Very often, we and other public relations firms get asked to “go big” and “hit the home run.”  We’re asked to miraculously get placements in Oprah and Good Morning America but as you may know, this caliber of public relations success takes time.

This is why it’s so important to make sure your public relations campaign is complete, including not only the big time goal publications, but filling it in with the little guys as well.  Here’s an example:

Bailey Gardiner has been thrilled to begin running the public relations for the creator of gummy vitamins, Hero Nutritionals, over the past few months.  If you aren’t already familiar with Hero Nutritionals’ Yummi Bears, Yummi Bears Organics or Slice of Life, the gummy vitamin for grownups, you must give them a try.  And if you’re wondering why the ladies of BG have shinier hair, an unfathomable amount of energy and glowing skin, you can attribute that to the all-too-tasty Slice of Life!

Our goal for Hero, of course, is to go big.  We’re talking Everyday with Rachael Ray, Oprah Magazine, Shape, Good Housekeeping and the likes. So the Hero Nutritionals team has been fervently sending samples across the country to win over the writers and editors of these major publications.  Just last week Carrie and Maya spent a week in New York where they met desk side with countless editors including those at Woman’s Day, the Today Show, Family Circle, Parents and Health Magazine to share with them, face to face, information and samples of Hero Nutritionals’ products.

So in the meantime, we put forth our efforts in creating a complete public relations campaign by targeting bloggers and websites with niche audiences.  Our best luck thus far has been with the ever-popular mommy bloggers and healthy living bloggers.  Within the latter category falls the even more specialized gluten-free blogs, nut-free, vegetarian and other specialty dietary needs blogs.  With more than 14 placements over the past two months garnered by working within these niche categories, a few stand out:

On January 21st, Stephanie secured inclusion for Slice of Life in a Health.com article on vitamins you’re not getting enough of.  The following week, this article had boosted Hero’s website visitors bringing 159 visits to the site on its own, making health.com the 6th top referring site for the month of January and the 1st top referring site behind search and other Hero Nutritionals’ websites.

A giveaway in FabulousFunFinds.com led to three other postings on blogs that blog strictly about giveaways.  This placement alone, though, brought 47 visits to the site, making it the 14th top referring site for the month of January in just a matter of days.

With both of these placements hitting after January 15th, they make great examples of an often-overlooked part of a PR plan – the very short-term, long tail placements that complete a public relations campaign. We’ll waste no time while Oprah snacks on her gummy vitamin samples.  We believe that placements such as these are imperative in completing a successful public relations plan by finding those purchasers who know exactly what they’re looking for.

When working with your public relations firm of choice, I hope you’ll take these tips into consideration:

• Be sure that your timeline not only fills the team’s or consultant’s retainer fee, but results in placements when you want them (all the time or surrounding one major announcement).

• Make sure your team or consultant is reaching not only the most people they can but the most people that will convert as well.

• Allot room in your budget for social media.  This can boost the buzz surrounding your PR and fill in some of those quiet holes.

• Consider the “outdated” means of publicity as well.  Not all products’ customers are online.  Consider radio, newspaper and even….books.

• Consider more than just your primary product to get you in the news.  Is your spokesperson an expert in his/her field for bylined articles or speaking opportunities?  Do you have such passionate fans that they’ll start social media pages for you?

Do you have more suggestions to add?

I was excited to watch the snowboarding in the Olympics last night.  Just before the first boarder took to the half pipe I watched him pull out his ipod, quickly pick a song, and slide it back into his Burton jacket.  I turned to my husband, “He’s listening to his ipod  while he competes in the Olympics.  I wonder what he’s listening to.”

But the attention last night was on Shaun White, the second boarder of the night.  He’s the biggest name in snowboarding and it was his packaged feature story that led into the evening’s competition.  Anyone who was making a point to watch the Olympic snowboarding had their eyes on Shaun White.  So when he pulled out his iphone just seconds after ending his run, I had to ask, “what could be so important right now that he would need to look at his phone!?”

