Finger Pointing Is Not Good Public Relations

Who Stepped In It: There are a lot of bad business decisions that never make it into the mass media.  But what if one of those decisions becomes “the news”?

It’s been almost three weeks since The Virginian-Pilot reported that a well-known Hampton Roads heating and cooling company has 25 law suits filed against it, accusing it of false advertising and breach of contract.

That’s a bad day.

But that bad day gets even worse when no action is taken to address the negative issues being raised in this news report.  It’s tough to measure how much negative opinion was created among potential clients and clients who were exposed to it.  Some customers may have even sought a reason to doubt the report, but no response is like admitting guilt.  Such stories and the lack of an appropriate response have sunk businesses.

The company’s attorney did not help things with an ill-fated attempt to distract people by telling the reporter that customers should focus on another, now-bankrupt company that ran the scheme. 

If you are trying to earn credibility and demonstrate concern for your customers, this approach won’t fly in our jaded, savvy and sophisticated society.  It is reasonable for customers to say: “I bought my system from you; you promised me a sweet rebate; now where’s my money? Don’t point me to some entity that you partnered with and say I’m clean, they did it.”   What this company did reminds me of third graders finger pointing when they get caught.

You might think the owner of Russell’s Heating & Cooling, or the company’s public relations consultant or lawyer, has been in contact with the newspaper to try and generate a story that reports on policy or procedure changes in hopes of righting the ship.  All indications say they’re going to sit this one out and try to weather the storm.  So far, no damage control has appeared — and the clock keeps ticking.

Handling a public relations crisis
When you become the news in a negative way, quickly and clearly shore up your relationships with your publics — customers, potential customers, subcontractors, shareholders, stockholders, regulatory boards, and more. 

Here are some public relations tactics to re-establish your image:

- Take responsibility.  If you partnered with a vendor that mistreated your clients, you need to step up and fix the problem, no matter the cost.  Word of mouth and the Internet will spread this bad news story farther and faster then ever before.  The buck stops with you.

- Make sure your public relations agency is working hand-in-hand with your lawyer, before your lawyer talks to the media, or better yet, put someone from the company leadership team in front of the media.  Many times public relations consultants and lawyers have opposing views on handling media interviews and the approach to media.  You’ll have to decide which approach to take.  A good starting point is: who’s better at crafting an effective message?

- Craft a statement and send it to your target audiences.  Whether that list is 200 or 20,000, repairing your image sooner than later will help ensure potential and current customers stay with you and do not call #2 on their list.  Waiting may be too much for your company to bear.

- Move forward. There is no sense in exposing your audience to negative information they may not have read.  Talk about solutions and stay positive; you need to instill confidence.

- Post the statement on your Web site for a limited amount of time and follow up with a short article which describes your approach to the way ahead.

- Your statement should also appear in ads in the publication where your audience was exposed to the story.  This means keeping a reserve of money for damage control ads.

We all make mistakes.  But when one of them becomes big news, you need to take visible action quickly.  Are you prepared to handle a 25″, top-of-the-page, Saturday edition negative story?

Poor Media Relations Surface In Bad Times

Who Stepped In It: How many times have you seen a great story about a new service or product, then not a peep?  Countless is my answer.

How does this happen?  Here are a couple of thoughts:
- Business owner turns a solid idea into a product or service and starts a business.

- Business owner contacts the media and generates a nice story. 

- Business owner is too busy doing everything else and forgets to communicate outside the organization.

- Business owner never thinks about seeking public relations support.

The next part of this sad story has to do with the businesses’ second media story:
- Business owner closes door for good next week.

The firestorm eating up businesses day-by-day in Virginia Beach, Chesapeake and Norfolk is feeding on businesses with weak foundations.  A good media relations program is part of a strong business foundation.

Here are some critical errors business leaders commit by ignoring media relations:
- Business owners think the world will beat a path to their doors to benefit from their product or service.  If only it were true.  One story is a start, but information overload has everyone quickly moving on to the next cool thing.  Staying in people’s minds requires and ongoing media relations program.

