Tag Archives: agile communications

6 Keys to Building an Agile Engagement Program

Posted on July 13, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Yesterday PR Newswire hosted a webinar titled “Agile Engagement: 6 Steps to Building Communications Dexterity,” that featured some great case studies and a robust Q&A session that focused on what organizations need to do to make the change to the proactive agile engagement communications framework.

The panelists were:

  • Kelly LeVoyer, the Director of Marketing Editorial at SAS Software (@sassoftware)
  • Valerie Jennings, CEO of Jennings Social Media Marketing (@valeriejennings)
  • Sarah Skerik, VP social media, PR Newswire (moderator) (@sarahskerik)

The discussion was framed in the agile engagement construct developed by PR Newswire, which has key tenets and is discussed in detail in the free whitepaper titled “The Dawn of Agile Engagement.”  The six tenets are:

  • Listening & analysis
  • Content creation & curation
  • Audience targeting
  • Message distribution
  • Engage & interact
  • Measurement

Kelly started the discussion by speaking about how any company can improve by applying the agile strategy, noting that she believes many companies, including SAS, focus much too heavily on the “create” stage of this model.  She strongly encouraged that organizations begin focusing more upon the “listen”, “engage”, and “measure” stages. In speaking about the “listen” stage, Kelly stated that listening is a process that must be formalized and internalized, noting that the organization needs to be able to absorb and react to the information and data gleaned real-time from the social sphere.   The “engage” stage also received a lot of attention.  Kelly emphasized the growing importance of engagement as the term becomes more and more a part of our everyday lives.

When targeting and interacting with influencers, Kelly made it clear that engagement should not be reserved only for those with a high degree of influence (e.g. a big Klout score or rafts of Twitter followers) noting there are influencers everywhere.  Brands shouldn’t the people who are using their products on a daily basis.  It is smart to have a broad definition of what constitutes an influencer, for it can be detrimental to an organization to only engage the social media rock stars. By engaging everyone, she believes you can turn average customers into extremely credible evangelists.

Measurement was also a focus of Kelly’s presentation. She strongly believes that by monitoring all the processes involved with engagement, you are allowing the audience to create content for you.  In summary, Kelly noted that she does not have sympathy for organizations that complain about struggling to create content. She believes that if any organization can listen, engage, and measure, that content creation will come easily. However, she cautioned the audience to remember that despite how important the “listen” and “engage” stages are, they are meaningless if the “measure” stage does not take place.

Valerie Jennings, the CEO of Jennings Social Media Marketing, was our second presenter. She focused heavily on the importance of meeting business goals and achieving monetization for social media marketing programs, and noted that achieving these outcomes requires a lot of agile thinking.

Several points Valerie believes are of paramount importance when striving to reach these outcomes include:

  • Goal setting.  Mapping specific business outcomes sets a foundation for the program.  These goals should be quantifiable and attainable. Even if an organization is in the early stages of development, Valerie encourages them to set these goals. She cited social media as an example. In her opinion it is not enough to just say that your goal is “to have X amount of followers on Twitter”. She suggests that an organization extends this to something that is quantifiable in relation to the business as a whole, such as “getting X % of twitter followers to sign up for the organization’s newsletter”.
  • Take full advantage of SEO opportunities, which includes using up-to-the-minute keyword data.  When dealing with B2B and B2C social media marketing, she believes the most important aspects to take interest in when developing editorial content are keywords, search trends, and SEO goals. In focusing on keywords, she made it clear that she believes that they are not static; they are strong indicators of audience behavior. If an organization does a good job of analyzing the keyword choices of its audience, they should be able to tell exactly what type of content they need to create.
  • Understand timeframes and sales cycles, and plan accordingly.  In speaking about what sort of time frame to expect in order to achieve monetization, Valerie expressed her belief that the time frame depends on what type of organization you are working with. She used Wyndham Hotels as an example. Since Wyndham’s sales cycle tends to be a bit longer, she found the 6 to 7 months it took to achieve monetization to be relatively fast.  However, when dealing with an organization with a shorter sales cycle, it may be reasonable to expect monetization in a much shorter span of time. Valerie finished by emphasizing the importance of integrating monetization into your organization, stating that monetization can affect the overall marketing strategy, so organizations should make sure to build it in to their sales system or marketing department.

The session was incredibly robust, and this summary barely scrapes the surface.   To listen to the archive of the event – which includes good discussion by the presenter of specific case studies, follow this link:  Agile Engagement Webinar .

We believe this will be time well spent!

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The Impact of the Agile Marketing Trend on Public Relations

Posted on May 24, 2012 by | 3 Comments

via Flite Agile Marketing

The latest buzzword coming to the communications forefront is “agile marketing.”  Derived from the agile approach to software development bearing the same moniker, agile marketing  changes up the traditional marketing model and shares some of the same cornerstones that underpin the agile development approach, including:

  • An interative and incremental approach.  Agile development chops work into bite size pieces, but adds the capacity for iteration and adaption during development.  The result – a fast moving and fluid development cycle that enables continuous improvement.
  • The scrum.  The hallmark of the agile approach is the scrum – an development approach featuring a cross-functional team that works very dynamically to solve problems and meet deadlines.  The days of the silo are gone.  The agile marketing scrum will involve people from product, marketing, operations, sales and PR (at the least.)
  •  The sprint. Scrum development breaks projects down into fast-moving sprints, which are generally no more than one month in length, and are frequently measured in weeks or days.  The sprints define and organize the work to be done for a period of time by the scrum.

The precepts of agile development are well expressed in the graphic below.  In a nutshell – to me at least – the agile approach is about breaking out of the straightjacket of processes and getting.things.DONE.   It’s also about continuous improvement and iteration, and ultimately, about putting the customer first.

via Chiefmartec.com

So what does this mean to PR?  It’s helpful to think in terms of agile engagement  - staying connected with audiences, interacting with them and listening to what topics are top-of-mind with the people who are shaping conversations online.   This differs from the traditional approach of planned campaigns and crisis communications. Under an agile strategy, the PR team is plugged into marketing campaigns, but also develops the ability to adjust messaging quickly to  head off negative events and to capitalize upon fast-moving opportunities (e.g. newsjacking.)

Developing an agile engagement framework means the communications department will need to re-wire processes and build some new muscles.   Specifically, PR pros can expect a host of new demands and requirements, including:

  • Tighter integration  with faster-moving marketing and social media campaigns, demanding the ability to adjust messaging and audience targeting quickly
  • Increasing focus on customizing message, content and touch points for customers and specific audiences
  • Re-aligning the decision-making and processes to support the fast-moving agile approach.
  • Empowering  employees.  Find the social media extroverts and influencers in your midst and nurture them.
  • Increasing the commitment to real-time information.  Monitoring social channels becomes a necessity.

Developing an agile engagement framework means the communications department will need to re-wire processes and build some new muscles, aligning staff and expertise – in the communications groups and elsewhere in the organization – with corporate objectives.   The effort is worth it, however. The brand will develop  a flexible approach enabling communicators to quickly to their environment , aligning consumer and brand goals and ultimately maximizing return on brand equity and communications investments.

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

 We’ve just announced The Crowd-Sourced eBook: The Definitive Guide to Social Influencer Engagement and invite you to contribute.

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Writing Press Releases that Don’t Sound Like Advertisements

Posted on December 21, 2011 by | 7 Comments

Today’s communications strategies hinge upon content, and the press release release is an important part of that content mix. However, to be successful, a content marketing strategy needs to serve the needs of the audience first. Traditionally, press releases have been geared toward telling an organization’s story. Can press releases be made to fit into the content marketing paradigm?

According to the members of the Public Relations Professionals on LinkedIn, the answer is a qualified “Yes,” depending upon how the press release is written. Tips sourced from the conversation include:

  • Plan for and encourage online visibility by using multimedia in press releases – a tactic that we know generates more views and wider sharing of messages.
  • Make the obligatory quote in the second paragraph really work. Instead of a canned quote in which the quoted exec notes how excited he or she is about whatever is being announced, use this space to address – and answer – key marketplace questions, or to clearly describe what is special about today’s news.
  • Instead of a press release, write the news story. Eliminate jargon and hyperbole, focus the message and substantiate the claims just as you would if you were submitting the final work to a ruthless news editor. Paying attention to the readability of the message is important and will produce a better final product.

