Author Archives: PRN Bloggers

Using Multimedia to Power Content Marketing & Tell Stories

Posted on December 12, 2012 | 3 Comments

Last year, you may have watched State Farm’s PSA about the dangers of deep-frying a turkey. Even though William Shatner added some silliness to the PSA, the campaign proved to be effective, with a decrease in the number of turkey-frying incidents.

It became a successful example of a content marketing campaign many companies will strive to replicate — and now can, with the information provided from last week’s webinar, “Brands as Storytellers: Powering Content Marketing Campaigns through Multimedia,” co-hosted by Online Marketing Institute and PR Newswire.

Kevin Wilk, divisional vice president, PR Newswire’s MultiVu, began the webinar with the discussion of paid, earned and owned media, breaking down the individual media types, and then offered some tips to increase the effectiveness of the content a brand publishes.   Some of his key points included:

  • Paid media is when a brand pays to place ad or content on a channel.
  • Earned media is publicity gained when an influencer promotes a brand.
  • Owned media is when a brand owns a channel.
  • The lines between paid, earned and owned media are blurring.
  • Earned media is gaining importance.
  • More multimedia = more views. Text + photo, video and downloadable files can increase views by up to 9.7 times.
  • Distribute content to different channels to increase earned media, and this will increase in the number of views.

Maria Pergolino, senior director of marketing for Marketo, Inc., followed by introducing six types of visual content that can be used in a content marketing campaign: comics, memes, infographics, photos, videos, and visual note-taking.

  • Comics: They can be used to introduce or transition into other content, e.g.,    introducing a white paper.
  • Memes: They are not only funny, but they can share quotes or a customer case study by including a quote, photo, brand logo, etc. A meme helps tell the story in a condensed way, similar to the function of Twitter. Memes are also easily shared on Facebook, Pinterest, etc. They are a powerful form of marketing.
  • Infographics: They are a little bit harder to utilize. One idea is to use a white paper as the basis of the infographic. Visual content, and not just stats, are important in an infographic, so it needs to be creative and stand out.
  • Photos: They can tell a whole story and, like a meme, can be posted on a photo-sharing website. Photos help viewers get involved in the company’s story.
  • Videos: It is increasingly difficult to improve video quality, as well as use it to tell a story. It is an investment to create a video ($10,000 per minute – but it ranges), and much more expensive than taking a photo. If you decide on creating a video, you need to weave in your story.
  • Visual note-taking: Pergolino mentioned this is one of her favorite types of visual content. It is very engaging. This type of visual content can trigger memories of the topics discussed at an event, meeting, etc. After the event, you can take a picture of the storyboard and post it immediately to your company blog, without having to wait to write up a blog post. Visual note-taking tells a story in a visual and engaging way.

The keys to visual marketing success include: 1) create a compelling story, 2) choose the right type of content, 3) partner with others while telling your story, 4) focus on great design and branding, 5) promote your content strategically.

When promoting your content, use different social channels to tell your story. Use the right content for each channel.

Todd Wheatland, VP of marketing for Kelly Services, began his discussion with “what is driving this change”:

  • Mobile is driving change, because people want content that is quick and easy.
  • Being social is driving change, because people want to share content they think makes them look cool. They also want to consume and not leave the platform providing them with the content.
  • Content needs to work everywhere, e.g., laptop, iPad, cellphone, etc.
  • B2B marketers need to learn how to entertain, because people learn from people, not companies.
  • There is content inflation – the volume of content is increasing dramatically. However, you need to find a balance between expensive video content and a good story.
  • The sharing of video content on mobile devices has doubled.
  • There has been an increase in the amount of online video consumed, and the average length of B2B videos has decreased. People are watching videos to be entertained — keep videos short.
  • Trends in video marketing include the use of humor and case studies (people buy from people – relate to a human story).
  • There has been an increase in video content on landing pages.
  • Don’t skip on costs when making videos – it is a showcase for your company’s products and services.

Interesting Facts

  • The number of companies with YouTube channels increased by 39 percent in the last year.
  • There are six types of Facebook posts, but image posts get 20 times more engagement.
  • LinkedIn Today, which shows daily trending news and shared content, prioritizes heavily. When tweeting from LinkedIn, every RT counts as one LinkedIn “like.” This will help your news trend.

Wilk then concluded the webinar by giving an example of a successful campaign created by Multivu for Apple Vacations. He explained it is a perfect convergence of paid, earned, and owned media using one platform. In addition, it can be easily found on search engines and the content can be shared on different channels. You can view the campaign here: www.multivu.com/players/English/51242-ap…

The webinar ended with a Q&A. Here is some of the info shared during the Q&A:

  • B2B means businesses selling to businesses. B2C is businesses selling to consumers.
  • If your company decides to produce a video, keep the video under two minutes. There is a higher abandonment rate (the point viewers stop watching) after two minutes. You can test the abandonment rate for your videos by creating videos with different time lengths.
  • The best way to make sure your content is mobile-friendly is by testing it. Load your content and see. Also, there are sites like YouTube that make your content mobile-friendly.
  • The goal for a company using social media is to establish a presence on the social networking site and keep people coming back.
  • Video content should not be telling people how awesome your company is, but needs to be engaging and entertaining to your audience. The cheapest way is to have a “talking head,” but you need to be unique and entertain. You can have a “talking head,” but should add another dimension that is more entertaining.
  • Don’t create accounts if you are not creating videos, posting images, etc. It doesn’t look good to create an account and then not post to it.
  • When using images for your content marketing campaign, you can use iStock (purchase images) or grab from your company’s material. Stay away from images that don’t belong to you, and include images your company is comfortable with you using.

You can follow these presenters on Twitter:

Kevin Wilk: @MultiVu

Maria Pergolino: @InboundMarketer

Todd Wheatland: @toddwheatland

Access the archived webinar here: Brands as Storytellers

Author Polina Opelbaum is an editor with ProfNet.

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What is Public Relations? [Infographic]

Posted on November 13, 2012 | 37 Comments

In a world of constant communication, PR is once again taking center stage … but in a whole new way. To get a clearer idea of what modern PR looks like, we went to the source and asked you, our audience.

About a month ago, we took to the PR streets of social media and asked our friends and followers to complete the sentence “PR is ____.“  The conversation took off at the 2012 PRSA International Conference, and continued on Twitter, under the hashtag #PRis. The response was so incredible and insightful, we put together this infographic  to convey the diversity and depth of the your answers.

A special thank you to everyone who joined in the conversation!

Author Jamie Heckler is a senior multimedia designer for PR Newswire.  She’s also the creator of this infographic.

The evolution of PR – related reading:

Earning more media through brand streaming (free white paper)

PR Trends - collected blog posts on the most recent trends in public relations

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“Relentless, Informed and Passionate”: How a Digital Campaign by The Times is Achieving Great Things for UK Cyclists

Posted on November 12, 2012 | Leave a comment

Lucia Adams of The Times was the featured speaker.

On the morning of November 4th, 2011 The Times journalist Mary Bowers and her bike were being cut from underneath the wheels of a cement truck by paramedics on the streets of London. Mary, 27, had been hit by the truck during her cycle to work, and within minutes was being rushed to hospital, where she remains today.

While Mary has been in hospital, her devastated colleagues at The Times have responded to the tragedy with the Cities Fit for Cycling campaign, a collaborative form of journalism aimed at provoking as much response from readers as possible, and raising awareness of one of London’s most evocative topics to the highest levels of government.

At October’s Meet the Media Event, held in the crypt of London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral, Lucia Adams, digital development editor of The Times, explained why the campaign was such a success, and how engaging with people online has enabled journalism and campaigning to go much further, due to a unique position that The Times holds as the UK’s most digitally innovative newspaper.

The Meet the Media event with Lucia Adams was held in the Crypt at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.

The Cities Fit for Cycling campaign began with a heartfelt plea for safer cycling from a colleague of Mary’s, and quickly became a collaboration between The Times and its readers, who could follow updates, speak directly to journalists, lobby politicians such as London Mayor Boris Johnson, and of course share the campaign with their own friends and fellow cyclists. British newspapers typically sell only a few hundred thousand copies a day but a multi-platform campaign can reach millions of people within a morning, it can show them how them how things have changed between their morning commute and their journey home, and, crucially, it can make them proud of their own contribution.

“Focusing on the reader is key: there are some really powerful things we were able to do using relatively simple means,” Adams said. “The cycle campaign used lots of tools that are already out there – social media to help spread the word, writetothem.com powered the ‘write to your MP’ funciton on our campaign page and readers were given the opportunity to join our mailing list meaning that we could keep them up-to-date on the progress of the campaign.”

Amongst the highlights of the campaign’s achievements:

  • Lucia Adams’ goose-bump moment, when Prime Minister David Cameron backed the campaign in Parliament.
  • In September the All Party Parliamentary Cycling Group APPCG announced that it is launching an inquiry in association with The Times newspaper to address the issue of ‘Why Don’t More People Cycle?’
  • The Times and Philip Pank, its Transport Correspondent, won Best Media Campaign award at the National Transport Awards for its “relentless, informed and passionate” campaign

Members of the PR Newswire team based in London include Andrew Woodall, Richard Birks, Craig Norquay, Adam Channell and Sam Madden, all pictured at the Meet the Media event earlier this month.

The Times’ increased ability to engage directly with their readers began a couple of years ago with the bold and risky launch of their subscription service for online content. While the rival sites of The Guardian, Telegraph and Independent remained freely available, The Times went behind a paywall.

Adams is proud of the effects that this decision has had on editorial activity at The Times, and says that the most powerful advantage of having a subscription model is getting to know the readers so that they can ensure that The Times’ journalism is relevant to them.

When The Times announced they were ending the availability of free content on their website and digital apps, everyone had an opinion and not many were supportive, Adams said. “A lot of people were saying, ‘News is a commodity. You can get news from anywhere. Only niche publishers would really succeed in charging for content.’”

This has proved wholly untrue for The Times. The site now has 295,000 monthly readers, and while it also remains Britain’s most popular quality daily newspaper, it is the digital drive that is making the most exciting inroads into the future of their journalism.

The key to a successful campaign is to know your audience and to reach them on a platform that allows them to take your story to its maximum potential. That means launching a campaign on print, online and tablet formats and often letting the direction be chosen by the audience rather than the writers. It is often now the case that a story only really begins to reach its potential once it has been shared.

This is just about updating them, not re-telling them what they have already heard that morning, adding an extra layer of texture to the stories.

“We need to think about what impact our journalism is having on our readers as well as how, when, where and why they’re choosing to engage with us,” Adams said

Nowadays, journalists have to think very differently about what impact their story has once it is out there.  “It is really thinking about an article as being the beginning of the story in the eyes of the reader and working out how we can help readers engage with the story in interesting ways.”

(See more pictures of the event, and the stunning setting at St. Paul’s Cathedral, on our Facebook page in the Meet the Media photo album.)

For our readers in the United Kingdom:  Follow Meet the Media on Twitter (@MeetTheMedia) to stay current on events we’re hosting in the UK.

The attendees enjoyed networking and some nibbles at the event.

Authors Sara Kuhlman and Andrew Woodall are members of the PR Newswire Europe team based in London.

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Ask PRN: Is Radio Dead?

Posted on November 2, 2012 | Leave a comment

With the rise of social media and the contraction of traditional media channels, many PR people are evaluating the mix of media they’re targeting in their campaigns.  Just like other media markets, radio has seen its fair share of upheaval.  However, the medium is still very effective, and still commands a huge audience — it definitely belongs in a broadcast PR campaign.   Here are answers to questions we hear frequently about the viability of the radio market.

Is radio dead?

The short answer is absolutely not.  Radio still offers a lot of value for a variety of reasons. First, radio impression numbers tend to be a lot larger than TV impressions. There are more opportunities to secure a large national hit, such as USA Radio or Cable Radio Network, which can both garner over a million  impressions. Second, radio provides the opportunity to gain coverage in certain markets that aren’t viable for Satellite Media Tours (SMT), which include many top tier markets. Third, with radio it’s much easier to secure regional coverage by targeting specific radio stations that may cover an entire state. For campaigns or stories that are pertinent to specific parts of the country, this ability is key.

What’s the difference between a Radio Media Tour and simply advertising on radio?

A Radio Media Tour (RMT) is a great tool for any campaign. While an advertisement is essentially a commercial spot with heavily branded messaging and no host/talent interaction,  a radio media tour provides the radio host the ability to interact with a spokesperson who delivers the intended messages in a more subtle, newsworthy format airing during morning drive time.

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Ask PRN: How to script a PR or marketing video

Posted on October 26, 2012 | 7 Comments

Every Friday afternoon, we’ll answer a question we hear commonly from our customers about some aspect of public relations or marketing. 

Planning a family vacation?  It’s unlikely you’re just going to jump in the car or show up at the airport and literally wing it. Instead, you’re going to plan, pick your destination, make sure the kids are off from school, and book a hotel that has something for everyone in your clan.

Successful videos are similar in this regard. It’s essential to plan the trip you want your audience to take before jumping into a script— destination unknown.

Creating a good PR or marketing video campaign requires the same attention. It’s essential to plan the trip you want your audience to take before jumping into a script.

As a producer, I’m used to fast turnarounds where a client hands me his materials and  ideas and I whittle everything down into a script with b-roll and sound bite.  But as we in the industry are faced with more and more clients in search of content that evokes real emotion, rather than just a news report, I’m finding myself looking at the creative GPS, searching for the Valhalla of creative content.

Enter The Creative Treatment – a tool script writers have been using for years, and why? Because it works.  A treatment is a one page concise compilation of an idea– the itinerary for the video you will eventually create. The reason why it’s such a useful tool is because it allows you to present your idea to the client creatively without assembling a script that may not be what they’re looking for.  The treatment is a client check point, if you will.  Many of us have been in the position where we’ve sent our client a script or an edit we’ve worked on for days only to find out they don’t share our enthusiasm.  These things happen of course, and while the treatment doesn’t guarantee it won’t happen again, it does at least give everyone the ability to work out the kinks and get to the core of what is desired before getting too far along in the process.

The treatment consists of four parts (see example above) and with this we can present our ability to conceptualize a unique idea, respond to client needs, and be, hopefully, better producers.

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one,” said Mark Twain.  It’s good advice for anyone building a content strategy.

CREATIVE TREATMENT

Type of Video (Webisode, Training Video etc.)

Prepared for: (Job name/client)

Background:

A short summary of the background information client provided on a call or with background materials

Objectives:

A bulleted list of the videos behavioral objectives aka the goal you wish to accomplish with this video…It can begin with “After experiencing this video our audience will be able to: and then the list

Strategies:

A bulleted list of what will be done in terms of structure, devices and techniques. For example: Create the behind the scenes feel using several GoPro cameras etc.

Creative Approach:

Finally the place to present your creative idea. Should be a one paragraph present tone narrative using detailed descriptions to set the tone and the style of your video. For example: We are bombarded with the sounds of a busy city street as the faces of its hurried inhabitants stop to stare in curiosity etc.

Like the idea of using online video, but need some help getting started? Our free white paper, Building Engagement with Online Video, is loaded with ideas and case studies to help you get your video projects underway.

Author Jill Wax is a producer for MultiVu, a PR Newswire company that specializes in multimedia creation, production and distribution.

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Big League Pinning: Pinterest Best Practices for Brands from Pinleague

Posted on October 24, 2012 | 11 Comments

The Online Marketing Summit is a playground for marketers to expand their knowledge and to network with their peers. With the convergence of PR and marketing, it seemed like a natural event for me to attend and extend the knowledge shared with my clients, and now all of you.

One of my first sessions for the day was “Tapping into Pinterest: The Time is Now!” Presented by Danny Maloney, CEO and Co-Founder of PinLeague.

Pinterest is still a platform that a lot of businesses are trying to harness. According to Maloney it is a platform that brands are taking notice of but struggling to get traction. For me, I am trying to find ways to elevate our company boards, especially the one I help curate for @PRNHealth.

Maloney stressed that the “I” in “who I want to be” translates to brands. Where is your brand headed? What are you trying to shift in your brand perception?

Pinterest goals can be divided into two plays for companies: Is your presence for branding purposes or to drive more traffic? Both have value, the latter can be linked to harder ROI figures – both to elevated SEO.

Pinterest audience stats:

The Pinterest audience is in planning mode by nature, they are looking for who they want to be or want to do:  this, coupled with the large numbers of women 25-44 on the platform, leads to more referrals and more revenue per referral.  Here are some powerful Pinterest stats he shared:

  • Less than 1% negative sentiment on the platform.
  • Contributing 20% of social commerce.
  • The half-life of a pin is more +1 week compared to 80 min for a Facebook post, and 5-25 min for a tweet.
  • It is not about conversation it is about quality content. It is a 175 to 1 ratio on repins versus comments.
  • The average order value on Twitter $69, Facebook $80, Pinterest $179.
  • PinLeague estimates that Pinterest is will have 90% of the top 1500 brands within 12 months.

Now the question becomes how to make Pinterest work for your brand? According to Maloney, “If you lead with monetization, it is a recipe for failure.”  This is a platform, like other social platforms, that have a long term benefit for your brand. His advice was, “Invest in building the audience now, and monetize later. “

Getting your brand started in Pinterest:

Should you invest time and effort into Pinterest for your brand?  Maloney’s short answer was YES. The longer answer entailed that fact that becoming an “early adopter” allows your brand to establish and audience and credibility within the platform prior to the inevitable push for monetization when ads could be sold or promoted pins could be created. Right now Pinterest helps elevate power pinners and boards without cost.

If you’re new to Pinterest and paralyzed, Maloney recommends creating 12 boards to get past “pinners block.” 5 boards about things your users love, 5 boards about things they have a hard time finding, and 2 boards about your brand.

If you have already started leveraging Pinterest, look at the data. What pins are performing? Do you have high influence followers? How are you competitors doing? PinLeague can help with a lot of that data, in addition to targeted outreach to people based on their current usage status of Pinterest. Other tips on how to elevate your Pinning:

  • Get your cover photos right!
  • With the fans you have on other platforms, drive them to your boards with content not a request to “join you on Pinterest.”
  • Create a contest.
  • Have content live on your boards that people want to see.
  • Mix owned content and other content that interests your audience.
  • Optimize your Pinterest profile
  • Leverage an in-kind exchange of pins
  • No need to be an “over pinner” even the largest brands only pin a couple times a day. If you inundate your followers with an too much content too fast they’ll get annoyed with you filling up their feed.

When I asked Maloney his top brand boards he offered a couple with different strengths. GE for a strong brand building set of boards, Mashable has great content, Whole Foods provides information and ideas for their followers, and Karmaloop is a great example of a growing brand displaying engaging images to tell their story.

Additional resources

Visuals play a crucial role in garnering online attention.  In addition to being loved by social media denizens, images, infographics and videos are also given extra visibility by search engines and social networks alike.    If you need some ideas on how to create and use visuals for your organization’s communications campaigns, here’s some additional info that can help you out:

Building Brand Engagement Through Online Video (free white paper)

A collection of posts about Visual PR (lots of tips about using images and videos in social networks)

Infographics!  How to create them, some ideas for developing them and some case studies to help you get started on using them!

Author Natalie Bering is an account manager in PR Newswire’s San Francisco office.

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Pushing… er, Pulling All the Right Buttons

Posted on October 17, 2012 | 1 Comment

Our own campaign at PRSA proved to be an effective inbound marketing tactic.

PRSA 2012 was a living, breathing example of integrating inbound marketing into communications.  Inbound Marketing is an effort that pulls in your audience by offering them information they want, and ideally, they’ll be running to you.

Wear a button! Win a Kindle! The direction in our button campaign was crystal-clear.

Be findable & give direction.

To accomplish this, your audience needs to first be able to find you – so, make your messages easy to find – that’s the common sense part of this.  Use the words and phrases your audience would use if they were trying to find you in a Google search.  Messages needs to be remarkable, sharable and your audience needs to know exactly what you want them to do next.  Is it a downloadable incentive?  Maybe.  Could it be telling them do take direct action?  Sure.  Mostly, you need to understand what your audience wants and give them a relevant call to action.

Why inbound marketing?

First, according to HubSpot, an inbound marketing lead costs 62% less per lead than traditional advertising.  Beyond that, sharing intellectual property builds trust with clients and prospects, it provides lead generation, it’s trackable, it provides direct engagement, and it offers you real time data to drive your strategies while offering you the ability to showcase your expertise.  Inbound marketing can be many things… it can be opinionated, quirky, fun, and emotional and it needs to be relevant, innovative, digestible, actionable, experiential, and of course measurable.

Buttons, ripe for pushing.

You want an example?  In real life application and in the break-out session the example is as easy as pushing a button.  The presenters specifically pointed to PR Newswire’s pre-conference and on-site promotion of our I ♥ PR campaign and mentioned how significant and notable example of inbound marketing pulling our audience in.  (Kudos to our marketing team! J )

The I ♥ PR approach

Let’s dissect this… every registered attendee for PRSA 2012 received an email before the conference letting them know to stop by the PR Newswire booth on day 1 and pick up your I HEART PR button (numbered).  Ultimately, the number on the button could make you the winner of a new Kindle.

But what did this really do for PR Newswire?  Well, it did a lot.  First the buttons were truly, as my grandmother would say the bee’s knees!  Everyone wanted one. On a larger scale, it drove booth traffic and gave us multiple touch points with customers and prospects which fostered conversations that gave us credibility and talk about our latest offerings.  We were on the radar of every attendee on day one to get their button and on subsequent days to stop by and see if they were a winner.  And, it gave us the opportunity to talk, talk, talk…

So, all our literal button pushing, while it seemed like a cute novelty that people will wear proudly, in reality, it was genius display of inbound marketing at its finest.  Okay, that may be a little strong, but we understood our audience and the campaign is remarkable, sharable, quirky, fun, actionable, experiential, innovative, digestable and trackable.  Lead generation?  You should see the stack of cards.  Sometimes, effective inbound marketing is as easy as pushing some buttons and pulling your audience in.  They were running to us!

Author Christopher Brimble is an executive account manager for PR Newswire.

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Content With Intent: The Intersection of PR & Content Marketing

Posted on October 17, 2012 | 3 Comments

A map of an ‘optimized content plan’ from Lee Odden.

A few weeks back I attended Content Marketing World in Columbus OH, where many marketing pro’s gathered to share, discuss and try to put some structure around the phrase “Content Marketing.”  For me, as CMWorld progressed and I attended sessions one thing became clear — really good listeners will never run out of very relevant and engaging content.

Lee Odden (@leeodden) CEO of TopRank Online Marketing stood up today in front of a standing-room only crowd of 150+ at the PRSA International Conference in San Francisco to speak about Content Marketing and Public Relations. The two subjects rely directly on listening and taking appropriate action to earn results.  And the PR executives in attendance were ready to hear being more “intentional” with the content they create.

Lee’s conversation started by pointing out that PR Execs far too often have the “spray and pray” approach to content.  As a colleague recently blogged: “ It’s not unusual for a PR campaign to still operate on the “Ready, aim, fire” principle.”

http://blog.prnewswire.com/2012/09/13/how-to-amplify-messages-by-cultivating-audiences-influencer-relationships/

As Lee discussed how people view him as a PR professional at marketing conferences and as a marketing professional at PR conferences, my mind wondered to the day to day struggles of our clients and the pains many of them have as a result of PR and Marketing often not sharing budget, strategy and concept.  They, therefore often have the “spray and pray” mentality.  Simply said, many companies allow convenience and timeliness to win over intentional actions to inspire advocacy through content.

I snapped back to Lee’s presentation as he said three words “Create, Demand and Dominate.”  Lee stated that any content marketing plan needs to pertain directly to creating, demanding and dominating search results.  To Lee, SEO plays a direct role in being intentional about content.  Lee’s “Optimized and Socialized Content Plan” consists of 5 pillars: Awareness – Consideration – Purchase – Retention – Advocacy

Lee pointed to online search as being “an explicit indiction of intent.  It’s about the audience being present.   It is obvious that content drives social sharing and discovery, as 73% of social media shares have links in them.”

As I though about that statement I found myself concerned for many of our clients who maintained that “spray and pray” mentality with their content.  We are now in an environment where consumers and targeted audiences are being intentional with what they are looking for, yet many organizations still don’t have a plan in place to inspire the advocacy through the content that the audience is yearning for.

