Content. That word scares a lot of dealerships. They’re told they need it from every vendor, at every conference and in every article. They need it for SEO, for blogs, social media, and their website. Advertisements? No problem. They have tons of cars and know what is a good deal in their market. They have ad agencies designing the ads and helping to assemble them. Content, however, is a mystery. They don’t know where it is or how to get it.

Content isn’t a mystery. Content, in fact, is easier to get than all the intricate details you need for an advertisement. It’s not the Loch Ness Monster. You don’t have to find it. It finds you.

So where is it? Content is in life.

Your lives, and dealership, are filled with all the content you could ever need. Your employees all have stories. Your dealership creates them everyday. Your customers contribute to it. Your community is filled with it. Your manufacturer creates it for you.

If you’re struggling with finding content, here are four places to start:

1. Employees – All of your employees have a wealth of content. They all come from different places and their lives have taken all of them down different paths. Your employees are your dealership. Only they can give your dealership a personality and experience that sets you apart from your competitors. Without them, your dealership is just another place where someone could buy a car. Tap into your employees’ lives. Find out what makes them unique, how they got into the car business, what they like to do and why. Then tell the world. Your employees will appreciate the recognition; you’ll begin differentiating yourself from other car dealers and have great content to share.
2. Customers – Your customer like to hear stories about your customers. Does that make sense? Some of the most engaging content on social media from dealerships is pictures of other customers taking delivery of cars. I’m certainly not saying you should limit content to this type. Your customers also have different stories and, if asked right, some will be willing to share them. Ask them if you can interview them. Why did they choose your dealership? Why did they choose your brand or a particular car? How was their experience? You will also have customers who give you content without you asking. Those would be reviews left for your dealership on various review sites. Not only does this reinforce to potential customers that your dealership is a good place to do business, it also provides great content for all your needs; whether that’s on a blog, in a newsletter or on a social media site.
3. Manufacturer – Your manufacturer provides content constantly. They send information about new models, various trim levels and new features. They pump out commercials, how-to videos, announcements and images. Look at their YouTube channel and you’ll find content. Their website is also filled with content which is not limited to vehicle information. You’ll see how they’re interacting with their audience and if their involved in charity work. All of this is great content to share with your customers. It instills value and creates brand loyalty.
4. Community – Your dealership is part of your community just as your community is part of your dealership. Get involved in events and charities. Find opportunities to give back to your community. You could hold a food drive, participate in car shows or help local school organizations with fundraisers. Even if you don’t get involved financially, you can support these efforts using the power of your marketing that already exists. If you give back to your community, they will give back to you.
5. Google – It may sound obvious but many people overlook the power of Google to provide content. I guarantee you that you’ll find new and relevant content on a daily basis. There are articles written about your brand, car reviews, spy shots, cool or funny pictures that you can share that are never ending. Do a Google search daily for news, blogs and images. Limit the search to results from the last 24 hours. You’ll always find something. If it interests you, it’ll interest your audience.

Don’t get intimidated by content. Publishing content will benefit you by creating an online presence for your dealership. It will also transform your dealership from a place that sells cars, to a place that people want to do business with.

About a month ago, Time Warner Cable blacked out CBS in several major markets including Los Angeles, New York and Dallas, because of a dispute with CBS over pricing for retransmission fees. Both sides, of course, point fingers at the other with CBS saying that Time Warner Cable is not willing to pay fair value for their content. While Time Warner Cable is screaming that they’re overcharging. Similar to a parental dispute, caught in this mix are the children; Time Warner Cable & CBS customers. Customers have actually sued Time Warner Cable stating that Time Warner is depriving them of content they want, while still charging them full subscription rates. As Time Warner scrambles to appease its customers through replacement programming and… wait for it… free antennas, CBS is sitting back watching the millions of people being deprived of their content.

