Personal branding: Web PR rules

"Inevitably new clients come to me stating that they want to get into the Sunday Times, Cosmo, The Financial Times or some other popular publication. However, sometimes what would be more effective, especially if they have limited time, is to build a PR campaign around the web," says British based PR-expert Paula Gardner from doyourownpr.com. "Forget press coverage, web PR rules," says british based PR-expert Paula Gardner, who has brended herselv as one of the PR-gurues in the UK. "Inevitably new clients come to me stating that they want to get into the Sunday Times, Cosmo, The Financial Times or some other popular publication. However, sometimes what would be more effective, especially if they have limited time, is to build a PR campaign around the web. Unlike traditional PR where people either have to remember your name and Google for your website, or snip out the piece about you, online PR means that all they have to do is click through to you. It might not be as glamorous, but it can be much more effective."

Paula Gardner  - PR-guru in the UK.

Your Internet PR campaign
Paula Gardner lists ten ideas for getting your Internet PR campaign running:

1. Kick it off with some market research to find out what sites your current clients visit (...). Check
    your stats - where are people coming from? This could even be other from people's
    commercial websites; it doesn't have to be a traditional publication.

2. If time is short decide what will you concentrate on. Perhaps it will be articles - offering them to
    other people's sites, online publications and syndication sites.

3. Or maybe competitions which are great for building interest in a particular product. If you manage
    to get the entrants details you can email them with a "sorry you didn't win but here's a special
    offer for you."

4. Press releases - post them on press sites (...) get them off to target online publications.

5. Set up your own blog. It's worked spectacularly for some of my clients and you can easily set up
    a free one at www.blogger.com in less than half an hour.

6. Comment on other people's blogs. Include a link back to your own site - great for search
    engine optimisation too.

7. Have a newsletter in place so if people come to you but aren't ready to buy there's at
    least something you can offer them.

8. Get into Social networking - whether it's Ecademy, Facebook, Bebo or whatever, the trick is
    to choose one and do that properly rather than half hearted attempts on a number of sites.

9. Have plenty of content on your own website - articles, case studies, think pieces - the more
    the better, and the more they are updated - even better!

10. Whatever you put out, make sure that it contains the right keywords for your business and
     keep putting new content our regularly. This is one area where quantity will really make difference.

Livening up the content
Paula Gardner underlines the importance of ivening up your web content:

"The more you have to offer to go with your copy, the better, think about: 1. Photos - of you, the product, a case study, whatever. 2. Your logo. 3. A resource box of helpful info that people will appreciate. 4. A blurb - who are you and what can you do for your customers."

She says that one should remember, that web copy is different to offline copy.

"Articles are much shorter and broken up with headings, paragraphs and bullet points. I prefer them to be around 500-600 words max as I know that I hardly ever read anything longer than that from a computer screen."

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Read more:
www.doyourownpr.com