With over 100 million active internet users in the United States alone and 475 million active internet users globally, media outlets and businesses are flocking to the web to meet consumers online. Blogs and social networks are becoming more mainstream everyday (73% of internet users have read a blog and 57% have joined a social networking site*); thus, public relations and marketing efforts have to incorporate initiatives for this massive audience.

The way consumers get their news and communicate with each other is quickly adapting along with these technological advancements. The convenience of Google search and open source software has made it possible for companies and bloggers to become online publishers with the ability to target their content to specific audiences. These advancements also allow individual bloggers and companies to claim a position as an authority in their industry or area of expertise. Often specific sources of user-generated content are so informative and reliable that reporters use them as resources when researching their stories.

While this citizen journalism trend has been growing, print publications, television, and radio have been establishing their presence online in an effort to engage the ever-growing number of internet users. As a result of both consumers and reporters searching for news online, traditional media has been forced to evolve and to create online versions of their publications. Even radio and television outlets are exploring on-demand podcasts and internet television sites as a means of distribution.

Google, search engine optimization, and RSS feeds have also affected the distribution of press releases and multi-media news to journalists as well as online publications, websites, blogs, and social media sites.

With all this flux, how do businesses adapt their marketing and PR efforts to keep pace? There is a tremendous opportunity, despite the associated learning curve, for both large and small businesses to re-evaluate their marketing and public relations campaigns to assure that they engage the masses where they live – both in the real world and online.

The “How the Convergence of Media Online Affects Marketing and PR” panel at the Austin Open 4 Business conference will provide an opportunity to discuss these issues in some depth. For more information, visit http://www.austinopen4business.com/speakers.php

* Source: Universal McCann, “Wave 3 Global Research Report”

Not only do corporate blogs allow a company to share their knowledge, but it also allows your customers to get you know you a little bit better. But most important of all, it gives search engines a way to introduce your company to new customers.

When blogging for marketing purposes; one of the most important things you can do is to make sure that your blog is SEO friendly. Knowing a few things about SEO will increase traffic to your blog and ultimately to your company’s Web site. After all, isn’t this one of the main goals of having a corporate blog?

The use of keywords that are appropriate and relevant to your business and marketing goals is extremely important in a corporate blog. Make sure each blog has a keyword theme that you have chosen at the beginning and continued throughout. Peppering your blogs with appropriate keywords will increase the odds of your blog being crawled by search engine spiders.

Marketing blogs should always allow trackbacks and comments. This allows the search engines another way to find your blog. When you allow comments and trackbacks, it is possible for your blog to be found via a search on a completely different topic. For example, say our client Richard, who owns a landscaping company, TexaScapes, comments from his URL onto a blog regarding marketing by our other client, Mercury Mambo. If someone is doing a search on Richard or TexaScapes – they will come across Mercury Mambo’s blog as well since Richard’s and TexaScapes’ URL are attached to Mercury Mambo’s blog.

Remember to always use links when working with marketing blogs. Link your keywords back to other pages in your main Web site, back to previous blogs, back to pictures in your Flickr accounts, as well as back to sites that may have contributed information to your blog or may be of interest to your clients and blog readers. This adds, yet another way for your blog to be found by the search engines.

Finally, and most importantly, keep your blog interesting and educational for your readers. The more that people read your blogs the better chances you have of people commenting, linking to, and sharing your blogs. A virtual word-of-mouth recommendation can be just as important, if not more important these days, than a real-time word-of-mouth.

Unlike most public relations people, I have a past life of doing Web development. Although I only developed sites for about a year, I learned first-hand the power of keywords, search and content. My experiences created a fascination within me for observing the intersection of SEO and PR.

When I returned to public relations work and observed the media shift online, I realized that I could bring my PR clients the highest value by clearly understanding how to customize PR plans for them that would provide a blend of traditional public relations along with optimized PR. I remember the excitement of learning that search engine tactics when properly appplied will make press releases appear in top Google News, AOL News and Yahoo! News search results for about a month! I have used these tactics to help clients gain customers, develop association to a national news stories, introduce new blogs into online communities and expand brand recognition. I love creating double wins for our clients … garnering traditional media exposure in print publications and then gaining more mileage from the same release by syndicating it for exposure online to their target audiences through pick-up by search engines and RSS feeds. Frankly, I relish the efficiency of it!

From my viewpoint, one of our most important jobs at Accolades is to understand the array of tools for wire distribution, web syndication, and search optimization – to know their advantages, limitations, and cost effectiveness.

In this way, our team can gain recognition for our clients and optimize the releases and articles that we create for them with key words that will improve their prospects for being found by the right people on the Web. As the Internet is becoming a key factor for most companies in gaining new business, the ability to improve the traffic to a client’s corporate site for conversion into leads (and ultimately sales) is crucial.