The Public Relations Blog

The seven-step ultimate guide

Driving traffic is one of the key goals of any social media strategy. Businesses strive to attract more people to their websites in order to increase their client databases. To do that, you must produce high-quality content. Valuable content also increases your visibility on search engines.

Here are seven key ways you can use your content to drive traffic to your website.

Do it right and you could form lasting and lucrative media relationships

Help a Reporter Out is a free service that enables journalists to connect with information sources. If you're an expert and have an interesting opinion or story to share with the media, you can sign up for HARO to get connected to journalist and get your story published, which will ultimately increase traffic to your website and get the word out about your company.

We live according to our own moral standards and beliefs and we run businesses in the way we believe is ethical and appropriate. Unethical business practices can not only damage your business reputation, but can also completely ruin the business itself. When it comes to dealing with your public either in person or on social media, it’s important to know which behaviors are ethical and which are not.

Of course, ethical norms vary from business to business and from culture to culture, but some are more or less standard for most business practices.

Speaking at conferences, community meetings and expert seminars is a wonderful opportunity to get in front of your key audiences and grow your business. How does your company benefit from such speaking engagements?

Businessweek magazine is one of the world’s top business publications, preparing its readers to succeed in today’s complex economy. The magazine focuses on the most important news in finance, technology and economics.

Bill Gates’ phrase “content is king” has become a well-known mantra for all marketing professionals. To expand on that, great content is king, and it has its own stiff competition for consumers’ attention and dissemination to the right audiences through earned media.

Wikipedia defines “earned media” as “publicity gained through promotional efforts other than advertising.” In other words, earned media is online word of mouth (mentions, shares, reports).

Your ultimate guide to this important business tool

As your business grows, your external and internal audiences increase. You need to know how to adjust your communications plan to satisfy both your external and internal public communications needs. To do this, you must perform a communications audit in order to assess your communications practices. This determines which of your communications tools are working well and points out the areas in which your organization can still strengthen its communications performance.

Your organization’s good reputation is one of your most valuable assets; getting negative press can easily ruin your image and your business. Handling negative coverage properly is important in order to keep your good image, so take careful note of these five most common mistakes you must avoid:

Trust between your organization and its key stakeholders is a key component to your business that you must nurture and grow. You rely on the quality of your communications efforts to build that trust. Are you reaching the right audiences with the right messages? Is your message consistent? Do you address your employees’ concerns?

To determine whether your communications tools are working well, you need a communications audit: a snapshot of your organization’s communications strategies, activities and programs.

What could be more important to your publicity than a public relations announcement issued to the media and other key audiences? Yes, we’re talking about a press release, aka a news release: the quickest and easiest way to get publicity for your company. A professionally written press release can result in numerous published articles and blog posts about your company. Therefore, it is very important to avoid these five common mistakes in your press release: