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.

Rock the vote! Voting is underway for The Sun-Sentinel’s Best of Blogs Awards and Oppenheim Law’s South Florida Law Blog received a nomination in the Business Blog Category.

The South Florida Law Blog is committed to bringing timely news and advice to it’s readers as they work together to survive this treacherous real estate market.

You can vote once a day for your favorite blog (Hopefully The South Florida Law Blog!) after registering for a free Sun-Sentinel account here. Voting ends March 1^st.

Oppenheim Law and The Buyer Group appreciate your continued support, feedback and comments and look forward to bringing you the latest and greatest in Florida foreclosure defense and real estate trends.

Feel free to leave your own thoughts in the comments section, or join the conversation online with @thebuyergroup or @oplaw.

Websites, blogs, texting and social media are serving as a viral PR and marketing platform for the recent Haiti disaster relief efforts.

The Red Cross texting campaign went viral through social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, and donations for Haiti alone have already doubled the $4 million that was donated to all charities by mobile texts in all of 2009.

Think about how you can use your own website, blog or social media network to spread the word and make it easy for people to access ways to donate. If you haven’t already done so, think of these possibilities for your business to help Haiti.

• Create a banner add on your website linking to your favorite organization that is helping Haiti. Here’s one. http://www.redcross.org/psa/bannerorder/all/singular.asp
• Add Tweets to your Twitter broadcasts linking to an organization such as the Red Cross
• Post info on your Facebook
• Add a link to your  email signature
• Donate some time to helping locally

For example help a local Red Cross chapter. My sister’s restaurant La Gondola donated food to the Chicago Red Cross on Friday via @PrSarahEvans Tweet media push. Evans spent the day on location with the Red Cross Tweeting and pitching in to help spread the social good. You can too.

The Buyer Group will continue to donate time and a portion of sales to the Clinton Bush Haiti Relief Fund as well as ShopToEarth’s partner Charity Water.

What can you do? Get creative! Below is a list of some ways the media and social media are spreading the word:

1. The Huffington Post has an ongoing list of relief efforts and how you can get involved that it is going to continue updating. Check it out here.

2. CNN has compiled a list of organizations that will be providing support to the estimated 3 million people that have been affected by the earthquake.

3. Many people are engaging the Twitter community to raise awareness, as well as funds. Search “Haiti” and see what the latest updates are.

Unprecedented damage and destruction on the island nation of Haiti has been met by an extraordinary fund raising effort through the Internet and social media.

Aid workers began updating followers on Facebook and Twitter within minutes of the 7.0 earthquake striking Port-au-Prince on January 12.

The Red Cross alone has raised over $8 million through their “Text Haiti” campaign that allows cell phone users to donate $10 via text message.

The Buyer Group has compiled a list of ways social media is contributing to the relief efforts in Haiti.

@RedCross has been providing updates and requests for assistance through Twitter. They announced yesterday that more than $35 million has already been donated in support of the people in Haiti.

@PRsarahevans is volunteering @ChicagoRedCross. Follow her on Twitter for live updates, video and more.

@wyclef Wyclef Jean tweeted a message to his almost 1.4 million followers: “Please text ‘Yéle’ to 501501 to donate $5 to Yéle Haiti. Your money will help with relief efforts. They need our help.” His followers have responded by donating nearly $1 million since Tuesday.

@decappeal is the Disasters Emergency Committee, a group that coordinates efforts by United Kingdom charities. The DEC has seen its followers double in Twitter following the quake and is expecting “astronomically higher” donations because of their increased Web presence.

@whitehouse Even President Obama is using social media as a fundraising source. The White House issued a video update Thursday afternoon and has designed a graphic for bloggers and Web sites to post on their pages.

@cbhaitifund At the request of the White House, President Clinton and President Bush are also partnering in the efforts to help the Haitian people reclaim their country and rebuild their lives through the creation of the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund.

Within moments of stepping into the Zappos headquarters in Las Vegas, it was easy to see the buzz CEO Tony Hsieh is generating by his company’s unique corporate culture is no fluke.

Employees ring cowbells and blow horns to greet guests, conference rooms are extravagantly themed, and Hsieh, one of the youngest and most successful CEOs out there, works from a cubicle that looks like it came straight out of a frat house. Sounds fun doesn’t it?

Check out my Behind the Scenes Zappos Album on Facebook

But the beauty of this zany atmosphere is there is so much more to this strategic culture than fun. It works. Period. See for yourself how Zappos turns happiness into powerful results.

Hsieh has proven that allowing employees to express themselves and in turn, truly connect with customers, fosters the perfect environment for relationships to develop.

As a public relations CEO for The Buyer Group, I look for ways to initiate and advance relationships on a day-to-day basis, and there is certainly a lesson to be learned from the way Zappos does business. Zappos and Hsieh proved to be my inspiration for 2010. I hope these pictures help bring a little fun to your New Year as well.

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.

Lisa Buyer and Sarah Van Elzen interview with Greg Jarboe at SES Chicago. The question? What can Google give me for Christmas this year? The answer. Page one in search!