- Business owners think the media will call and include them in like-kind stories.  Think again.  Newsrooms have been diminished by recent layoffs making reporters some of the busiest professionals in the world.  Getting their attention and becoming a trusted resource requires an ongoing process.  Reporters don’t call you out of the blue, unless you’ve done something very wrong … and you need smart media relations for that too.

- Business owners forget that a methodical drum beat of public credibility goes a long way to establishing long-term credibility.

- Businesses put great effort into their product/service and management/employees. But that leaves the foundation of your stool with only two legs.  Bill Gates said, “If I were down to my last dollar, I’d spend it on public relations.”  He’s talking about the third leg of the stool - the public relations leg that rounds out a strong business foundation.  Without that leg, you are invisible.  Public relations, media relations and marketing make you visible.

How can you tell a business that doesn’t have a media relations program? They’re the ones who never speak to reporters and have earned no credibility with their media. When things get tough they’ll start joining every networking organization under the sun.  Then they’ll make a last ditch effort to hire a public relations agency to generate some positive media coverage.

That’s not how you win the game.  A competent media relations professional will maintain contact with reporters who can help you.  They will help the reporter on a slow news day or when your industry is making headline news.  Good media relations is a process not an event.

Is someone looking out for your best interest in the media or are you just hoping for the best and satisfied to be in the “One and Done Media Coverage Club”?  

Hiding Is Never A Good Public Relations Option

Who Stepped In It: For better or worse, our quick-moving, highly-connected society can take a limited amount of media coverage and make it seem like the story has been reported a hundred times.  That’s what I experienced as I searched for articles on the Norfolk light-rail debacle where a consultant missed 240 pilings for removal because he or she went to the site during high tide, and the HRT CEO took the heat.

All I found was a front-page story, a brief mention in a column, and an editorial in the Virginian-Pilot, plus some coverage on the local TV and radio stations.  That’s not enough media coverage to make it seem like the story had been reported day-in and day-out for weeks.  Everywhere I went, that’s all everyone was talking about. 

When you’re the company at the center of an issue going viral, you may want to take some action to stop the bleeding and protect your image.  And that doesn’t mean doing a disappearing act, which is what this consulting company did.  Hampton Roads is a small place and there’s nowhere to hide.

Norfolk city councilmembers and city staff, city officials throughout Hampton Roads, the construction industry, and business people — and everyone these folks talk to — know who the consultant is. 

These are the leaders who hire the consultant, which means they are the consultant’s primary target audience for company PR and reputation management.  As it is now, the entire community is wondering who this contractor will hang out to dry next?  If the consultant had done the right thing, people could be saying, “That is a responsible company and I respect them.  They just made an honest mistake.”

Here are some public relations tactics the consulting company could have used to do the right thing:

Plan for a crisis:  Long before you need to do crisis communications, you should have a public relations plan.  Key leaders who will serve as spokespersons should have training and you should practice for a crisis occasionally.  This ensures you have direct access to the right leaders and can move quickly.  Bad news does not age well.

Research: Determine what caused the problem.  In this case, was it inexperience, a faulty process, or carelessness?

Institute Change:  All problems have a solution.  Find the right solution and make it company policy.

Develop talking points:  All external communication should contain the key facts of the situation and your core messages.  Talking points will be used in press releases and resulting media interviews.  These talking points will help you stay on message and keep you out of trouble. 

Write and issue a news release: Write a one-page or less news release that expresses regret for the mistake, and describes how it happened and what you’ve done to make sure it won’t happen again.  Also, correct any errors in the media’s reporting.

Identify the media:  Identify who covered the story and send them the news release.  Do not aimlessly blast fax or email it.  Personally call the reporter to ask if he or she needs anything else.  Being open and honest is appealing and will help your position on the issue. 

Unfortunately, none of these PR tactics have been done up to this point.  If the consulting agency thinks it dodged a bullet by keeping its name out of the media, they should think again.  Letting the harsh spotlight fall on another professional can never help your image.  If your company ends up smearing someone else’s image, you can bet yours is being smeared too. 

If your company finds itself in a firestorm through an honest mistake, does your public relations damage control plan contain strategies to protect your reputation and the future of your company?

