Archive for ‘Media Outreach’:


Social Media: Stop, Look and Listen

Thursday, March 7th, 2013
Flickr: Paul G - the|G|tm

Flickr: Paul G - the|G|tm

Every day, my Google Reader is chock full of “how to” and “must do” articles especially when it comes to social media.  We read about how important it is to “engage with our audiences.” We hear that we must be “in the conversation.” We’re told that our brand will die if we don’t have a Facebook page – just kidding, but you get the idea.

I’d like to take a step back—back to the basics. I believe many of us got onto social media sites because we thought that was the thing to do. While that may be somewhat true, some may need to re-think why they are there; and, surprisingly (to those of us in the biz), there are a whole lot of businesses and organizations that are just now getting into social media. So, let’s talk about what you should do before making that leap (or if you want to re-evaluate why you’re there).

One thing it seems a lot of folks miss is that before you start posting, purporting, and professing in social media, you should stop, look, and listen. Just like we were taught as kids before crossing the road.  Here is a partial list of things to look and listen for:

Track your competitors.

  • Who is saying what?
  • What platform(s) are most popular in these exchanges?

Observe industry issues/trends.

  • What is being talked about?
  • Where are they talking

Monitor your own company/organization/issues

  • Who’s talking? Are these people in my target audience or are they influencers of you target audience?
  • What are they saying?
  • Where are most of the conversations happening?
  • When are these dialogues taking place?
  • What does your company want to achieve in social media?

Once you have the answers to these questions, then you can make an educated decision about whether you need to simply have a passive presence or need to be actively involved and on what platforms. In this way, you are able to create a plan of action and decide how to best allocate resources.

As Seth Godin says, “It’s a process, not an event.” Social media is not something you should just jump in and “wing it.” It takes time, commitment and resources to be done right.

What tips would you offer someone who feels intimidated or tentative about using social media channels?

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Posted in Media Outreach, Public Relations, Social Media | No Comments »

Visual Storytelling: Who Knew It’s Been Around For More Than a Hundred Years?!

Friday, January 25th, 2013
Flickr Image: josefnovak33

Flickr Image: josefnovak33

Marketers and public relations practitioners have long known that storytelling is critical to any campaign. Storytelling is about relating to people, about making a connection with your audience.  PR has long been a text-based, word-driven method of communicating messages, but it’s no longer enough to simply broadcast these written messages.  “PR historically has been about words—telling. Now it’s show and tell,” says Richard Edelman, president and CEO of Edelman in a recent AdWeek article.

I’ve read copious articles in the past year on the “new trend” of visual storytelling. Articles that point out we are a society of “visual learners.” Visual storytelling classes have recently been added to university course catalogs, professional development and continuing education workshops and webinars are abundant. Infographics have become a popular way to socially share messages in the past couple years. Some say this shift is due to how we consume information and communicate in the digital mobile age. But I say this is a trend that actually began more than a hundred years ago!

Over the holidays, my husband and I watched the History Channel mini-series “Mankind The Story of All of Us” that we had DVR’d. In the final episode, they talk about the Congo rubber trade in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s under King Leopold II’s dictatorship and the brutishness of forced labor. A common occurrence was to physically maim children as a warning to villagers. Enter Alice Harris, a British missionary, and her camera. (I know you were wondering where I was going with this J).

Brian Williams, of NBC Nightly News (and one of the commentators in the series) says, “The invention of photography and the means to get them in front of people held more power than its inventors ever imagined. Photos don’t blink and they don’t go away. Once you’ve seen that image, you can’t rewind.”  Harris took hundreds of photos of the atrocities—photos which were then published in newspapers across the world, shocking millions of readers.  These photographs were so horrific and communicated so broadly that it transformed public opinion and changed society, forcing King Leopold to quit the Congo rubber trade.  I would argue that this was the beginning of visual storytelling—at least in the modern mass media age. (Visual storytelling actually dates back to more than 30,000 years ago with cave paintings.)

In addition, “Once you’ve seen that image, you can’t rewind,” Williams went on to say, “The expression ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ –that’s a low ball estimate. A picture, a good picture, is worth so much more than that.”

This is especially true in today’s digital age. As PR and communications professionals we are increasingly tasked with disseminating messages in a crowded online space. The content we produce must not only gain the attention of audiences – but keep it as well.

Like our ancestors, we must create stories that paint pictures – either via our words or via images – to sway public opinion and, perhaps more importantly, persuades people to respond to our calls to action.

Check out this BurrellesLuce Storytelling newsletter for more helpful tips.

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Posted in Media Outreach, Media Relations, Public Relations | No Comments »

What Can Retargeting Do For You?

Monday, December 10th, 2012

retargeted adsOnce a website is set up and gains traction, it can become a targeted marketing sweet spot for companies looking for exposure. Companies or marketing firms analyze shopping habits by demographic and direct efforts accordingly.

When a website reaches a high hit count, it becomes that sought-after spot for displaying retargeting ads. Marketing firms will maximize retargeting strategies on such sites to realize the best percentage per post. Facebook is one such site. Facebook is such a big player it might shift the entire ecommerce and pay-per-click scenes.

First, What Is Retargeting?

