Posts Tagged ‘Google’

How to create word of mouth for a boring box in a server room

Wednesday, February 25th, 2009

If you’ve ever spent time in a server room or racks room, you’ll know it’s an cold place full of grey boxes, black boxes and wires. Not the kind of place you expect to see a product that makes people want to talk (aka word of mouth advertising, aka free publicity).

Then along came Google which invented its own box (the Google Search Appliance) for businesses to use in their buildings, to search their intranets, internal company documents, that sort of thing.

Google couldn’t make their box a different shape, because it had to fit in racks with all the other boxes. So it made it bright yellow. And whacked a massive logo on the side.

Then it ran a competition to see how “findable” the box is in the server room. That helped to promote the concept, because the box is there to help businesses find things more easily.

I know Google has a million clever people working for it, but that’s really smart.

Twitter gives us the bad news about Gmail

Tuesday, February 24th, 2009

We use Google Apps for our email, meaning we have a business version of the web email system Gmail.

It’s worked fine for three years but this morning is down. Argh! Have we done something wrong?

No. It’s not us, it’s Gmail. And it’s down across the world.

What’s interesting is how we found out. 20 minutes before there was anything in Google News, it was all over the micro blogging service Twitter. At one point 100 people a second were tweeting that their Gmail was down.

You can follow it with a simple Twitter search, or using a clever application like Twitterfall.

An important part of PR is connecting to your audience in the way they want to be communicated with. Right now, Twitter is a hot way of talking to people.

Our friends at Bytestart have a very useful guide to using Twitter in your business.

UPDATE: Our email is back! And apparently, Google’s London PR team couldn’t send out a statement… because their email was down!

Give your skill away to get attention

Tuesday, December 9th, 2008

If you have a skill in something, give it away to attract attention.

A consulting firm has ripped apart Google’s business model and put together a report for anyone to see.

Probably a good week’s work, but a smart way to demonstrate their analytical skills.

Pity for us UK folk then that the English version of the company’s website is still written in French

Using secrets to launch highly anticipated products

Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008

Google has demonstrated several times clever ways to launch new products.

When it launched Gmail, you could only get it if invited by someone who already had it. And users only had 100 invites each.

Restricting the availability of Gmail in this way made it a “must-have” product with some people clamouring to get it. It also made those who already had it proud to be part of the club.

Two days ago Google “accidentally” launched the marketing early for its new browser Chrome, which it hopes people will move to from Internet Explorer and FireFox.

Ignoring the technical improvements Chrome has, they’ve done a pretty smart thing. There are thousands of people across the world waiting to see what Google will do next, and by supposedly letting the cat out of the bag early, they may have succeeded in generating more publicity than with a ‘normal’ product launch.

A smart way to generate word of mouth publicity.

This Gmail video will go viral

Friday, August 3rd, 2007

 just did a quick Friday afternoon check of Gmail, and found a link inviting me to submit a video for this.

BRILLIANT!

This is going to get so much word of mouth publicity for Gmail. It’s so simple, I love it.

Get your free PR marketing book
PR Success Made Easy Get this paperback marketing book posted to you totally free.

Discover how to get PR and use it to grow your business:

* Press release basics

* What journalists love & hate

* The rules of free publicity

And you'll get weekly tips by email

First Name
Last Name
Email
Your information is 100% safe and will never be shared. Publicity Heaven will keep in touch by email and post. If you've had enough, it's easy to unsubscribe

Testimonials


"I found Publicity Heaven fully supportive and professional at every turn and would highly recommend them to anyone who wants a high profile media launch."

Elaine Cannon, Equine Health & Welfare Strategy

"Within one week an opportunity arose which Paul made me aware of at 6pm one evening. 85 minutes later we had a press release ready to go - one day later an excellent article was published in the local paper."

Peter Bretherton, Connect 2 Northants