing Memo

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Your customers aren’t the only ones making use of social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn or MySpace. The article “Journalists + Facebook = Scoops” on Scientific American asks the question, “Should journalists be hanging out on Facebook?”

Let’s skip the “should they be there” question and consider the FACT that journalists are already there. Does that worry you a little? Or open your mind to a few interesting possibilities?

I was made aware of this article via Friendfeed, an application that at first glance is overwhelming … a clear case of information overload. Ok, it was the same at second and third glance too. But thanks to Ed Dale of Thirty Day Challenge fame, I’m beginning to find my way around and finding that Friendfeed may have enormous potential as a market research and tracking tool, as well as be a convenient way to disseminate information.

Let’s face it, social media is rapidly changing the way we communicate with our market and opening new avenues for public relations. The traditional press release is still alive and well, but the way it’s distributed is changing. The information it contains is evolving. The smart small business owner will take note of these trends and consider the implications for his business.

Do you devote a portion of your week to learning about technologies, applications, or ideas that could improve how you share your message and market your business?

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I woke up with a solution this morning. It wasn’t the result of obsessing over a problem, but probably more the result of proactively taking time each day to STOP thinking about anything business related. Inspiration strikes more often when my creative batteries are recharged. For that to happen, I need to step away from time-to-time.

So, at 5:15 a.m., the very moment I woke up this morning, I knew what to do regarding my other marketing-related blog. And that is - to begin soliciting local small business and not-for-profit event-related press releases. Why? Well, I really want to do more than just write about marketing … I want to help people who own businesses to improve their marketing results in a tangible way.

My other blog is called Local-Wisconsin SEM. It started with a flash of inspiration, before giving enough thought to the sustainability of writing more than one blog on the the topic of marketing while managing a growing business of my own. It’s languished unattended for a few months now, but that’s changing as of today.

If you own or manage a Wisconsin-based business that depends on drawing local customers to your door, the Local Wisconsin SEM Blog is written just for you. Its goal is to cover strategies to draw local visitors to Wisconsin businesses through local search opportunities, and precisely what steps to take to do so. Now it will also accept selected press releases about Wisconsin-based businesses and not-for-profit events. In addition, I’ll profile area businesses who are getting it right. Have a success story to share? Let me know about it via my contact form.

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I’m involved in the marketing team for Paperfest, a four-day community event held every July in Kimberly, Wisconsin. Last year’s promotional efforts for this event included a well-organized and maintained web site, flyer distribution, billboards, lots of smaller signs, and local media coverage.

This year we’re adding social media elements to the mix, such as MySpace and/or Facebook, event photos on Flickr, bookmarks on del.icio.us, and maybe some reviews on StumbleUpon. We’ll let last year’s email list, event sponsors, and volunteers know about the new opportunity and invite them to participate.

This seems the perfect venue to promote through social media. We’re looking forward to four days of concerts, carnival rides, sporting events, and fun activities for the whole family. Better yet, this event raises money for local nonprofit and civic organizations. It’s a volunteer effort, start-to-finish.

Event publicity is not new territory for me. I helped organize and promote community events for a former nonprofit employer before volunteering with Paperfest last year. Social media’s not really new to me either, although I suspect that with as much as I’ve dabbled in it, I’ve just barely got my feet wet. But event promotion through social media is uncharted territory. I’m excited about it. It’s sure to be a learning experience!

Photo credit: Paperfest

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I’ve saved the best for last in this short series on the social bookmarking site del.icio.us. We’ve talked about adding relevant tags to each bookmark, and about adding commentary for yourself and others in the notes section, and even about pulling RSS feeds from your del.icio.us bookmarks to your web site.

Now, what if in addition to bookmarking relevant industry information for your audience, you also bookmarked your own press releases and blog articles related to them? And what if you added a specific tag to any bookmark that you could tie into a press release to promote your business?

Let’s have an example. A hair salon in Neenah, Wisconsin offers the latest hairstyles and serves the community through a variety of regular outreach projects. The salon owners place a huge priority on continuing education for their stylists and they subscribe to professional forums to stay up on the latest trends. Their regular customers love them. Of course, the owners would like to find more regular customers. They already have a great web site, send out a monthly newsletter, and have had some success with publicity efforts. How can social bookmarking on del.icio.us boost this salon’s PR efforts?

• The salon’s web site could be bookmarked and tagged with their primary keywords and local terms (Neenah, Menasha, Fox Valley, etc.).

• Each press release could be bookmarked and tagged “salonpr” or something similar along with other appropriate keywords.

• They could capitalize on the industry information and trends that they’re already tracking by bookmarking these articles and tagging each with the name of the source and “trends” or something similar. Add commentary in the notes section of the “add bookmark” window.

• When it comes time to write the next press release, they would review salon bookmarks on del.icio.us., decide what tags to include, right-click on the RSS button underneath the page’s results, select “copy link location” and paste the link into the body or boilerplate of the press release. Don’t misunderstand. This doesn’t replace the copy in your press release. It adds value to your story by providing more information that a reporter doesn’t have to hunt for, while offering your insight and opinion on industry trends.

This is just the beginning of a PR 2.0. SHIFT Communications pioneered the idea, sharing it on their PR Squared blog. In fact they’ve taken it several steps further and have designed a template for a social media press release and a social media newsroom. These incorporate not only a thoughtful del.icio.us bookmarking strategy, but also links to online social media profiles, such as LinkedIn and Facebook, and a Flickr photo stream.

How can you apply this idea to your company’s PR efforts?

Photo credit: puptoes74

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