The Buyer Group PR + SEO News

The press release is now the tweet, the post, and the status update, according to Lisa Buyer, President and CEO of The Buyer Group.

Social Media is changing the way public relations, search and marketing are being executed whether you’re releasing a soon-to-be New York Times Best Seller or launching an innovative new product.

Buyer was recently published on ClickZ.com as she described how social media has added to the public relations and marketing mix for Gretchen Rubin’s best selling book “The Happiness Project” and Piper Aircrafts latest entry-level airplane.

Check out the full article for Buyer’s analysis of these cases or hear her speak at SES NEW York, March 22-26, at the Hilton New York.

As 2009 comes to a close, Jeff Zbar of The South Florida Business Journal caught up with several marketing executives in the Sunshine State to see what they are wishing for in the New Year.

Lisa Buyer, President and CEO of The Buyer Group is hoping for some Google grace for her public relations clients and even more success bringing together the domains of social media and search engines.

Keep reading to see Lisa’s thoughts on client trust as well as which executive is wishing to land Tiger Woods as a client.

Happy New Year from The Buyer Group!

Marketing executives hope for success in the new year
South Florida Business Journal – by Jeff Zbar

“What I want for the holidays is … to have more successful clients,” admitted Gary Schweikhart of PR-BS, in Boca Raton. “The better they do financially, the less likely it is that PR will get the budget ax in a tight economy.”

The grace of Google to find her clients’ releases, and greater acceptance and understanding of that place where social media and PR converge were Lisa Buyer’s wishes. The more they get it, the greater the chance for return on investment from a social media PR campaign.

While they’re at it, a little hands-off trust would be nice, too.

“Let go,” said Buyer, principal with The Buyer Group, a Deerfield Beach-based interactive PR and branding firm. “I would like the control freaks and micromanaging type of clients to consider letting go and trusting who they hire.”

You can check out the entire SFBJ article here.

More than just a press release, online PR and branding agency programs offer investor relations, social media, search engine strategies, journalism, and digital media talent

Delray Beach, FL - July 31, 2009 – What assets should a business look for when hiring an online PR agency? Talent, credentials, resources and results, says Lisa Buyer, PR agency owner, blogger and SES speaker. The Buyer Group announces the addition of a diverse team of industry experts for clients looking for more than just a press release.

In addition to its in-house PR and social media talent, The Buyer Group pools together a virtual team of business consultants as part of the agency business model including: investment relations specialist Kelly McCarthy, SEO/SEM expert Joe Laratro, senior journalist and new media expert Jennifer LeClaire, award-winning brand guru Carah Von Funk, and search-savvy web agency owner Stephen Rosen.

“These additions to our team underline additional depth, breadth, and value of the online PR services from The Buyer Group,” said Lisa Buyer. “The future of the online public relations agency system is fluid, virtual, adaptable, and diverse,” said Buyer.  “Our ability to tap into the diversity of industry expert minds when building a PR campaigns is priceless to clients.”

Industry Experts Joining The Buyer Group Team

• Kelly McCarthy @kelly_mccarthy, president and CEO of Infusion Capital, an investor relations agency.
• Joe Laratro @jlaratro, president and CEO of Tandem Interactive, an online marketing agency that specializes in search engine marketing and SEO strategies, education and training
• Jennifer LeClaire @jleclaire, a new media entrepreneur offering expert journalism content and reporting.
• Carah von Funk @vonfunk, brand champion at CvF, Inc with previous experience as senior management with Crispin Porter + Bogusky
• Stephen Rosen @sitemind, owner of Sitemind, a search-savvy web site design and development studio.

The Buyer Group is an interactive public relations and branding agency that leverages 20 years of award-winning PR services and social media experience. Always dynamic and cutting-edge, The Buyer Group bolsters its personalized and boutique approach to public relations, offering skills and knowledge that larger PR agencies are not positioned to supply without sending clients to multiple sources.

