Wikipedia puts it this way: Link bait is any content or feature, within a website, designed specifically to gain attention or encourage others to link to the website.

Here are our 5 favorite tweets of the week:

Here are this weeks top tweets:

1. 9 Tips for Speaking to the Media http://bit.ly/g3UFvg #PR
2. When should you send your press release? http://bit.ly/lKtAMR
3. How to optimize link bait for SEO and influence http://selnd.com/qj1dbC
4. 3 #PR Infographics you can learn from http://bit.ly/pWiEbR
5. How Pitch a Blogger, from a Blogger http://bit.ly/ruE4Jz

Have you had success with link bait? Please share in the comments (and we might feature your story in a future post).

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And the winner is:

Erin Cook

Congratulations Erin, and thanks again for following our tour! We hope everyone enjoyed reading our tips, for more of them check out our ebooks and services!

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Contest Announcement! Enter to Win One Ultimate Online PR Kit (Value $97)!

Deadline date: Thursday September 8st, 2011 at 11:59 pm Eastern Standard Time.

Contest Rules

You must adhere to all the rules as stated. Shall a winner be chosen who did not complete these rules, he/she will not be eligible to win. To be eligible to win you must be 18 years of age or older.

You must comment below telling us why you want to win the Ultimate Online PR Kit.

For Additional Entries

For additional entries, you may chose to complete any one, or all of the below actions. You must write a separate comment for each additional entry you complete below. (A winner is chosen by the number of comments, not the number of actions taken.)

• Follow Glennette on Twitter @premiumweb
• Become a Premium Web Design Facebook Fan
• Follow Ponn Sabra on Twitter @PonnSabra
• Follow Janet Thaeler on Twitter @Newspapergrl
• Subscribe to our RSS feed preferably through the email subscription having the same email address on the comment that you have in the RSS feed. To sign up with your RSS feed reader, click here
• Share this page on Facebook with the “Share” button below adding a personal note. Comment below with the timestamped url.
• Tweet about this contest; don’t forget to comment below with the new tweet link.
• SAMPLE TWEET. ENTER UP TO TWICE DAILY:
  RT @premiumweb GIVEAWAY Win #Publicity Spark #SEO & #PR products & services from @ponnsabra & @newspapergrl http://ow.ly/59Pv4 #publicityspark
• Add a Publicity Spark button to your site,

<br /> <a href=””http://publicityspark/”” _mce_href=””http://publicityspark/”” target=”_blank”><img style=”border: 1px solid #474747;” border=”0? width=”125? alt=”Publicity Spark” src=”http://imageurl.com/image.jpg” height=”125?/><br /> </a>

• Bookmark this post on your browser or your favorite bookmarking site, such as reddit, delicious, or google bookmarks. You can use one of the “Sharing is Caring” buttons below.
• Share this post with your favorite social networking site, such as yahoo buzz, stumbleupon, or kirsty. You can use one of the “Sharing is Caring” buttons below as well.

Determining a Winner

Each comment below designates an entry number. Create a new comment for each entry requirement you complete. We will use Random.org to pick a random winner from the total number of comments below. The winner will be contacted by email. If no response is received in 48 hours, another winner will be chosen. Confirmed winners will be announced in each Friday’s blogpost and on our blog at PublicitySpark.com

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Here are this weeks top tweets:

1. 1. How to use a press release to get great coverage when you don’t have any news http://bit.ly/pB3poE
2. 9 Reasons Why Your Content is Not Shared on Social Networks: New Research http://bit.ly/nV74tE
3. 4 apps for Twitter management/content curation http://bit.ly/ror8Ql
4. Companies that use Twitter average 2x more leads than those that don’t + more social media facts http://bit.ly/q4WqQA
5. (In case you were skeptical…) New data reveals Twitter is more useful to businesses than ever http://bit.ly/pdLbXD

Even though we love Twitter it comes with some frustration (like all social media sites).  Have you ever created a Twitter account only to lose the login info? And no one knows who created the account? That’s what happened with @PublicitySpark

It was created, a few tweets sent out and now we can’t log on.

Unlike Facebook that let’s you toggle between all of your accounts with a single login, Twitter makes you submit a new email address for each profile. You can’t toggle between them. A nice workaround is using a Twitter tool like Hootsuite, but if you can’t access the email and don’t know the username for your Twitter account, it can be painful. Now if Twitter would simply create one login with multiple accounts requiring just one login we’d be happy.

Please.

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Contest Announcement! Enter to Win One Ultimate Online PR Kit (Value $97)!

Deadline date: Thursday September 1st, 2011 at 11:59 pm Eastern Standard Time.

Contest Rules

You must adhere to all the rules as stated. Shall a winner be chosen who did not complete these rules, he/she will not be eligible to win. To be eligible to win you must be 18 years of age or older.

You must comment below telling us why you want to win the Ultimate Online PR Kit.

For Additional Entries

For additional entries, you may chose to complete any one, or all of the below actions. You must write a separate comment for each additional entry you complete below. (A winner is chosen by the number of comments, not the number of actions taken.)

• Follow Denise O’Berry on Twitter @deniseoberry
• Become a Denise O’Berry Facebook fan
• Follow Ponn Sabra on Twitter @PonnSabra
• Follow Janet Thaeler on Twitter @Newspapergrl
• Subscribe to our RSS feed preferably through the email subscription having the same email address on the comment that you have in the RSS feed. To sign up with your RSS feed reader, click here
• Share this page on Facebook with the “Share” button below adding a personal note. Comment below with the timestamped url.
• Tweet about this contest; don’t forget to comment below with the new tweet link.
• SAMPLE TWEET. ENTER UP TO TWICE DAILY:
  RT @deniseoberry GIVEAWAY Win #Publicity Spark #SEO & #PR products & services from @ponnsabra & @newspapergrl http://ow.ly/59Pv4 #publicityspark
• Add a Publicity Spark button to your site,

<br /> <a href=””http://publicityspark/”” _mce_href=””http://publicityspark/”” target=”_blank”><img style=”border: 1px solid #474747;” border=”0? width=”125? alt=”Publicity Spark” src=”http://imageurl.com/image.jpg” height=”125?/><br /> </a>

• Bookmark this post on your browser or your favorite bookmarking site, such as reddit, delicious, or google bookmarks. You can use one of the “Sharing is Caring” buttons below.
• Share this post with your favorite social networking site, such as yahoo buzz, stumbleupon, or kirsty. You can use one of the “Sharing is Caring” buttons below as well.

Determining a Winner

Each comment below designates an entry number. Create a new comment for each entry requirement you complete. We will use Random.org to pick a random winner from the total number of comments below. The winner will be contacted by email. If no response is received in 48 hours, another winner will be chosen. Confirmed winners will be announced in each Friday’s blogpost and on our blog at PublicitySpark.com

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To go along with this theme, people are getting back into routines and schedules after the long days of summer. On your blog, Facebook, or in your media outreach you can provide advice, tips or other helpful information to help ease the adjustment.

Other popular themes to think about include Halloween and the upcoming holiday season.

If you need inspiration go to any press release site that has a search box and put those terms in (Halloween, Halloween promotion, social media Halloween, etc) and see what promotions or news people have shared. Tweak it or improve on the idea to fit your goals. It always works for us!

Here are this weeks top tweets:

1. 4 Ways to capitalize on back to school #PR http://bit.ly/n2Bzxs
2. Want to know how to pitch a blogger? Read how this tech blogger wants to be pitched http://bit.ly/r8pDbf
3. How to get more exposure by tweeting your press release http://bit.ly/pWQIhH
4. 64 Facebook marketing ideas [infographic] http://bit.ly/nhDizA
5. 5 Cool Creative Facebook Marketing Campaigns http://t.co/G1H8NBa

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Contest Announcement! Enter to Win One Ultimate Online PR Kit (Value $97)!

Deadline date: Thursday, August 25, 2011 at 11:59 pm Eastern Standard Time.

Contest Rules

You must adhere to all the rules as stated. Shall a winner be chosen who did not complete these rules, he/she will not be eligible to win. To be eligible to win you must be 18 years of age or older.

You must comment below telling us why you want to win the Ultimate Online PR Kit.

For Additional Entries

For additional entries, you may chose to complete any one, or all of the below actions. You must write a separate comment for each additional entry you complete below. (A winner is chosen by the number of comments, not the number of actions taken.)

• Follow SocialBuzzClub on Twitter @socialbuzzclub
• Become a SocialBuzzClub Facebook fan
• Follow Ponn Sabra on Twitter @PonnSabra
• Follow Janet Thaeler on Twitter @Newspapergrl
• Subscribe to our RSS feed preferably through the email subscription having the same email address on the comment that you have in the RSS feed. To sign up with your RSS feed reader, click here
• Share this page on Facebook with the “Share” button below adding a personal note. Comment below with the timestamped url.
• Tweet about this contest; don’t forget to comment below with the new tweet link.
• SAMPLE TWEET. ENTER UP TO TWICE DAILY:
  RT @kellymccausey GIVEAWAY Win #Publicity Spark #SEO & #PR products & services from @ponnsabra & @newspapergrl http://ow.ly/59Pv4 #publicityspark
• Add a Publicity Spark button to your site,

<br /> <a href=””http://publicityspark/”” _mce_href=””http://publicityspark/”” target=”_blank”><img style=”border: 1px solid #474747;” border=”0? width=”125? alt=”Publicity Spark” src=”http://imageurl.com/image.jpg” height=”125?/><br /> </a>

• Bookmark this post on your browser or your favorite bookmarking site, such as reddit, delicious, or google bookmarks. You can use one of the “Sharing is Caring” buttons below.
• Share this post with your favorite social networking site, such as yahoo buzz, stumbleupon, or kirsty. You can use one of the “Sharing is Caring” buttons below as well.

