Disaster PR done right

Bill Gerth, Comcast Cares

XFINITY WiFi hotspots are listed here http://www.xfinity.com/wifi . Non XFINITY Internet customers will need to click on Complimentary Trial Session

This is a perfect example of public service in time of trouble. It will introduce people to Comcast in such a way as to make a great impression.

Well done Comcast.

Pitching an op-ed to the New York Times

Of all the hoopla about Greg Smith's new book I confess that the process of pitching an op ed to the New York Times was what caught my eye:

Smith decided to submit his piece to the op-ed page of The New York Times — the publication he thought “would have the most impact.”

When submitting his piece to oped@nytimes.com resulted in no response, Smith tried again — this time directly writing to a handful of editors. By the next morning, Smith had gotten the green light.

So the New York Times gets the editorial equivalent of a bolt of lightening and no one recognizes it until he sends it to specific people. This is my experience in media relations. If you follows the procedures laid out by news organizations you, and your client will get ignored. In order to catch their attention you have to send your material to a specific person.

Getting to know SEO

Recently I have begun to research SEO in a much more detailed and comprehensive way. SEO is like those piano exercises from Czerny; not music, but necessary techniques to play music.

So it is necessary to develop libraries of key words to include in your online writing; but at the same time not focus on those keywords. It is necessary to cultivate links, but not spam them. It is the difference between planting a garden and rolling out astroturf.

Matt McGee's piece in Search Engine Land, Ex-Googler: “To Please Google With Your SEO, Forget About SEO” indicates that this is the correct way to think about SEO. You can't forget SEO, no more than you can forget technique when playing music, but you can't let SEO guide your online communications. It is necessary to write for people, not software bots.