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Remember the days when your brand could reach its audience at scale organically using the major social media platforms? Those days are long gone. Just today, Facebook twisted the knife in the heart of organic social media reach when it announced that its news feed algorithm will place even greater emphasis on "content posted by the friends and family of users," according to a report in the New York Times. Granted, in this case it's at the expense of news media brands, but it's all part of a long-term trend. "Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest—they're not social media platforms anymore, they're advertising publishers," says David Kellis, director of PR and social media for the Clorox Co. Kellis has noticed lately that in his conversations with executives at the social platforms, they avoid the use of the word organic entirely. It's as if the non-paid social media post is a family member who went bonkers and brought shame upon the clan and must never be mentioned again. The shift in focus to paid social media content is redefining, yet again, the role of the PR professional....
As public relations professionals, we know that PR measurement is essential to the success of our campaigns, budgets and client relationships. We attend webinars, dabble with Google Analytics and follow the latest blogs to learn how to move from traditional to relevant measurement. Yet, we still receive feedback from clients that, although our media coverage secured looks great, it doesn’t appear to have a tangible impact on the bottom line So, where’s the disconnect?
If you still secretly dread questions about how to measure PR or if you feel in over your head at times, don’t lose hope. PR measurement is not only a science — it’s an art. This post will review a number of tangible opportunities to measure PR beyond traditional media impressions and advertising equivalencies (AVEs) with the goal of empowering you to feel confident and creative the next time you’re asked about measurement....
A new Nielsen research study provides powerful proof that "expert content" strongly influences consumer purchase plans.
According to the report “The Role of Content in the Consumer Decision Making Process” commissioned by inPowered:
“Results of the in-lab study show that expert content — credible, third-party articles and reviews — is the most effective source of information in impacting consumers along all stages of the purchase process across product categories.”...
I particularly enjoyed Jayson DeMers’ article on the 3 pillars of SEO in 2013 – and I especially add my vote of emphasis to his pillar #3 – Making Friends, Engaging and Sharing Content.... I would go so far as to maintain that public relations, in the form of quality content, is the New SEO. And I’m increasingly less alone in this idea and goal. But for the sake of discussion, if we can accept at least in philosophy that PR is increasingly becoming SEO’s strongest vehicle and anchor, how can companies take best advantage of PR’s SEO role? Here are my ideas (with help from a couple of resident experts) for the 15 Steps to Power SEO.....
The blog is dead.I don't say it lightly; I've been blogging since 2000, moving from an email list I started in the '90s to Blogger to TypePad to Wordpress.com to Wordpress.org. ...So I see that moving my blog around like this is just staving off the inevitable; we are moving to collections and curations, to mobile content, and to different authoring tools. Think for a moment about the incredible popularity of Tumblr, or of Pinterest. I believe they are early iterations of the content revolution. I told my journalism students, who are just being taught by their professors that the new way is "digital first," that they have to stretch again--this time all the way to "mobile first."... [Francine Hardaway's provocative Fast Company article is a MUST-READ for every current and future blogger, PR and content pro! She really captures "what's next."~ Jeff]
Via Angela Nibbs
Argyle Social is on a mission to help marketers drive meaningful business outcomes through social media marketing. [Great insight into maximizing social media engagement: - marketers post when they're at work instead of one their audience is online - on Facebook, marketers get better B2C engagement on weekends in the evenings - on Twitter, marketers get better B2B engagement on weekdays during the day. More insight on this excellent infographic ~ Jeff]
Schlueter Automotive Group has rejuvenated its marketing efforts with an online strategy that includes asking customers to test-drive cars and tweet about their experience... “Our customers are changing, and so are their expectations regarding their buying experience and what they expect from a dealership,” she explains. “They are tired of automobile advertising yelling at them.”... [Excellent small biz-social marketing case study - JD]
Most companies have accepted the fact that by now they ought to be engaging in social media activities in one form or another. Those who are late to the party, however, are often from highly-regulated industries such as financial services or pharmaceuticals. Despite the promise of genuine, real-time communications with customers that could greatly benefit marketing and public relations efforts, social media can present quite the challenge with regard to regulatory compliance. Organizations need to engage in social media in an intelligent way that complies with relevant industry regulations -- without completely stifling the creative, genuine nature of the medium. This can be a difficult balance to strike, but it can definitely be achieved.... [Good advice for content marketing - JD]
Don’t just provide audiences with information. Provide meaning! Our industry has long talked about the surfeit of messages. We’ve posed the question of how to “break through” a “cluttered” public space to reach target audiences. And we’ve devised all sorts of strategies, both content and media, to do exactly that. Here’s the thing: The problem of information overload has gotten worse as of late, and we may be nearing a breaking point....
Text 100's Dan Baxter breaks down stats from a recent Ipsos Mori study... Social media is becoming less relevant to the communications industry. Yes, quite. While that statement may raise more than the odd eyebrow and possibly be seen as justification for lynching in some parts, it’s the inference from an Ipsos Mori Reputation Council study released last week....
How to breakdown and calculate the different marketing costs when using social media, and how to show their impact on your public relations efforts.
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We recently took to all of our channels to gauge how you view the practice of public relations. In our article What Is PR? A Look Back, To Look Forward, we asked you to fill in the blank: “PR is now ____. ” and share how public relations has changed since we originally released our popular PR Is infographic in 2012.
We received close to 100 responses from around the world and across the industry — corporate communicators, agencies, newcomers, industry veterans, and everyone in between weighed in. We even received a video.
When our senior creative manager Jamie Heckler compared your replies to 2012’s infographic, we observed the following trends....
