Wyrd Ways Business

Using PR to Create Your Own Economic Upturn

By Anthony Mora

How to Stay Positive in an Economic Crisis

You can’t control the government, you can’t control Wall Street, you can’t control the media and you can’t make it so that it’s always a sunny summer day.  But, when times are tough and those around you are singing doom and gloom, you CAN control on how you act, feel and react.  It’s said that you control your life by controlling your reactions to life.  And economic downturns are times to keep that thought at the top of your list.

So, your thinking could go something like this: times are tough, people aren’t buying, the cash flow is drying up.  Best horde the money you do have.  Hide it under your mattress and pray that things will get better.  Now that’s a fun way to live.

Or, your thinking could go like this: this is a slower economy, most people do feel nervous and weary, but they still buy.  This is a time when perhaps you change your marketing message to meet the current needs, but it is precisely the time to go forward.  If people are going to be more frugal in how they spend their money, you want make sure that your product or service is the one they think about during these times. You know life has ebbs and flows and you know how to utilize both.  You see this as an opportunity to market, launch an effective PR campaign and grow your business.  Change your perspective, become proactive, launch an effective, targeted PR campaign and create your own economic upturn.

Two ways to approach the same situation.  The choice is yours.

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2008

For further information visit:

www.AnthonyMora.com

Social media has come to play an incredibly important role in the marketing campaigns of a variety of different businesses. Here are 8 rules of social media optimization that you must follow to ensure that you maximize the results of your social media marketing campaign.

1. Increase Your Website’s Linkability

The problem with a lot of websites is that they are static. Their content remains the same and nothing on the site is updated on a regular basis. Increasing the linkability of your site is one of the first and most important steps of social media optimization and SEO. The easiest way to get started with this is by adding a blog to your site and updating it regularly.

2. Develop a Clear Social Media Optimization Strategy

All marketing campaigns have a strategy behind them and SMO is no different. Define your objectives and set goals that will help you reach your desired outcome, whether that is credibility, a boost in reputation, site traffic, or increased conversions. One of the biggest mistakes that many companies make is not approaching SMO with clear goals or a strategy.

3. Stay Fresh

Don’t be afraid to be different in social media. The social media landscape is constantly morphing and the companies that dare to be unique are the ones that end up with the most successful SMO campaigns and getting national PR. Keep up with all the new tools and products that pop up to stay on top of your game.

4. Make It Easy for Readers to Tag and Bookmark

When you add features like the “add to del.icio.us” and the “Retweet” buttons to your content, it serves as a direct reminder for people to share your content. Many bloggers receive a 100% increase in retweets when they add the button. When a lot of people tweet or Digg your content, you get a lot of social proofing. Nonetheless, you don’t necessarily have to make it easier for people to tag and bookmark since great content will be shared no matter what.

5. Help People for Nothing in Return (Yet)

To put it simply, in social media, you have to give value to get value. You can pass along links that would help someone resolve an issue or give them advice if they need it. Eventually, people will come to see you as a source of information. This will lead them to link to your site or tag it as being an authoritative site in your niche, gradually boosting your reputation and improving your search engine ranking.

6. Participate Fully in the Community

Participation is the core of social media. Social media is a two-way street. You must create awareness of your brand and spread your message by participating in social media outlets on a regular basis. Your reputation and message will spread faster and further if you actively participate.

7. Know Your Target Audience

In order to make content and market ideas that are compelling to your target audience, you have to know them well. You have to realize that you can’t appeal to everyone. That’s why it’s important to know who your main audience is so you can tweak your messages to appeal to them. In order to learn who your audience is, you have to become a member of the community yourself.

8. Be authentic

Social media users are becoming more and more skilled at spotting fakers so to avoid being shunned and prevent damage from being done to your reputation, be authentic in your interactions.

The campaign of Republican John McCain has just released two web videos which highlight what the campaign feels is a national media bias in favor of Democrat Barack Obama in the 2008 Presidential election. It is asking people to vote for their favorite video.

This McCain campaign video release contest comes at the end of a week in which hundreds of members of the national media followed Barack Obama throughout the Middle East, Central Asia, and Europe on his fact finding mission. However, the same press coverage was not to be found when McCain took a similar trip a few months ago or when he more recently visited Colombia and Mexico.

Meanwhile the New York Times featured an editorial from Barack Obama and then refused to publish one written by John McCain. The McCain article was to appear on the paper’s op-ed page and was rejected because it was supposedly incompatible with the article from Sen. Barack Obama that the Times previously had published.

There are three questions about the news media that should be considered in this Presidential campaign. Is the national media as biased in election 2008 as it appeared to be in 2004?. Does John McCain make a point with his recent web video on media bias? Does the American public perceive media bias in favor of Barack Obama in election 2008?

To answer the last question first, the American public does detect media bias. In fact, according to a recent poll (Rasmussen), nearly half of Americans believe that the media is biased toward the candidacy of Democrat Barack Obama. In the same poll only 14% believe that the media favors Republican candidate John McCain.

Certainly, political partisans in both major parties often feel that their candidate is the victim of unfavorable media coverage. So, for a more objective view of media reporting in election 2008, consider only what the independent voter is saying in that same public opinion poll. Indeed, nearly 50% of these unaffiliated voters see a media with a pro-Obama bias while just 21% see unbiased coverage. Only 12% of those not connected with either major party believe the media is trying to help Republican John McCain.

Is this perception of media bias toward Obama by the public based in news reporting reality? To answer this question, let’s consider the results of the study of the media in election 2008 from Jounalism.org. The organization’s Project for Excellence in Journalism evaluates more than 300 political stories each week in newspapers, magazines, and television in order to measure whether each candidate is talked about in more than 25% of the stories.

This excerpt from their ongoing election media study describes the national media’s election coverage to date; ..”It was the sixth straight week since the general election began in which Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, enjoyed a distinct advantage in the race for exposure over the presumptive Republican nominee, John McCain. Last week, Obama was a significant presence in 83% of campaign stories studied, vs. McCain in 52%. That advantage for Obama is only slightly higher than what he has enjoyed throughout this early phase of the general election period.

In the six weeks since Hillary Clinton suspended her campaign and the general election phase began, Obama has been a significant factor in 78% of the stories and McCain in 51%. The closest they have come in coverage was the week of June 30 through July 6, when Obama enjoyed an 11 percentage point advantage (73% of stories about Obama vs. 62% for McCain).”

Certainly, an advantage of nearly 8-5 in media exposure is a significant benefit for any politician running for the highest office in the land. The extent of Obama’s favorable exposure from the national media indicates a distinct Democratic bias so far in this election campaign.

Consider that media bias was also perceived by the voting public just prior to the actual voting in the Presidential election of 2004. In a Fabrizio, McLaughlin, and Associates election night survey of 1,000 voters in twelve battleground states, 46% thought the media’s coverage of that election campaign was biased. 32% thought the Democrats were favored by the media while just 14% felt the same way about the media and the GOP.

Of course, in the last election, a national network and prominent news anchor became the news for promoting and defending forged documents in an attempt to influence the election for the benefit of the Democratic Party nominee. Dan Rather and CBS will continue discussions about that dubious matter in their civil litigation currently scheduled for this fall.

Indeed, a lack of national media objectivity in election 2008 may well be a replay of the Presidential campaign of 2004. It looks like John McCain may have a valid point when he highlights media bias in favor of his opponent. However, based on the media’s recent history of political election coverage and an attractive and articulate Democratic candidate, his campaign should certainly not be very surprised.