February 4, 2008

Does Social Media 2.0 deserve a second life?

Okay, okay, so I’ve already weighed in on the question, “Is the Social Media Press Release a Meatball Sundae?” Last November, I provided four pieces of empirical evidence that demonstrated that social media press releases are the unfortunate result of mixing two good ideas.

Now, I’ve been asked to take a look at today's announcement by Marketwire of Social Media 2.0, or what the newswire calls, “the industry's most authentic and comprehensive social media newswire product.”

The Marketwire Tower in Second Life

According to Marketwire, “Social Media 2.0 advances today’s press release format, offers public relations professionals a multitude of content options, and distributes news in a variety of mediums to distribution channels beyond traditional media distribution networks.”

Now, you might think I’ve pre-judged Social Media 2.0. But, I haven’t.

As I wrote way back in May 2003, “Failure is an option.” SEO-PR's initial efforts to create optimized press releases didn’t produce instant success. But, as I wrote almost five years ago, “It was our approach to PR measurement, which tracked precisely what worked and what didn’t work, (that) enabled all of us to discover the formula for long-term success.”

So, my initial take on Social Media 2.0 will be to test it, test it, and test it again. Believe it or not, I agree with Bob Geller, an SVP at Fusion Public Relations, who wrote in Flack’s Revenge, “At the end of the day, the %#@!!&& things either work or they don’t.”

Amen, brother.

So, here are some of the “exclusive features” of Social Media 2.0 that have caught my attention: • Distribution to more than 1,200 in-network geographically targeted websites. • Distribution to YouTube, iTunes, Second Life, Pheedo, Photobucket and Twitter. • In-release performance statistics on search engine cataloging. • Trackbacks for easy monitoring of online performance. • Search engine, Technorati and Digg results.

In other words, there’s a nice mix of new distribution options and PR measurement tools. This will enable me to tell if “Social Media 2.0 offers increased social network visibility to a prospective audience of more than 200 million Internet users.” If it does, that would be very cool.

On the other hand, I’m still skeptical that “Social Media 2.0 transforms a press release into an authentic social media tool by enabling two-way conversation via an in-release comment box that feeds directly into a client-monitored online newsroom.”

Blogs do this exceptionally well. But most press releases – even many of ones that use the social media format – are written like essays, not interviews; broadcasts, not conversations; lectures, not discussions. So, while adding social media elements to blogs generally works, adding them to press releases typically haven’t up to now.

This, of course, can change.

As Kevin Dill, social and multimedia product manager, Marketwire, says in today’s announcement, “The social media release is an invitation for dialogue based on social media elements. Marketwire's Social Media 2.0 expands upon that idea, taking that dialogue to the next level by allowing conversation to be initiated at the press release level.”

And, as Todd Defren, principal, SHIFT Communications, adds, “The democratization of news is the singular principle behind the Social Media News Release. By allowing anyone to access, re-purpose and engage directly with a newsmaker’s content, the SMNR empowers conversations between a company and its diverse user communities.”

So, if early versions of the social media press release were the unfortunate result of mixing two good ideas, let’s give Social Media 2.0 the benefit of the doubt. It deserves a “second life.”

How will we discover if Social Media 2.0 provides us with increased Internet visibility and greater search engine performance for our news? As I wrote back in May 2003, the only way to find out is to “Measure, measure, measure and measure some more.”

Or, as Bob Geller put it so eloquently last November: “At the end of the day, the %#@!!&& things either work or they don’t.”

Posted by GregJarboe at 12:33 PM | Permalink

December 22, 2006

News search terms vs. web search terms

Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land has written a detailed analysis entitled "The Lies Of Top Search Terms Of The Year" that provides another explanation of why the top news search terms for 2006 don't match the top web search terms highlighted in press releases issued by Google, Yahoo, AOL and other search engines.

According to Danny, "The short answer, as I've written before, is that they are all heavily filtered. That's why you don't see popular terms like 'sex' and 'porn' and navigational queries like 'google' showing up."

If you are trying to figure out which news search terms to use in an online press release or news article, Danny's column also offers an advanced SEO tip that can help you quickly -- and at no cost. He shows you how to use Google Trends to identify news search terms as well as web search terms.

For example, his first chart uses Google Trends to show the relative search volume for bebo, myspace, google, and sex. But, below that, Google Trends also displays a second chart showing the relative news reference volume for the same keywords.

Danny uses Google Trends to show the similarities and differences of other keywords -- including bebo, myspace, world cup, metacafe, radioblog, yahoo, hotmail and amazon. If you use Danny's technique, you can identify potential news search terms, as well.

Of course, I should offer two words of caution.