Let it snow for SEO at Chicago’s Search Engine Strategies conference where Lisa Buyer presents on the News Search SEO panel today with Newsforce CMO Dana Todd (@danatodd) and YouTube and Video Marketing author Greg Jarboe (@gregjarboe), moderated by Top Rank Blogger Lee Odden (@leeodden).

The power of search is changing the game for public relations and social media says Buyer, president and CEO of The Buyer Group, an interactive online PR and branding agency.

Presenting to Internet savvy CEOs, senior marketing executives and search engine optimization professionals, Buyer offers insight and examples of ways to use public relations techniques, social media channels and SEO strategies to leverage an increase in online visibility.

“Google’s roll out of Real Time Search yesterday is a big indicator of the direction in search and social media,” Buyer said. “News is happening in real time, and now Tweets as part of Google Search shrinks the press release down to 140 characters or less. Let’s not forget Facebook alone has added 50 million new users in the past two months to reach a total of more than 350 million.”

“Interactive media has taken the communications industry by storm in the past year,” Buyer said. “With this enormous growth comes a frequent and exciting shift in strategy and practice.  Implementing SEO strategies into public relations is the latest movement as search engines begin to place increased importance on these messages.”

“Writing a killer press release and distributing promotional materials is not enough in today’s multimedia landscape,” Buyer said.  “Journalists in today’s fast-paced environment are using search to find or add to stories, while consumers are finding their news via the search engine, alternative networks like YouTube, and even through social networks.”

For more information, join the conversation on Twitter by following @lisabuyer and @SESConf.

About Lisa Buyer

http://www.thebuyergroup.com/60-seconds-with-lisa

About SES Chicago

http://www.searchenginestrategies.com/chicago/

By: Lisa Buyer

Did you know 1 out of 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met via social media, according to our favorite site www.mashable.com. Talk about chemistry!

As an interactive PR agency, The Buyer Group says people need a reason to interact with you on social media. It’s kind of like building a little chemistry for that first kiss. If you can’t relate by being engaging, entertaining or humorous, not only will you get the awkward “turn-of-the-cheek move” on your date’s doorstep, but your efforts on Facebook and Twitter could be all for not.

This notion was backed by my recent trip to PubCon Las Vegas. I met Jennifer Laycock, editor of SearchEngineGuide.com: A small business guide to search marketing. As a PubCon panelist Laylock summed up how to successfully relate online.

Seven Tips to Build Relationships on Social Media

1.    Listen. Find out what makes customers happy, what they are saying and what changes you can make. Get personal insights on media or bloggers, and find a common point for interaction.

2.    Be romantic. Relationships require work and effort. Use Yelp or Google Reviews to identify loyal and passionate customers. Encourage and invite these customers to take part in your business through special offers.

3.    No sex on the first date. Long-term customer relationships don’t develop over night. Invest the time, and be confident that the “score” will come.

4.    Don’t pretend to be someone else. Be yourself. Insincerity is easy to recognize online.

5.    Make yourself available. You need to put yourself out there and find a way to interact with customers. Wallflowers won’t make the cut in social media. Interaction and conversations are key.

6.    Seek out the right match. The right connections may not be available through every social media channel.  Find out which sites your key publics frequent and engage with them there.  It is easier to connect with customers on their terms than trying to attract them to a new forum.

7.    Value the long-term relationship. Accomplish this by delivering value time and time again. It is far cheaper to keep a customer than to get a new customer, so give them reasons to come back.

So forget the cheesy pick-up lines and go for quality in social media interaction. The best relationships are those developed slow and steady.

Things will never be the same…

It may sound like a break up line, but in business, it’s true. Social media and search are changing how we do business – including everything from customer service to online branding to marketing.

Looking for me this week?  Follow me on Twitter.com/lisabuyer for status tweets. (And if you’re wondering what Twitter is, then ummmm, we should talk.)

I’m a speaker at PubCon Las Vegas, a national search marketing and social media conference. You can find me on the panel “PR Experts and Twitter,” but better yet – I’m attending the coolest sessions, hand picked for today’s PR strategies.

How valuable is all this?

P-R-I-C-E-L-E-S-S – especially in this economy – forget about the way things used to be done, it’s a whole new ball game. Question is: Are you on the field or in the stands?

Check out my agenda for the next few days:

• Behind the scenes headquarter tour of e-commerce powerhouse Zappos
• Reputation Monitoring and Management
• Online Brand Management Strategies
• Using PR Campaigns to Grow Traffic
• Domain Names and Trademark Legal Issues
• Hot Trending Topics with Twitter
• Capitalizing on Twitter and Microblogging
• Killer Twitter Apps and how to apply them to PR
• Intersection of Search and Social Media
• Tracking Results

Interested in getting together to see how you can apply strategies to your biz? Let me know.

Send me a direct message on Twitter @lisabuyer or email me at lbuyer@thebuyergroup.com.

See you online,

Lisa

Put a face to your name and reveal who is behind your messages.  Whether it is the company’s CEO, social media coordinator or Frank from Accounting, allowing your audience to connect a real face and name with your content will help to foster a relationship and encourage interaction.

The CEO of Virgin, Richard Branson, is the face of his company’s social media presence.