Filed under: Abraham Harrison, Abraham Harrison Case Studies, Abraham Harrison Clients, Abraham Harrison LLC, Abraham Harrison Staff, Ad Budgets, Ad Buys, Ad Sales, Advertisements, Advertising, Advertising Networks, Affiliate Marketing, Blog Marketing, Blog Marketing Journal, Blog Messaging, Blog Ranking, Blog Search, Blog Search Engines, Blog Strategy, Earned Media, SEM and SEO, SEO, SEO and Profit, SEO and SEM, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Reputation Management, Search Engine Strategy, Search Engines

I just received this newsletter from the gang over at WebProNews AU, Blogging To Better SEO, that puts into words a lot of what we do for our clients every day as part of our Social Media consultancy and even what we do incidentally for our Public Relations clients.

With all of our social media outreach, we at Abraham Harrison LLC work on providing earned media for our clients. As I wrote in The current crop of advertisement methods is too ephemeral, it is important to decide where you want to spend your limited resources. Do you want to spend it on contextual ads? Contextual ads can drive a lot of traffic immediately to your target, to be sure, but when you stop paying for your key words, everything comes to a halt. All that traffic goes away… and, even while you’re paying for the ads, the conversion might not be there — it might just be a waste of money, a budget burn.

When you put your time and budget into blogger outreach, social media outreach, and blogging, your results may be less immediate than they are with ads, but whatever coverage you get, whatever earned media — and it can be an astounding amount of coverage, too — never goes away. Never! It becomes permanent record on the Interwebs, stashed and findable on Google until the Internet collapses through some sort of evil DNS hack.

Blogging To Better SEO by Manoj Jasra

[…]

[Manoj]: Why kinds of benefits can an organization expect with the implementation of a blog (and some of the natural SEO benefits that come with a blog)

[Lee Odden]: When a blog publishes AND promotes useful content, the benefits include:

  • More content to be spidered by search engines and an increased footprint of the brand via search
  • More links from other sites to the blog and improved search engine visibility
  • Non-search engine traffic from social media sites and direct links from other blogs
  • Direct communication with customers and prospects via RSS
  • Depending on the blog structure and content, increased contacts by journalists that want to use blog content or authors as subject matter experts
  • Increased leads or sales as a result of blog content - direct or indirect

[…]

3 Comments » Posted on December 2nd, 2008 by Chris Abraham

Filed under: Abraham Harrison, Abraham Harrison Case Studies, Abraham Harrison Clients, Abraham Harrison LLC, Abraham Harrison Staff, Ad Budgets, Ad Buys, Ad Sales, Advertisements, Advertising, Advertising Networks, Affiliate Marketing, adage

I tell anyone who will listen to me that the current crop of advertisement methods is too short-lived. The moment you spend the money and your ad runs, that is the moment it is either gone to the grave or becomes a patient existing on life support. Either you’re smart and willing to keep it alive, in conversation, online on YouTube for the spots, or on a blog somewhere for the print work — or you feel compelled to keep on throwing money at it ad infinitum, because contextual ads, banner ads, etc, only last as long as you write checks.

What my specialty is is online conversation marketing, online public relations, and online earned media. When you earn peoples’ attention and when they choose to speak about you, your clients, and your services, then you have a gift that keeps on giving — this is content that lasts well past the campaign and into the future. This is both the sort of thing that Google loves — it is SEO catnip — and it is just the sort of content that flows, both upstream to A-list bloggers and to mainstream media and down to your readers, aggregators, and to other bloggers and other blogs.

If you want to see some examples of powerfully successful blogger outreaches, check out International Medical Corps (IMC) 2008, Survivor Corps Operation Survivor 2008, and Fresh Air Fund Summer 2008, Jerry White’s I Will Not Be Broken book promotion. In many cases, these campaigns are close to a year old, yet they still still live in hundreds and hundreds of blogs and feed Google’s index until all of these blogs are taken down. It is really amazing how effective this sort of “advertising” promotion works. What’s better, when the campaign is over and the client “turns off” our tap, the content continues living and isn’t just shut off like it is with banners, buttons, and contextual advertising. Very interesting, very cool, and powerfully effective.