Public Relations Includes The Logo Too

Who Stepped Up: Every public relations agency and small business owner has their own definition of public relations.  I define public relations and marketing on several levels, but for this discussion, I say: public relations is anything the public sees, hears, touches, tastes or smells about your product, service, issue or cause.  And that includes your logo.

Small business owners would be wise to make sure they launch their business with a polished, professional logo that connects with their target audience and serves as a PR tool.

Alperin Law in Virginia Beach recently stepped up by investing in a professional logo which is polished and strong, and contains colors that indicate trust and leadership.  When designing a professional logo, the keys to success are:

- Your logo should uniquely reflect your company and be memorable.

- Clean, simple logos present a strong identity and reproduce well in various sizes and file formats.

- Steer clear of complicated detail and special effects such as gradients and drop shadows that will not reproduce well when scaled down to small size.

- Your logo should be just as effective in black and white as in color.

Other public relations tips to consider about a logo:

- Don’t confuse a busy logo with business brilliance.  That’s like confusing motion with progress.  The fancier you get, the further you move from the rationality of most people.  Logos need to match your business.

- Don’t design a logo with every color in the rainbow.  Logos with four or more colors can greatly increase your printing costs for letterhead, trifolds, marketing folders, ads, and other PR material.  My public relations agency has designed many top-notch two-color logos for clients in Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Chesapeake, Hampton Roads, Portsmouth, Suffolk, Hampton, Newport News, and throughout Virginia that look great and are easy on the pocketbook.

- Don’t buy your logo from a logo-farm website and think you’ve gotten one over on the “expensive” graphic designers and public relations consultants.  Think a few steps ahead and you’ll discover you may need: the logo in a vector format for a business sign; the logo in black and white for simple envelopes; the logo in a jpeg for a marketing PowerPoint presentation or website; or the logo in an EPS format for quality printing.  Even worse, what if another business in your area and industry buys the same logo for $40?  Having your own unique logo is smart public relations and worth the one-time investment.

- Stay away from logos embellished with shading, shadows, and beveling, and public relations consultants enamored with them. The true mettle and power of a logo is its ability to stand on its own in black and white with no embellishments.  All the powerful logos that stand the test of time are just as powerful in black and white: McDonalds, NIKE, Prudential (The Rock), Microsoft, Rolls Royce, HBO, MTV, and Sony.

- Don’t get consumed by the colors you like.  Always look at your business from an outside-in perspective … from the client’s point of view.  Get feedback from people whose judgment you trust — family, friends, co-workers, and colleagues.  We all live in industry/personal bubbles, so outside feedback is important.  Your fetish for screaming pink may be an immediate turn-off to potential clients.

- Don’t stick to an obviously outdated logo designed 10 years ago because you think changing it will hurt your business.  You can always tweak your logo to bring it into the 21st Century and connect with today’s smart, jaded consumer.

Are you asking the right questions when buying a logo, or are you walking into a great deal that will cost you time, money and frustration down the road?

Media Interview Prep Is A Public Relations Must

Who Stepped In It:  Fortune smiles on the prepared.  That’s particularly true when it comes to media interviews.  However, not all public relations consultants understand this universal law and believe in winging it.

Make preparation a public relations tactic for any media interview.  Whether it’s a stand-up, phone, or in-studio interview — friendly or unfriendly — preparation will determine how you influence the readers/viewers.  That influence will be positive or negative; there is no in-between.

Before you conduct a media interview, whether it’s your first or 100th, here are some public relations tips that greatly increase your odds of being successful:

- Do Internet research on the reporter’s past stories to see how deep his or her knowledge is on the subject and what angles the stories followed.

- Do Internet research on your issue.  Determine who else is reporting on this topic and how that matches up with your position?  Determine where your prospective audience stands on the issue?

- Craft two to three main communications points you want to get across in the interview.  Tactfully work them into the interview.

- Conduct mock interviews with your public relations agency.

- Prepare by speaking in short sound bites — avoid long, rambling stories.  The tighter the better.  Try to condense your thoughts into their most potent, descriptive words.  A reporter is only allotted so many words and so much time, so make it easy for him or her.  This also cuts down on the chances of being misquoted and damaging your public relations efforts.