To these tips I’d also add the imperative to write from the audience’s perspective – which (I will concede) is a little counter-intuitive when it comes to press releases. Here are some ways you to bring this important point of view into your writing:

  • Develop an ongoing understanding of what your customers and prospects are talking about online. Use frequently asked questions and unresolved marketplace issues to frame your communications, including press releases. Make the answer to a key question the focus of the announcement, not the fact that XYZ Co. is Today Announcing Something.
  • Highlight actual people – customers, production staff, design engineers – in your writing. Involving a variety of people will surface more stories and angles, and help you create content that resonates with your readers.
  • Speak in the language of your marketplace, not your marketing department. Present information and quantify data using metrics that are actually meaningful to the people you’re hoping to influence. You’ll need to do a little market research, but there’s no better way to give your content a boost than to ensure that it’s contextually relevant to your audience.

As you plan your next press release, try to incorporate a couple of these tactics. Pay attention to the results your press release generates – and look beyond simple page views as you do so. If you dig a little deeper into the results from your press releases, looking at the number of times the content was shared in social networks, and the number of people who clicked links embedded within the release, you’ll start to understand what sort of messages actually inspire your readers to action. That’s intel you can use to fine tune future press releases and improve their results.

Sarah Skerik is PR Newswire’s vice president of social media, and is the author of the free ebook Unlocking Social Media for PR, which we’ve updated for 2012.

Image courtesy of Flickr user barto.

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4 Essential Tips for Writing Effective Press Release Headlines

Posted on November 17, 2011 by | 5 Comments

The headline of the press release (or, arguably, any other content you will publish online) is some of the most important real estate on the page.  The headline is what journalists see first in news room wires, RSS feeds, and their email in-boxes. Search engines place extra weight upon the text at the top of the page, and it’s the first thing your reader sees.

And when someone shares your press release in social networks, again, it’s the headline that is front and center – attracting more potential readers to your message.  For these reasons, I’m prepared to argue the headline is, unquestionably, the very most important piece of the press release, bar none, period, end of story.

Given the importance of the headline in attracting readers, search engines and social interaction for the press releases PR Newswire issues, I think it’s worth sifting through the current data to identify the tactics that will make press releases and other online content most effective.  In a nutshell, these are:

  • Length – Headlines should be between 90-120 characters.  (Characters, including spaces. Not words.)
  • Keywords – Put your most important keyword at the beginning of the headline – within the first 65 characters.
  • Include numerals in the headline.  Readers like data points.
  • Utilize a subhead to add more detail.

Length matters.

Our findings suggest that headline length plays in important role in both attracting readers and encouraging social sharing of press releases.   The ideal length is right in the neighborhood of 90 – 120 characters.

Why is length important?  First and foremost, the optimum headline length also happens to be perfect for sharing via Twitter.  We’ve long advised clients to write “tweetable” headlines. I’m pretty sure the fact average length of the most effective press releases happens to correspond with the ideal length of a Tweet (remember, you need to leave some room for handles and short links) is no coincidence.   Other research PR Newswire has done with Crowdfactory indicates that each social share triggers two more views of a press release.  Ensuring press releases are Twitter-friendly should be a no-brainer for everyone.

Headline SEO: the first 65 characters are key.

Headlines play an important role in informing search engines about on-page content, and as mentioned earlier, the engines put more weight on the content that appears at the top of the page.  Additionally, many web masters (PR Newswire’s included) use the headline in the title tag on the web page hosting the press release. The title tag is another important piece of SEO real estate.  Optimizing your headline for search engines can give the press release a nice visibility boost.

Headline optimization isn’t too difficult; however, it may require some organizations to re-think how they structure headlines, because search engines only index the first 65 characters of the headline.   To capitalize on the important real estate the headline occupies, it’s vital to put the most important keyword for phrase in the headline – and right the beginning – well within that first 65 character space.

One important note regarding headlines – it is not necessary to pack your headline with keywords. Search engines are good at recognizing natural language, and they are quick to bury keyword spam.  So don’t go overboard.  When it comes to keywords, you can definitely have too much of a good thing.  SEO tactics work best when you focus your press release on just one or two keywords.

Use numerals in the headline (when it makes sense.)

