The document discusses best practices for using social media and search engine optimization (SEO) to promote brands and websites. It provides tips on monitoring brands for free using tools like Google Alerts and social media monitoring sites. It also reviews tactics for optimizing websites and content to improve search engine rankings through strategies like keyword research and link building.

1. Module 4:
Social media and PR
1

2. Is your website a billboard?
2

3. Is your website
updated regularly?
3

4. Is your website useful to
your own employees?
4

5. I don’t know who you are.
I don’t know your company.
I don’t know your company’s
product.
I don’t know what your company
stands for.
I don’t know your company’s
customers.
I don’t know your company’s
record.
I don’t know your company’s
reputation.
Now – what was it you
wanted to sell me?
Moral: Sales start before your
salesman calls… 5

6. Google Quotient
• Findability: Can your brand name,
product or service be found easily?
• Linkability: Are you linking out and being
linked by others?
• Relevance: Are the search results
relevant to your potential customers?
• Differentiation: Are the generic searches
for your product or service rated higher
than your competitor’s?
6

7. Search engine results are key
• 68% click a search result in the 1st page of results
• 92% will go up to (at most) 3rd page before
changing query (half will switch after 1st page)
• 39% believe that the companies whose websites
are in top search results are the leaders in their
field.
Key lesson: If you're not ranking well for your
desired search terms, brand names and other
important key words and phrases, you're missing
out on significant, highly qualified traffic.
Source: iProspect & JupiterResearch, Search Engine User Behaviour
Study on Google, MSN, Yahoo! Users, 2008 7

8. 8

9. British Airways vs Virgin Atlantic:
A basic search results
comparison
9

10. “British Airways” – 1st Page Results
• www.britishairways.com - Owned
• www.britishairways.com/travel/home/p
ublic/en_gb - Owned
• www.baworldcargo.com - Owned
• www.baworldcargo.com/tracking -
Owned
• en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways -
Positive
• www.britishairwaysjobs.com - Owned
• www.britishairways.no - Owned
• www.baa.com - Positive
• www.oneworld.com/ow/member-
airlines/british-airways - Owned
• www.baholidays.com/packages/ -
Owned
10
Source: http://www.distilled.co.uk/blog/reputation-wars/reputation-wars-british-airways-vs-virgin-atlantic/

11. “British Airways:2nd Page Results
• www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,291
304,00.html - Negative
• www.bavirtual.co.uk - Owned
• ocaoimh.ie/tag/british-airways/ -
Negative
• www.bafc.co.uk - Owned
• www.londoneye.com - Owned
• www.britishairwaysrfc.co.uk -
Owned
• www.topix.net/com/bab - Positive
• www.worldtracer.aero/filedsp/ba.htm
- Positive
• www.gbairways.com - Positive
• www.flybmi.com/bmed - Positive
11

12. “Virgin Atlantic” – 1st Page Results
• www.virgin-atlantic.com - Owned
• www.virgin.com - Owned
• virgin.com/uk/default.asp - Owned
• en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Atlantic_
Airways - Positive
• www.virginatlanticglobalflyer.com -
Owned
• www.flyingwithoutfear.info - Owned
• www.v-flyer.com - Owned
• www.virginatlanticflights.com -
Owned
• gs19.globalsuccessor.com/fe/tpl_virg
in01.aps?newms=hm - Owned
• www.airlinequality.com/Forum/vir_atl
.htm - Positive
12

13. “Virgin Atlantic”: 2nd Page Results
• www.cheapflights.co.uk/airlines/virgi
n-atlantic.html - Positive
• www.forbes.com/forbeslife…etc -
Positive
• www.forbes.com/forbeslife…etc -
Positive
• www.virginatlanticglobalflyer.com/Mi
ssionControl/Tracking/ - Owned
• farechase.yahoo.com/airlines/virgin_
atlantic-214281 - Positive
• www.engadget.com/2007/01/17…etc
- Positive
• www.virginmobile.co.za/…etc -
Owned
• www.cheapflights.com/airlines/virgin
atlantic.html - Positive
• www.fastcompany.com/…etc -
Positive
• www.usatoday.com/…etc - Negative
13

14. British Airways vs Virgin Atlantic
Score: 42/50 Score: 44/50
• Own website • Own website
• Own website • Own website
• Own website • Own website
• Own website • Positive: Wikipedia
• Positive: Wikipedia • Own website
• Own website • Own website
• Own website • Own website
• Positive: Airport website • Own website
• Own website • Own website
• Own website • Positive: Airline review site
• Negative: News site • Positive: Flight deals aggregator
• Owned • Positive: Magazine site
• Negative: Blog • Positive: Magazine site
• Own website • Own website
• Own website • Positive: Flight deals aggregator
• Own website • Positive: Gadget news site
• Positive: News Aggregator • Own website
• Positive: Baggage Tracer • Positive: Flights deals aggregator
• Positive: Travel booking site • Positive: Magazine site
• Positive: Travel booking site • Negative: News site 14