- Prepare by using bridging statements when needed.  There will be times when a reporter knows little about your profession or the issue he or she is asked to cover.  Or, the reporter may have bad research information from the Internet, which is loaded with good, bad and misleading information.  A bridging statement gets you past those potentially damaging questions and refocuses the interview on what’s important.  This is not dodging a question.  It is helping the reporter get the story correct.

- Prepare for the unexpected.  Never tear off the mic and storm away.  No one has pulled this off in a professional manner.  Better to hold your ground, stay on message and maintain your composure and professionalism — most likely the media is on a tighter deadline than you are. 

- Prepare for the pre-interview chit-chat phase.  Establish rapport with the reporter before the interview.  Remember, the whole interaction is on-the-record.  Avoid talking about anything you don’t want repeated in the paper or on TV. 

Put yourself in the reporter’s shoes.  If an expert gives you great quotes or analyses which easily fall into place, chances are you’ll call that person again.  However, if an interviewee speaks in jargon with rambling, incoherent sentences, you’ll never call that person back because you’ll find someone just as good who understands your needs.

Are you torturing or helping reporters with your media prep habits?

Website Newsrooms Essential To Great Public Relations

Who Stepped Up: I recently had a conversation with a gentleman who’s been in public relations for more than two decades.  Lots of information and ideas were flowing and then we got on the subject of website Newsrooms.  When I explained how I manage them for clients he said, “I don’t do that IT stuff.”  Wow!  Get me a phone!  I’d like to order one ticket to the future for my colleague, please.

Public relations agencies and public relations consultants need to be updating client website Newsrooms and not outsourcing the work.  Why?

- Newsrooms are the bread and butter of a timely and informative website
- Technology has made updating website Newsrooms fifth-grade easy
- It eliminates outsourcing and leaves more money in the pockets of you and your clients
- It keeps your value to the client high and relevant
- It saves your IT folks for the big, fun stuff

Newsrooms are the bread and butter of an informative website
One of the most important sections of a website is the Newsroom, which should contain a minimum of a News Release section and a Media Coverage section.

The benefits of the News Release section are:
- Businesses and organizations always have a ton of legitimate things to write about.
- Post those items as consumer or media news releases.
- This highlights your expertise in a particular area.
- It also updates your website and makes it look fresh and timely.
- Plus, it adds a new, relevant page for search engines to find.
- SEO is the name of the game on the Internet. Gone are the days of loading your business name with four AAAAs and listing high in a phone directory.  The new game is: who has a correctly built website and knows how to optimize it by adding new pages that are correctly coded for high search engine results.

The benefits of the Media Coverage section are:
- Demonstrates your organization’s relevance to customers. 
- Allows a credible third-party to talk about your product, service, issue or cause — not just clients talking about their own accomplishments.
- Shows reporters who may want to use you as an expert resource that you’ve been quoted by other media and indeed are an expert in your field.
- Updates your website, making it look fresh and timely.
- Adds a new page for search engines to find; Google likes big, relevant sites.

Technology has made updating website Newsrooms fifth-grade easy
We’ve all pretty much come to the conclusion that the Internet is not a fad.  That’s great news for PR agencies and PR consultants who know how to update websites.  If you don’t have that ability yet, don’t hyperventilate on me.  It’s so simple I could teach a fifth-grader to do it in less than an hour. 

The only tool you need is Adobe Contribute, which costs around $160 and is a game-changer.  This tool allows you to instantly edit the text on most websites.  It also allows you to add pages, photos and graphics.  And, the public relations consultant needs absolutely no IT/webmaster experience.  It is one of the most powerful PR tools I’ve come across in a long time.

It eliminates outsourcing and leaves more money in the pockets of you and your clients
Updating the Newsroom on your own saves time and money for you and your clients by cutting out the webmaster or IT person.  Their feelings won’t be hurt (more on this below).  This also removes one more person from the communications loop.  Keep your operation tight, efficient and profitable.

It keeps your value to the client high and relevant
If you’re not consistently relevant to your clients, you’ll find yourself in a vicious cycle of clients constantly coming and going through your front door. 

