Wikipedia defines interactive PR as "the practice of using Internet tools and technologies such as search engines, Web 2.0 social bookmarking, new media relations and blogging...to build awareness of and credibility for (a) message without relying solely on mainstream publications." More directly, the techniques of interactive PR transform press releases from bland, internally-focused documents clogging up the inboxes of editors and staff writers into keyword-rich, user-oriented prose that is found by search engines, picked up by bloggers, tagged by readers, and creates a dialog with the market though comments on social media sites. David Meerman Scott's The New Rules of Marketing & PR provides an excellent primer on the subject. Expanding beyond the scope of his book, here are some of the best articles and blog posts of 2007 on maximizing the impact of public relations activities through interactive PR. Proof You Can Gain Additional Rankings And Build Relevant Lin...

To add a few of my own thoughts to the last post by Cece Lee , "blogger relations" are becoming as important as media relations in PR strategy. Connecting your content with bloggers is increasingly important for several reasons: Bloggers have increasing influence. As previously reported , when making purchasing decisions, B2B buyers spend more time with social media than any other content except vendor materials, and trust social media more than any other source. Blogs are a key component of the social media B2B buyers are reading. Bloggers tend to be subject matter experts (although some might point to this blog as an exception to that rule). After all, it's difficult to write on a regular basis about a topic outside of one's expertise. That's why, for example, you'll find few Minnesotans who blog about surfing (okay, Graeme Thickens being an exception). Bloggers are passionate about their subjects. They have to be, to write about it week after week, when...

When two of the smartest people in blogging and interactive PR have a conversation, it's worth listening in on. Paul Dunay at Buzz Marketing for Technology yesterday posted his podcast interview, PR's Role in New Media, with Cece Lee of the PR Meets Marketing blog. Here are few of the highlights: PR professionals are taking advantage of online marketing tools and back-end analytics to increase and track coverage of company announcements. For example, they are no longer just search-optimizing press releases, but also using keyword selection tools and trackable URLS. Corporate blogging has to be more than product promotion or another avenue for distributing press releases. It enables companies to share their perspective of the industry and establish a dialog with customers and prospects who choose to interact that way. But while a corporate blog shouldn't mimic the firm's PR, it can't contradict public statements either—the market will notice. For PR professi...

Note: this is a guest post from Cece Salomon-Lee , social media relations expert and author of the PR Meets Marketing blog. Cece has previously guest-posted here on best practices in PR and blogging outreach . Virtual events have received a lot of attention recently as an effective way to communicate with your audiences without the costs associated with an in-person event. One argument against virtual events is that you would lose the intimacy that face-to-face interactions provide. Proponents state that social networking technology can help promote similar interactions in a virtual environment. I recently wrote that virtual events aren't necessarily the answer to replacing physical events. The same goes for social media technology. In this case, social media isn't only for virtual events. For example, the TED and South by Southwest (SXSW) events are known for their innovative use of technology to engage audiences—both in person and online—with the events themselves. ...

The umbrella term of "public relations" (PR) has always covered a number of specialties: media relations (primarily), investor relations, analyst relations, community relations, even employee relations. The social networking of Web 2.0 and interactive PR has added two new "relations" to the mix—let's call them market relations and blogger relations . Market relations is the practice of writing news releases (not press releases) that are targeted directly at your prospects rather than journalists (though media folks may pick up on these as well). This is a central concept of David Meerman Scott's recent book, The New Rules of Marketing & PR (reviewed here ). While press releases are about you —you've released a new product, or hit a milestone, or signed a new partner alliance for example—news releases are about the interests of your market. They aren't designed to promote your product or service directly, but rather to position your company as ...

Being social media savvy, you add blogger outreach to your PR plans for a new product launch. You carefully research blogs using related keywords and competitor names to build a solid outreach list. You carefully craft your message, following best practices for blogger PR outreach : personalize each message, make it clear that you've read the blog and understand its subject matter, and explain the relevance of your message. You send your messages, and then...nothing. Or very little response. What now? Just as with advertising, PR relies on frequency. There are many possible reasons for low uptake by bloggers; follow-up is essential to determining what may have gone wrong, and how results can be improved. Blogger PR follow-up follows the same rules as initial outreach: make it personal, informal and relevant. In addition, follow-up should: Provide new or updated information, not just a rehash of the original message. For example, with a new product launch, an update could i...

Despite the fact that several smart PR bloggers, including Cece Lee , Laura Moncur and Elge Premeau have written about what works in blogger outreach for PR, there are still a lot of agencies and PR people who just don't get it. Their efforts at appealing to bloggers are awkward at best, counterproductive at worst. Want bloggers to write nice things about your product, service or company? First, it helps to understand how to get bloggers to write about you. Second, here are 6 practices to avoid. 1. Just send a press release. This is likely to do your company or your client more harm than good. There is an extremely low chance that a blogger will write about you based on getting press release, but a pretty darn good chance that he/she will view you as a spammer and ignore any subsequent emails you send. Imagine it's a phone call instead of an email. And imagine you're on the phone with a really influential blogger, like... Seth Godin . Seth answers the phone, you...

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