PR Whitepapers

Access the Latest Research from our PR News Partners

Thank you for your interest in the thought leadership of our PR News partners. If you are interested in submitting a white paper for this section, please contact PR News Publisher Diane Schwartz at dschwartz@accessintel.com

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2010 State of the Media

By Vocus

An Analysis of the Changing Media Landscape by the Vocus Media Research Team

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How the Press Uses and Values Public Relations and Other Media Resources

By Cision

A new national study of how editors/journalists use and value public relations assistance, media databases, and other traditional and online resources for research, story ideas, and other purposes

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Maximizing the Value of Your News from Twitter to Google

By Vocus

As the objectives of Public Relations are shifting to generate interest not just among journalists but consumers, investors and other audiences, it’s important to adjust your outreach strategies accordingly. And as PR professionals know, every audience has a different contact preference and with today’s possibilities, it can be difficult to find the right method.

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How to Do More PR with Less Budget

By Cision

The news doesn’t stop in difficult economic times. Fast-changing business conditions often result in non-stop media inquiries that must be answered even as ongoing proactive communications work continues. For many PR professionals, a downturn means trying to get a lot more done with a lot less budget. However, just as strong companies work to capture more market share during a recession, good PR people work to capture more mind-share from the media during a recession.

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Use Your News to Drive SEO

By PRWeb

Learning how to harness the power of online news search is now more than an extra benefit to your business, it is a requirement. Your company needs to be where it will get attention and the importance of achieving premium placement in news search activities is now evident.

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Social Media: The Case for Online Engagement

By dna13

This white paper is for corporate communications, public relations and marketing managers who have more budget constraints and fewer resources than ever—yet, are still expected to engage with the new channels and deliver on brand and image expectations. At dna13, we see the recessionary climate combined with the power of social media as a new vista of opportunity. Joining the conversation and shaping public opinion holds promise of reducing the costs of communications.

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Monitoring the Social Media Conversation

By Vocus

The prevalence of social media has not just grown but exploded. Millions of conversations are taking place online. Company reputations are being made or harmed hourly… and all in 140 characters.

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Online News Releases are In

By PRWeb

Press releases used to be written by public relations professionals exclusively for the media. The media (primarily huge news conglomerates and major trade publications) would then determine what would interest their readers, and/or was ‘fit to print’. The editor, publisher or producer said ‘yes’ or ‘no’ – end of story.

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Using Twitter to Become Part of the Conversation

By Cision

Not a day goes by without hearing the terms social media, blogging, micro-blogging, Twitter, FriendFeed, etc. The question is, how do these services apply to public relations and can they be used to help you improve program execution and results? More important, how can they be used properly without getting burned? Millions have flocked to Twitter, a messaging application that has become the rage among the technorati, attracting more than 12 million registered users so far. Top technology industry analysts, PR and marketing pros, editors and writers, the big names influencing social media, corporate executives, community managers and others can be found at all hours of the day tweeting their thoughts and ideas or providing links to sites delivering critical information.

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@2009 IMT Web Influencers Survey

By DS Simon

Organizations are increasingly looking to Internet Media Tours to reach important audiences. While these tours combine digital media releases, video, web syndication and social media marketing, it’s often the ability to earn media with “web influencers” that determines the success of the campaign. Smart communicators realize that these web influencers, or “webfluencers”, as I like to call them, are actually growing in influence to where they have become part of the mainstream media themselves.

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Analyzing the Impact of Social Media

By Vocus

Engaging and monitoring the new world of social media are the big first steps, but once you’ve jumped in, how do you evaluate and measure the impact and success of these new efforts? With the explosion in social media, public relations has become an integral tool to generate interest not just among journalists but consumers, investors and other key stakeholders. PR is front and center in the organization and professionals need to demonstrate tangible results to really understand the impact of social media.

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The Newfound Impact of PR on Advertising

By VMS

Twenty years ago when AT&T’s advertising models failed to explain sales results, breakthrough research showed that negative news coverage cancelled out the benefits of paid ads, and positive news coverage already had a positive impact on sales, so paid advertising was less beneficial in generating incremental volume.

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ROI of Online Press Releases

By PRWeb

Press releases used to be one of the basic tools of the public relations profession, used by PR practitioners to communicate news directly to journalists. With the advent of new online communication channels, the goals, target audiences, and overall scope of press releases have evolved, transforming press releases themselves into a new communication tool used by public relations and marketing professionals alike.

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Showing Your Boss How PR Pay for Itself When Budgets are Tight

By Cision

You know in your gut that PR delivers more bang for the buck than any other marketing discipline. And you know that when budgets are tight, the team that can show a positive return on investment (ROI) wins. So why are PR budgets often among the first to get the axe in a down economy? Because PR professionals often forget to promote their most important client: themselves. If you are competing for scarce resources, here are eight ways to show your boss how public relations can pay for itself during an economic downturn.

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Are You a Digital Einstein?

By Peppercom

Companies are becoming increasingly aware that a digital presence is essential. But, while companies recognize this need to have a strategic digital plan, there is a lack of time and resources being put behind digital initiatives, which is dampening the effectiveness of that realization.

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Exploring the Link Between Volume of Media Coverage and Business Outcomes

By VMS

Since the founding of public relations, practitioners have intuitively believed in the power of positive unpaid media to affect behavioral goals. But does it really work? If so, how much coverage is needed? This paper suggests a strong relationship between coverage volume and business outcomes, with three case studies looking at volume alone, tonality-refined volume, and message-refined volume.