One of the most surprising facts to emerge from this research was the finding that press releases with numerals in the headline performed better than releases that were digit-deficient.  If your press release cites numeric facts such as survey results or performance data, or if it (like this blog post) offers the reader X immutable truths in [insert subject], tell your readers about that in the headline. Numbers in the headline convey either immediacy (such as  date) or facts, boosting your message’s credibility.

Use subheads to add more detail

Given what I see cross the wire each day, many organizations (my own included!) might find the recommended 90-120 character headline length pretty restrictive.  The solution?  Use a subhead to supply the additional but-not-quite-as-important details that you’d normally stuff into a long headline.  You’ll find that doing so makes your press release visually more appealing, and splitting long headlines into shorter headlines and subheads makes it easier for readers to scan the copy, giving them incentive to read on.

Rethinking the press release

We’ve talked a bit lately on this blog about the need to rethink some long-standing PR tactics, and the press release is no exception.  Today’s audiences – including the journalists and bloggers at the top of your pitch lists – consume content digitally.  They find it, share it and interact with it differently than they did just a few years ago. Social networks enable people to find and share content, opening up new opportunities for brands to communicate directly with their audiences.  And search engines are using social signals in their ranking algorithms, meaning that social sharing can have a lasting effect on the online visibility of a message.  In order to fully capitalize on these opportunities, we need to rethink how we write press releases – starting with the headline.

Related reading:

Rethinking Press Release Tactics to Meet Evolving Audience Preferences

Press Releases Shared More on Facebook, But Twitter Drives 30 Percent More Views

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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It’s Fryday! (Lessons learned from #frenchfries)

Posted on November 11, 2011 by | 1 Comment

Today is Fryday - a national promotion from McDonald's, derived from social media intel.

Social media monitoring is something we all know we should be doing, but winnowing out the signals from the noise can be difficult, and beyond that, figuring out what to do with the resulting data can also be a challenge.   To be successful, an organization needs to be agile – its business processes need to be able to ingest the data and recalibrate communications on the fly.

Erm.

That last sentence in can sound pretty daunting.  Business processes, ingesting data, recalibrating communications … at this point many folks are inclined to think “that’s for other companies, we simply can’t do that…” and turn quietly away. Fact is,  listening isn’t so hard, it can be done by any organization for little to no money, the changes can be incremental, and in order to be successfull, all you really need to do is pay attention, and use what you learn.

I heard a great example of this from Heather Oldani of McDonald’s earlier this week at PR Newswire’s Social Content Leadership Forum in Chicago.   McDonald’s has real traction in social networks, and they’re paying attention to online conversations and building relationships with different communities and constituents.  Conversations encompass everything from environmental, parenting and nutritional topics to tracking national availability of the McRib to discussions around menu innovations, such as Fruit & Maple Oatmeal and apple slices in Happy Meals.   Conversations ebb and flow, but the McD’s team has noticed a constant.

In less than an hour, McDonald's Facebook post had garnered thousands of likes, shares and comments.

“French fries are social,” Heather noted.   Topics and issues may come and go, but people love McDonald’s fries, and they talk about that devotion online.

Now, in the grand scheme of McDonald’s menus, the fries are certainly a lynchpin, but they aren’t the headliner.  New sandwiches, salads and coffee drinks steal the headlines and are the focus of the company’s menu-oriented promotions.

But because McDonald’s was paying attention, they realized that there was more lasting, ongoing enthusiasm for fries than for pretty much any other menu item, unless you’re this guy:

Bet he likes fries, too. #fryday

But I digress.

McDonald’s realized it had a unique opportunity with the approach of Friday, 11/11/11 – an aesthetically very French-fry appropriate date.  Using the palindrome as a hook , McDonald’s developed the Fryday promotion, offering fries for $.50 today.

In the Chicago area, McDonald’s is using billboards to promote Fryday, but true to the roots of the promotion, a lot of activity is happening on social networks, too.  The company’s Twitter team (follow them @McDonalds) is chatting up the deal online, and several franchisors are also getting into the game.   The Twitter hashtag #fryday is busy and the McDonalds New York Tri-State Area Restaurants have created a check in for the promotion on Four Square.  Is the suggestion of hot, crispy, salty fries powerful enough to get people in the door?

My guess is the answer is yes.   Not bad for a little promotion derived from simply paying attention to what people are talking about online.