First, as Google Trends itself says at the bottom of a page of results, "Google Trends aims to provide insights into broad search patterns. As a Google Labs product, it is still in the early stages of development. Also, it is based upon just a portion of our searches, and several approximations are used when computing your results. Please keep this in mind when using it."

Second, there is a lag of about a month in the Google Trends data. So, don't use it to find potential search terms for breaking news. To do this, use either the Google Suggest for Google News or the Yahoo News “also try” feature. They seem to be much more up to date.

Posted by GregJarboe at 9:52 AM | Permalink

November 21, 2006

New Sitemaps For Google News

Is your site included in Google News? Is your site in English? If so, you just got new support from Google Sitemaps. You can submit your news articles for inclusion and also monitor crawling stats. More from Google in Introducing Sitemaps for Google News.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 12:11 PM | Permalink

October 30, 2006

Press Releases: Legitimate SEO Tools or Manipulative Spam?

The first press release was issued 100 years ago, and today there's a spirited debate raging about the value or legitimacy of press releases in a search marketing campaign. In today's SearchDay article, The 100th Birthday of the Press Release, guest writer Greg Jarboe offers a brief history of the press release and frames the debate over using press releases in online marketing campaigns.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 2:17 AM | Permalink

October 3, 2006

How To Game Digg & Why You Shouldn't

Peter Da Vanzo shows how you can pay someone to Digg your content for a fee. SEO Blackhat reveals a guaranteed way to get your content on the front page of Digg. But after-all, is it worth gaming the Digg system or any social networking type of site's system to get that exposure? Rand explores the pros and cons of gaming Digg - it may not all be positive.

Posted by at 9:17 AM | Permalink

July 31, 2006

Google News Search Engine Explained

Philipp Lenssen has an excellent write up on How Google News Indexes. He goes through how news sources get included, how news stories are clustered together, which sources get found on the Google News home page, and then some other tips. Philipp also explains how the news breaking source normally gets the top spot in the results and how to create content specifically for Google News. This can make a very useful and interesting read for anyone interested in Google News.

I also wrote about Submitting Your News Site To Google News back in June.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:42 AM | Permalink

March 22, 2006

A Deeper Look At Personalized News Search Engines

Mark Glaser at MediaShift wrote a great review named Your Guide to Personalized News Sites. He reviews the history of personalized news sites, and discusses many of the new free options people have to search news with a personal touch. Here is a listing of some of the engines he reviewed;

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:31 AM | Permalink

A Deeper Look At Personalized News Search Engines

Mark Glaser at MediaShift wrote a great review named Your Guide to Personalized News Sites. He reviews the history of personalized news sites, and discusses many of the new free options people have to search news with a personal touch. Here is a listing of some of the engines he reviewed;

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 9:31 AM | Permalink

A Deeper Look At Personalized News Search Engines

Mark Glaser at MediaShift wrote a great review named Your Guide to Personalized News Sites. He reviews the history of personalized news sites, and discusses many of the new free options people have to search news with a personal touch. Here is a listing of some of the engines he reviewed;

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 9:31 AM | Permalink

A Deeper Look At Personalized News Search Engines

Mark Glaser at MediaShift wrote a great review named Your Guide to Personalized News Sites. He reviews the history of personalized news sites, and discusses many of the new free options people have to search news with a personal touch. Here is a listing of some of the engines he reviewed;

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 9:31 AM | Permalink

February 21, 2006

Search Marketing for News and Blog Services

While a good search marketing campaign is obviously targeted first and foremost at the major search engines, other sources of traffic are becoming increasingly important. News and blog services are among these sources, and they require different strategies and tactics that many search marketers aren't yet taking advantage of. In today's SearchDay article, News Search Engine Optimization,guest writer Shari Thurow recaps a recent Search Engine Strategies panel that focused on these increasingly important sources of search traffic.

A longer version of this story for Search Engine Watch members offers specific tips on copywriting for news releases, creating unique URLs and landing pages for specific purposes and tips for crafting a powerful public relations strategy that complements your search engine optimization efforts.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 8:48 AM | Permalink

Search Marketing for News and Blog Services

While a good search marketing campaign is obviously targeted first and foremost at the major search engines, other sources of traffic are becoming increasingly important. News and blog services are among these sources, and they require different strategies and tactics that many search marketers aren't yet taking advantage of. In today's SearchDay article, News Search Engine Optimization,guest writer Shari Thurow recaps a recent Search Engine Strategies panel that focused on these increasingly important sources of search traffic.

