Marc Fisher wrote an interesting commentary, entitled “All the news that confirms your views,” as the lead story in Saturday’s Washington Post. Fisher describes people in South Carolina accessing news sites that support their political views:

“With just hours remaining before South Carolina’s Republican primary, it’s clear to campaign strategists and voters alike that the revolution in how Americans get their news has dramatically altered the political process. There’s more campaign news and commentary out there than ever before, but more and more citizens are tucking themselves inside information silos where they see mainly what they already agree with. The result, according to voters, campaign strategists and a raft of studies that track users’ news choices, is an electorate in which conservatives and liberals often have not only their own opinions but also their own sets of facts, making it harder than ever to approach common ground.”

The news-searching activity Fisher describes supports the theory of cognitive dissonance, which you’ll learn as part of any communications course. Familiarity with the theory can be useful in your public relations and marketing efforts.

According to sticky-marketing.net, “The theory of cognitive dissonance, developed by Festinger in the 1950s, is that when a person experiences conflicting ideas, states of emotion, or feelings, they will be driven to reduce this state of tension and will take action to return to consonance (the opposite of dissonance).”

How to Apply Cognitive Dissonance to your Power-PR strategy:

I find MyEdCals, a database of editorial calendars, to be a useful source in identifying media (and the audiences they serve) who are interested in the information I want to disseminate for my clients. You can search by subject matter and myedcals will identify the publication or media, along with a short synopsis of their point of view and the appropriate contact person.

With that information, you can send out information to an audience already interested in the subject and expect a positive action, rather than re-action, because you share their world view.

Uggie is the canine character from the movie, The Artist, which won the award for best picture (comedy or musical). The terrier captured the spotlight at the Globes ceremony by hopping on his hind legs, playing dead and tucking his head under his paws in an act of false modesty as he was interviewed for People Magazine. Aw shucks, folks!

Have you noticed how many dogs are appearing in commercials these days, not to mention the Rin TIn Tin and Lassie retrospectives? Uggie’s credits also include “Water for Elephants” and “Mr. Fix It.” If you have a PR campaign coming up and you have a dog, consider including him/her in your photo ops.

Apparently, Uggie fans have organized a “Consider Uggie” page on Facebook hoping he can qualify for a Best supporting actor award. Count me in!

VCU is my alma mater. I went to VCU’s night school to earn two degrees – a BA and an MBA. Everyone in Richmond, Virginia, knows about VCU, but during the 20 years I lived in Northern Virginia, nobody knew who they were… until they made the NCAA Final Four in March 2011. That’s when the national media discovered VCU. Winning is good PR and it’s good for business, I thought as I tried to calculate how many bucks the sold-old crowd at the Siegel Center brought into the VCU coffers.

Not everyone can have a winning basketball team, but you can win awards. Winning an award makes you feel good and its’ good PR: You could get your picture in the local media, as well the publications and websites of the sponsoring organizations. And it can help increase your business. As I said, it’s good PR!

Chambers of commerce, trade and professional groups offer great opportunities for small businesses to gain recognition. The Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce Outstanding Corporate Citizenship Awards are due on March 9.

Business publications also offer awards: Nominations for The Washington Business Journal’s “Best Places to Work” are due on February 27.

There are two awards coming up that offer great opportunities for women in business: Virginia Lawyers Weekly “Influential Women of Virginia,” due on February 27, and Washington Smart CEO’s “Brava! Women Business Achievement Award.” due on March 2

All these awards help build a positive business image, enhance your credibility and give you bragging rights on your website and in Social Media. Ask a friend to nominate you or contact your PR professional. At PR Works, we specialize in award nominations.

In a commentary on OpenForum, “6 Common SEO Mistakes on Small Business Websites,” Rae Hoffman-Dolan describes the importance of links:

“Links are still widely believed to be the single most important ‘off page’ SEO factor. Simply put, without links from other websites, your site won’t rank. The more competitive your niche? The more links you will need to get.

Unfortunately, many small business owners put their sites up and completely ignore the inbound link building process afterward. While link building can often be confusing to some small business owners, and it can definitely be time consuming, there is no doubt that if your goal is to improve your search engine rankings, you absolutely need inbound links.”

I recommend PR Web for the distribution of news releases. PR Web encourages you to include links in your news releases. These links should connect the reader to relevant pages on your company’s website. My caveat here: make sure there is relevant information on your website to support those links. Read the entire article by Hoffman-Dolan to learn more about how to how to make your website attractive to browsers.

Article placement is another way to build links. However, it’s not as easy as the “old days.” Google made changes to its search algorithm code-named Panda earlier this year. It’s designed to block articles from sites recognized as content farms which publish “low quality” articles “simply to attract clicks and advertising dollars.” Among sites “detected and penalized” is Demand Media’s eHow. Traffic flowing from search engines to eHow dropped 20 percent after the update.

Be sure to submit your commentaries to legitimate websites and recognized online publications. The Washington Business Journal, for example, accepts guest commentaries. Links to the author’s website are usually included with the article.

Another way to build links back to your website is to win awards. Many awards are sponsored by publications and winners are profiled in the publication and its website, with link-backs.

PR Daily recently ran an article on “6 PR Lessons from Santa Claus.” I find it worth repeating here.

You can also subscribe to postings from people you don’t know but wish you did – the media, politicians and others – and receive their postings in your news feed.

According to ClickZ, Facebook has controlled 52% of online sharing in 2011, up from 44% in 2010 and 33% in 2009. With the introduction of the “Subscribe” button, I would say that Facebook is trying to increase their majority of online sharing in 2012. Of course, the competition is hot on their tail. The Stats from AddThis, shared by CLickZ show that Twitter controls 13.5% of the online sharing and is growing and a rate of 576.9%. Tumblr is growing at a rate of 1300%.

