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    The Page Wonders

    Social media is changing PR in new and exciting ways. More than ever before, companies want help from a PR partner who can put smart, creative, independent-thinking professionals on tough problems using these new tools to seize opportunities and solve problems. Read here about some of the exploits of our Page Wonders and tell us what you think!

    Other Staff Blogs:Craig Oda | Shelly Milam


    SEO and PR – A Happy Marriage or the Odd Couple?
    posted by Jenna at

    I recently attended a free webinar, "SEO + Public Relations = Your Secret Marketing Weapon in 2009," put on by the team at Webmarketing123.com. They made the case that SEO and PR should by joined at the hip.

    I have to say, I'm still not convinced (this is my view and not necessarily shared by my colleagues at Page One PR).

    While Paul Taylor, the presenter, did a great job of walking us through the benefits of SEO-izing your PR and marketing collateral and results, I've had experiences where that just doesn't work.

    Example 1: Optimizing a press release for SEO and PR

    You can do this two ways and I've tried both:

    1) Write a release, then look at a list of key words to insert.

    2) Look at the key words, then write a press release with them in mind (try to use each 1-4 times and space them out).

    The second worked better for me, but if you're supposed to insert your URL and keywords ~3 times each for near optimal SEO, it gets rough and the news starts to sound like giberrish. If the release then needs to go through legal approval and potentially partner or customer approval, you're in trouble.

    That's only one example, but I do think there's more beyond just blending SEO with PR and, voilà, you're on page one of wherever you want to be. The challenge often seems to be a classic case of having too many cooks in the kitchen. You've got the outside agency teams, such as the PR firm, the SEO firm, potentially the SEM consultant, and then all of the internal constituents, such as the corporate marketing/advertising team, sales, product marketing, etc. Each can have different business goals and be focused on maximizing content value for that agenda. Sheesh.

    BusinessWeek ran an insightful article by B.L. Ochman recently, "Debunking Six Social Media Myths." Though I appreciated every myth debunked, I really feel the writer's pain with Myth #4: You can do it all in-house. It's true – you can't!

    With regards to effective and viral social media campaigns, Ochman writes:

    "It is rare indeed to find an in-house team that can not only conceive and execute a social media campaign but also drive traffic to it with effective e-mail segmentation, search optimization, blogger outreach, blog advertising, Google ads, and more." Agreed.

    I do believe things like SEO and PR should work together – of course it's good to have a well-oiled machine running on all cylinders – but I don't think it's as easy as simply "working together." Further, given that both PR and SEO are often outsourced strategic services, is it reasonable to expect both sides to come together without the forcing factor of the client company embarking on a holistic marcomm campaign which takes months of pre-planning and coordination? That's hard to come by when you're working with startups, particularly high tech startups.

    I remain optimistic, however, that there are definitely lessons both PR and SEO can learn from each other. Throw social media in there, and you've got a party!

    I'd appreciate any wisdom out there about the evolution of these siloed services and think I will continue to attend free webinars on the topic to keep me engaged in thinking about the right combo of SEO + PR.

    Labels: , , , , , ,

    7 Comments:

    Anonymous Anonymous said...

    Hi Jenna - yes, things are different with startups than with Fortune 500 companies - but not much different.

    In both cases, they like to think that they can do their marketing on the cheap, short-term, and in-house.

    Clients usually come to my agency AFTER they've gone that route and been unsuccessful.

    February 20, 2009 at 8:56 AM  
    Blogger Jenna said...

    Thanks for leaving a comment, B.L.!

    I was surprised when I read your article and saw that an effective social media marketing campaign begins at $50,000. At the same time, when you're creating an always-on campaign that touches multiple channels, including building communities or conversations months prior and then carrying on months after the actual launch or event, of course it takes at least that much!

    We have also noticed social media gives us the opportunity to work more closely with teams beyond traditional marcomm. For example being successful often means communicating and coordinating with product marketing, sales and engineering teams, too. So, there's the budgetary minimum, but there's also a "resources" need to keep things running smoothly, I think.

    February 20, 2009 at 10:43 AM  
    Anonymous Anonymous said...

    I think the best PR introduces a concept to an audience that doesn't know anything about it.
    There is some marginal value with the intersection of PR and SEO, yet its value is fairly low.
    Similar to a pitcher who can hit, it's nice but not going to get him into the hall of fame.

    February 23, 2009 at 10:16 AM  
    Blogger Star said...

    Right on Jenna!

    February 23, 2009 at 10:44 AM  
    Blogger Unknown said...

    From my experience dealing with PR, I have to agree with her.

    February 23, 2009 at 8:07 PM  
    Blogger Jenna said...

    Some feedback I got by email from a VP of marketing at a virtualization company:

    In my own experience (limited data points, take it for what it's worth, but you can quote me on this), PR and SEO serve very different purposes.

    PR generates external awareness and can assist in initiating search; SEO relies much more on active search being present, though it can generate moderate awareness as a side effect.

    Put differently -- PR helps you know there's something to be looking for; SEO helps people find -you- instead of others if they're already looking.

    If I had limited $$ to spend, I'd always err on article placement ahead of SEO in most cases...

    Hope that helps!

    February 24, 2009 at 10:22 AM  
    Anonymous Anonymous said...

    SEO and PR are powerful tools, but they could go hand in hand with Social Media optimization or PPC campaigns.

    A PPC campaign (after some work of course) will help you to put your brand right next to the top result search. And you will achieve this a lot quicker than through SEO. PPC stays a very efficient and cost effective way of reaching people.

    Social Media Optimization could be linked to SEO in the sense that your presence on social media could help you to geenrate more links to your website which in the end will help your SEO efforts. Plus as you are working on SEO and maybe thinking about how your website is built and how you display your content, you would have the possibility to make it more social.

    That means putting direct links/button to your social media presence or even display some of your content (like your tweets for example).

    Hope that can help.

    March 3, 2009 at 3:01 AM  

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