Tag Archives: 2012

Content We Love: 2012 in Press Releases

Posted on January 11, 2013 by | 2 Comments

ContentWeLove

“Content We Love” is a weekly feature written by a team of our content specialists. We’re showcasing some of the great content distributed through our channels, and our content specialists are up for the task: they spend a lot of time with the press releases and other content our customers create, proof reading and formatting it, suggesting targeted distribution strategy and offering SEO advice. In Content We Love, we’re going to shine the spotlight on the press releases and other messages that stood out to us, and we’ll tell you why. We hope you find the releases enjoyable and the insights gained from discussing them enlightening.

2012.
A Year in Press Releases

PR Newswire in 2012 saw great news, great events, and great releases- many of which proved to be interesting, insightful, and dynamic on multiple channels. Reading through these stories touched our hearts and made an impact— and we are proud to present a collection of those impressive releases.

In short: a year review of releases we absolutely love!

Proving to be industry-leading, market-moving, attention-grabbing, award-winning, heart-warming, eye-catching, and thought-provoking, these were stories heard around the world. They stayed on our minds and in our hearts.

01. Kicking off 2012, Chemistry.com had women packing their bags and looking for love! This insightful study revealed where to find a sensitive man in the United States. We can’t help our curiosity on mass migration of people to those cities!

Studies put a pulse on the current population and we “loved” the interesting take on “looking for love.”

02. February was a colorful month with a golden Apple and platinum Adele singing the blues. Official Harris poll of brand reputations announced Apple took the coveted lead of #1 from Google. Congrats to Apple and all Apple-enthusiasts! When ’21′ hit, I trekked to four different stores for the album. Apparently the entire world did the same. We all celebrated when Adele rocked the Grammy Awards with her astonishing six awards for her album ’21.’

Big news in February. Both stories were of high interest and made lots of noise throughout the world. The world was tuning in and singing along.

03. America is booming! U.S. Census Bureau released hearty information that Asians are now the fastest growing race group in America– as of the last decade!

Remember filling out the 2010 Census Information? This press release showcased the results of a booming population which made waves across different channels.

04. Do you play “I-Spy” with gas prices? Apparently there is a good reason why: U.S. drivers were once again told that our total cost of driving increased in 2012. Keep your fingers crossed for an increase in your wallet instead this year.

Personally-impacting news drives our decisions and opinions– more couldn’t be said of the value of this continually rising story.

05. Starting in the middle of the election year, the Nation hit new lows… of confidence. Harris Poll released tough news that confidence in Congress was the lowest in 50 years.

The world’s eyes turned to the U.S. as the election was looming closer and closer. This poll struck a chord with a nation looking to poll in November.

06. Technology rules our world like never before. Given the option, Gazelle told us consumers wanted iPhones more than sex! What would you give up for technology?

Surveys have the golden opportunity to showcase the feelings of a population. In this instance, Gazelle alerted us we are crazy in love— with our phones (& don’t care if that makes us rude).

07. Location. Location. Location. U.S. News announced the big dog on campus: Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston is now #1, obliterating Johns Hopkins’ 21-year golden record. And if you’re planning on re-locating, Zillow has great news of the first increase of home value in nearly FIVE years!

Nothing can be more important than our health and the information provided by U.S. News & World Report helps people make decisions about who takes care of their health, Home is a close second to health and Zillow gave people the information they needed to find a home.

08. August brought the heat: the political heat. The Republican National Convention announced Chris Christie was the keynote speaker but not the candidate. All eyes turned the politico pages in anticipation for the next few months!

With the election getting closer and the debate heating up, the RNC announced big news for their upcoming convention.

09. No yellow flag on the play: An end to the ‘mash-up’ is complete! The NFL settled with their referees and brought cheers back to the game we love. Merriam-Webster had a ‘mash-up’ of their own with its addition to the official lexicon. Other added words? Aha-moment, sexting, man cave, and gastropub.

Social media was laden with relief from the announcement of the NFL and the referees. The addition to the dictionary solidified the importance of modern vernacular in tandem with current events and entertainment.

10. The award goes to… The Nobel Peace Prize went to the entire European Union. Congratulations EU friends! U.S. Presidential predictions took a hairy turn when the Obama Chia Pet vastly outsold Romney’s caricature. Chanel No5 got a new face for the iconic brand and it was none other than Brad Pitt!

A prize beyond measure was given to European Union while stateside Brad Pitt took the coveted role for the face of Chanel No5. Politics ran rampant and even included Chia pets– now you can water your love of politics!