Advice from Polly’s Power-PR: take full advantage of these free distribution services.

“President Dmitry Medvedev used his Facebook page Sunday to disclose that he has ordered an investigation into reports of election fraud, a statement his audience greeted with derision.

“The posting quickly went viral and drew more than 8,000 mostly offended and even offensive comments in a little over six hours….”

I see two editorial points here. First is the fact that the president of one of the world’s most politically-restrictive societies is using social media to communicate with the public . According to reporter Lally, Medvedev is “famous for tweeting and carrying an iPad,” but Facebook is more personal: you have to “friend” a person in order to establish communication with him on Facebook.

Secondly, this story pays tribute to the ascendency of social media over traditional media. As an old-time PR Pro, I remember when political leaders used newspapers, radio and television to make their public statements. Now they post, tweet and “friend.” Who have you “friended” lately?

Michael Hess writes about this situation in his blog posting on cbsnews.com, “The biggest small business rule I wish I’d followed” :

“I made things more difficult than they needed to be when I started my current business eleven years ago. I disregarded some key wisdom and experienced gained in the successful 50-year-old business my family sold in 1998. In particular, I discounted the importance and benefits of having a true niche.”

I confess I wasn’t thinking of niches when I started my PR business in 1998. After hearing my 30-second introduction at a Chamber of Commerce breakfast -”I can help you get your name in the news”- a businessman came up to me and said, “That’s your niche! All businesses are interested in seeing their name in print.” Since then, I have narrowed my focus from the broad field of public relations to the narrow focus of publicity. It works for me and for my clients!

Here are some pointers to help you find your niche:

1. First you need to recognize your unique talents and abilities.

2. Analyze where your service or products fit in the overall market.

3. Provide something that people need or want.

4. Determine your target market segment.

5. Check out the competition.

6. Whatever you’re offering, do it better, differently or more economically than the competition.

7. If you want people to know about your business, get out and market. Use the same niche concept for your marketing.

According to the Marketing Titan:

“Niche marketing can refer to both marketing and business choice. In and of itself, niche marketing refers to finding a segment of the general market for a service or product line. One then develops a solution for the needs of that segment and then markets to it to get the word out.”

Find where your prospects hang out – what clubs and organizations they frequent – and go there. Start networking with them. Join groups on LinkedIn that represent your customers; make comments. Find the publications your potential customer reads and target your PR efforts there. Find your market niche and your message and stick to it. Make it yours.

According to a report from PR Newswire and Crowd Factory:

” Creating sharable content and enabling sharing capabilities through the relevant channels can dramatically increase the number of views for releases. The research found that each share generates an average of nearly two click-backs to the original press release. Additionally, sharing of press releases across social networks increases the total audience, or social reach, for this content by nearly 70 percent.”

FYI…PR Newswire is one of the major news release distribution services and Crowd Factory is a social marketing platform that offers sharing widgets and other social media gadgetry.

According to their report, Facebook leads the social media with 48 percent of the news release sharing, compared with 37 percent on Twitter and 15 percent on LinkedIn. If you are looking for the best performance in terms of click-backs , you should share your release on Twitter, which generates 30 percent more news release views than Facebook.

Originally, I saw a note about the report shared on LinkedIn’s PR Professionals Network by Sara Long, founder and chief creative officer at Write Way Creative. Thanks for sharing, Sara.

P.S. You might want use my tips on how to search engine optimize your new releases.

From the Forbes article:

“Forbes: What the difference between a good business and a great business? And how much of that answer has to do with the nature of the business model itself, and how much it has to do with the DNA of the management?

“Methile: Well, I think in the early stages, it’s the product and it’s technology. But when businesses become great, it’s the leadership and it’s the management that take them to that next level.”

Well, it turns out there is a leadership institute just down the road from me in Midlothian, Virginia. It’s Renaissance Leadership. I heard Tom Newton, president of Renaissance Leadership, speak this week at a meeting of the Richmond, VA, Chapter of National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO).

Tom started his presentation by opening his Leadership Kit, which contains 12 items:

1.  A mirror – to remind you to regularly look yourself in the eye…with a willingness to answer the “tough” questions about yourself.

2.  A carpenter’s level – so you know your current “reality,” your current “level set” and strengths and areas of needed focus.

3.  A map – to create a guide for yourself and the rest of your organization…then make sure folks can “read” and interpret it.

4.  Juggling balls – to juggle various responsibilities and to help others juggle both responsibilities and priorities.

5.  A kitchen timer – to limit your victim mentality. “I like to set it for no more than five minutes,” Tom said. “This is how long we should stay ‘ticked off’ at anybody who has made a mistake.”

6.  A small nickel-plated elephant – to remind you to ask, “How good are we at addressing ‘the elephant’ in the room that nobody wants to talk about?”

7.  A pompom – to be a cheerleader for your organization and to do it without ego.

8.  A trumpet – to share things that you are proud of,  that make you and your team unique.

9.  An exercise band – to help you stretch and grow. “You’ve got to find a way to put some muscle in it,” Tom said.

10.  A compass – to find “magnetic North for you and your organization, so everyone is working in the same direction. This activity usually consists of (re)connecting with your values.

11.  A hockey puck – to be like hockey great Wayne Gretzky, who was a great scorer because he focused on going where the puck was going to be, not where it is or was.

12.  Air freshener – to remove the stigma of past mistakes.

I really enjoyed Tom’s presentation and I’m putting together my kit! How about you?