A longer version of this story for Search Engine Watch members offers specific tips on copywriting for news releases, creating unique URLs and landing pages for specific purposes and tips for crafting a powerful public relations strategy that complements your search engine optimization efforts.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 8:48 AM | Permalink

Search Marketing for News and Blog Services

While a good search marketing campaign is obviously targeted first and foremost at the major search engines, other sources of traffic are becoming increasingly important. News and blog services are among these sources, and they require different strategies and tactics that many search marketers aren't yet taking advantage of. In today's SearchDay article, News Search Engine Optimization,guest writer Shari Thurow recaps a recent Search Engine Strategies panel that focused on these increasingly important sources of search traffic.

A longer version of this story for Search Engine Watch members offers specific tips on copywriting for news releases, creating unique URLs and landing pages for specific purposes and tips for crafting a powerful public relations strategy that complements your search engine optimization efforts.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 8:48 AM | Permalink

Search Marketing for News and Blog Services

While a good search marketing campaign is obviously targeted first and foremost at the major search engines, other sources of traffic are becoming increasingly important. News and blog services are among these sources, and they require different strategies and tactics that many search marketers aren't yet taking advantage of. In today's SearchDay article, News Search Engine Optimization,guest writer Shari Thurow recaps a recent Search Engine Strategies panel that focused on these increasingly important sources of search traffic.

A longer version of this story for Search Engine Watch members offers specific tips on copywriting for news releases, creating unique URLs and landing pages for specific purposes and tips for crafting a powerful public relations strategy that complements your search engine optimization efforts.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 8:48 AM | Permalink

November 8, 2005

Search Engines and Reputation Management

Many companies cry foul when competitors or activists manage to get top search rankings with negative or false information about the company. Whining to the search engines usually isn't an effective way to cope with this type of situation. Instead, try getting proactive by using alternative search marketing strategies, including blogs, press releases and other tools to counter the negative messages. A panel of experts at a recent Search Engine Strategies conference offered specific advice on how to do this, and guest writer Cat Seda covered the panel for today's SearchDay article, Using Search for Public Relations & Reputation Management.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 5:37 AM | Permalink

Search Engines and Reputation Management

Many companies cry foul when competitors or activists manage to get top search rankings with negative or false information about the company. Whining to the search engines usually isn't an effective way to cope with this type of situation. Instead, try getting proactive by using alternative search marketing strategies, including blogs, press releases and other tools to counter the negative messages. A panel of experts at a recent Search Engine Strategies conference offered specific advice on how to do this, and guest writer Cat Seda covered the panel for today's SearchDay article, Using Search for Public Relations & Reputation Management.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 5:37 AM | Permalink

Search Engines and Reputation Management

Many companies cry foul when competitors or activists manage to get top search rankings with negative or false information about the company. Whining to the search engines usually isn't an effective way to cope with this type of situation. Instead, try getting proactive by using alternative search marketing strategies, including blogs, press releases and other tools to counter the negative messages. A panel of experts at a recent Search Engine Strategies conference offered specific advice on how to do this, and guest writer Cat Seda covered the panel for today's SearchDay article, Using Search for Public Relations & Reputation Management.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 5:37 AM | Permalink

Search Engines and Reputation Management

Many companies cry foul when competitors or activists manage to get top search rankings with negative or false information about the company. Whining to the search engines usually isn't an effective way to cope with this type of situation. Instead, try getting proactive by using alternative search marketing strategies, including blogs, press releases and other tools to counter the negative messages. A panel of experts at a recent Search Engine Strategies conference offered specific advice on how to do this, and guest writer Cat Seda covered the panel for today's SearchDay article, Using Search for Public Relations & Reputation Management.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 5:37 AM | Permalink

October 18, 2005

All the News that's Fit to Crawl

News search engines and headline aggregators are playing an increasingly important role in the way people consume online news. These services offer a wealth of information from news sources and blogs all over the world, making it easy for a reader to take in multiple opinions. But these services also offer intriguing opportunities for savvy search marketers to get even broader distribution, if they follow a few guidelines for optimizing content. Guest writer Shari Thurow has the scoop in today's SearchDay article, Meet the News Search Engines.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 10:09 AM | Permalink

All the News that's Fit to Crawl

News search engines and headline aggregators are playing an increasingly important role in the way people consume online news. These services offer a wealth of information from news sources and blogs all over the world, making it easy for a reader to take in multiple opinions. But these services also offer intriguing opportunities for savvy search marketers to get even broader distribution, if they follow a few guidelines for optimizing content. Guest writer Shari Thurow has the scoop in today's SearchDay article, Meet the News Search Engines.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 10:09 AM | Permalink

