Public Relations and SEO - PR is Based on Social Interactions

Journalists don't like pitches. They despise clueless firms and PR agents emailing them with "here's a related story you should be writing about."

The basis of successful public relations is networking and connections. It's far easier to get stories out when you have journalist friends. In fact, this is what you pay PR firms for - their connections with journalists. The more quality connections a PR firm has, the more it charges and the pickier it is about who it chooses to work with, because jeopardizing relationships with the right connections costs more over time than turning down the client.

Jason Calacanis, founder of Silicon Valley Insider follows a different PR strategy. Instead of paying $15,000 per month to PR agencies, he establishes contacts himself. He goes to conferences and dinner parties, and gets to know people. He meets people; sometimes they are related to media, sometimes they aren't. Over time, though, he gets a large pool of contacts in his field, some of which are startups, journalists, critics, CEOs and all sorts of titles that can spin the wheels in their respective callings.

As they meet for dinners, coffees and parties, the question "How is your business, and what are you doing now?" comes naturally from journalists, who then in turn write an article and give Jason free exposure.

The investment cost is dinner money, time to build relationships and a pleasing personality, but it seems to pay off very well.

The Problem with PR

Most PR stories are pure garbage, not worth anyone's time. Over many years, social interaction, which is the basis of good PR has turned into a dull science, killing the essence of public relations. The whole system is so honed that if you browse through PR wires (PR web, PR newswire) you'll find tons of junk content that no good journalist will care to mention. To make PR work for you, you must provide the gleam that stands out from all of that dross. It's harder than you might think, but the potential payoff is huge.