You know you’re in a bad spot when you’re a cable provider charging a premium to deliver content to people and have to offer them antennas to watch the content. Antennas which they could have used to get the content for free to begin with… on their own… without you. That would be like a bottled water company telling you to drink from the kitchen sink.

Regardless of the outcome, there are some lessons to be learned from both of them.

Content is king. Bottom line. CBS has the product that Time Warner’s customers are paying them to deliver. They’re the newspaper not giving the news out to the paperboy. Customers aren’t blaming CBS for the lack of content. They’re blaming Time Warner. The fact is that great content has tons of benefits for a business. Content… no… GOOD content provides everything from SEO value, social media and exposure, to blog traffic and press attention. In this case, Time Warner may have started with the upper hand since many shows are off for the season. So, the content that consumers were missing wasn’t as valued. That’s slowly changing as popular TV show season premieres and the NFL football season gets closer to beginning. I expect Time Warner customers will get more irate and vocal when they’re not able to watch their Dallas Cowboys or New York Giants playing football or get their weekly Homeland fix on Showtime. Even Wall Street is betting on CBS as “CBS shareholders have become richer while TWC shareholders have become poorer”, according to a Forbes article.

Our economy is based on supply and demand. In this case, CBS has the supply and it’s in demand. We can all safely predict that the reinstatement of CBS content on Time Warner cable is all but guaranteed. CBS will have more incentive to compromise as the loss of substantial advertising revenue from football and primetime broadcast shows increase. Time Warner will be increasingly under the gun to provide that programming to its customers.

In the end, I believe Time Warner will ultimately bear the brunt of the consumer back lash since they are not delivering the promised content. CBS just needs to sit back and listen to the applause once their content is restored.  

As the fall conference season approaches for the automotive industry, many vendors miss opportunities for exposure. Owning a public relations agency, my job is to maximize my client’s exposure to their audience. Conferences offer more potential customers for my clients, concentrated in a single place at a single time, than just about any other marketing opportunity. However, many vendors neglect opportunities to not only reach clients attending the conference but those who aren’t.

Vendors do all sorts of marketing and invest tons of money to have a presence at these conferences: from sponsorships, to booths and lavish parties designed to attract dealers. Most of them, however, neglect one no cost or low cost activity they should be engaging in: social media.

Even vendors who do participate in social media tend to focus solely on salesy type messages ineffectively designed to drive traffic to their booths. If you’ve ever watched a twitter feed for a conference, a high percentage of tweets from vendors tend to be to the effect of “Come to our booth and win an iPad”… over and over, the same message is broadcast. There is no “social” involved in this. It’s simply broadcasting. Most vendors know that the continuous posting of sales messages via social media is bad practice yet, for some reason, it becomes acceptable at conferences.

So how do you successfully use social media in a conference? Here are some tips.