All the News that's Fit to Crawl

News search engines and headline aggregators are playing an increasingly important role in the way people consume online news. These services offer a wealth of information from news sources and blogs all over the world, making it easy for a reader to take in multiple opinions. But these services also offer intriguing opportunities for savvy search marketers to get even broader distribution, if they follow a few guidelines for optimizing content. Guest writer Shari Thurow has the scoop in today's SearchDay article, Meet the News Search Engines.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 10:09 AM | Permalink

All the News that's Fit to Crawl

News search engines and headline aggregators are playing an increasingly important role in the way people consume online news. These services offer a wealth of information from news sources and blogs all over the world, making it easy for a reader to take in multiple opinions. But these services also offer intriguing opportunities for savvy search marketers to get even broader distribution, if they follow a few guidelines for optimizing content. Guest writer Shari Thurow has the scoop in today's SearchDay article, Meet the News Search Engines.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 10:09 AM | Permalink

September 19, 2005

New Reprise Feedcast Tool To Get News Publishers Quickly Into Paid Search

Reprise has a new Feedcast tool out designed to scan articles and other newsworthy content and create paid search campaigns for related topics automatically. In short, imagine you are a news publisher wanted to get ads out quickly, to attract interest in a recent news stories. Feedcast is designed to make that happen quickly.

The link takes you to a page with more info, including a helpful Flash demo. Introducing Feedcast on the Reprise SearchViews blog has more info. A SEM Tool for Content Creators from ClickZ has details on those already using it through a private beta.

Somewhat related, Leverage the News for Search Engine Success is a fresh look at why publishers and others might want to ensure they're tapping into news searches as a means to reach an interested audience.

And spotted via Threadwatch, Forbes.com Aims to Improve Search Rankings looks briefly at how publisher Forbes is tapping into SEO via company 360i -- and in particular, free listings rather than paid ones as the New York Times and Washington Post do.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 12:41 PM | Permalink

New Reprise Feedcast Tool To Get News Publishers Quickly Into Paid Search

Reprise has a new Feedcast tool out designed to scan articles and other newsworthy content and create paid search campaigns for related topics automatically. In short, imagine you are a news publisher wanted to get ads out quickly, to attract interest in a recent news stories. Feedcast is designed to make that happen quickly.

The link takes you to a page with more info, including a helpful Flash demo. Introducing Feedcast on the Reprise SearchViews blog has more info. A SEM Tool for Content Creators from ClickZ has details on those already using it through a private beta.

Somewhat related, Leverage the News for Search Engine Success is a fresh look at why publishers and others might want to ensure they're tapping into news searches as a means to reach an interested audience.

And spotted via Threadwatch, Forbes.com Aims to Improve Search Rankings looks briefly at how publisher Forbes is tapping into SEO via company 360i -- and in particular, free listings rather than paid ones as the New York Times and Washington Post do.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 12:41 PM | Permalink

New Reprise Feedcast Tool To Get News Publishers Quickly Into Paid Search

Reprise has a new Feedcast tool out designed to scan articles and other newsworthy content and create paid search campaigns for related topics automatically. In short, imagine you are a news publisher wanted to get ads out quickly, to attract interest in a recent news stories. Feedcast is designed to make that happen quickly.

The link takes you to a page with more info, including a helpful Flash demo. Introducing Feedcast on the Reprise SearchViews blog has more info. A SEM Tool for Content Creators from ClickZ has details on those already using it through a private beta.

Somewhat related, Leverage the News for Search Engine Success is a fresh look at why publishers and others might want to ensure they're tapping into news searches as a means to reach an interested audience.

And spotted via Threadwatch, Forbes.com Aims to Improve Search Rankings looks briefly at how publisher Forbes is tapping into SEO via company 360i -- and in particular, free listings rather than paid ones as the New York Times and Washington Post do.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 12:41 PM | Permalink

New Reprise Feedcast Tool To Get News Publishers Quickly Into Paid Search

Reprise has a new Feedcast tool out designed to scan articles and other newsworthy content and create paid search campaigns for related topics automatically. In short, imagine you are a news publisher wanted to get ads out quickly, to attract interest in a recent news stories. Feedcast is designed to make that happen quickly.

The link takes you to a page with more info, including a helpful Flash demo. Introducing Feedcast on the Reprise SearchViews blog has more info. A SEM Tool for Content Creators from ClickZ has details on those already using it through a private beta.

Somewhat related, Leverage the News for Search Engine Success is a fresh look at why publishers and others might want to ensure they're tapping into news searches as a means to reach an interested audience.

