Customer Reviews

Complete Guide to Internet Publicity: Creating and Launching Successful Online Campaigns

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Steve O'Keefe's first book, Publicity on the Internet, changed the way people in public relations and marketing, particularly those in the publishing industry, publicized and promoted books, companies, products, services and other endeavors on the World Wide Web. For the first time, someone had outlined -- in great detail and with remarkable candor -- what we had to do to take advantage of the Internet's innumerable opportunities for getting "talked about" in cyberspace and, by extension, in our offices, living rooms and places of play. In his new book, Complete Guide to Internet Publicity -- a complete overhaul of his earlier work -- Steve goes several steps further and makes the art of Internet publicity almost a no-brainer for professionals and non-professionals alike. With a host of specific case examples, he tells us how to harness the power of online news rooms, discussion groups, newsletters, chat tours, online seminars, contests and what he calls "syndication" (a great concept unto itself) to develop positive publicity far beyond what most of us could achieve or afford with traditional public relations or direct mail marketing, as important and impressive as these approaches can be in certain circumstances. But the book is far more than a collection of tactics. Most important, it is salted with expert advice and counsel on how to use the Internet wisely. Steve is a practitioner of what he describes, but he is also a teacher who cares about the values of his readers. He wants us to succeed credibly and accountably with our publicity initiatives, not at all costs. Philosophically, he reverses the old maxim, "the end justifies the means." Like Camus, he thinks "the means justify the end." Still and all, the book is a wonderfully practical primer that helps us to concentrate on creativity and substance in generating the kind of publicity that we only dreamed of a few years back. The book is also well-organized, well-written and well-edited, three qualities that make it not only easy to read, but easy to grasp and easy to translate into action. If there is a "best" book on Internet publicity, this has to be the choice hands down.

This book has an approachable, plain English writing style geared to anyone interested in Internet publicity (not just the big corporations). The author includes lots of helpful examples to illustrate his points. Seeing how the pointers, tips, and procedures operate in the real world enables anyone to apply them to his or her business. I already have!

I was very pleased to discover this book. O'Keefe has a proven track record but other books by him are out of date, as technologies and industry standards have changed substantially. This book answers the need for coverage of recent developments with its inclusion of topics such as search engine optimization, newsletters, newsrooms, email merge programs, and syndication and affiliate programs.

When O'Keefe's first book on Internet publicity came out I wrote a long review. Now I'm older and lazier, but thank goodness he isn't. O'Keefe didn't just revise his original book (one of THE best Internet 'how to' books of all time), he's completely
re-written it from scratch. If you need to know the 'nuts and bolts' of how to DO Internet publicity today, you won't find a more useful, up-to-date guide anywhere. In fact, this book is a standard for all 'how to' books. Clear, throrough, detailed,
'battle-tested' and truly useful. Five stars isn't enough.

This well-written, complte guide to Internet publicity is the culmination of years of experience. Steve O'Keefe has been helping people get online publicity for many years, and he summarizes what he has learned in this outstanding text.

Highly recommended.

I wanted to like this book. But I was taken aback by the author's attitude toward email campaigns - he says you'll never get anywhere if you don't use opt-out marketing to build a list. People will complain, but you can find an ISP that ignores their complaints. I was also surprised to find him radically misinformed about search engine traffic. Most people who have a web site in a specialized niche find search engines bring them lots and lots of beautifully targeted visitors, but he says that only sites with megabudgets get search engine traffic. His discussion of meta tags is out of date as well. He has some good ideas, but I hope people don't take him as an authority.