Inc. Magazine published an article in its February issue about the positive effects of marketing viral videos online at places like YouTube and Google. In the article, Inc. profiled three companies, gDiapers, Personality Hotels and RJE Business Interiors.

All three companies took a simple approach to producing the videos and spent between $5,000 and $25,000 for production and marketing. gDiapers focused on the benefits of using its reusable nylon pants and biodegradable liners. Personality Hotels gave a 5 minute tour of the company’s hotels. And RJE Business Interiors created a reality series that showed company employees installing furniture and performing community service.

After publishing these videos, gDiapers experienced double digit revenue growth, Personality Hotels increased reservations by 5% and RJE Business Interiors increased revenue by 22%.

The Winning Strategy

In the article, Inc. also discussed the success of Blendtec, a maker of commercial blenders. The Company created a more creative series of videos entitled, “Will it Blend?”, which showed its blender chopping marbles, golf balls and even an iPhone. The videos have been viewed 35 million times and since launching these videos, the Company’s sales have grown from $2 million to $10 million. 

Top Online Video Sharing Sites

• Google Video
• YouTube
• Revver
• VideoEgg
• JumpCut
• Eyespot
• Ourmedia
• vSocial
• Vimeo

My Favorite Viral Video

Just for fun, I wanted to share my favorite viral video created by Smirnoff. Enjoy…

• 62% say blogs are having a significant impact on the “tone of discussion” in news reporting
• 52% say Google’s Blog Search is their mode of choice for finding blogs
• 28% of journalists have their own blog, either a personal one or as part of their job
• 9% of journalists check a list of more than 10 blogs each week

According to PR Week:

• 36.2% of PR Week readers spend 2-3 times a week reading blogs
• 33.3% spend 2-3 times a month
• 18.6% spend 1-2 hours each day
• 9.6% never read blogs
• 2.3% read blogs more than 2 hours daily

Source: PR Week

Accommodate: one of the most commonly misspelled word
Advisor: used by the AP over advisor
B-to-B: proper way to say “business-to-business” – never use B2B
Bated Breath: not baited breath
Catalog: used by the AP over catalogue
Cell Phone: used by the AP over cellphone
Couldn’t Care Less: don’t use the common, but incorrect, could care less (this actually means “I care more than I might”)
Dialogue: more commonly used over dialog
Dot-com or .com: correct use over dot.com, which means dot-dot-com
E-mail: used by the AP over email (although National Geographic uses email – follow the AP rule when writing PR)
First come, first served: not serve
Flier: used by the AP over flyer when meaning a handbill or aviator
Follow up, follow-up: this is always two words (noun and adjective are hyphenated)
Grass roots, grass-roots: also two words (noun and adjective are hyphenated)
High-tech: never hi tech
Home page: always two words (same with front page and Web page)
Judgment: used by the AP over judgement
Log in, login: verb is two words, noun is one
Mike: short for microphone, not mic
Newsstand: always use two “s”
Nonprofit: no hyphen
OK: used by the AP over okay or O.K.
Portuguese: not Portugese (MS Word will help you with this)
PowerPoint: one word, with capital P in the middle
Set up, setup: the verb is two words; the noun and adjective are one
Showtime: one word
Similar: be on the lookout for similiar
Super Bowl: always two words
Theater: use this spelling for a movie house or performance space instead of theatre, unless a proper includes the spelling theatre
T-shirt: not tee-shirt
Video game: two words
Voice mail: two words
Web site: used by the AP over website. Web is always capitalized since it is a proper noun (World Wide Web)
Wiki: this word does not need to be capitalized unless it is part of a proper noun, such as Wikipedia

 

If you’re searching for new ways to communicate with potential customers, then consider becoming a guest blogger. Most bloggers are on a constant search for content. If you approach them with a good topic, more than likely you’ll be offered the chance to contribute to their blog.

How would becoming a guest blogger benefit you? Consider this. If your company offers financial services specializing in commodities, you could reach your target market by writing a post about the future of the oil industry on a commodity trading blog.

Keep in mind that when you write a guest blog posting, its common practice to submit a byline. This will give you 2-3 sentences to describe your background and include a link to your website. Don’t forget to do this, as this advertising is the primary reason you wrote the post in the first place.