Remember how much fun Communication Arts is to page through? — CA is intoxicating! Well, every ad you make can be as interesting, as long as you’re willing to come out of your art department and share your process, share your experience, share your steps. Keeping those ephemera alive through narrative, sharing, conversation, and story, is what social media is, it is what customer service is, it is surely what branding should be.

Anyway, There is a lot of opportunity in this time of chaos, of this time of transition. The same sort of transition (and opportunity) happened when PCs came online, replacing the IBM Selectric II; when the Internet changed E-Commerce, threatening to eviscerate bricks and mortar stores, and it is happening now, more than ever, with advertising, marketing, and PR.

I call it white knuckle syndrome: holding on to the handholds you have, frozen on the face of the cliff, because you don’t know where the handholds of the future are. This chaos is pretty amazing to watch as the economy pitches and GM bails on Super Bowl.

Advertising knows it needs to jump off the locomotive before it pitches into the gorge (the bridge is out!) but reaching out to the proffered hand of the guy in the helicopter seems pretty risky too. But, as the current handholds become chalky and you start to feel them crumble under your weight, you’ll need to find somewhere else to go, and quick!

To me, Chris Brogan said it best the other day on Twitter, “customer service is the new PR.*” Looking at what @comcastcares has been able to do, customer service is the new PR, the new marketing, and the new advertising.

So, as those handholds start to get chalk and begin to crumble, it is important to at least set your eyes on a new handhold — or maybe a helping hand — before your original handhold turns to powder.

And for you who have yet to do the reading, please check out Cluetrain Manifesto and Naked Conversation.

(Cross-Posted via Chris Abraham — Because the Medium is the Message)

No Comments » Posted on December 1st, 2008 by Chris Abraham

Filed under: Abraham Harrison, Abraham Harrison Case Studies, Abraham Harrison Clients, Abraham Harrison LLC, Abraham Harrison Staff, Jerry White, Operation Survivor, Operation Survivor Bloggers, Scott Quilty, Survivor Corps, Survivor Corps Bloggers, Veterans, War Vets, veterans day

While I have already thanked all of the wonderful, generous bloggers who have blogged about Operation Survivor since Labor Day, there has been a countinued outpouring of support. As a result, I have added all of the new posts, banners, Twitters in addition to the initial posts — as of 25 November, this is everyone. Read more…

No Comments » Posted on November 25th, 2008 by Chris Abraham

Filed under: Abraham Harrison, Abraham Harrison Clients, Abraham Harrison LLC, Abraham Harrison Staff, Operation Survivor, Operation Survivor Bloggers, Survivor Corps, Survivor Corps Bloggers, Thank You!

Veteran’s Day this year is especially poignant since it has been 5 years since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan began. Thank you to everyone who helped Survivor Corps get the message out about Operation Survivor and all the amazing work that Survivor Corps does for vets, for returning troops, and for their families. Here’s a list of all of your fine work:

You have done an amazing thing for the vets and also for the mission of Survivor Corps domestically and around the world. Thank you for your posts and for your banner placement. Never hesitate to contact me personally or my team at Abraham Harrison. Also, always please feel free to contact the entire Survivor Corps team.

No Comments » Posted on November 18th, 2008 by Chris Abraham

Filed under: Abraham Harrison, Abraham Harrison Clients, Abraham Harrison LLC, American Express Members Project, Amex Members Project, International Medical Corps, Members Project, american express

On behalf of the International Medical Corps and Abraham Harrison, thank you so much for all of your support over the last four weeks to get the vote out to help get the International Medical Corps into the top-five of the Members Project and then for securing the $100,000 from American Express, to be used to feed hungry children worldwide. Here’s a thank you video blog entry from Paige Strackman, who was the PaigeS who submitted IMC in the first place under the title, Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children.
Read more…

No Comments » Posted on October 17th, 2008 by Chris Abraham


  • blog advertising is good for you