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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Rethinking Press Release Tactics To Meet Evolving Audience Preferences

Posted on November 2, 2011 by | 20 Comments

On yesterday’s “The Science of Press Releases” webinar with Dan Zarrella of Hubspot, we discussed an array of findings about press release viewing, usage and sharing that I’m sure raised a few eyebrows. The webinar, in case you missed it, featured Dan’s findings after he crunched an enormous amount of press release data – metrics and analytics both – PR Newswire provided.

Here’s a look at the deck we presented:

Some of the findings were pretty surprising, including:

Views (the number of times a press release is viewed on PRNewswire.com)

  • More press releases are viewed on Saturday & Sunday than any other day
  • The wee hours of the morning (between midnight and 1 a.m. Eastern, specifically) see a real spike in press release views.  The start of the workday (9 a.m.) and the early evening also see a higher than average number of press release views.

Engagement (the number of times a reader of a press release takes another action with the press release, such as clicking on embedded links, sharing it on social networks, emailing or printing it, etc.)

  • Engagement activities do not map to views.  Mondays show the greatest engagement, and engagement tails off toward the end of the week.
  • That said, the wee hours of the morning do see more readers engaging with press release content than at other times.

Media views (the number of times a press release is viewed by a registered PR Newswire for Journalists member)

  • Media views did map to views overall – more press releases are viewed by media and bloggers over the weekends
  • Apparently media and bloggers are early birds, in extremis. Most views happen in the wee hours of the morning, or before the work day (7 a.m. ET).

Headlines

  • Across the board, the headline lengths that generated the most views were in the 120 character range

Multimedia

  • Releases with embedded photos and video drove more views
  • However, releases with video showed lower engagement than releases with photos.

These findings are all interesting, and some are pretty surprising, and they beg us to rethink some of the conventional thinking around press releases.

Social sharing:

  • Sharing of press releases on Facebook spikes on the weekend, and also on Thursdays.
  • Press releases are shared on Facebook at a dramatically higher rate early in the late afternoon and early evening (between 6 and 7 p.m. ET.)

Timing:

PR Newswire’s highest volume days are Tuesday and Wednesdays. While news from public companies is generally issued either before or after the markets close, the timing of press release distribution is often dictated by when all the approvals are finalized or timing around a particular event such as a conference call, press conference or release of other content.

In my mind, timing depends upon your primary audience.  Public companies and others with specific regulatory constraints may need to hew to the traditional timing model. However, for others who aren’t so burdened, it may be time to experiment.

“Staggering” distribution:

More than a few PR folks tweeted unhappily about working round the clock after seeing the data revealing that press release readers are real night-owls.   However, I think it’s important to remember that press releases are easily found after they’re distributed.

As I looked at the readership data, I wasn’t thinking that we need to change the timing of press release distribution wholesale.  But I do think there’s plenty of opportunity to target different audiences and serve content up directly to them at different times.

So what does this mean?   I think it’s still perfectly OK to issue press releases during the work day, during the work week.  PR pros do not need to worry about working nights and weekends (any more than they already do!)   But you can certainly atomize the content and convey different bits and pieces to key audiences.  What do I mean?

  • Pitch the story later in the day to key journos and bloggers.
  • Share the content on Facebook in the evening, and start posting status updates for your brand when YOU are on Facebook yourself.
  • Tweet interesting tidbits and pieces of data from the press release throughout the day.
  • If possible, publish any related content (a short slide deck, images, a video) or a blog post offering more perspective after the release is issued – and update your channels accordingly
  • Watch for interaction and commentary from your audience, and respond.  Don’t leave the conversation hanging.

If you read this blog, you know that I’ve been musing on the concept of  agile engagement as a new model for PR, defining it as a move from campaign-based communications (which, let’s face it, the traditional issuing of a press release is) to an adaptive and always-on presence.  While the ‘always-on’ piece can pose a bit of a challenge, the underlying press release usage data indicates that our audiences are always on – so it stands to reason that some of our strategies need to evolve accordingly.

We’re not done with this re-think, not by a long shot.  Coming soon, we’ll discuss headlines, targeting and multimedia elements.

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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Listening: The Foundation of Agile Engagement

Posted on November 1, 2011 by | 2 Comments

Agile engagement starts with listening.