11. President of the United States of America is Obama! The U.S. re-elected their leader and the European Union offered congratulations on the victory.

November of 2012 became legendary with the re-election of a President and the E.U. were tops on the list to send congratulations.

12. In December, our future was told. The U.S. Census Bureau released projections that our Nation is growing older and more diverse than ever before in half a century from now. OpenTable also released its top 100 Restaurants across the country list— which means– It’s time to eat! All gourmands rejoice!

Results in December showcased the future of our nation, growing up and getting more diverse than ever while a hearty survey of the top 100 Restaurants made us hungry for more.

Huge thank you to all listed the pleasure of reading your phenomenal releases and allowing us to spotlight your stories.

Now who is ready for what 2013 will bring?!

Author Emily Nelson is a Customer Content Specialist for PR Newswire. Follow her adventures on www.bellesandawhistle.wordpress.com or on twitter www.twitter.com/emilyannnelson.

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Trends in Public Relations for 2012

Posted on December 27, 2011 by | 9 Comments

The broad themes in PR we're seeing for 2012: measurement, content, social media & business outcomes

The end of the year is always time for reflection on the past, and anticipation of the future, both personally and professionally.  From our vantage point here at PR Newswire, where we talk to hundreds of PR pros daily, we have a unique view into the trends and challenges across the public relations spectrum.   For the coming year, here are the following trends – and requisite skills needed to capitalize upon those trends – we believe will be prominent in PR.

Non-traditional PR outcomes: Over this last year, we saw a real uptick in the variety of goals our customers set for the campaigns PR Newswire helped execute. Across the board, we’re observing an increase in campaigns that are focused on generating specific business-related outcomes, such as leads generated, landing page traffic and search engine rankings.  In addition, we’re also starting to see with increasing regularity outcomes focused on building conversation and awareness in social channels and on blogs – new centers of influence – and in terms of content marketing strategies.  The public relations department does, after all, produce a lot of content.  Making that output work harder for the brand is good for business – and for PR.  Tying PR activities to business outcomes bolsters the PR team’s stature, and makes winning budget easier.

Related:

PR Increasing Its Share of Marketing Budgets

Publicity Results in Any Economy: Cost-Effectiveness, Credibility Keep Businesses Turning to PR

Social media: We thought twice before including social media in this list, but several facts demanded its inclusion:  1) Social media has incontrovertibly changed the way many consumers make decisions, and the way organizations do business, but, despite that, 2) Many PR departments have yet to embrace social channels as means to communicate with audiences, influence public opinion and develop connections to journalists, bloggers and other influencers.

Related:

Unlocking Social Media for PR

Developing meaningful metrics, and measuring continually: Measurement has long been the bane of PR.  I say “bane” because we all know how difficult translating some of the results PR traditionally produces into the sort of metrics that make CFOs purr happily.  The key word, in my mind, is “metrics.”  For those who ran screaming from math at the earliest opportunity (and believe me, I was leading that pack), it’s time to revisit numbers.

The truth is, it’s not so bad anymore, especially if your organization is also embracing the first trend – non-traditional PR outcomes.  Most communications campaigns – PR, content marketing, social media and the rest – have significant digital components.  And digital means measurable.

In my own experience, the key is first understanding the business outcomes you need to produce.  Then you need to pick that outcome apart into its underlying components.  This exercise can turn something as ephemeral as “building awareness” into a concrete path with real benchmarks (e.g. increase in social discussions, improvement of search rank, downloads of a white paper, proliferation of a hash tag, etc.) set along the way.   Developing some discipline around measuring the metrics that describe the benchmarks (and plotting that data over time) can lend powerful insight and intel you can use to improve future campaigns, and enable execs to understand at a glance the results PR has generated.

Related:

PR & Social Media Measurement: A Bright Outlook

Listening: The Foundation of Agile Engagement

Content curation & development: More than ever, content is the cornerstone of communications.  Good social presences and successful communications strategies require us to deliver useful content to our audiences.  Done well, a smart content strategy will buy your brand a seat at the audience table.  Done poorly (with self-serving, boring marketing-ese) or not at all, the content program will struggle, and the brand risks irrelevance – or worse, invisibility.

Related:

Taking a Content-Centric Approach Toward Building Relationships

Ideas for Creative (and Effective) Content Generation

Content Curation in PR

So there you have it.  Business outcomes, social media, measurement and content strategies top our list of PR trends for 2012.  Do you agree? What would you add to (or strike from) our list?

Author Sarah Skerik is PR Newswire’s vice president of social media, and is the author of the free ebook Unlocking Social Media for PR.

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