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Online PR, Social Media Marketing

No longer simply a source of information or a series of online shopping opportunities, the internet has evolved from Web 1.0 to today’s Web 2.0 world - where dialogue and community is king. The arrival of social media has caused the biggest cultural shift since the industrial revolution and has changed the way we communicate, shop, do business and even find partners.

Today consumers can look at reviews written by other shoppers, chat about products in forums and online communities and even organize mass online protests when our favorite brand is withdrawn. All in all, people power is here to stay and as a business, you need to grasp how critical social media marketing is to the success of your business. It offers your brand, product or service an opportunity to talk to your existing and potential customers and directly manage your online reputation. In addition, it will make you more trustworthy, approachable and personable. Finally, it will also increase links to your website, improve your search engine ranking, boost your SEO, raise your company profile and build new business relationships whilst attracting more potential business.

Web 2.0 encompasses 3 key factors which enable this revolution:

  • Community - managing your relationships through social and professional networks such as Facebook, Myspace, Bebo and LinkedIn, building new relationships (and ending existing ones) whilst expressing yourself is at the heart of online social networks with millions of people using them every day
  • Communication - from chatrooms and forums through microblogging services such as Twitter through to Skype and Vonage for internet telephony, and video and picture sharing services such as Flickr, social communication capabilities exist to connect friends, people with similar interests, business colleagues and so on
  • Content - Whilst content isn’t new to the web, more services than ever are now available allowing people to consume and create content across the internet. User Generated Content (UGC), drives millions of viewers every day to YouTube and similar services

Given that it’s entirely likely conversations about your brand are already taking place online, you should at least keep a watching brief to ensure no one is rallying against your latest packaging changes. To fully leverage a wide range of benefits, and actively manage your online relationships, reputations and networks, you should wholeheartedly integrate a strong social media component into your online PR and marketing mix.

Components of this approach could include:

  • Twitter - A free micro-blogging site that allows you to talk with your customers quickly and easily. Based upon following and being followed, you can build up networks of followers around specific topics, geographies, your company’s blog or even your website
  • Facebook - Another free marketing tool to help build your online community and get people talking about what you are doing in the marketplace
  • LinkedIn - The business networking equivalent to Facebook
  • YouTube - A great home for the wackiest of ads or UGC, even for UGC competitions around a brand or product
  • Your own blog - integrating a blog into your current website allows you to provide fresh and relevant commentary on your industry, showcase your expertise and attract an audience. This can become the personal face to your brand. It also adds fresh content regularly to your site – good for your SEO.
  • Review on-topic blogs - adding intelligent comment and encouraging debate within your sector builds your online reputation and also provides a valuable source of backlinks to your site – again great for search engine ranking and relevant traffic

Once you’ve implemented your social media and online PR components, advertise them on your site and promotional material and connect them using tools like Twitterfeed to post things automatically from your blog’s RSS feed onto Twitter and Facebook.

Adding social media icons to your website will also encourage people to link with you and stay abreast of your exciting story.

Social media offers much more than just a way to drive traffic to your site. It creates a direct relationship between your brand (ie you) and the audience and allows for immediate, relevant communication. Take care to give it the respect it deserves - in online PR, reputations can be won and lost very quickly. Do it right and think a little outside of the box when creating campaigns and social media can be a very powerful weapon indeed in your marketing armoury. Finally, when well implemented, good social media and online PR practices can really boost your site’s search engine ranking and relevant traffic levels.