One important way to stay relevant is through the Newsroom.  You’re only going to get so many bites at the media apple, and in-between those bites, you need to be providing value … not just waiting around.  Those who wait around get kicked around.

It saves your IT folks for the big, fun stuff
When you update client websites with day-to-day items, you save your IT folks and webmaster from being tortured.  What’s gold for us is junk for them.  They hate being burdened with little things and would rather be challenged with the big stuff.  Plus, they’re not trained in public relations and a website is a 24-7 PR tool. 

All Rourk Public Relations’ clients have stepped up and embraced active Newsrooms.  Here are three Newsrooms to browse through that help make my point: 
L. Steven Emmert
Tidewater Bariatrics
Bay Capital Advisors

Each of these clients takes their Newsroom seriously and each has enjoyed the fruits of continually gaining inches and relenting none on the public relations front.

Websites are either alive or stagnant.  A Newsroom adds timely, relevant information.  How is the world seeing you?

Public Relations As An Afterthought Is Costly

Who Stepped In It:  What incident or event would cause the most damage to your business if it happened right now?  Quick, think about it.  Now, if that crisis happened today, what would you say to multiple news organization covering it?  Far fetched?  No way.  Just ask Agriprocessors Kosher Meat Packing in Postville, Iowa.

In May their meat packing plant was raided by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and 400 of their employees were arrested in one of the largest single-site immigration raids in U.S. history. That was bad, but it gets worse.   A number of activist groups began a negative PR campaign about the company including claims that the meat they were producing was not kosher.  That’s a big deal to their customers, who ultimately say whether that business exists or not. 

The ensuing media coverage was a disaster for the company and their reputation, and there’s no end in sight.  The Virginian-Pilot’s Sept. 10, 2008 issue reported that the owner and managers of the plant are also being charged with 9,000 misdemeanors alleging they hired minors and had children handling dangerous equipment such as circular saws, meat grinders, and power shears.

You really can’t make this stuff up.  Yet many businesses are sitting on similar powder kegs in one form or another.

Agriprocessors responded by firing their CEO, hiring an expensive compliance officer, and finding a high-priced public relations agency from New York City.  Then they began trying to rebuild their credibility. 

Their marketing included a nationwide advertising campaign, media access to their facility, and tours of their plant and the community they reside in by a group of 25 prominent Rabbis.  The Rabbis had unfettered access to the plant, spoke with Agriprocessors’ employees, and met with community leaders. 

The media and Rabbis found a clean plant that was packaging quality Kosher products, contented employees, and a community that loves the company.

So why is their business on the brink of becoming number two, or three, or worse? Competitors are just waiting in the wings for the eventual miscue and an ever-so-slight opening.

It’s the same old song and dance:
- CEOs and “their” people run the business without thinking about the impact of all their actions

- These leaders make mistakes they should have discovered and corrected on their own

- They get exposed and then spend a bunch of money buying a slick advertising campaign and impressive words to gain back credibility

Sometimes it works, but why let things get to that point, especially when the company is pretty much doing the right things in the first place.  Good PR looks like this:

- Let it be clear that actions speak louder than words.  A proactive public relations strategy involves saying things that the company really stands for.  A company’s public relations strategy should reflect all of the values that leadership holds dear. 

- A good public relations consultant can sniff out the BS and feed back to senior leadership that the messages he/she wants to use are not reflected in the reality of the company.  When a company learns this reality, they can change directions and adjust their actions to the words they want to say.

- Be prepared for a crisis.  Every company should have an idea of the five worst things that can happen to them.  A PR response plan should be developed around these crisis situations and they should be practiced enough times to know you’ll get it right when THE day arrives.

- Get ahead of the bow wave of publicity.  Don’t wait for some hidden adversary to fill the void.  The issue for Agriprocessors was illegal immigrant labor, not the quality of their product or kosher status.  Why allow activists to use your company to further their cause.

- Every business regardless of size should have consistent access to professional public relations consultants.  This alleviates all the mistakes that inherently come from living in the industry and company bubble, and losing sensitivity to the outside world, which is ultimately the world you need to succeed. 

