Posts Tagged ‘social media monitoring’


Gaining Insights – Following the 2011 PRSA International Conference

Friday, October 14th, 2011

Colleen Flood*

prsa-logoThe 2011 International PRSA Conference kicks off in Florida tomorrow through Tuesday, October 18th.  Will you be there? Join Johna Burke, senior vice president, BurrellesLuce, for a workshop on ROI and Storytelling in the Digital Age. And to help get you thinking about storytelling, read the October 2011 BurrellesLuce newsletter in our free resource library.

For those of us not attending this year, myself included, there are ways to experience the conference without being there in person. 

Here are just a few of the ways I plan to capitalize on what surely will be an educational week of professional development:

  • Twitter:  Follow the hashtag #PRSAICON to check out tweets from sessions Twitter users are attending.  There’s sure to be live tweeting.  I know the BurrellesLuce team of @gojohnab, @tressalynne, @cldegoede and @_laurenshapiro_ attending the conference will be tweeting under this hashtag.  You may also want to follow the Twitter handles of some of the conference’s speakers. I also set up a column in my BurrellesLuce social media monitoring tool (Engage121) to keep tabs on all these tweets.
  • ComPRehension Blog: This is the official blog of PRSA and will be updated with conferences blog posts, podcasts, interviews and other news related to the conference.
  • Flickr:  Another source I will check out is the 2011 PRSA International photo stream on Flickr to view event photos.
  • Facebook:  While their doesn’t appear to  be an official page setup for the conference, I still plan to monitor PRSA’s Facebook fan page for interesting tidbits, along with some of the local Florida chapters.

I look forward to “listening” to the conference from New Jersey…How are you going to make the most of your virtual, conference experience this year?

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*Bio: Colleen Flood has been a sales consultant with BurrellesLuce for over 12 years and is eager to become a more integrated part of the social-public relations community. She primarily handles agency relations in the New York and New Jersey metro-area. She is not only passionate about work, but also about family, friends, and the Jersey Shore. Twitter: @cgflood LinkedIn: Colleen Flood Facebook: BurrellesLuce 

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Posted in BurrellesLuce, Career Advice, Industry Events, Social Media | No Comments »

A Listening Exercise – Gaining Information and Encouraging Action from Your Social Media Communities

Monday, June 13th, 2011
Flickr Image: Sebastian Fritzon

Flickr Image: Sebastian Fritzon

Valerie Simon

Listening, as I define it, is not a passive exercise. Listening is not a matter of simply hearing words. Listening requires a concentrated method of digesting the information, and using that information to take action. So like any exercise program, I’ll recommend you do a quick check up before starting to strengthen your listening efforts.

Check Up
Take a quick pulse: Review your business objectives and marketing plan. Keep in mind that social media participation should be integrated with your overall communications plan.

Set Goals:  What business objectives will your social media participation help you to achieve?

  • Sales
  • Donations
  • Event attendance
  • Customer Service (response/retention/loyalty)
  • Brand Awareness
  • Crowd sourcing/ product development
  • Membership/Admissions
  • Communications amongst different stakeholders
  • Recruitment
  • Thought leadership

Warm Ups
Who are you trying to reach? Consider what social media channels will be most beneficial for your organization. Stretch. Extend beyond Facebook and Twitter. Consider Flickr, YouYube, Tumblr, LinkedIn and seek out forums and blogs with strong communities.  BurrellesLuce offers several tools to help get you warmed up quickly, including ContactsPlus™, which helps you to identify new blogs by matching up a current release with those bloggers who are writing on similar topics, and Social Media Monitoring and Engagement solution, Engage121, which enables you to explore what is being said across social media channels and effectively build and manage your online communities.

Speed
Are you planning/prepared to provide immediate responses? The W Hotels “Whatever/Whenever” promise may well be on its way to becoming the standard, rather than the exception, in customer service. Social media allows stories to break and quickly spread at any time of day. I encourage those using BurrellesLuce’s Social Media Monitoring and Engagement solution, to experiment with setting up alerts using filters such as Klout rank or sentiment to sift through the noise and make sure that they are advised of critical information whenever it breaks. Of course a quick, well thought out and efficient response across all channels is critical.

Strength
Do some heavy lifting, err, searching. Investigate the current conversations being said about you, your competitors and the industry. Identify recurring themes and study trends. Review sentiment and compare how the conversations vary across different platforms. Identify key influencers and pay attention to the language and tone. What topics evoke passionate responses?