Determining a Winner

Each comment below designates an entry number. Create a new comment for each entry requirement you complete. We will use Random.org to pick a random winner from the total number of comments below. The winner will be contacted by email. If no response is received in 48 hours, another winner will be chosen. Confirmed winners will be announced in each Friday’s blogpost and on our blog at PublicitySpark.com

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Here are the top 5 tweets of the week, including tips for SEO press releases.

1. A Guide to Planning your Corporate Blog Content http://ow.ly/5Y10U
2. How Effective Are Facebook Ads? http://ow.ly/42UAv
3. Are You Making These Common Link Errors? http://bit.ly/nEuj3y
4. 10 Tips for a Killer Press Release http://bit.ly/nMbp9w
5. Will Infographics Replace Press Releases? http://t.co/UkwZpIe

Of course if you want to write a killer press release, be sure to check out our press release seo ebook with all our best tips.

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1. Newspaper clipping generator

Do you want a visual way to show off your news? Check out this newspaper generator that will let you create a short headline and a few paragraphs of text in a graphic that looks like a newspaper. You can save the image and use Twitpic to share it on Twitter. I like using it for a graphic for a blog post (see our example in this post about words to avoid using in a press release).

Find the free tool here:

http://www.fodey.com/generators/newspaper/snippet.asp

2. ‘Who Retweeted Me’ Tool from Hubspot

Hubspot has a new site that is simple to use and tells you who retweets your links – it’s called ??WhoRetweetedMe.com

When you get this info you can say thank you to the people who retweeted you and build relationships with them.

“Engaging them dramatically increases the chances that they will not only retweet another one of your tweets, but ultimately become the community of highly coveted “habitual retweeters”. Source

Here’s a screenshot of the results:

3. Social Buzz Club

This is community is still new and growing. You get points for sharing other people’s tweets and then get credits for sharing your own. You can re-write tweets and schedule them ahead. People can choose from the social media platforms you specify (Stumble Upon, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc) and get a point for each network they share your content on.

Know any other new tools to help you get publicity for your business? Please share in the comments.

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Official Wire is based in the UK.

COST:

Official Wire has a paid site and a free site.

You can submit one (1) press release for just £19.99 (about $32). Or you can subscribe for £34.99 (about $57) per month and submit any number of press releases during your subscription period. They offer discounts for quarterly or annual payment. Right now they are running a deal that if you buy 6 months you get 6 months free.

They also own PostFreePR.com where you can post your news free. Interestingly, there are no ads and you can use keyword links or URL links. However, it looks quite spammy and is ranked a 2. See http://www.postfreepr.com/articles/5243672994/Florida-Home-For-Sale-Build-The-Green-Home-And-Live-Worry-Free This press release is focused on too many different keywords. I would focus on 1 or 2 keywords and start by using them in the title.

PROS:

They have a distribution list that includes journalists and bloggers – though who knows how up-to-date or relevant the list is. They get your news on top online news portals lie Yahoo! News. The home page has a Google Page Rank of 4 (not that this is the end all, but a way of comparing sites).

From their web site they distribute to:

• More than 380,000 journalists
• More than 295,000 bloggers
• Top news & media/blog websites; e.g. Google News, Bing News, Yahoo! News, Topix News, etc.
• Social Media Networks including: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and it looks like this is done through their accounts on that site

You can post up to 6 images per press release with captions for each (they will rotate). It appears you can link both URLs and words, which is great for SEO.

CONS:

Your press releases will be deleted after you stop paying. I guess you can’t expect them to keep your news live forever like PRWeb and some other services do. Make sure you  publish your press release on your site so there is a copy online. Link to that copy and not to theirs or even sites like Google News who do not keep a permanent copy of your press release online.

They have terrible URLs for SEO – they are ugly and have no words, just a string. For example:  http://www.officialwire.com/main.php?action=posted_news&rid=97054&catid=1109

They inset Google ads and other form of ads in the body of your press release and in their sidebars (when you see the double underline it’s a sponsored link, they also have banner ads). Many free sites do this and it looks spammy.

I’m not particularly impressed with the sites I see that have links to their press releases (see this Google search). It appears they created a ton of low value web sites in different niches that they post to.

I don’t know if they have editorial review (this keeps the quality up but requires staff and can slow approval/turnaround time).

CONCLUSION:

Test it out for a month and see if they bring you traffic or stories. Don’t expect a lot of long-term value unless you continue paying and are good at optimizing your press release with keywords (see our ebook about the topic).

Have you used Official Wire? What did you think?

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