About The Buyer Group @thebuyergroup
The Buyer Group is a member of the South Florida Interactive Marketing Association and is recognized as a Google Advertising Professional Company. Lisa Buyer is a regular speaker at Internet Marketing conferences including PubCon and Search Engine Strategies talking on the topics of online PR, News search SEO and the influences of social media. For more information about The Buyer Group and its interactive public relations, social media and online branding services visit http://www.thebuyergroup.com or follow Lisa Buyer on Twitter @lisabuyer.

The battle for online market share is continuing to intensify as Microsoft opens a can of competition at the established search engine powerhouse, Google.

Microsoft’s latest attempt to thrust its newly released Bing.com into the fray has them teaming with Yahoo.  Under the partnership, Yahoo is abandoning its own search technology in favor of the newly developed Bing algorithms.

According to Mashable.com, a partnership with Yahoo provides Microsoft the scale and advertising opportunities needed to turn Bing into an actual competitor of Google, at least in the short-term.  From Yahoo’s perspective, this deal seems to suggest the site will never again be a major player in the search market.

At The Buyer Group, we believe that as long as Google continues to provide quality search and services, loyalty to the site will prevail, leaving Bing with little more than a temporary blip on the market share radar.

With rumors spreading that Google will soon offer real-time search capabilities, allowing for the indexing of Tweets and other up-to-the-minute data, it is becoming essential that users optimize their Twitter profiles and content to rank highly in search results.

The following list is a breakdown of the Top 10 Twitter SEO Tips from Mashable.com.  As an online public relations agency, The Buyer Group uses each of these strategies to manage and optimize clients’ social media channels, providing quality exposure and promotion for their businesses.

According to Mashable, “By following these 10 Twitter tips, you, your company or your brand can build up more prominent links in high places on the engines.”

1 -Choose a good handle - Usernames need to be memorable, relevant and add value to your brand.  Your username will also become part of your customized Twitter URL, making it important to be consistent among social media channels.

2- Select an account name wisely - Your account name appears next to your username.  The Buyer Group uses this field as an additional opportunity to incorporate relevant key words into a profile.

3- Make your bio count - Twitter allows users 140 characters to describe themselves.  Use them. Your bio needs to include relevant key words and phrases that boost the value of your brand and rank highly in search.

4- Spread the word – Placing your Twitter URL on other social media sites as well as on many of the pages of your own Web site will help drive up its link value in search engines.

5- Remember your URL – Including a link to your brand’s site or even another social media profile is one of the easiest things you can do to promote your business.

6 -Select the initial characters of each tweet carefully - The first characters of each tweet determine the message’s title tag as a search result and may end up having the most impact on its future SEO value.

7 – Write keyword-rich tweets if possible - There needs to be a balance between keywords and content.  Starting tweets with relevant keywords is a great way to theme your messages and capitalize on timely “buzz words.”

8- Mind your re-tweetability – Keeping your messages around 120 characters will allow for maximum re-tweetability.

9 – Provide some link love- Twitter has become a very useful tool for promotion of messages and driving traffic to specific content.  Using a URL shortener such as Bit.ly will not only make it easy to fit links into your 140 characters, but also allow tracking click-throughs.

10 – As always, give ‘em what they want -Your followers on Twitter want timely and informative content.  Making sure your tweets and links provide something of interest to your followers is the number one goal on Twitter.

Read on for more information and make sure to check out the original post by Mashable.

One of the latest challenges in the SEO and online PR world is the issue of duplicate content.  One of the latest challenges in the SEO and online PR world is the issue of duplicate content.

While it may be mildly annoying for you to read the same sentence twice, duplicate content is a major problem for search engines trying to return unique and distinct results.

At The Buyer Group, we are constantly learning about the ever-changing realm of SEO (search engine optimization) and apply these tactics into our online PR practices.  Oftentimes, companies try to take the easy way out to deliver their message, in hopes to rank higher or produce more in search results.  This includes taking one page of content from a Web site and placing it on another site such as a blog or social media channel.

Unfortunately, this approach will not produce better search results at all.  Unless the content is heavily edited from one page to a next, using this practice will lead to issues within search results.  Search engines like Google figured this detour out quite some time ago and has adapted to filter search results that only display one set of duplicate content among its highest results.  So for example, if a company takes a Web page from their Web site and posts it on their blog, the search engine will only show one of these pages in the search results.