1. Have a Presence – I’m always amazed at the number of vendors that have booths or speaking sessions that have virtually no social media presence at conferences whatsoever. And this even includes some social media companies. Having a presence on social media is just as mandatory as having signage at your booth. You wouldn’t just set-up a table with a couple folding chairs, right? Learn what hashtags the conference is using and make sure to include them in all of your tweets.
2. Be Proactive – Many vendors wait until the week prior to the conference, or even the beginning of the actual conference to start having a presence on social media. The fact is that the audience you want to reach is having conversations on social media up to a month or more before the conference. They’re talking about sessions they’re looking forward to, scheduling meet-ups with their peers, and generally being excited. At this point in time, there is very little noise by vendors and it’s easy to have your message heard, if done correctly.
3. Engage – Don’t simply broadcast a message. Join conversations. Talk to attendees on social media. I don’t mean invite them to your booth. I mean welcome them, tell them how you’re also excited. Talk about sessions you’d like to see or things you’re looking forward to. Not only does this create a more personal connection to the audience, but it gives your company an online personality and may present opportunities for you to actually make friends. We all know this is a relationship business, so why not start by trying to create relationships?
4. Content – Both attendees and non-attendees watch social media for content. Yes, they see your “come to our booth” message; but I guarantee you that they scroll right past that. Many conferences offer multiple sessions within the same block of time that forces attendees to choose. This choice means they may be missing content from a concurrent session. In addition, dealers who didn’t have the opportunity to attend are also watching. These conferences are designed as learning opportunities and even though a dealer may not be there, that doesn’t mean they don’t want to learn. Attend some sessions and actually tweet content from the speaker. If your company actually has a speaker, you certainly want to be in those rooms tweeting the content. You don’t have to limit yourself to one session, however. I guarantee you that if your company is tweeting actual session content, people will be paying attention to what you’re saying. That’s what they want to hear. Why wouldn’t you want to be the one they’re listening to?
5. Avoid repetition – Have a plan in place prior to the conference for social media coverage throughout. It’s ok to announce events going on at your booth (like the iPad giveaway.) However, repeating that message continuously not only makes people less likely to listen to you, but can also have the opposite effect to the one that you want. Attendees may get annoyed and want to avoid you altogether.
6. Balance Your Content – In addition to your sales messages, (which, again, should be the minority of your content,) there’s a plethora of content available to you. Take photos of your booth, employees, and customers. Tweet actual conference content (i.e. Session content). Take general conference pictures or the exhibit hall, networking events, parties, etc. Attendees love this. As will people who wanted to attend but couldn’t be there.
7. Join the Fun – My best advice is to use social media at a conference as if you were an attendee not a vendor. The fact that you’re using it from a company Twitter account will provide you exposure to attendees and begin to build relationships with them. They will appreciate you and pay attention to what you’re saying. The conference itself will appreciate your efforts and you may get additional exposure through retweets and other shares from the conference itself.

Social media is an invaluable way to gain exposure to not only attendees, but also potential clients that are not in attendance. However, that is only if done correctly. With appropriate involvement in any conferences social media activity, you’ll gain more exposure, build relationships and generate goodwill amongst the very people you want to... and isn’t that exactly what you’re trying to accomplish?

July 2013 saw history happen -- and it happened with flying sharks. The Syfy Network aired what has been universally reviewed as a horrible movie about sharks caught in a tornado that then go on a flying shark rampage. The show was cheaply made and had almost no viewers (including the actors that were in it).

Yet, this movie, according to SyFy channel owners, NBC Universal, was the ‘most social program on all television…’ According to The Independent, Sharknado saw 5,000 tweets per minute with 318,232 tweets by over 100,000 tweeters; and that’s just while it aired. There are now over 14 million results on Google for Sharknado. Celebrities were joining in and people who would’ve ignored this cut-rate gorefest were clamoring for a rerun.

Man-eating flying sharks caught in a tornado are not exactly my movie genre of choice but, as an expert on Public Relations, this cultural event certainly made me ponder what lessons, if any, could be learned.

Lesson #1: You don’t need a big budget to get big results. Sharknado can’t even remotely be considered a blockbuster. In fact, it was produced for an estimated $1-$2 million, according to The Boston Globe. That left very little budget, if any for promotion. It’s more like the equivalent of photocopying flyers for your cars and placing them on the table by the front door in your dealership. The lesson to be learned is that the important thing is to take action. Whether that means you do your own social media, create your own ad campaigns, do your own press releases or hire a professional firm to do these things, just do it.

Lesson #2: The Right People Can Make A Big Difference. While you may not have the connections to get celebrities tweeting about your store, you do have influencers in your circles. You have customers and employees you interact with on a daily basis that may have influence in social media that you aren’t even aware of. The trick is identifying them. The only way to do that is to pay attention. It’s a given that you have little chance to achieve any social media exposure if your dealership doesn’t have a presence on social media. Make sure that you’re taking advantage of social media in your marketing and branding.