- To operate a business without the strategic insights of a public relations expert is asking for trouble.  Not only are you unprepared for a disaster, you’re missing things that could have avoided the crisis in the first place.

Don’t read the newspaper and say, “I’m glad that’s not me.”  Odds are, it will be some day.  It’s Murphy’s Law and no one is immune to it.  If that day is tomorrow, will you be ahead of the curve, or suffer a major, expensive setback?

Public Relations vs. Marketing

Who Stepped Up: The Green Bay Packers - Brett Favre debacle showed us two things: waffling about retirement can cause bad blood, and marketing is not public relations. 

For the legions of business people who could never quite put their finger on the difference between marketing and public relations, you can thank Brett Farve for the clear distinction.

If marketing were public relations, the Packers’ would have simply turned to their top-notch marketing team and said “fix this.”  Instead, they wisely hired public relations professional Ari Fleischer to get them through the media firestorm and to help them quickly regain the confidence and trust they lost with their fans.  Fleischer, a former White House spokesman, now runs Ari Fleischer Sports Communications.

Each day I execute marketing and public relations tactics for clients, and there is a major difference between the two.

The Packers hired a PR professional because their marketing team, while expert at creating, packaging, pricing, promoting and selling their product, could not:

- Create and execute a short-range and long-range public relations strategy that addresses the unforeseen bumps, or mountain, in the road.

- Arrange and manage a high-level press briefing with the world watching. (Trust me, this has been attempted, and it isn’t pretty.)

- Craft messages throughout each stage of the crisis that put the Packers’ best foot forward.  If the media chooses to look for the other foot, that’s their business.  Give them your best foot.  That’s human nature, not spin.

- Prep General Manager Ted Thompson and Coach Mike McCarthy on questions to expect and how to answer them; on how to answer follow-up questions; on how to handle absurd questions while the world is watching; on how to handle hypothetical questions; and on how to bridge back to main points in order to keep a tight, consistent message.

- Conduct media training for key players the media want access to.  When done correctly, the team leaders speak as one and quickly gain back fan confidence and respect which was lost at the beginning of the debacle.  Leaders need to lead when the chips are down.  The PR pro sets the stage for that to happen.  Letting everyone “say their piece” off the cuff makes for great media entertainment at your expense.

- Help management understand the long-range upside to staying engaged with and open to the media, even when they feel the media is causing the problem.  Ninety-nine percent of the time, if the media is at your doorstep, you’ve given them a reason.  Knowing how to work with them decides how much pain you’ll have to endure and how long you’ll have to endure it.

- Help reporters shape their stories, sometimes turning off unwanted stories by helping them see issues they were previously unaware of.

- Walk into a very intimidating editorial board and win or break even.

- Reach out to influential bloggers who may be willing to listen to the Packers’ side of the story, and make well-prepped management and stars available for interviews.

- Develop and maintain a blog or website that provides up-to-date information on the situation, and quickly dispels rumor with fact.

- Identify and reach out to groups that support the Packers’ decision and make sure their voice is heard through the Packers’ communications mechanisms, as well as the media.

Marketing is researching, creating, packaging, pricing, promoting and selling a product or service.

Public relations is the mechanism effective organizations use to adjust to current events and reach and persuade their critical audiences, and shore up their supporters.  When important people and groups lack understanding of an organization due to ignorance, prejudice, or third-party distortions, they need to be reached through appropriate channels with accurate and compelling information that connects with them. 

Are you using a marketing person for a public relations problem when you should be hiring an Ari Fleischer?

Website Design Determines Search Engine Results

Who Stepped In It: There’s nothing more disappointing than finding out your “great investment” wasn’t so great.  That’s the conversation I had several times in the past month with smart, successful business owners in Virginia Beach and Norfolk who came to realize the website they purchased for a great price wasn’t a great deal.

In essence, they bought a brick and mortar store for a great price, then found out it’s located in the middle of nowhere with no roads leading to it.  Invisible.  Nothing.  Zero.  Their location makes Timbuktu look local. 