Lee gave the example of press releases and how many PR pros do “one off” releases without a sequential plan around the content and having a plan around the initiative that encompasses listening, creating, engaging, monitoring and reacting.

“PR professionals don’t often take a step back and make the best or most effective use of (a situation, opportunity or resource),” Lee noted. Ironically that is the direct definition of the word “Optimize,” which is also the name of the recent book Lee authored.

After Lee reminded me of Alec Baldwin’s “Always Be Closing” scene in GlenGary Glen Ross, when Lee stated “Always Be Optimizing” (Sorry… Still a sales guy writing this)… I gathered my things and started to walk out of the room.  Much like my departure from all the sessions that I attended at Content Marketing World, I’ve once again found myself excited and optimistic about content marketing and it’s role in PR.  As I walked out of the room I noticed about 50% of the people in the audience had filed up to the front towards Lee to ask him further questions.   I’m confident that their questions were well thought out and intentional after sitting through Lee’s session.  After all, PR Professionals are always thought of as the best listeners.

Author Bill Dube oversees sales in the western region of the US for PR Newswire.

Before you map your content plan, you need to know what topics really generate traction with your audiences.  Listening is how you garner this intelligence. For additional ideas on how listening can make PR more effective, read our free white paper, Active Listening: The Key to PR Relevance & Results.

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Social Media & The Presidential Election

Posted on October 17, 2012 | 1 Comment

With only a few hours to go before the second presidential debate, a session at the 2012 PRSA National Conference titled “Social Media in the Presidential Election: Its Impact, What We Can Learn” offered timely and interesting insight.

The panel was comprised of:

Joe Garofoli, national political reporter, San Francisco Chronicle -

David Almacy, senior vice president, digital strategies, Edelman PR -

The session was moderated by Lawrence Parnell, public relations program director/associate professor, The Graduate School of Political Management, George Washington University.

Regardless of one’s political affiliation or interest in political discourse, it is virtually impossible to not be aware of how social media is playing a role in politics and driving forward the messages in the upcoming presidential election.  For the first time in a presidential campaign, Twitter and YouTube usage and engagement have virtually skyrocketed in the sheer number of tweets, re-tweets, followers, and postings about the campaign and recent debates.

Social engagement is clearly working for both campaigns, and producing profound top-line results. Donations from individuals have broken records, and the number of donations between $50 – $100 for both Romney and Obama has never been higher.  Each campaign has invested heavily in staffing around their social and digital strategy and this trend is trickling down to local and regional campaigns.

An area where social media has specifically played a huge impact has been around the debates. During the first Obama/Romney debate there were 10.3 million tweets.  Two weeks later, during the Biden/Ryan vice presidential debate there were 3.5 million tweets.  During the Republican National Convention there were 4.5 million tweets.   The Democratic National Convention had 9.5 Million tweets.  We also saw both campaigns use Twitter to highlight their own points as to who won the debate and highlight specific messages to their constituents.  While these numbers are staggering, what do they really mean? Do we know the sentiment of the tweets?  Do we really know if these tweets impact the result?  Is this information overload and is the electorate becoming smarter and more knowledgeable?

Some key points made by the panelists:

  • Dissemination:  While social media is driving widespread dissemination of content and messaging, there appears to be little dialogue.  Or put another way, lots of distribution of messages but is it impacting the message or opinions of the electorate?  Most data is showing that it is not changing behavior.
  • Campaign websites – Mostly used to drive donations and drive followers to social sites.  They are not focusing enough on driving policy discussions or engagement around the issues.
  • Non-major parties – Green, Libertarian, etc. are doing more with Twitter and Facebook and investing less in their website presence.  They are using Twitter and Facebook to get their message out due to limited resources to pay for media/TV placements.
  • Anonymity – Social media is allowing ‘non-elites’ to drive conversation. Any witty or creative person can post something and make a message go viral.
  • Social Media in campaigns is more about discussing things that have happened vs. driving dialogue about new stories or breaking stories about policy.
  • ‘Knowledge’ is not increasing – There’s a lot of distribution of information and sharing, but is it not driving new opinions or increasing the electorates’ knowledge of the issues.