Retargeting is all about making a conversion based on someone’s expressed interest in a product or service. Search retargeting takes the keywords that users search for, and delivers relevant ads in a timely manner to a (hopefully) still searching consumer. Site retargeting shows ads to users who leave a site. Ads can show items abandoned in a cart, products that were clicked on, or even just a targeted ad. Retargeting’s main purpose boils down to converting more window shoppers into buyers.

In Front of More People

Retargeting on a venue such as Facebook is a high-profile maneuver for any business. This is because Facebook is at the forefront of the international social media scene. Joining in on the bidding process could potentially put ads before hundreds of thousands of people, not just once but as many times as is advisable.

The risk in investing in this, on the part of Facebook, is volume. Whether or not enough traffic goes through Facebook cannot be determined outside of assumption. However, the assumption is that there are perhaps millions of Facebook unique visitors on a daily basis. Facebook will regularly have upwards of over 150 million unique visitors per month. That tallies to just over 5,000,000 per day. That’s potential.

Retargeting and Pay-Per-Click

Watch groups claim that the shift from per-click prominence on search engines to high-hit volume sites like Facebook will have drastic effects on the pay-per-click game. Their logic is that search engine optimization (SEO) is limited to those searching for a particular item, whereas random visibility on a Facebook page will target others. And further, this will retarget one-time window shoppers and lure them back. The interest is there and the product is there; the assumption is that this will more likely lead to a sale.

Whether or not this new strategy by Facebook will drive pay-per-click or SEO strategies to the outer brink of advertising competition has yet to be seen. But it will be an important game-changer as Facebook and other companies continue to develop this strategy.

Some Shaky Ground

Facebook will reap more than just money. As advertisers “follow” more users around Facebook, it runs the risk of having too much access to personal information and behaviors. Facebook has already had to face the scrutiny of conspiratorial thinkers. Concerned users, competitors and governments demanded answers for such an infringement (at least as it is perceived) on personal privacy.

Assumptions can be made for similar attacks on Facebook Exchange, the network’s retargeting interface. Historically, however, Facebook has not shown much compliance to countries or individuals asking them to augment their operations, and there is nothing that says they’ll start now. The way in which this plays out and shapes the world of retargeting will be interesting as Facebook continues to grow.

***

Felicia SavageFelicia Savage is a freelance writer, designer and internet marketer living in Indianapolis, IN. As a contributor to technected.com, she loves to discuss her adventures in public relations and marketing.

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Posted in Advertising/Marketing, Media Outreach, Public Relations, Social Media, Technology | No Comments »

Influencer Marketing: Tips from PRSA St. Louis Tech Day 2012

Monday, November 26th, 2012
Flickr Image: quinn.anya

Flickr Image: quinn.anya

According to Wikipedia, influencer marketing is “a form of marketing that has emerged from a variety of recent practices and studies, in which focus is placed on specific key individuals (or types of individual) rather than the target market as a whole. It identifies the individuals that have influence over potential buyers, and orients marketing activities around these influencers.”

Key decision-makers operate within communities of influencers. Influencers may or may not be actual buyers, they are not always obvious, and typically are a neutral party – which is why they are such an invaluable asset as their potential to affect sales is immense.

We’ve all heard (and probably participated in) conversations about blogger relations, disclosure and transparency.  Bloggers are just one class of influencers, though, so the first step in Influencer Marketing is seeking out and identifying  those and other influencers.

At a recent PRSA St. Louis half-day event, Erin (Eschen) Maloney from Perficient explained that 92 percent of people trust recommendations of friends, family, word-of-mouth, above all forms of advertising, which is why influencers matter. She went on to say that 13.4 percent of U.S. adults create 80 percent of the content that influences people, and that is why we must find them.

An influencer must be credible. That doesn’t necessarily equate to a lot of followers, a high job role, frequent posts, or even being famous in real life. Influence cannot be reflected by a single metric, and influence does not equal popularity.

So how do you find the influencers that matter to your organization? Maloney advised that there is no one tool or score that can do this for you. You must roll-up your sleeves and dig-in. You can use Klout and Kred (she likes Kred better) as a beginning point, but you may also use Google, Twitter, WeFollow, Twellow, Alltop, LinkedIn groups, Facebook pages, Listorious, RSS feeds and more. (We here at BurrellesLuce prefer our Social Media Monitoring Solution, Engage121). This step is the core foundation of your program. It is time consuming and there is no substitute for hard work here. 

Once you’ve identified key influencers who are active, relevant and timely, then what? You listen. Yes, you stop and listen for a while. It takes listening, Amanda Maksymiw says, to gain “a solid understanding on who they are and what they are interested in. Connect with them on the relevant social networks, subscribe to their newsletters or blogs, and absorb everything you can: the main point is to be quiet here and learn.” Only after this step, can you begin to engage with them.

Author and speaker Alexandra Levit was recently quoted as saying, “Uncovering the top influencers in one’s field requires old-fashioned research. Read the trades, go to industry events and, of course, check out Twitter, Facebook, etc.  Then, gradually develop a relationship with the influencers by asking questions and citing their content.” 

Those of us, who have a background in PR and media relations, know that building relationships takes time and effort.  Do you have any tips to add?

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Posted in Industry Events, Media Outreach, Media Relations, Public Relations, Social Media | 3 Comments »

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