While the core goal of any small business marketing effort should be developing and deepening client relationships, how that is accomplished is constantly changing.  New competitors move in, old customers move out, new markets develop, and new media emerges.

This is especially true when it comes to anything related to online marketing such as  local listings, search engine rankings, social media, online video, etc.  I can’t tell you how different my promotion routines are from just six months ago, let alone last year.

As the saying goes, “One thing you can always count on is change.”

Taking the Old and Blend with the New

Just because there are shiny new promotional toys in social media such as Pinterest, Google+, and Facebook, it doesn’t mean you have to completely abandon the tried and true methods of traditional publicity.

A perfect example of how to blend old with new media is combining social media exposure with press releases.

Before the control of news dissemination was wrenched out of the hands of the traditional media outlets such as newspapers, radio, and TV,  press releases primarily served as a method to try to generate enough interest in reporters to publish a story in their publication.  The decision to publish was in the hands of the publication itself.

However, after the explosion of online publishing and the maturation of search engines that could not only index massive amounts of pages and information, but also quantify and categorize it into (mostly) relevant results, the power in publication has shifted.

Now, not only can a business use a press release and be ensure that it will get exposure online, with careful strategy it can also ensure that it gets in front of the eyes of interested consumers.  It is not dependent on a particular news outlet for exposure.

Using Social Media with Press Releases

Beyond the multitude of opportunities for online publication of press releases, social media networks can also serve as an additional source of exposure. There are two ways social media can bolster your business awareness.

The first is by exposing your information to different segments of your market.  Each social network has fanatics that will use that platform as their primary source of information.  Some people do their research on Pinterest, others on Facebook.  If your news release is not circulating on that site, the odds are that segment of consumers won’t see it.

Social media marketing allows you to publish where your audience hangs out.

The second way integrating a press release with social media benefits your business and company web site is by providing social proof.  Put more simply, in Google’s eyes, social proof confers authority.

Social as Links

One primary factor determining search engine rankings (beyond on-page content and on-site structure) has been links to the site or page.  Those links from other web sites (also known as “backlinks”) are seen by search engines, and Google more so than others, as “votes” of authority for that site.

For the past year, there has been a lot of discussion and intimation by Google that social would begin to factor more heavily into the search algorithm.   The impact of this has especially been seen in the past six months.

Change Continues

Yes, change continues, but you don’t have to let change completely upset your apple cart.  Find ways to take the best of the old and strengthen it with the innovation of the new.