"Having worked on the agency side in the past, I have a great appreciation for the level of execution that has been repeatedly demonstrated by Arbor's account team at LP&P.  They have a great understanding of the tone and touch required to develop lasting relationships with journalists.  Most impressive is their use of social media to enhance these relationships.  A great example is the recent denial-of-service attacks against Scientology web sites.  The team asked our top security researcher to look at the data available to Arbor in the hopes of developing a blog post.  That post has led to coverage in the Washington Post, the front page of ABCNews.com, and has articles have been published in every tier one industry publication we track.  It's not just coverage for coverage's sake; the positioning is excellent, with Arbor identified as the experts for tracking global Internet attacks.  I couldn't be more impressed by the strategy, tactics, execution and results."
- Kevin Whalen,
Director of PR, Arbor Networks

Case Studies

Arbor Networks
"Leveraging Social Media"

The Challenge:

Arbor Networks, a provider of security and network management solutions for global business networks, used to pride itself on having a robust news pipeline. In fact, the company achieved three successful quarters in 2006 packed with coverage based on product introductions, research, and survey news. However, in early 2007, the company was facing a sparse pipeline with very little news on the horizon. Sensing a potential for lower-than-average coverage looming, Lois Paul & Partners (LP&P) was faced with a challenge. How does one elevate the visibility of a small security vendor in a crowded marketplace with little news to share?

The answer came with the launch of the Arbor Networks Security Engineering and Response Team (ASERT)– the company’s security research group responsible for evaluating burgeoning Internet-scale threats that endanger the global cyber infrastructure – and associated “Security to the Core” blog, penned by the ASERT research team.

The ASERT team and blog – a previously untapped resource – were perfectly suited for LP&P to leverage for consistent, rapid response-based outreach. It would allow LP&P to accomplish three goals in one fell swoop:

  1. Generate media interest in the blog
  2. Raise the profile of each ASERT team member
  3. Drive traffic to the Arbor Networks site and blog

This challenge was fairly daunting given the timing of the blog launch; very few vendors had made social media-based PR a standard practice– the LP&P team would be at the forefront of the social media wave.

The LP&P Difference:

To fully exploit the Arbor Networks blog, the LP&P team knew they needed to be both aggressive and cautious in their approach– there were no real “rules” to follow around social media at the time, since it was a fairly new PR medium.  Initially, LP&P’s strategy was to start penetrating industry conversations more proactively through the blog. Soon enough, LP&P’s introduction of the Arbor blog led key reporters and industry pundits to a security resource and ultimately raised the profile of Arbor Networks’ key researchers, solidifying their credibility in the industry.

Today, the Arbor blog is a significant PR resource. The LP&P team aggressively monitors for industry events, flagging pitch-worthy news to the Arbor team and turning around proactive pitches to select media targets – all within moments of the news breaking. The typical process includes the following: when an Internet virus breaks out, the LP&P team offers the ASERT team as a source to the press, often referencing a relevant blog entry based on the incident at hand, within the pitch itself so reporters can pull insight from for their article – with no briefing required, in most cases.

Since LP&P implemented this aggressive proactive pitch campaign, nearly 60 proactive, blog-based pitches have been generated to date with literally thousands of articles resulting – all in the absence of any hard news and with a majority of articles surfacing simply as a result of an Arbor blog entry. LP&P successfully positioned Arbor as a thought leader and a go-to media resource – particularly for the business press. Arbor Networks and the ASERT team members are now regularly sought out for comment on industry and security issues and the Arbor blog is very highly-read and sourced in articles across the IT and security trades, in particular.

The Results:

Today, nearly two years since the launch of the Arbor blog and LP&P’s implementation of an aggressive social media campaign, Arbor Networks’ coverage has increased exponentially, with business press penetration up by over 2000%! The most recent example of the blog in action resulted in hits across all top-tier media targets without a single briefing taking place. As a result of a recent proactive pitch tied to a blog entry that discussed an ongoing botnet attack on the Church of Scientology website, LP&P garnered coverage in key publications including: CSO, SC Magazine, InfoWorld, Computerworld, Network World, PC World, CNET, ABC News and the Washington Post,.

Arbor Networks continues to reap the benefits of a well-executed, proactive, social media-based PR program. As a direct result of LP&P’s aggressive outreach approach, the ASERT team members have been elevated to such a level that in addition to LP&P’s blog-based outreach, a “tipping point” has been reached in which Arbor’s experts are regularly sought out by media influencers such as Robert Vamosi at CNET, Edward Lucas at The Economist, Jon Swartz at USA Today, Chris Rhoads at The Wall Street Journal, Matt Hines at InfoWorld , Ryan Naraine at eWeek, and Robert McMillan at IDG News, among others.