When it comes to online public relations, it is important for content to be thought out and uniquely designed across a company’s online real estate.  Strategic social media participation in addition to an optimized Web site can greatly increase the exposure of any company.

For information on how The Buyer Group can optimize your Web site for greater search results and brand your company’s presence on social media contact Lisa Buyer today at 954.354.1411 x 14 or lbuyer@thebuyergroup.com.

In the ever-changing, fast-paced world of social media, there is always something new to learn. Continually striving to be ahead of the PR curve, The Buyer Group took part last week in an emerging technology webinar presented by SEMPO (Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization).

The webinar highlighted the intersection between social media and online search results. SEMPO stressed that the future of all media is social and that search engines are increasingly displaying social media as top results.

SEMPO also explained that social media usage is more frequent and strategic than ever, pointing out that over 90 percent of SEM (search engine marketing) agencies are using Facebook as a public relations tool – good thing, considering 31 percent of CEOs have are active on Facebook.

The instant response platforms of social media sites have allowed for more brand communication than ever, placing new pressure on companies to monitor and engage in dialogue with consumers.  For information on how your business can use social media to its advantage contact Lisa Buyer at lbuyer@thebuyergoup.com.

Demonstrating the explosive growth of social media sites, USA Today may have become the world’s first major news outlet to write a story entirely from interviews on Twitter, the Web’s newest hotspot.

According to a social media webinar presented by SEMPO (Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization), more than 14% of CEOs are now actively tweeting.  USA Today Money Section’s Del Jones completed his story exclusively with CEO sources reachable through Twitter.

This statistic highlights SEMPO’s assertion that the future, if not the present, of all media is social.  Even more important to the world of online public relations is the intersection between social media sites and online search results. SEMPO stressed the point that search engines are increasingly displaying social media as top results.

The instant response platforms of social media sites have allowed for more to be said about brands than ever, placing new pressure on companies to monitor and engage in dialogue with consumers.  For information on how your business can use social media to its advantage contact The Buyer Group at lbuyer@thebuyergoup.com.

The Buyer Group Welcomes Brian Goodling to Social Media Team

More top talent joins The Buyer Group. Brian Goodling is the Interactive Media Coordinator with The Buyer Group connecting client’s social networks in the search marketing and online public relations space. He graduated from Syracuse University with a degree in finance and entrepreneurship in 2006 and spent the last three years working in-house for a leading residential builder and developer.

Brian recently attended Search Engine Strategies in New York where he attended workshops on social media, natural search strategies and all things Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and Google. His favorite parts about SES were Marty Weintraub’s “An Update on Social Media Optimization!” and Guy Kawasaki’s keynote Reality Check and Twitter, social media tool of the 21st century!

Online PR Presentation on Blogs, Social Media & Google News Search Results

Deerfield Beach, FL – March 24, 2009 – How fast does news travel on Google News? “In a New York minute,” says Lisa Buyer, president and CEO of leading interactive PR agency The Buyer Group and guest speaker at Search Engine Strategies (SES) New York March 24-26, 2009.

As part of the News Search SEO Panel, Buyer will discuss how launching a targeted online public relations campaign can attract quality traffic through optimized press releases.

The News Search SEO panel shares how to create online PR that speaks to multiple audiences such as journalists, analysts, and end users as well as how this relates to the success of news searches and search engine results.

“This is my second year speaking on the News Search SEO panel,” said Buyer. “It’s remarkable how online news trends can shift even within a year; 2009 is definitely the year for Twitter.”

Industry trendsetters’ Greg Jarboe President of SEO-PR, Dana Todd CMO of Newsforce, John Shehata Senior SEO Manager of Advance Internet Inc., and moderator Mark Jackson President/CEO of Vizion Interactive will join Lisa Buyer on the News Search SEO panel.

The Buyer Group is a member of Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization, South Florida Interactive Marketing Association, Agency Management Roundtable, and is recognized as a Google Advertising Professional Company.

For more information about The Buyer Group and its interactive public relations and branding services call Lisa Buyer at 954.354.1411.

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