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Stakeholder Networking

By dna13

The volume and reach of conversations and story telling is expanding exponentially. The explosive growth of Facebook, MySpace and Feedburner would suggest that individuals are building out their own stakeholder communications networks around subjects and topics of direct interest to them. Traditional media outlets, PR firms, startup companies and established brands are sorting out how to embrace these new networks to enhance their position amongst members or bring these stories back to traditional media outlets. Regardless of why these networks have formed, the sheer number of conversations about today's leading brands has increased dramatically. Within Facebook, both BMW and the GOP have well over five hundred groups that are talking about their experiences, impressions and perspectives. Filmmaker Michael Moore’s 2007 movie, Sicko, has generated over three hundred groups and related events.

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What Journalists Want to See on Your Website

By Vocus

To learn more about why and how journalists use corporate Web sites and online newsrooms, Vocus launched a study in 2001 that included 1,000 reporters from print publications to include daily newspapers, newsletters and magazines. The results were first summarized in The Ten Essential Elements for an Online Newsroom. More than 5,000 corporate communications and public relations professionals downloaded that white paper in the first two years and the results have been covered in PR Tactics, Marketing News, PR News, Media Insight, The Holmes Report and even The Daily Record.

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Public Relations Professionals in Early Stages of Technology Adoption

By Vocus and PR News

With the fundamental shift in the media landscape impacting both the traditional media and public relations industries, many PR professionals are wondering how other PR professionals organize their outreach and analyze their results? What technology and services do my peers use to advance their PR efforts? And most importantly, are my current techniques working or are there better and easier ways to do PR out there? In a recent survey conducted by PR News and sponsored by Vocus, the answers to many of the lingering PR questions were revealed.

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Optimizing Your Public Relations with Social Media

By Vocus

In September 2006, Hitwise, an online marketing research firm, reported that the majority of traffic to online music retailer, HMV.co.uk, was referred from MySpace, a social networking Web site. This traffic surpassed searches from two of the most popular search engines, MSN UK and Yahoo! UK. While connecting users with information and content was once defined by complicated search algorithms, MySpace’s impact indicated a profound shift in the structure of the Internet was on the horizon.

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Correlating Outputs to Outcomes

By VMS

Sophisticated analysis powered by advanced linguistics technology has provided new insights and an important new metric, “Share of Discussion.” The quantity and quality of public discussion about a company compared to its competitors appears to be directly related to business success. Put more simply, if people consistently say more good things about your company or product compared to your competitors, your sales should increase. Measuring Share of Discussion, and relating it to key business metrics, enables companies to benchmark their coverage and determine the success of their strategies. This paper will take you through the research that led to these insights, present case studies, and show you how to measure Share of Discussion.

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A comprehensive report on media monitoring and search engines

By Burrelles Luce

The search engine dilemma for public relations professionals. Directions to a client’s office… looking up a competitor’s product… industry research… they’re all ideal search engine functions. But when it comes to monitoring your media efforts, search engines fall dangerously short, for two reasons… • They find too much information • They find too little information Yes, at first this seems like a contradiction, until you do a quick, online search to see how your latest PR effort is going.Your typical search engine results could yield millions of hits—everything from a few, abbreviated press clippings, to thousands of Web sites and information that has NOTHING to do with your search. It’s frustrating, to say the least, in a day and age when things move far too quickly and staff is leaner than ever.Who has the time to go through it all? But, perhaps even more critical, is what search engines can’t find.We’ll get to that in a moment. For now, it’s important to understand how search engines work and why they produce the results they do.

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PR Best Practices for Global Corporations

By Vocus, Inc.

Today’s corporations are thinking globally: opening offices and hiring employees around the world, marketing products in far-flung regions, improving distribution channels to reach available customers. The rise of the Internet has made the rest of the world seem much closer- with a click of a mouse in India, you can purchase a product from Indiana. With the opportunities that globalization provides, it also brings significant challenges. Global PR teams are not exempt from these challenges. From collecting news from around the globe to managing projects with dispersed team members, PR organizations must proactively evaluate their traditional PR practices to embrace the challenges of global communications and be successful.

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Paid Placement... Real Numbers An Audience Analysis of Guaranteed Placement Options for VNRs and SMTs

By DS Simon Productions

A survey conducted by PR News found 35% of PR practitioners said they “felt their usage reports were padded.” This disturbing finding is particularly unfortunate because VNRs and SMTs, when executed professionally and ethically, are among the most cost-effective communication tools.

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What Do You Stand For? Principles for Success in Cause Branding

By Cone, Inc.

“What do you stand for?” is the resounding question being asked of companies around the globe by consumers, employees, business partners, and governments. In an age of corporate scandals, increased scrutiny by consumers and advocacy organizations, and increased competition globally, companies are evolving how they interact with society.

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The Future of PR: How to Garner More Coverage and Stay Way Ahead of the Competition

By Vocus, Inc.

It’s 9 a.m. Monday and you’ve just poured your morning cup of coffee. As you read your email, your VP of Sales drops by. The competition has just launched a new product. Can you come up with a new PR strategy to combat their launch? As you begin thinking through this urgent request, your CEO calls. He leaves tomorrow to speak at a major industry trade show. Can you prepare talking points by the end of the day? Taking the first sip of your now lukewarm coffee, you receive an email from your CFO. Can you prepare a report for this week’s board meeting justifying the company’s PR budget?

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