Lesson #3: It Doesn’t Have To Be Amazing To Be Talked About. In no way did the executives that green-lighted Sharknado ever believe they had a potential blockbuster; but they made it anyways. Why? Because it fit their demographic.  Are you creating content, ads, offers and marketing messages that fit your demographic? It’s sort of like bacon and cats on social media. For some reason, people love to talk and share about these topics on social media. In no way am I suggesting you start posting pictures of bacon and cats on your Facebook page. What I am saying is that you need to pay attention to what your customers respond to and tailor your content to what they want to see, not necessarily what you want to tell them.  

It’s implausible to think that some studio executive green-lighted this movie with the thought that this was going to be a blockbuster. This was more likely an exercise in content creation to fill their channel with original programming and, because they created that content, they got scored.

Lesson #4: You Can’t Win If You Don’t Play. Sharknado was Syfy winning the lottery. They paid the $2 and happened to win. While it doesn’t happen often, it does happen! They understood that. In the world of public relations, our job is to get your message out in a way that generates buzz and to get it in the hands of the right people. I’m certainly not saying that hiring a public relations firm is like buying a lottery ticket. What I am saying is that good public relations firms have the connections and contacts appropriate to your business that can maximize the chances of success. Even if you have made the decision to do it yourself, there are many services that, for a premium, can deliver your content into the right hands. If people don’t see it, however, you’ll never have any chance of winning.

Lesson #5: Exposure Can Equal Success. Sharknado was destined to be late-night content for a cable network that their demographic would view but fate intervened. Public relations is about getting your message heard by the right people.  There are many ways we go about accomplishing this including press releases, relevant and timely blog articles and social media. Having a comprehensive mixture to deliver your message is integral to maximizing its reach and success.

This horrible movie will become a part of our pop culture for years to come and, it will do this because someone at the Syfy Network decided to create the right content for the network’s audience no matter how bad they thought it was going to be. And, because they did, they happened to get lucky on social media. There is no better example of nothing turning into something than this…

Until Sharknado 2 comes out, that is.

Press releases are a great way to promote and disseminate information about your company.  I’ve written many articles on how to write and optimize press releases to increase the chance of being discovered amongst the hundred or thousands published every day. Most of the major press release services offer premium add-ons that will deliver your release to countless journalists and industry professionals. The only problem is they receive so many that there’s a very good chance yours won’t get the attention it deserves.

While these press release distribution services such as PRWEB should absolutely be used, especially the ones that are good for SEO purposes, social media can be used to boost the effectiveness of any press release. Social media has the ability to not only distribute and promote your press release to a more relevant audience; but to also target people and organizations you believe will be more interested. In addition, using social media to promote your press releases gives your networks the opportunity to assist you in the distribution.

There are 5 key networks that can assist you in promoting your press releases: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and Pinterest.

Facebook has many opportunities to get a press release distributed to those that are most likely to have interest in the subject. Many PR agencies and companies already post their press releases on their business pages. But what many professionals neglect is to post their press releases on their personal profiles as well. Many people have networks on Facebook that include a large number of members from their industries.  These personal profiles aren’t fighting Facebook’s algorithm as much for exposure to their network’s newsfeeds as business pages are.

Take advantage of Promoted Posts on your business page to give press releases a boost into extended networks. In addition, with the introduction of hashtags by Facebook, you should be including some industry relevant hashtags to further increase the opportunities of being discovered by relevant people. Make sure you don’t simply post the headline of your press release when sharing. The headline will appear when you include the link so you have the ability to share an interesting quote or fact from within the body of the release while still showing the headline.

As far as Twitter is concerned, many press release services offer the ability to immediately tweet on publication. However, as in all marketing, you need to tweet your press release multiple times and on multiple days. Research and know what hashtags are relevant and active in the appropriate industry as well. Try and mix your messages so that the tweets aren’t all duplicates. As with Facebook, utilize not only the headline, but also interesting and relevant points within the body of the press release itself.  