Content is the cornerstone of today’s communications strategies, but let’s face it – if the content is off the mark or isn’t seen by the intended audiences, your efforts were for naught.   That’s why we consider listening, targeting and distribution to be key fundamentals for a truly agile approach to communications.   Today, we’re going to dig into listening.  Listening is truly the foundation of agile engagement.

Listening:

Here at PR Newswire, we use the term “Social Echo” to describe the way messages reverberate around (and in some cases are amplified by) our audiences. As messages enter the stream of conversations, they’re shared by people in networks, sparking other discussions.  I think we can all agree that social conversations can make or break brands and products. Buzz (positive or negative) is a powerful thing. But that’s not the only opportunity for communicators.

I monitor social channels for discussion about PR and social media. This screen lets me see popular subtopics within that broader discussion.

If we’re tuned into what our audiences are saying and what questions they’re asking, we should be able to influence the direction these conversations take. And, of course, “tuning in” really means listening.  But listening is a pretty broad term, so let’s break it down a bit.

First and foremost, it’s imperative that communicators understand what audiences are talking about, and what questions they ask. Doing so will enable you to communicate in their context.  Failing to do so means you run the risk of being the corporate equivalent of “that guy” with the demonstrated knack for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.

Identifying hot-button issues and recurring industry complaints is another important exercise. In addition to identifying opportunities for the brand to be the hero, doing this on an ongoing basis helps communicators either avoid risky areas or meet them head on and mitigate the risks, depending upon whatever is appropriate for the objective. It reduces surprise.

Listening will also reveal to you the language uses – the keywords and phrases they use when discussing you segment and services – enabling you to literally be on the same page, which also delivers search benefits.

Where to listen:

  • Twitter – in addition for specific mentions, keep an eye peeled for discussions around new and established hash tags for your sector.  Making lists of key influencers can make Twitter more manageable, as can a social media monitoring dashboard (I use our own PR Newswire Media Monitoring service).
  • Forums and discussion groups – Discussion groups on places like LinkedIn and Quora are fantastic focus groups to which you should pay attention.  You may also find discussion groups hosted by leading publications or industry groups.
  • Search engines – okay, it’s not truly listening per se, but paying attention to what results surface for the keywords your organization has selected is a good way to keep tabs on competitors, influencers and fast-moving issues in your space.

Read our new white paper, “Earned Media, Evolved,” discussing how the transformed media landscape presents new opportunities for communicators to earn media.

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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Brand Streaming: A New Approach to Agile Communications

Posted on October 31, 2011 by | 7 Comments

Social networks + owned media = an opportunity to generate potent earned media.

We can probably agree that public relations tactics have changed pretty dramatically over the last several years, responding to sea changes in information consumption, the role of professional media and the continuing impact of social networks.  Personally, I think one of the most useful ways to get our heads around what all this means to public relations is to envision a communications in the form of streams.

Tom Stein, the president and chief creative officer of Stein+Partners Brand Activation, an interactive digital agency, offered a good definition on the webinar he and I co-hosted last week.  Brand streaming, according to Tom, represents an agile approach to communications, shifting from episodic, campaign-based planning to an adaptive, always-on presence, and has the following attributes:

  • Content flowing from brand to constituent has become a real-time, always-on stream: and that content flows across channels to media influencers, social influencers, consumers, policy makers and decision makers
  • Content is streaming right back to the brand from the audience – full of insight and opportunity
  • Brands have the ability to effectively and proactively manage this brand stream with the ability to lead conversations, ensure brand coherence, protect reputation and drive results

One key aspect that’s at the heart of brand streaming is the opportunity for owned media published by a brand – press releases, white papers, articles, case studies, fact sheets, photos, infographics, etc. – to evolve into earned media, through social interactions.

This phenomenon carries with it another important factor communicators must consider – the entirely new patterns of influence that are emerging.  A well-connected Facebook fan can be a powerful amplifier of your messages, for example.  As a result, public relations professionals are being forced to rethink old paradigms, embrace new opportunities that demand entirely new ways of thinking – and to act and react in real time.

And this brings us back to the brand stream.  The always-on, realtime opportunities and connections demand a continual presence – and communications – from brands.  It’s an entirely different role, and an entirely different mindset.

Tomorrow we’ll delve into developing the content that forms the basis of a brand stream.

Related reading:  Taking a content-centric approach to building relationships

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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