So I wonder, was apple behind all of this?  If so, I applaud their creativity and I recognize that this is where advertising is going.  Product placement has been around since before Elliot brought Reeses Pieces to ET but what’s changing is that products no longer just have to show up, they have to influence the viewer.  When Louis Vito pulled out his ipod, I made the association that his ipod helped him perform.  He NEEDED his ipod.

A recent Adage article talks about product placement and how common it is becoming in our everyday TV, movie and gaming content.  While it used to be stealth, a Pepsi can in the background of the set or a pair of Nike shoes on the main character, it’s now become a more influential part of our content.  Rather than being built into the content, content is being built around it.  The article claims, “At some point, ads and shows might blur so much that the notion of a ‘commercial break’ becomes a silly, antiquated thing of the past.”  If you ask me, it will be a very long time before commercials cease to exist but without a doubt, product placement will prevail and in more creative and brilliant ways than we’ve ever seen in the past.

It’s really the antithesis of SEO because it leads you to believe that we’re just talking about one word around which to base all of your content.  In most cases, you’ll get nowhere with one word, there’s just too much competition. Today we’re throwing the tricks of the SEO trade out of the window and getting back to the basics to remind ourselves that, aside from stellar content, increasing traffic to your blog is all about the niche keyword.

The goal is to find the “word” (more typically a phrase) that is so niche to your site that very few people use it but just enough people search it, bringing them directly to your site.

If your company has a blog, you are in an excellent position to increase traffic to your blog via search because blogs provide a way for you to get to the top of search results for multiple keyword phrases.  Here’s why: Search engines judge each of your blog posts as a new page.  If every one of your pages used the same keyword phrase, you would be continuously competing against yourself and losing your niche.  By choosing a new phrase each time, you have endless opportunities to get to the top of search results for a variety of niche phrases.

For example: Don’t Drink the Koolaid Blog is all about marketing.  Our keyword phrases may include things like: “search engine marketing,” “public relations” and “San Diego advertising.”  But those are so broad they wouldn’t get us very far.  So, rather than focus our efforts on words that would cause us to compete with every marketing site in the world, we write posts about very specific things like eco-friendly marketing tips, how to use Google Analytics and social media for non-profits. After all, those terms like public relations are going to be included naturally, and naturally, Google will count them towards our SEO.

So next time you write a post, think to yourself, what would someone search that would lead to this post specifically?  It may not be what everyone searches, but for those that do search it, they will be your perfect target demographic.  That is the essence of the niche keyword phrase and this is what will increase the traffic to your blog.

You’ve heard a lot about it, search engine optimization, or SEO.  It’s the concept of tactfully changing your website or blog so that search engines are more likely to put it at the top of their results page when users search for keywords that describe it.  At Bailey Gardiner, we often take on clients’ websites to optimize them for search.  We do everything from analyzing current analytics to niche keyword research to making the changes and requesting inbound links.  While this is a job that can be best done by an expert (and quite truthfully simply requires a lot of time), I wanted to share with you how you can get started on doing SEO on your own.

These tips are most applicable for those with a blog or a website that offers consistently updated content.

Find keywords and take them seriously

Research the best keywords to use (try WordTracker) and incorporate them heavily but without being obvious to the user.  Include them in your URL, your headlines, your hyperlinks and throughout your text.  If your site is full of the same keyword the user enters in their Google search, your site will come up towards the top of the results.  It’s the most basic element of SEO and you will go nowhere without it.

Add content

If you don’t seem to have a place to naturally include those keywords that best describe the niche of your site, then make one.  Consider FAQ’s, Q&As, user reviews and a newsroom.

Submit your content to others’ sites

Offer to guest blog or submit a bylined article.  An inbound link to your site from a credible and same-industry blog or from a respected news source will count with more “points” towards your SEO than a link from a small or unknown site.

Link to yourself

Linking to your own internal pages helps steer the search engines throughout your site.  If you have one page that performs especially well but doesn’t show up often in search results, link to that one often from your own site to give it a boost.