And spotted via Threadwatch, Forbes.com Aims to Improve Search Rankings looks briefly at how publisher Forbes is tapping into SEO via company 360i -- and in particular, free listings rather than paid ones as the New York Times and Washington Post do.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 12:41 PM | Permalink

February 1, 2005

Your Press Release Point Was???

The point of a press release is to let the world -- and in particular the media -- know something new that your company has done. In contrast, this press release Gary spotted does nothing of the sort. From an SEM firm, it's more a news article about Google's support of the nofollow attribute that any announcement about the company. Nice article -- but press release? No.

It's just another sign on how press releases, as I've written before, have become a trusted feed for Google News. Do a search for google at Google News and what do you get? This "press release" coming up to in the news results. It also does well for a query on search engine marketing, which ought to please the firm that put it out, given they make ample use of links within the release to describe themselves with those words.

The firm's not doing anything wrong, by the way. They can put out whatever they want as a press release, and plenty of other firms make use of them now purely as Google fodder. The fault lies with Google. It's come under fire for carrying press releases within its news service in the past, a problem that was largely solved by specially labeling press releases as such.

Now that more and more press releases aren't really releasing anything, it's overdue for another look at how the service carries this material. The same is true of Yahoo and other services that allow press releases to be injected into their systems. In the meantime, here's a post about another recent absurd press release, which in term links to more.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 2:35 PM | Permalink | TrackBack

Your Press Release Point Was???

The point of a press release is to let the world -- and in particular the media -- know something new that your company has done. In contrast, this press release Gary spotted does nothing of the sort. From an SEM firm, it's more a news article about Google's support of the nofollow attribute that any announcement about the company. Nice article -- but press release? No.

It's just another sign on how press releases, as I've written before, have become a trusted feed for Google News. Do a search for google at Google News and what do you get? This "press release" coming up to in the news results. It also does well for a query on search engine marketing, which ought to please the firm that put it out, given they make ample use of links within the release to describe themselves with those words.

The firm's not doing anything wrong, by the way. They can put out whatever they want as a press release, and plenty of other firms make use of them now purely as Google fodder. The fault lies with Google. It's come under fire for carrying press releases within its news service in the past, a problem that was largely solved by specially labeling press releases as such.

Now that more and more press releases aren't really releasing anything, it's overdue for another look at how the service carries this material. The same is true of Yahoo and other services that allow press releases to be injected into their systems. In the meantime, here's a post about another recent absurd press release, which in term links to more.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 2:35 PM | Permalink | TrackBack

Your Press Release Point Was???

The point of a press release is to let the world -- and in particular the media -- know something new that your company has done. In contrast, this press release Gary spotted does nothing of the sort. From an SEM firm, it's more a news article about Google's support of the nofollow attribute that any announcement about the company. Nice article -- but press release? No.

It's just another sign on how press releases, as I've written before, have become a trusted feed for Google News. Do a search for google at Google News and what do you get? This "press release" coming up to in the news results. It also does well for a query on search engine marketing, which ought to please the firm that put it out, given they make ample use of links within the release to describe themselves with those words.

The firm's not doing anything wrong, by the way. They can put out whatever they want as a press release, and plenty of other firms make use of them now purely as Google fodder. The fault lies with Google. It's come under fire for carrying press releases within its news service in the past, a problem that was largely solved by specially labeling press releases as such.

Now that more and more press releases aren't really releasing anything, it's overdue for another look at how the service carries this material. The same is true of Yahoo and other services that allow press releases to be injected into their systems. In the meantime, here's a post about another recent absurd press release, which in term links to more.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 2:35 PM | Permalink | TrackBack

Your Press Release Point Was???

The point of a press release is to let the world -- and in particular the media -- know something new that your company has done. In contrast, this press release Gary spotted does nothing of the sort. From an SEM firm, it's more a news article about Google's support of the nofollow attribute that any announcement about the company. Nice article -- but press release? No.

It's just another sign on how press releases, as I've written before, have become a trusted feed for Google News. Do a search for google at Google News and what do you get? This "press release" coming up to in the news results. It also does well for a query on search engine marketing, which ought to please the firm that put it out, given they make ample use of links within the release to describe themselves with those words.

The firm's not doing anything wrong, by the way. They can put out whatever they want as a press release, and plenty of other firms make use of them now purely as Google fodder. The fault lies with Google. It's come under fire for carrying press releases within its news service in the past, a problem that was largely solved by specially labeling press releases as such.

Now that more and more press releases aren't really releasing anything, it's overdue for another look at how the service carries this material. The same is true of Yahoo and other services that allow press releases to be injected into their systems. In the meantime, here's a post about another recent absurd press release, which in term links to more.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 2:35 PM | Permalink | TrackBack