No, we're not talking about Apple or Amazon or Big Data or the Marketing Cloud or Programmatic Buying.
Chevy’s Rikk Wilde “looked down at his notes often, spoke haltingly and explained to the pitcher that he'd like the Colorado” —Marketing Daily’s Karl Greenberg has the skinny today on its new “inner truck guy” conventional campaign — “because it has ‘class-winning and leading, you know, technology and stuff,’” James R. Healey reports in USA Today.
“The nervous Wilde was assured this morning he still has a job,” Greg Gardner and Alisa Priddle reported in the Detroit Free Press last evening. “And in fact he appears to have garnered millions in free publicity for the Chevrolet brand, which has received at least $2.4 million in media exposure from the unconventional presentation, according to Front Row Analytics. Bloomberg reports that is six times more than the $392,000 it would have brought in with a more polished performance.
”It did not take long for #technologyandstuff to pop up on Twitter with GM president North America Mark Reuss (@GMdudeinNA posting, “It's what I've been saying for years.....#technologyandstuff,” Gardner and Priddle report....
Social media monitoring, social media strategy: Who is winning the PR versus social media war? How to be ahead of the competition....
More specifically, while PR and social media are joined at the hip, they are by no means the same: PR just gets you noticed (and ultimately also increases sales). Until someone knows about you, how can they buy whatever you are offering?
In contrast, social media marketing is hard to control and spreading the message highly depends on a person’s reputation as well as social networks spreading the message. In the PR context, information is shared with a selected group of people either by sending them a press release or product sample in the hopes that they will share their positive thoughts with a larger audience, such as newspaper readers reading a movie review.
Sharing information and insights using social media means having little, if any, control about what people do with the information, such as re-mixing music to make a new track. Sometimes social media stories – especially public relations disasters – might be picked up by more traditional media, thereby allowing the news to reach an audience beyond social networks such as Facebook.Social media marketing can help an organization build good content to attract people or pull them in to your website or blog....
From a media perspective—marketers like to align strategies and tactics along the lines of how things are done at scale. The popular framework goes something like: Paid (advertising), Earned (Word of Mouth), Owned (Corporate) and everything else falls in a somewhat more grey area and from my perspective this is where the action will be for 2013 and beyond. As outlined above, Altimeter calls this area of overlap "converged media" because it's a convergence of different media dynamics coming together. If you ask me—from a marketing perspective this is the future of what, to this point we've called "social".
You see an image in your Facebook news-feed shared by a friend. The image was generated by a brand. You saw it because your friend shared it. They shared it because they liked it. They liked it because the content resonated (and they saw it). They saw it because the brand paid Facebook to promote it. Paid? Earned? Owned? All of the above. A social platform merely powers the engine and the above could have all been done in a mobile context....
Gangnam Style’ has nearly a billion views on YouTube—and it offers lessons for people who pitch the media for a living. Remove the sunglasses, peel back the over-the-top suit, and disregard the image of him in his underwear on a toilet: PSY, the mastermind behind the painfully catchy “Gangnam Style,” and that crazy horse dance, is a media-grabbing genius. Groups as varied as college marching bands to Mitt Romney impersonators have imitated the video. He’s spawned a whole new era of “Gangnam Style” gifs. He’s galloped (literally) with Ellen DeGeneres and Britney Spears, and even managed to score a slot at the MTV Video Music Awards. The guy is an influencer. His music video—which is now the most viewed video on YouTube—can teach PR pros a thing or two about communicating with the media.... [I'm over this one already but it seems to have legs ~ Jeff]
TV on the Web Continues to Gain Ground... “TV series tell a story and web series create a world,” noted Sam Reich, president of original content at CollegeHumor Media. The world of web series like Dinosaur Office, (left) has taken off in recent years, attracting the attention of celebrities, TV networks and large viewing audiences. Reich appeared on an Advertising Week panel on Monday, along with other TV web content producers, marketers from TV networks and companies to offer a behind-the-scenes look at this popular format. Below are key takeaways.... [This is valuable marketing reading for the five takeaways from the Advertising Week panel - great insight into TV on the web ~ Jeff]
Politicians and celebrities love Twitter and have found that one tweet can cause a storm of sharing. It can enhance (or destroy) their personal brand and Politicians can get their ideas out instantly. ...If you take the time to get to understand Twitter with its quaint 140 character limit and its charming simplicity, it can be a very powerful tool to distribute information and ideas in real time to enhance your marketing and promotion efforts.....
PR and customer service are becoming intertwined because of social media. Check out three case studies on the topic, and takeaways for your business. In the wake of the N-Control customer-service-turned-PR disaster, last week shined light on three more companies that faced PR issues driven by social media mishaps. Quick overviews...
With all the writing that has swirled around social media in recent years, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and also to assume that all the good, stimulating, provocative questions have already been asked. Yet judging from last week’s Critical Issues Forum, the discussion around social media is far from stale. Panelists, facilitators, and audience-members alike raised an impressive array of burning questions surrounding the use of Facebook, Twitter and the like by companies. These issues touched on the strategic and the theoretical; on political life as well as business implications. Taken together, they represent a coherent agenda for how to think creatively about social media for the next six to twelve months....
Like most crises, this one was predictable and mostly avoidable. With the volume of passengers and cargo handled by major airlines, missing or damaged luggage is common. A missing pet should set off crisis management alarm bells all over the place but apparently not at American Airlines. The story began when Karen Pascoe and her longhair cat Jack arrived at New York’s JFK airport for a flight to California six weeks ago. That’s when the fur began to fly....
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David Kellis' POV on the shift from earned to paid social media is valuable.