5 Steps to Successfully Becoming a Guest Blogger:

1. Identify your target blogs. (Hint: if you search for blogs on Technorati and sort by Authority, you will know which blogs are the most popular. The ones with the highest authority rankings probably have the most reach as well)
2. Review each blogs’ archives. You should also pay close attention to see which blogs have used guest bloggers in the past. 
3. Identify the editor of each blog you intend to contact
4. Draft an email introducing yourself, identifying your topic of interest and explaining why this topic fits with the theme of the blog. Also be sure to tell the editor that your blog will not just be a commercial for your company
5. Follow-up after 1 week if you haven’t heard a response

For example, if a breaking news story is released about a development in LASIK Eye Surgery and your company offers this procedure, then position yourself or one of your media-trained surgeons as an expert on the subject and reach out to the local media to discuss statistics on LASIK.

A great resource for following the news is Google News. This news aggregator not only shows you a list of headlines, but it also measures the popularity of a news topic by showing how many outlets covered it.

By implementing this strategy, you’re bound to get better placement for your stories and greater media exposure for your company. 

Determine Your Target Blogs
Before pitching bloggers, determine which blogs are relevant and which ones you should target. You can do this by searching Technorati, Google Blog Search, or IceRocket for specific keywords relating to your pitch. Technorati’s “authority” rankings can help indicate the relative value of links to a specific blog. The higher this number, the greater the reach the blog receives.

Look for Advertising
This may seem like an unusual strategy for determining which blogs to pitch, but it can work. Blogs that are selling advertising quite possibly have more influence than those that don’t. This isn’t always a good indicator because many times bloggers, like me, don’t want advertisers…but it’s a good way to begin the process.

Read The Blog First
There is no getting around this. Read the blog before you pitch the blogger. This way, you will know exactly what the blogger is writing about. If you fail to read their blog first, then you will more than likely fail to receive any coverage from your pitch. Just review the latest 10 postings on a blog and you’ll be all set to pitch its blogger or move on.

K. I. S. S.
We’ve all heard of Keep is Simple, Stupid. This strategy applies to pitching bloggers as well. Most bloggers make very little money from their blogs and therefore don’t have much time to commit to reading through long press releases or pitches sent to them. By sending them a short and simple email that is smart and striking and quickly explains how the topic is relevant to his or her blog, your pitch will be more effective.

Make Sure Your Story is Blogworthy
Similar to traditional PR, if your story is not newsworthy, then forget about it. Bloggers only care about timely and blogworthy stories that they can react to. If your story doesn’t accomplish this, then don’t waste your time pitching them.

Have you ever bought or sold a share of stock? If so, then you understand that there is always a winner and a loser in the markets. Someone will make money by buying or selling shares and someone will lose money (or the potential to make more money). It’s always an inverse relationship.

This same relationship can occur in public relations.

A perfect example of this came across my desk over the weekend. As I was catching up on past articles in the Times (London), I read about an oil painting that was used for years as a dart board. It turns out that this was actually an Old Masters painting from the 17th century. As I read on, I learned that it had hung in a center for delinquent youths. When the building was sold in the 1980s, it was removed and put into storage.

At this point in the story, the loser became obvious…it was the local council that managed the center.

As the article continued, I learned that painting underwent restoration and was then put into storage until an art researcher found it and discovered that it was one of the most important works depicting the house that Rubens (a famous Flemish master) lived in. It is now considered the earliest depiction of that famous building and is going on display at the National Gallery.

Clearly, the researcher, Anne Cowe, and the National Gallery are the winners in this article. Without their intervention, this painting may have been neglected for another century. They are heroes in the eyes of the media, and more importantly, the readers.

So why do we care?

At some point in your career, your company will be on the losing side of PR. When, not if, this happens you will need to know how to respond accordingly. Sure, the local council neglected a painting…but what the article failed to mention was how many young people the center helped over the years.

I’ve put together a list of strategies below to help you manage and overcome negative publicity:

Be Transparent
Speak openly about any issues your company is facing. Being the first to the table to discuss any problems will help you maintain control of the story within the media.

When You’re Wrong, Just Apologize
When your company does something wrong, even when it’s unintentional (like the local council in this article) just apologize. This is one of the easiest ways to win back consumer trust and loyalty.

Take Immediate Action
When something goes wrong, take immediate action to fix it. Doing this will demonstrate to the media and to the public your commitment to actively take measures to correct a mistake.

Going back to the example in the Times article, one strategy that the local council could use to better its image, is to setup an outreach program that targets art history students and provides them with internship opportunities to research its collection of 5,000 paintings. This not only reaches young people, but it also shows that the local council is sincere about fixing this problem of neglect.

Most Importantly, Don’t Do Nothing

This may seem to be common sense, but you’d be surprised at how many companies fail to respond to negative publicity. By doing nothing, a company can only hope for the worst.