Flexibility
Don’t get stuck monitoring the same keywords you have always deemed important. As you study industry trends and influencers, adjust your searches accordingly. Begin listening to your communities even when they are not actively speaking about “relevant” topics. What do they care about? Consider what new topics or audiences may be interested in your organization.

Endurance
Set yourself up to succeed over the long term. Put in place a structure to collect the data that will allow you to learn from both your communities and your own social behaviors. There are a myriad of ways to measure social media buzz, sentiment, link tracking, share of voice, fans and followers, geo-location check-ins… slow down and take another pulse check. Review business objectives and consider what metrics can best indicate whether your activity is supporting those business objectives. As you embark upon this listening exercise, look at the data in a number of different ways.

Cool Down
Evaluate all of the data you have collected and all your new knowledge regarding trends and influencers. Go back to your business goals and consider how you will align your social media activity to meet those goals. What channels are best suited for your organization? Where should your voice be heard? Where can you build a strong community that will offer business results? Participating in social media will require an investment of time, so consider the time and resources you can devote. 

Prepare to Play
Listening exercise complete, you are ready for the big game… engagement. But that, my friends, is another post!

What would you add to your listening exercise? What activities are included in your daily listening routine? Share your thoughts with me and the readers of BurrellesLuce Fresh Ideas.

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Posted in Advertising/Marketing, Career Advice, Media Measurement, Media Monitoring, Media Relations, Public Relations, Social Media | 2 Comments »

How to Become an Influencer: Lessons from the 2010 PRSA Counselors Academy Spring Conference

Monday, June 7th, 2010

(L to R) BurrellesLuce's Colleen Flood, Paula Whittington, Johna Burke, and Debbie Friez at the 2010 PRSA Counselors Academy“We should all become influencers, and move away from pitching,” said Brian Solis at the PRSA Counselors Academy Spring Conference in Asheville, NC. He suggested that you can start by writing your press release in 120 characters, so there is room for others to re-tweet it. This was just one of the great insights I picked-up at the conference.

Keeping with this theme, I am offering some of the other best tips (under 120 characters or at least 140) I learned.

Blogging and Social Media

  • Use your #blog to showcase expertise in particular areas so you can win business. (@bgindra)
  • Lesson learned-get the video on 1 take, even if you have to record it several times. It’s easier than editing on computer. (@jaybaer)
  • Google wants to provide multi-media search results, so post some video. (@jaybaer)
  • Digital is not about knowing the answer; it’s finding the answer. (@jaybaer)
  • 4 degrees is the new 6 degrees of separation thanks to #SM. (@Brianna)

Engagement

  • Give people something to talk about to help elevate the brand. (@kalbritton) Example is @lenovo photography contest.
  • Every company has a 1% Group of core active customers…you need to engage them. (@jaybaer)

Green Initiatives

  • The grammar of green: Clear, Credible, Consistent & Compliance.
  • Praise companies for doing what is right with being #green instead of looking at all the bad things they have done.

Messaging

  • The new KISS: Keep it simple & share. (@briansolis)
  • QR (Quick Response) codes are great for sharing information, like at a trade show or games.

Strategy

  • The new CEO = Chief Editorial Officer. (@briansolis)
  • Don’t give community management to an intern.
  • Every company should have a social media crisis plan. (@jaybaer)
  • Set goals and objectives before you start social media monitoring.
  • Interesting way of looking at the #SM conversations – what are people saying about my company & is it in the right context & with the right influencers?

For more great information from this conference, checkout, my BurrellesLuce colleague, Colleen Flood’s latest Fresh Ideas post, “Are You Shifting Marketing and PR Plans Based on Hispanic Demographic Trends?,” as well as the PRSay blog, Jay Baer’s blog and others.

Have you learned some new ideas you can share from a recent industry event? What do you think makes an influencer?

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Posted in Advertising/Marketing, Industry Events, Media Outreach, Media Relations, Public Relations, Social Media | 5 Comments »

Catching Up With Social Media In America’s Sailing Capital

Wednesday, April 7th, 2010

by Mike Robinson*

Flickr Image: PJM

Flickr Image: PJM

I recently attended a seminar presented by Phill McGowan, public information officer for the City of Annapolis. His discussion was entitled, “Successful Communication in the Digital Age” and was featured as part of the PRSA Central Chesapeake Chapter’s Luncheon Speaker Series. (Annapolis is Maryland’s capital and is known as “America’s Sailing Capital” because the U.S. Naval Academy, the National Sailing Hall of Fame, and the strong reputation of the local sailing community.)