We know that as social sites continue to grow, all political campaigns will put resources toward their digital strategy.   We also know that the only true test to know if one candidate has a better strategy around Social is who wins on Election Day.

Author Andrew Meranus is PR Newswire’s vice president of new business development & agency relations.

The campaigns are doing a great job of streaming content out to social networks, fueling the conversations that spread their messages and galvanize their constituents.   To learn more about how creating a “brand stream” for your organization can boost visibility for your messages (and the results your communications deliver) read our free white paper,  Earning More Media Through Brand Streaming.

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PR & the Presidential Election: Commentary from Michael Steele, MSNBC Political Analyst & Former RNC Chair

Posted on October 17, 2012 | 1 Comment

Michael Steele giving his keynote at PRSA’s International Conference.

Michael  Steele was the keynote address for the final day of the 2012 PRSA International Convention where he highlighted the top events and issues of the 2012 presidential campaign.  According to Steele, Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney’s campaign was a PR nightmare all summer and has made a great PR and image turnaround rather quickly.  The Obama campaign, on the other hand, used effective message targeting to paint a scary picture of Romney as the “Rich Boogeyman” who appeared to be unapproachable, distant and disconnected with voters.

“This put the Romney team on the defense, which looking back was a very good thing,” said Steele. “ It made the campaign focus and gave Romney the opportunity to undo the professionally crafted messaging on paper and the TV screen.”

“In one debate, Romney redefined the landscape with the perfect PR persona,” Steele continued. “ The public got to see two men, hear their own words, and in fact, do their own PR.  Romney clearly did that by re-defining himself in that moment…. He won the debate in the first 30 minutes.”

A case study for media training

Steele mentioned the body language of the president, such as how looking down during Romney’s responses came across as weak, which in essence was perceived to be an image disaster.  We in PR understand the media training basics of keeping direct eye contact, addressing the speaker, audience, or in this case the opponent, stay on message, and respond clearly and succinctly.  And at the top of the list — always preparing for the unthinkable, which in this case was a strong Romney attack.

Steele addressed the fact that after all is said and done, good PR means effectively playing your role, positioning your narrative with your persona to make a connection with the voters, using appearance, body language, cadence, content, and effective messaging.  In other words, effectively engaging with your target groups.

The VP debate – a contrast

In contrast, Steele noted that the VP debate was unlike any other as it was critical for the Democrats to re-charge and re-energize their brand, which they did.  He noted that both candidates played their positions well.

“Joe Biden did everything right,” said Steele.   “He was engaging, energetic, and pushed back on the issues that needed to be addressed.  He promoted the Democratic team well.  Paul Ryan held his own, was respectful of the VP position, and didn’t push too much.  He was clear, articulate and stayed on point.”

Paid vs earned media, election-style

Steele also discussed how the constant flow and billions spent on campaign ads may be for naught.

“In the state of Ohio,  73,000commercials ran and for all of the money spent  it has barely moved the needle in the polls,” commented Steele. “ Voters have made up their minds very early.”

So what does this all mean in the end?  Have voters really made up their minds?  The first presidential debate created a flurry of upsets and shifts in the polls, with Romney appearing to win a large number of undecided voters, and closing a double digit gap of women voters who previously were in favor of President Obama.  According to Steele and some polls, women, the working class now view Romney not as the “Rich Boogeyman” but as the billionaire who can make things happen.

I guess with how the polls appear to be shifting as a result of these debates, image (at least with our voters) is everything.   Now, let’s sit back and watch the coverage of last night’s contentious debate unfurl.  What did you think of the candidates’ behavior and tactics?

Larene Pare is a new business development manager for PR Newswire.

Our connected society offers the potential for paid and owned media to make the leap into valuable and credible earned media.  We call this “evolved media.”  To learn more about this phenomenon, and how you can harness it for your organization, read our free white paper: Earned Media, Evolved.

A note on comments for this post:  With the election around the corner, and enthusiasm running high, we’re receiving a lot of politically-oriented comments on this post.  However, the post (and this blog) isn’t about partisan politics – our focus here is communications strategy.  As such, commentary that isn’t related to communications won’t be displayed.

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