Digg it

Links to your site tell search engines that others value your site.  When you put new content on your blog or website, immediately digg it.  That means going to http://digg.com creating a profile and digging your content.  Remember, this is a social media site so its best to digg others’ content too, but at the very least, it’s putting your content out for the public and sharing it without you having to do all the work.

Bookmark it

This is yet another way to bring inbound links. There are a lot of social bookmarking sites out there but one of the most popular is http://delicious.com.  It allows you to make a list of your favorite sites and share it. This tells search engines that someone values your website.  Each inbound link counts as “points” toward your SEO.

Share it with your networks

My guess was that you weren’t already on Digg or delicious.  My guess is that you are on Facebook, email and perhaps Twitter.  Your content should be shared with those networks as well, with the hope that those links will soar through the social media sphere leading back to your content again and again.

These are a few of the basic steps you can take to get started.  Know that there is a lot more to it and it’s an industry that is constantly changing so to really make a jump from page 10 to page one of Google may not be simply attainable on your own.

For more info on how to do SEO, start with the Google Webmaster Central, where you can download a helpful starter’s guide.

Yep.  We’re talking about social networking again.  We’re talking about it because you’re talking about it.  In fact, I can’t get away from people talking about it.  And one of the most common conversations I take part in, overhear, and judge are those about how to do it “right.” It’s social, meaning it’s casual, interactive and it’s meant for everyone. Naturally, you’re going to get some different views.   That’s OK, a lot of the ways it’s happening are right ways.  But in this post, I’d like to cut to the chase.  I’m going to lie out some foundation for building your social media marketing campaign that I just don’t think you can avoid.  And if you’re doing these things, it’s hard to do social networking wrong.

• Define your social networking goals.

Define your audience (keeping in mind that it may be different than usual) and figure out what you want them to do.  Is it a change in perception? Brand recognition? Sales? Brand loyalty?  Pick one or two, and be sure that every move you make is done to support that goal. Then, figure out how you’re going to measure that goal.

• Make a social media plan

Phases, deadlines, management, it all needs to be addressed.  Think about those things you don’t want to think about: Do you have a painful approval process? How will you break away from that?  Does your communications director have a really dry personality?  Maybe she’s not the best person for the job. How many hours do you have to respond to interaction?  What will you do for negative interaction?  Who is the backup when the one person managing the accounts gets sick?  Make sure you’ve addressed every “if.”

• Are your social networking platforms intertwining?

Social media land is a mighty big land.  If you’re going to have a blog, you might as well have a YouTube channel for when you upload video.  And if you’re going to have a Facebook account, you might as well be on twitter so the two can mingle.  And if you have something to say in one place, I’m sure you can think of a way to turn that into a picture, a video and 140 character post or a discussion topic.  Dive in, but only if it falls in line with your plan.  Each of these platforms isn’t always good for every industry, however, if you fit into one, you likely fit into another.

• How’s your content?

It better be good.  It better be just what your audience is looking for because after all, they’re the ones who decide if they’re going to be social with you.  Throw your finely edited videos, perfectly structured blog posts and photoshopped images out the window if that’s what it’s going to take for you to have good content.  And keep it balanced.  Make it personal, professional, entertaining, smart and most importantly, in line with your goals and overall voice.

• Measure your social media:

I don’t mean you have to use numbers, buy you have to do something.  Report from the very start whatever it is you’re looking for.  One of my favorite things to consider is the outcome rather than the analytics of each individual platform. A good way to do this is to look at your Google analytics to find out which of these sites is actually driving traffic to your site.  It can tell you that those people care enough to learn more or in some cases you can see exactly where they went – a sign up page or a contact page for example. If they did that, then who cares if they did or did not give your status update a thumbs up.

• Never check it off your to-do list:

Don’t stop!  Watch your overall social media work like a hawk.  Are you getting boring?  Are you still growing your fans, followers, and what-have-yous?  Are people interacting with you?  Are you meeting your goals?  You’ll need to tweak, refresh and re-access constantly.