LinkedIn is also a valuable resource for press releases. In addition to posting your personal profile, you should have a company page you can use to post your press releases. Also, research and identify relevant groups you can join. Make sure the groups are not only industry relevant but also include media resources.

Google+, while not nearly as active as the aforementioned networks, is an excellent way to gain some SEO benefits via gaining +1s. On Google+, a +1 is similar to a “like” on Facebook. Google interprets them as identifiers of relevant content for search engine result purposes. Just like with all social networks, make sure to share on not only your business profiles, but your personal profiles as well.

Last, but certainly not least, is Pinterest. Pinterest is a valuable way to get some additional exposure to your release. By including relevant images with your press release (as I wrote about in this recent article), you can optimize your release by following a few simple rules. First, make sure your image file’s name, the board’s name and description includes relevant keywords to optimize the chances that your content will be discovered and potentially re-pinned (shared).

In all of these postings, don’t be afraid to ask for action on the part of the audience. There’s nothing wrong with asking for a share, retweet, or +1. In fact, studies show that posts with requests get shared exponentially more than posts with no call to action.

By utilizing these social media networks and techniques I’ve outlined, you greatly increase the exposure of the press release and reduce the chances of it getting lost in all the noise. The easier you make it for relevant people to discover your message, the better the results will be.

Sounds ridiculous, right? It’s real, however. A case study involving a pizza joint in New York has shown that offering ridiculous rewards can pay off. This particular pizza joint has several “over-the-top” rewards but none as much so as the promise of a free Ferrari delivered to you with your millionth purchase. What? Let’s put this into perspective. If a person were to make one purchase per day, it would take 2,740 YEARS to earn a free Ferrari. Obviously, it’s an impossible goal. What does it accomplish then? Their program is customer-relationship based so customers earn points towards rewards based on visits, not on the amount of money spent. These rewards gain attention not only from new and existing customers, but also through word of mouth. Everyone wants a free Ferrari, right? Their program also has some reachable rewards but even those are unique and fun. Rather than simply a free pizza or drink, it includes such items as engraved plaques for tables with the customer’s name. They also rely heavily on social media marketing to spread interest in their program. People think its fun and cool. It also gets them attention and gains them new customers through new enrollees in their rewards program despite the fact that at least one of these rewards is unreachable (and the customers know it).

Pizza joints must have different laws to follow in regards to their loyalty programs as I don’t know if a car dealership could get away with such a thing. I caution any car dealership who thinks about adding an unattainable offering to their existing loyalty program such a this to run it by their legal counsel, loyalty program administration company or compliance officer first. However, there’s something to be said about adding creative, outside-the-box rewards to your loyalty program. Making your program more interesting with creative rewards could add a little excitement and fun to it. Customers today are getting so used to businesses with loyalty cards/programs that’s its not as novel as it used to be. While any customer appreciates the free oil change they earned, it’s not something they particularly strive harder to achieve.

Being different can make you stand out from the crowd and gain attention that you otherwise might not have received. It also has the ability to generate new business simply out of excitement over the rewards. It’s marketable and, because of this, people will be more likely to share information about your program with their friends and family.

What kind of rewards would excite you? 

On Monday, June 3, Chrysler had a choice to make. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration asked them to recall 1993-2004 Jeep Grand Cherokees and 2007 Jeep Libertys, according to this article in USA Today.  In this case, Chrysler didn’t agree with the data presented.  Not only that; but due to the reason for the recall; many speculated that Chrysler didn’t know how to fix the problem based on the vehicles’ design.

So now Chrysler had a dilemma. Should they comply with the NHTSA and issue a recall that they believe is based on bad data and which could cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Or should they refuse the recall, take their chances in court and expose themselves to what could be years of bad PR and severe damage to their reputation?

What is an automakers reputation worth? In this age of “safety first,” I would argue that “perception is reality.” A public that perceives a manufacturer’s vehicles to be unsafe will be less inclined to purchase their vehicles. This of course hurts sales across the board, increases ammunition for their competitors and will inevitably cost them market share.

