"To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also
dream; not only plan, but also believe." -Anatole France
Planning for your online public relations presence is an
integral part of your overall success. By laying out your plan
from beginning to end, it becomes clear what you need to do to
make the most of your online PR efforts. But how do you plan
without knowing what to plan? Before actually planning an online
public relations campaign you must research the industry that
you are competing within.
Researching the Industry and Your Competition: Any successful
public relations campaign starts with a thorough communication
audit. By understanding the marketplace, the competition (and
how you fare against that competition), the appropriate media,
and the premier opportunities available, you increase your
chances for long term success exponentially.
What to look for within your research, benchmarking or audit
efforts: A website audit (or the process of researching or
benchmarking your industry and the competition within it)
analyzes all communication aspects of your website. Look at your
placement within search engines and how your website appears,
or, if you don't appear in popular search engines discover the
keywords and content that you would like to receive traffic from
and take note. Gather information how well your message has been
integrated into the media and check to see if all the
communication channels available to you are being utilized. If
you have not been the recipient of any online public relations
efforts thus far, research the resources that could drive
traffic to your site such as news outlets, review sites or
industry forums. When you have audited your external PR
opportunities and obstacles, take a look at your website. Look
at the design and content of your site to see if it works well
with what you are trying to convey. Remember to audit all
aspects of your businesses communication. This will give you the
opportunity to positively impact the communication to your
publics in an influential manner.
What and How to Plan from Research: When you have all the
important research about your company and its industry, prepare
an executive summary which outlines the findings in a
non-technical, business focused way. From this report, start
detailing a prioritized list of recommendations - how will you
compete and who will you compete against, what are the media
opportunities available for the company or product you are
promoting, what is the objective of each web page of my site,
etc. Successful online pr campaigns all understand the steps
they must take in order to share their message with the right
publics. Once you have the research, and have made the right
recommendations, it's time to start laying out the plan to
accomplish those recommendations.
PR Planning using 30-60-90 Day Reports With your list of
recommendations, you start gaining some insight into what needs
to be accomplished. Auditing your industry might tell you that
the top sites all have articles or content about industry
specific topics. The audit might also tell you that many
webmasters link to these articles from their own sites and are
actually promoting the clients services through the use of these
articles. Online PR efforts would focus on setting goals and
planning to achieve this same thing.
Online PR plan for Link Building Through Articles:
* In 30 days, five articles placed on thirty different industry
websites * In 60 days, fifteen articles placed on 90 different
industry websites * In 90 days, thirty articles posted on 180
different industry websites
By researching the competition and developing a comprehensive
plan, you know what it takes to achieve online PR success. By
planning your goals and focusing on only what is directly at
hand, you will more quickly start developing your PR image and
brand identity on the Web.
What is the Secret to a GREAT PR Plan? Are you ready for the
secret to a great PR plan? Creativity. Great PR planning is
satisfied through the development of ingenious ideas. The reason
most PR plans fail is the actual absence of creativity. If you
are a journalist you will understand that most of the press
releases that are received are like form letters detailing some
obscure part of your business; XYZ Corp. Releases (some
ambiguous product or service). The problem with this is while it
may be news to you, it's not news to the journalist or the other
thousands of companies who release this information every day to
the media and the general public. If you want your online PR
campaign to be successful, identify what need, issue or problem
your product or service solves.
About the author:
Peter Prestipino is the founder and principal of SCG - Swirling
Circle Online PR Group providing Internet solutions to small and
medium sized businesses through online PR efforts such as
mini-website development, link building, press releases and
product reviews. For more information, visit
http://www.SwirlingCircle.com.