These business owners want websites that rank high in major search engines in order to help with their branding, marketing and public relations.  However, their websites were built in “frames,” which means the websites will have problems being found by search engines. 

Search engine robots and spiders look for complete web pages which contain unique meta tags.  Websites designed with frames usually have none of these, making them blank slates and you invisible. 

The competition for page one and two of major search engines is intense.  You may have the desire to get there, but you better back it with a website designer who knows what he or she is doing or you’ll end up on page 27 — joining hands with members of the Invisible & Frustrated Web Club.

Good website design leads to good web marketing which leads to potential customers.  When hiring a website designer or web marketing company, ask the following three questions.  If the answer to all three is yes, you’re in good hands.  If not, you’ll be investing in a website design that will not rank high in major search engines and never create the web marketing and public relations you’re looking for.

Questions for website design companies:

- Do you understand how search engines operate on the technical level?

- Can you design a website that is search engine friendly?

- Can you demonstrate real-time search results you have achieved for your clients, nationally, regionally and locally over Google, Yahoo and MSN?

There are many businesses in Virginia Beach, Norfolk and Chesapeake with no desire to have a large web presence.  Their public relations strategy calls for driving potential customers directly to their website by listing the address in their marketing and advertising efforts. 

However, if your business plan calls for potential customers to find you through search engines, you’ll need a website designed to satisfy their spiders and robots.

Is your website designed to increase branding, leads and sales; or is it designed to make you the next Houdini?

Who Stepped Up

Money Follows Knowledge, So Blog:  If you like a huge return on investment and are an expert in your field, you may like blogging more than you think.  Blogs showcase your knowledge (and business) better than any public relations tool available — and they’re free.

An increasing number of professionals are stepping up to blog to increase their brand and public relations, and to help others.  However, a majority of professionals are still hesitant to blog because of some common misconceptions.  Following are some important facts to know about professional blogging:

Myth: I have to blog three to four times a week to be effective.
Fact:  You can blog once every two weeks and be very effective.

Myth: I have to be technically savvy to set up and operate a blog.
Fact:  Blogs can be set up in less than 20 minutes by someone who’s never done it before.  If you can operate a TV/DVD remote control, you can click through the blog set-up steps.  If you run into problems, ask your teenager, niece, nephew or neighbor. 

Myth:  I’m too busy to blog. 
Fact:   An hour or two every two weeks is all it takes.  Good blogs take less time and are more effective than many networking efforts.  You will reach more people and actually save time by blogging.

Myth: I’ll look silly if no one participates in my blog.
Fact:  The intent of your blog is to showcase your expertise and help those who need your information.  Whether 0 or 100 people jump into the conversation does not reflect on the impact of your blog or diminish the value of your expertise.  Most blogs have far more readers than participants.

Myth: Dealing with the comments will be time consuming.
Fact:  Comments from legitimate readers and annoying spammers will come to your e-mail inbox.  Delete them.  Every few days log into your blog and delete or accept the comments.  This takes less than five minutes.

Myth: Blogs look messy and have too many buttons and ads; I don’t want to present myself that way.
Fact: You don’t need ads.  The beauty of blogs is that you control it.  It can be clean, easy to read, and free of ads and other distracting items.  If you don’t want a busy looking blog, don’t add distractions.  Keep your content pure and your design simple.

Myth: I already have a good website.  Why do I need a blog?
Fact: Websites are a great 24/7 public relations tool, but for the most part they’re justifiably static and take way more effort and knowledge to update than a blog, which is click and post.  A blog gives potential clients and reporters a living document that showcases your expertise and line of thinking in a current context.  Plus, having two separate items that search engines can find, a blog and a website, gives you a powerful one-two punch when potential customers or reporters are looking for an expert.

Myth:  Blogs are dull and impersonal.
Fact:  Blogs allow your true personality to shine through.  Your audience will really get to know you and how you approach your business.  You will develop a connection with a large audience of potential customers in a manner that is second only to personal contact.

Positioning yourself as an expert in your industry with a blog offers many benefits with little downside, especially as more and more potential clients and influential reporters use search engines to find experts on everything under the sun. 

Internet territory and audiences are being developed and going quickly.  Have you staked your claim?

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