Some great suggestions for online social networking:

We’ve talked about these topics here quite a bit because no matter how much we do, the conversation never stops.  If you’re hungry for more check out these blog posts from fellow BG bloggers:

• Callan breaks it down with a successfully executed social networking campaign by sharing her lessons learned:
• Here’s a good one from Jason. Probably should have been at the start of my post: How to know you’re ready for your social media strategy.
• And Jon writes about five tacticts for bicycle social media campaigns.  You’ll find his insights applicable to many different industries:
• If it’s just Facebook you’re looking for, have a look at Katy’s post on what to do before beginning a Facebook fan page.
• And Maya makes some awesome points in this post about throwing social media rules out the window.

And if you think I’ve missed something, please share.  But, let’s steer away from the minor details.  Remember, there’s no right or wrong way to dispel a negative tweet or no perfect balance of followers vs. following, just be sure you’re looking at the big picture.  

Last night was a big one for Bailey Gardiner.  It was the Oscars of San Diego Public Relations, if you will, the 2009 PRSA Bernays Awards.  Sitting amongst some of San Diego’s most celebrated Public Relations professionals, the team was honored to take home four prestigious awards and one chart-topping achievement for the company’s COO.

Indra Gardiner Bowers was awarded one of four special awards, the Eva Irving Award for Community Service, and well deserved it was.  Indra is currently Vice Chair of the National Conflict Resolution Center.  She’s the Vice President of Sushi, A Center for the Urban Arts, but prior to this, she’s sat on countless boards, countless committees and raised countless dollars for social good.  She’s a giver in its truest form and an inspiration to any leader. I won’t go on and on, because Jon just did in a recent post about Indra (and rightfully so) when she was honored as a nominee at San Diego Magazine’s Women Who Move the City on Wednesday.  It’s been a busy week for Indra.  Then again, what week isn’t?

It’s the leadership at Bailey Gardiner, like Indra’s, that led the company to win hard-earned awards.  Last night, BG took home four:

In the Bronze category of Media Relations, Consumer Products, BG’s work for Se San Diego took home the Excellence Award for a hotel launch that filled the clip books with national placements that make any hospitality Public Relations Pro drool.

For the company’s work with Seaport Village, BG was awarded a Bronze category Merit Award for a feature story placed on the front page of the LA Times Arts section about the art of street performing, coinciding with the annual Seaport Village Spring Busker Festival.

For promoting reputation and brand management, Bailey Gardiner was awarded the Silver category Excellence Award for its work with the San Diego Association of REALTORS®.  The team successfully promoted association President, Erik Weichelt as an expert in the real estate industry and SDAR as the leading association in the area.

Now pat yourself on the back, you’re a wise one, reading an award-winning blog.  www.dontdrinkthekoolaidblog.com was awarded the Award of Excellence in the Bronze Blog category for its effective and creative inception and continued content.

Congratulations to our award-winning clients, to the Bailey Gardiner team and to the San Diego chapter of PRSA.  In the world of Public Relations, there was much to celebrate last night.

When opportunity strikes, you have to pounce.  Like a cougar.

At Bailey Gardiner the summer means Del Mar Racetrack season and Del Mar Racetrack Season means Cougars.  When we were told there would be a stakes race at Del Mar, the longest of the entire meet, and it would be called the Cougar II Handicap (after an old horse, Cougar II), we chuckled.  Then we pounced with the creation of the Miss Cougar Del Mar contest.  And what an opportunity it was!  Miss Cougar covered all the bases in local media with TV, radio, print and online interviews.  NBC San Diego has given her a shout out in their new TV commercial and just last week we got the call that she may be making an appearance on national TV.  The media coverage resulted in 28 submissions over only four days.  Now that’s success through the most obscure of marketing.

The week of Miss Cougar Del Mar was followed by yet another obscure opportunity.  The Travelocity Gnome was coming to San Diego and Del Mar was chosen as one of his destinations.  We were to coordinate the most quirky photo opportunities for the little wooden gnome, and that we did.