15. Love vs hate
• “I love British • “I love Virgin Atlantic” -
Airways” - 436 results 597 results
• “I hate British • “I hate Virgin Atlantic” -
Airways” - 172 results 3 results
Score: 36 / 50 Score: (49.75 rounded
up to) 50 / 50
15

16. Fun test: GoogleFight.com
16

17. 10 ways to monitor brands for free
1. Google Alerts: http://www.google.com/alerts, iGoogle
2. Yahoo Alerts: http://alerts.yahoo.com
3. Yahoo Pipes: Social media firehose
http://pipes.yahoo.com/update_maker/social_media_fire_hose
5. Blogsearch.google.com
6. Technorati.com
7. Backtype.com
8. Search.twitter.com
9. FriendFeed:
http://mashable.com/2008/12/05/how-to-get-the-most-out-of-friendfeed/
11. Socialmention
12. Compete.com
Bonus: whostalkin.com 17

18. Fee-based trackers
18

19. Understanding basic terms
• Hits
• Pageviews, Impressions
• Unique visitors
• Downloads
• Embeds
• Timespent
• Traffic
• PPC =pay-per-click, CPM =cost-per-1000
• CPC= cost/click, CPA = cost/action 19

20. Google PageRank
• PageRank™ is Google's proprietary
system for ranking web pages.
• Google grades pages from PR 1 to 10
based on a complex algorithm that takes
into account the page's content, and the
number and quality of inbound links.
• The higher the inbound links, the higher in
the search engine results page (SERP)
your website/blog will appear after a
query.
20

21. Google AdWords
• AdWords is Google's flagship advertising
product, and main source of revenue.
• AdWords offers pay-per-click (PPC)
advertising, and site-targeted advertising
for both text and banner ads.
• Google's text ads are short, consisting of
one title line and two content text lines.
21

22. Google AdSense
• Website publishers can earn a portion of
the ad revenue for placing Google-
administered text and image ads on their
sites or blogs.
• The ads generate revenue on a per-click
basis.
• Google utilizes its search technology to
serve ads based on website content, the
user's geographical location, and other
factors.
22

23. Search Engine Optimization
• The process of choosing targeted keyword
phrases related to a site, and ensuring that
the site ranks higher when those keyword
phrases are part of a web search.
Paid Paid
Organic
23

24. Wordtracker
Free version: http:// freekeywords.wordtracker.com
• Enter in keywords
and search phrases
• Find relevant terms
• Use for brainstorming
as well as drilling
down into specific
phrases.
• Google Keyword
suggestion tool:
http://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
24

25. Google AdWords: search results
Exercise: 1. Search for keywords of your product
2. Who’s advertising your keyword? 25

26. Google Analytics
• Tracks and generates detailed statistics about visitors to a site.
• Used to optimize AdWords campaigns by analysis of where
the visitors came from, how long they stayed, their
geographical position and where exactly visitors click on the
site.
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27. 15 Google tips
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28. Google search tips
• Capitalization and quotation marks: Google searches
are NOT case sensitive. Searches for najib razak, Najib
Razak, and naJIb rAZak will all return the same results.
Use “quotes” to include all words. Eg: “a b” “c”
3. Limit to .my sites
Example 1: killinghall site:com.my
Example 2: “najib razak” site: gov.my
• Either OR. If you want to include either this or that in result
list, use the OR operator (must be upper-case):
Example: "siti nurhaliza" OR "datuk khalid” site:my
(Leave out the OR, Google returns pages that include both
terms)
28

