Merging Traditional PR Into Online Conversations
Awe the lines are starting to blur and I like it.
Using public relations is a critical tactic in generating awareness for many businesses, and online businesses should be no different. The irony is traditional PR tactics (media relations, ed cal tracking, by-lined articles, speaking opportunities) to drive awareness in the main stream media (MSM), are as foreign to an online business as RSS feeds and blogs are to a majority of offline businesses.
Steven Van Yoder’s recent post titled “Why Online Businesses Should Embrace PR” provides excellent insights to using PR to drive traffic.
To quote Steven, “They read newspapers, magazines and listen to the radio. To reach your market niche comprehensively, you need to explore ways to reach your prospects beyond the Internet. It will help you drive traffic to your web site.”
We agree. Our experience has been that offline MSM coverage drives a tremendous amount of traffic to a company’s website. We know this because we work with PR teams to help them avoid The Placement Crash typically associated with MSM coverage driving new visitors to a dull and non-engaging website.
The magic happens when the PR team is able to work with the online team in delivering a unique and fresh conversational experience to those new visitors.
Don’t waste the amazing opportunity media coverage gives you. Capture the conversation by:
- Extrapolating the salient points in the MSM coverage on your blog and continuing the conversation by posting and responding to comments
- Setting up a teleconference on the coverage topic a week out and provide the ability to register for free online
- Get them to sign up for your email newsletter
- Provide an in-depth article on the coverage topic available for download
Because of the nature of online businesses, it is my honest opinion they are more apt to capitalize on the MSM exposure than many traditional offline business. The reason – they have the technical skills and flexibility to update and use social media and online technologies (blogs, podcasts, email newsletters) to capture the conversation that are often beyond the scope of knowledge for most companies.
For more information on strategies for leveraging the synergies between online and offline media tactics, check out our posts on The Placement Crash and Tried and True PR Tactics for Igniting Online Buzz.
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