As our media is changing, we’re seeing a shift in what creates news.  No longer can we give the public information.  We must now give them something to talk about.  We love work like this because we value media opportunities outside of the traditional PR plan.  We value the opportunity to get people talking, to take a risk, and to have some fun.

It’s that time again!  We’re looking for not one but two brilliant public relations interns with:

• A communications, journalism or English major in process

• Ability to work at least 15 hours/week

• Outstanding communications skills (verbal and written)

• Ability to thrive in a fast-paced, energetic, highly creative setting

• Previous PR/media experience

• An enthusiasm for social media – beyond your facebook account – we’re looking for someone who gets it from a marketing perspective and really, really loves it.

Here’s what you’ll get hands-on experience doing:

• Direct media pitching

• Writing media releases and alerts

• Upkeeping digital clipbooks

• Blog and social media correspondence

• Brainstorming

• Research

• Creating and updating media lists

•   General account support

And working for us isn’t so bad either. While we can’t compensate you with pay, the experience is invaluable. We’ll take the time to teach, support, provide you with responsibility and have some fun.  Please note that you must be working for school credit.

If you fit the bill, please send your resume, cover letter and references to lizzie@baileygardiner.com or call (619) 295-8232.

I recently attended the San Diego chapter of the American Marketing Association’s Search Marketing Boot Camp with speaker Jay Berkowitz. We covered it all from H1 title tags to PPC ad groups but what I found to be the most compelling was the hour on Social Media Search.

Are we there already!?  We’re already beyond the use of social media purely for face time and sharing?  It’s true, the paradigm is changing and what used to be platforms for human interaction, entertainment and sharing of ideas, have now become platforms for search too.

Youtube is the second biggest search engine behind Google and before Yahoo and MSN.  People are now searching YouTube for videos on how to do things.

So here’s a tip: when you post a video on YouTube, consider putting the word “video” in the title.  Think about it, if someone wants to see a video on how to change their oil, they’re likely to put the word “video” in their search term: “how to change your oil video.”

Twitter searching is also a strong case study.  When news gets out, those on Twitter are usually of the first to know.  Many people are using their twitter as a search tool.  It can take a news service hours to write and post a story and it can take google a few days to crawl blogs and websites to bring the information up in a traditional, organic search but it only takes Twitter seconds.

So the tip here is to keep this in mind when tweeting for a company (or a personal brand). Have your keywords handy, provide good content and tweet valuable information.  People are searching you.

Lastly, keep this in mind if you’re expanding your social media presence and especially if you’re starting a new one.  Have your strong set of keywords and your plan for sharing valuable information and even link-baiting ideas (honest ones) in place.  As the online space continues to change, so should you.

At Bailey Gardiner we have a seven-year history of promoting the Del Mar Racetrack.  Personally, I have a ten year history of hollering at ponies.  But the track itself has a 70 year past of historical races, glamorous guests and noteworthy events.  To celebrate the 70th, famous racing artist, Pierre Bellocq, “PEB” was commissioned to paint the approximately 100 most influential people and horses of Del Mar’s history.

The 30′ x 6′ stretch of canvas took 18 months and almost three quarters of the characters were sketched in person by Pierre before gracing the canvas at Del Mar.  Spend a few minutes admiring the cartoons and you’ll see the whole history right there:

There’s Seabiscuit racing Ligorati on the far left.  It’s the race that put Del Mar on the map.  Bing Crosby just above them and comedian WC Fields just below them, grumpy over his loss.  Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz and Ava Gardner grace the canvas just as they graced the track years ago.  Del Mar’s current President, Joe Harper, sits front and center just above his mom, Cecilia DeMille Harper.  Off to the right, my favorite, is the famous race horse Dare And Go, smoking a cigar – the literal translation of his race in 1996 in which he figuratively “smoked” Cigar, who was attempting a record-breaking 16th straight win.

It’s all there, 30 feet of Del Mar history.  You don’t want to miss it.  The official public revealing is Saturday,  July 25, during which many of those pictured will be there in person to admire the fine work of art.