29. 1. Exclude the Wrong Results Using Minus -
Exclude irrelevant results with minus (-) operator
on every word that you want to exclude and try
again.
Eg: killinghall -school -“north yorkshire"
-church -pubs
5. Finding different Filetypes
Go to Google > Advanced Search.
Try finding Acrobat (pdf), Powerpoint (pps), Excel
spreadsheet (xls) files on any .gov.my site.
Example: site:bnm.gov.my filetype:xls
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30. 1. Older stuff
Try Google Cached or www.archive.org
• Daterange trick: as_qdr=d7, where d=day, 7=seven
http://www.google.com/search?q=site:abc.com&as_qdr=d7
• Images: http://images.google.com, reverse image
search and similar image search
(Creative Commons: http://search.creativecommons.org/
• Google Finance: http://finance.google.com
• Calculator: Eg: 3200+5000 OR 5% of 3527
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31. 11. Metric converter
Eg: “233 square feet in square meter”
OR “233 sq ft =? sq m”, 10 acres in hectares
12. Dictionary, acronym finder
Eg: define: dodecagon OR define: PCR
13. Currency converter (read disclaimer)
Eg: currency of Brazil in Malaysian money
Eg: 3.578 USD in MYR
Eg: 5.6 million British pounds in MYR
14. Tools: Recipe tip
Eg: half a cup in teaspoons
15. Weather: Eg: weather Kuala Lumpur
Flight details: MH1133 or AK5369
Time: Eg: time London
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32. RSS
• Rich Site Summary/Really Simple Syndication is a
method to syndicate your web content out to users.
Using RSS files, you can create a feed that supplies
headlines, news, blog posts, comments, forum
threads, photos, audio files, and even video to your
“subscribers”.
• Subscribers can use a dedicated software called an
RSS reader or aggregator to “pull in” all their favourite
web content into one location and scan quickly.
Current browsers come with integrated RSS readers.
• Users can also use a web-based aggregator to pull-in
feeds that are constantly updated and view a web
page of feeds. Eg: Bloglines, Google Reader, Netvibes
32

33. Using RSS
1. Monitor News:
http://thestar.com.my/rss/
http://www.cnn.com/services/rss/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/help/3223484.stm
2. Monitor Press Releases:
Intel: http://www.intel.com/intel/rss.htm
IBM: http://www-1.ibm.com/services/us/igs/rss/rss.html
Dell: http://www.dell.com/RSS/
3. Monitor Blogs:
http://www.tonyfernandesblog.com/main.php?tempskin=_rss2
http://rockybru.blogspot.com/atom.xml
http://www.kennysia.com/atom.xml
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34. Exercise: Add feed to iGoogle
1. Go to http://www.thestar.com.my/rss
34

35. 2. Right click RSS, copy shortcut (IE) or copy link
location (Firefox), or copy link address(Chrome)
35

36. 3. Open igoogle.com. Click on ADD GADGETS
Top left.
4. Click on “Add feed or gadget” (bottom left) and
paste URL (over http://)
36

37. 5. Create a dashboard of feeds and
divide into tabs (topic headers)
To add a tab, click on down arrow and Add Tab
You can add up to 9 posts/updates per feed
and re-arrange pages into 1-column, 2-column
or 3-column
37

38. Method B: 1. Clicking on RSS button
1. Switch to Google
2. Subscribe
38

39. 2. Add to Google homepage
39

40. Bonus: How to Build a Reputation Monitoring
Dashboard: http://tinyurl.com/repboard
Marty Weintraub, http://www.aimclearblog.com
40

41. New tools:
1. Social Media Press Release
 New info: 5Ws & 1H
 Validate, qualify, quantify with fact or figures
 Quotes, tweets, status updates
 Links to related info or resource
 Share it: FB, Twitter, Stumbleupon, RSS,
tagging, commenting etc
 Embed visuals: Photos, logos, audio
 Contact info and boilerplate
(http://www.shiftcomm.com/downloads/smr_v1.5.pdf)
41

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43. 43

44. New tools:
2. Social Media News Room
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48. 48

49. 3. Creative use of tweets
49

50. 4. @mention reporters/editors on
Facebook
50

51. 5. Infographics becoming popular
• http://dailyinfographic.com/
• http://www.coolinfographics.com/
• http://www.infographicsshowcase.com/
• http://submitinfographics.com/
• http://www.infographicsarchive.com/
• http://www.visual.ly/
• http://infographicjournal.com/
51

52. A few words on…
• RSS: Use current, otherwise burn your
own at Feedburner.com
• Bookmarking and sharing: Use
Addthis.com or Sharethis.com
• Photos: Print=150 – 300 ppi, online
72ppi, jpgs.
• Video: Defacto is .flv. Sign up on
YouTube, embed within your release.
Online editors are now accepting in
.wmv or .mov or .mp4 52

53. A few words on…
Managing the Agency
• Communicate your objectives clearly
• Be clear on your expectations from
them i.e. a strategic partner, an ‘arms &
legs’ or a press contact
• Agency must provide a detailed plan
with specifics on how they will take you
to where you are headed
• Start on project work before signing
retainer
• Track progress, measure results
53

54. Managing Expectations in Social media
• Get everyone on the same page. (In a
crowded market, less likely to make front
page, more likely to grow online audience
organically)
• Be prepared for consequences (when you
experiment and try new things)
• Set realistic goals for social media
campaigns
• Under-promise and over-deliver
54

55. SUMMARY
• Less jargon, hype, keep it simple
• Make information accessible, searchable,
visual, archivable in multiple formats
• Provide context (but maintain accuracy)
• Embrace social and mobile communities
• Listen, Connect, Add Value, Monitor 55