I’m relatively certain that their public relations firm advised them that an event of this magnitude would take years to overcome. Chrysler has rebuilt itself from the brink of bankruptcy in 2009, (with more than a little help from the U.S. Government and taxpayers) to a company that is worth almost $6 billion today. To now turn around and defy the same administration that helped it would be akin to a stab in the back. With Fiat currently owning 58.5% of Chrysler and looking to purchase another 41.5% from the auto worker’s union, the PR damage would extend beyond Chrysler. Fiat intends to merge the two brands, which will create the 7^th largest auto-group by sales.

I’m fairly sure that Fiat doesn’t want to begin their purchase with damaged goods.  Even though the recall could end up costing hundreds of millions, that’s nothing compared to the $30 billion+ that Fiat has spent to acquire the remaining percentage that they will soon own.

From a public relations perspective, not only would the refusal to comply with the NHTSA hurt the Chrysler brand; it could also affect the Fiat brand. Fiat is currently the majority stakeholder in the automaker and consumers will inevitably end up equating any negative actions by Chrysler with the Fiat brand and visa-versa.

Hopefully, Chrysler will make the decision to preserve their brand integrity despite the high price tag. Consumer trust is hard to gain but easy to lose.

In my last article, I discussed what a Public Relations firm does. One of those tasks, which I hope you never need but is important to understand, is crisis management. Not every company is going to go off the deep end like Amy’s Baking Company, or something worse. BUT, most companies will experience crisis of varying degrees throughout their business’s lives. So, whether you use a Public Relations firm or not, I thought this article might be useful in guiding you towards successfully handling and minimizing any damage.

Create a Plan Before Taking Action!

This is extremely important as many companies react without considering the ramifications of those actions. Assemble all your management staff and analyze the situation. Decide just how damaging the crisis could be and make sure, before anyone leaves, that there is a plan in place and everyone knows it. If you have a Public Relations firm, make sure that they are involved and help guide you. Ensure that everyone knows the official response, but choose one person to be the spokesperson for this crisis and stick with it. Just like the game of telephone, the more people you have answering questions, the more likely it will be that things get changed. After this initial management meeting, hold a company-wide meeting and mandate that nobody is to speak about this to any media, or address it in any way. Let them know who the spokesperson is and tell them to refer any questions to that person.

Discover the Problem

Make sure you identify the true problem, not just the reason for the crisis. Identify where it began, what went wrong and why.

Take Action – Fast!

In today’s world of social media, news can, and will, spread like wildfire. Be prepared to act fast. The longer you take to act, the more oxygen you allow to fuel the fire. Reassure the public that you are aware of the problem and are addressing it. Make sure that you are accurate and honest in your response and the information included. If you’re not, people will find out and you’ll only make matters worse. Your statement should also be brief. There’s no need to elaborate or write a thesis. Say what needs to be said but do it as concisely as possible.

Do Not Neglect Online Activity

Make sure that you are monitoring every social media channel, blogs and any media coverage regarding the crisis. Make sure that your statement is heard on all of them. There are many free tools available that will monitor the Internet for your company’s name and other relevant keywords that you can use to assist you with this. Overall, you should always be doing this; but it’s especially important during a crisis situation.

Hopefully, you’ll never face a crisis that warrants this type of attention. That being said, even the smallest of issues, in the hands of the wrong person, can be blown out of proportion. For example, something may have happened to a customer, or a friend of a customer that you may consider small, or may not even be aware of. However, this customer is extremely upset and feels the need to make this known. This customer could ,have the knowledge and ability to spread the story, and it can damage your reputation above and beyond any negative online review ever could. People can be extremely vigilant and ruthless in their quest for “justice”.​

I hope that the tips provided above are helpful.  The most important lesson to learn is to be prepared and to react analytically with a cool head and well formed plan. 