Social media tools are a large part of McGowan’s PR strategy – used specifically to listen to conversations online and then respond and engage. In the past, he worked in the media (The Baltimore Sun) and for a private public relations firm (Virilion). He attended a graduate program at American University, which was specifically focused on digital media, and has gone on to leverage and utilize his past journalism experience, his hands-on social media expertise, and a formal education in digital media to engage and connect with the public as a government communicator.

Here are some books he recommended regarding social media:

  • Web 2.0 – A Strategy Guide by Amy Shuen
  • Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug
  • In-Bound Marketing by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah

One great take-away from the event was his story about a blogger who had interviewed him and then published information that McGowan thought misrepresented the conversation. The way he dealt with the situation was to enter a comment below the story directly addressing the issues he thought were important. This was a great example of how you can monitor a discussion and then take immediate action to help address any shortcomings in that conversation – or even dispute any specific issues.

The experience was a lot of fun and informative and I look forward to my next PRSA seminar in “America’s Sailing Capital!” How are you using social media to listen, respond, and engage with your audiences? If you attended this event, what were some of the other points that you found helpful? How are you applying them to your social media activities? Please share your thoughts with me and the readers of BurrellesLuce Fresh Ideas. 

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*Bio: Over the last 15 years, Mike Robinson has gained a lot of experience in business, sales, and marketing.  For the past eight years, he’s worked with BurrellesLuce out of its D.C. office,  advising businesses, organizations, and government agencies of all sizes on effective solutions for measuring press outreach, reputation management, and message analysis. He is passionate about news analysis, politics, and policy. And looks forward to sharing his thoughts and insights on the PR industry and media monitoring and measurement. LinkedIn: mikerobinson1 Twitter: @mike__robinson Facebook: BurrellesLuce

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Posted in Industry Events, Public Relations, Social Media | 1 Comment »

Did Pepsi Make The Right Choice In Skipping “The Big Game” For A Social Media Campaign?

Wednesday, February 10th, 2010

The largest television audience ever watched Sunday’s Super Bowl as the New Orleans Saints defeated the Indianapolis Colts 31-17 according to Nielsen Co. The Saints weren’t the only ones who defied the odds by winning their first ever Super Bowl; CBS had no problem selling out their Super Bowl Ad inventory at a time when network ad spending has been in decline (down 13.9 percent the first nine months of 2009).

The Super Bowl telecast is considered the top advertising opportunity of the year, fetching as much as $3 million for a 30 second spot. So why would Pepsi’s executive team elect to forego advertising during the big game for the first time in 23 years, launching a social media ad campaign instead? Pepsi recently launched their “Pepsi Refresh” campaign where consumers are encouraged to submit and vote on ideas throughout the year that will have a positive impact on their communities, and have pledged to fund these ideas through grants from $5000 – $250,000. They’ve opted to use Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites to encourage consumers to participate and cast their votes.Superbowl

“This is such a fundamental change from anything we’ve done in the past,” says Lauren Hobart, chief marketing officer for Pepsi Cola North American Beverages. “We explored different launch plans, and the Super Bowl just wasn’t the right venue, because we’re really trying to spark a full year movement from the ground up. The plan is to have much more two-way dialogue with our customers.” Pepsi however will run television ads for the “Refresh” campaign and also made it clear they are not abandoning future Super Bowl advertising.

“This is exactly where Pepsi needs to be,” says Sophie Ann Terrisse, founder and CEO of STC Associates, a brand-consulting firm. “These days, brands need to become a movement instead of just relying on good reviews for their Super Bowl commercials.”

There is no doubt media and marketing has changed dramatically over the last two or three years. We at BurrellesLuce recognize this shift in marketing mediums and recently launched a dedicated service to monitor and measure social media activity.

But despite an increasingly fragmented media world, the rise of viral marketing through social media, and the growing popularity of watching video online and on handheld devices, 106.5 million people sat in front of their TV’s for three hours on Sunday to watch the Super Bowl.

I’m sure Pepsi will generate quite a following for their “Refresh” campaign in the social media world and as they have already created quite a buzz by actually not having a 2010 Super Bowl ad. But it still must be difficult for the executives at Pepsi to hear the words “Super Bowl 2010, the most watched TV program ever.”

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Posted in Advertising/Marketing, Media Industry, Public Relations, Social Media | 2 Comments »