​Many people really don’t know exactly what a Public Relations firm does. The common answer is “write press releases,” but I can guarantee you public relations firms do not sit around all day and just write press releases (or at least good ones). So what, exactly, do we do?

As defined by the Public Relations Society of America, Public Relations is all of the following:

• “Anticipating, analyzing and interpreting public opinion, attitudes and issues that might impact, for good or ill, the operations and plans of the organization.

• Counseling management at all levels in the organization with regard to policy decisions, courses of action and communication, taking into account their public ramifications and the organization’s social or citizenship responsibilities.

• Researching, conducting and evaluating, on a continuing basis, programs of action and communication to achieve the informed public understanding necessary to the success of an organization’s aims. These may include marketing; financial; fund raising; employee, community or government relations; and other programs.

• Planning and implementing the organization’s efforts to influence or change public policy. Setting objectives, planning, budgeting, recruiting and training staff, developing facilities — in short, managing the resources needed to perform all of the above.”

That’s all well and good but HOW do we do all of this?

A good public relations firm will leverage its relationships and networks to gain a client exposure through all avenues available in free media; which includes the writing of press releases, pitches and speeches.

It will assist clients with promotional campaigns, media interviews, and help mitigate damages in a company crisis.

It utilizes social media as a means to help craft your company’s personality and gain exposure to your existing audience, as well as to penetrate their networks.

It assists clients with content writing, from something as simple as a compelling product description, to something as complex as an in-depth article for publication.

And, most importantly, it will craft compelling stories and use them to get your company maximum attention by leveraging influencers and their media contacts. There are many public relations firms in existence and you should be careful when selecting one. Make sure that they are in tune with your industry and “get” your company voice….

Oh, and do more than just write press releases.

Writing a well-constructed press release is a challenge in and of itself. There are many reasons you should be writing them and using them in your company’s marketing plan. Simply writing one isn’t enough though. To maximize the exposure your organization can get through press releases, not only must they be well written but they must also be positioned in such a way to get as much exposure as possible.

In the past, I’ve given you tips on how to utilize press releases to increase SEO, now I want to take it a step further and show you how to further optimize a press release to take your releases to the next level.

There are thousands of press releases published every day. Unless you are paying for a premium distribution feature available on popular press-release sites, you have a lot of competition for exposure.

Here are some tips that could help take your press release to the next level.

1. Make sure you’re including all of the components I mentioned in my previous post, including appropriate research, use and placement of keywords. Search engines are particularly fond of the headline, subhead and lead paragraph when indexing. 
2. Include deep-links to relevant content on your (or your partner’s) website anchored to appropriate text. Do not link straight to your home page or use anchor text such as “click here”. Search engines are looking for relevance between the anchor text and the linked content.
3. Utilize images in your press release. Images make your release stand out to readers and relevant industry reporters. Search engines are also indexing your image files and your picture’s inclusion in Google Images could actually drive traffic back to your release. For this to be effective, however, you must make sure that the image’s name includes the keywords you are targeting. Don’t leave the image named IMG-123.jpg, rename it to include your keyword(s). This establishes relevance between the image and the keyword for the picture. Images could be of key people in the organization, the new product, company logos, or a myriad of other things.
4. Include multimedia in your release when possible. If your release is about a person, include a short interview. If it’s a product launch, you could include a short demo or ad.
5. Make sure to distribute your release for optimum effectiveness.

According to PR Newswire, “multimedia press releases that include photos, videos or audio generate more views, shares and clicks than text-only press releases. Adding a photo to a press release increases engagement by 14 percent; adding a video and a photo actually doubles the engagement rate. Press releases that contain photos, video and audio generate the most engagement, with 3.5 times more engagement than text-only releases.”

A properly written press release, that includes images and videos that are also optimized for search, creates a release that is more likely to be read and distributed. The combination of text, photos and videos are very powerful and it gives you three times the SEO potential as a text-only release. Give your release the tools to maximize its exposure and reach by using these techniques consistently and the results will be apparent.