Tag Archives: content distribution

Is a Paid Placement Right for Your Campaign?

Posted on May 7, 2013 by | Leave a comment

There’s been a lot of buzz in the communications industry around the idea of using paid placements (also referred to as “strategic placements),  yet misconceptions persist about what this term actually means and when they are appropriate to use.  In a nutshell, a strategic placement is a 30 or 60 second stand- alone video in a newsbreak format that is used to provide news content during breaks in scheduled programming for TV or radio.  Video produced from B-roll and Satellite Media Tours (SMTs) as well as Radio Media Tours (RMTs) can also be repurposed into scripted packages for strategic placement on national or local TV and radio. 

When to use a paid placement? 

To increase the audience for a broadcast campaign: Impressions are often king in the broadcast world, but in some cases, satellite or radio media tours (“SMTs” and “RMTs” respectively) may not  garner the number of impressions that clients often like to see.  To increase the return on the investment in broadcast production, we always advise employing a multi-faceted approach so that content can be seen and heard on a variety of mediums.   Paid placements can often help get air time on cable and network affiliates that are often unattainable otherwise, and can be a great way to increase your audience ‘footprint.’  For example, CNBC, CNN, Fox News Channel, Headline News, and The Daily Buzz are just a handful of typically coveted networks where content can be easily placed with the paid approach. 

To Target Local Markets or Demographics: Some initiatives have a local focus, with coverage wanted regionally, for example a bank that has only east coast branches. By utilizing paid placement, content can be placed in specific cities, states and/or on major national networks – adding a niche targeting approach.  Add a statewide radio distribution and impressions skyrocket.

Targeting a specific demographic? A cluster of cable outlets can be selected to further refine goals.  For example, content geared toward women can be placed on ABC Family and Lifetime, video devoted to entertainment can be placed on Comedy Central and Discovery, and Lifestyle related content can be placed on networks such as Food Network and HGTV.

THE BOTTOM  LINE?

Broadcast paid placements can be a great addition to add to any multi-tiered broadcast approach. In addition to helping to boost impressions,  paid placements can be used to target specific cities, states and regions and deliver  the message to the right demographic.

Want to explore new ways to tell your brand’s story and to reach new audiences?  We’d be happy to chat with you about creating a video or a designing multimedia distribution strategy that will increase discovery of your brand’s messages.  We’d love to hear your ideas, and help turn them into reality. Contact us for more information.

Author Risa Chuang is Director of Media Relations for MultiVu, a PR Newswire company.

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Common Themes from the Content & Distribution Track at SXSWi 2013

Posted on March 14, 2013 by | Leave a comment

This year’s programming for South By Southwest featured an entire track devoted to the subjects of content and distribution.   The sessions in that track varied wildly from ultra-tactical (“How to Rank Better in Google and Bing,”) to the esoteric (“#CatVidFest: Is This the End of Art?”) Despite the wild array of subject matter and expertise that are the hallmarks of SxSW Interactive, common themes did emerge over the course of the conference, and communicators should take note.

Don’t forget we’re talking about human behavior.

In addition to the hundreds of panels devoted to the discussion of storytelling and other content tactis, the Interactive program also devoted considerable space to user experience design (“UXD”) and different aspects of psychology.  Why?  Because ultimately, marketing communications exist to influence human behavior.   Sitting in sessions that picked apart the psychology of habits, the social behaviors that drive the rapid spread of a meme across social channels or discussed how YouTube’s treatment of comments encourages troll-like behavior among those commenting on videos really drove this fact home.

The discussion of what makes media spread in the panel titled “Spreadable Media,” offers a profound example.  Think about it: we sit in front of our screens, and an avalanche of Tweets, Facebook posts, links in emails and other content floods our attention.  As human beings, we make specific choices about that content. What’s worth passing along, and to whom?  And in which channel?  And as part of what conversation?

“If we just think in terms of going viral, we’re not treating the audience as having social agency or cultural effect,” one of the panelists (I didn’t catch which, though I captured the quote verbatim) noted. “We strip away the politics of what goes viral.”  Simply referring to a piece of media as “viral” in nature glosses over the choices that went into mobilizing the material, which means that we overlook the very mechanics of the message, and what caused it to resonate with the audience.  And I think that any marketer can agree, that is stuff worth knowing.

Content needs to be quality.  Everything else is a waste of time, and can injure your brand.   

There are myriad reasons why it’s important to be selective about what you publish – and that message was emphasized in a variety of sessions.  Quality content that’s useful to the audience generates the kind of engagement signals (e.g. time on page, click-throughs, shares) that search engines notice.  The same sort of quality content is that that is most likely to spread and augment your brand’s image and credibility.

It turns out that the downside to publishing content that doesn’t make the grade with the audience isn’t simply a waste of time.   Lightweight content that doesn’t deliver value to the reader will cause visitors to “bounce” (immediately leave) from a web page, sending a negative signal to the ever-vigilant search engines.   Bad content can also result an active departure from the brand audience, by motivating people to disassociate from the brand by un-liking or un-following social presences, or unsubscribing from an email newsletter.   Content for content’s sake is a bad idea.  It won’t trigger the human behavior you’re after, which in turn won’t result in the search engine ranking the brand desires.

Now that you’re back home and have had a chance to unpack – both your luggage and your brain – what were the theme that stood out to you at South By this year?

sarah avatarAuthor Sarah Skerik is PR Newswire’s vice president of social media, and is the author of the e-book “Unlocking Social Media for PR.”  Follow her on Twitter at @sarahskerik

Want to make your media spread?  PR Newswire can distribute your content — text, images, video and any combination thereof — to digital audiences both broad and narrow.

 

 

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Posted in Content PR & Marketing

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Award-Winning (really!) Content Distribution with the ARC Engagement Platform

Posted on November 8, 2012 by | Leave a comment

While content is the cornerstone of most marketing strategy, it does a brand little good if people don’t see it.  That’s why content distribution, and the content delivery networks that power that syndication, are the subject of a lot of interest these days.

If you know PR Newswire, you know that “content distribution” is our middle name.    At its core, PR Newswire is a content distribution powerhouse, delivering hundreds of messages – including text, images and video – daily, via ultra high speed internet, lightweight apps, social networks, RSS, satellite and e-mail.

Our team are constantly pushing the envelope on this idea of distribution, because, simply put, unseen content doesn’t do its job.  To be effective, messages must be seen, heard and experienced.  Behind the scenes, we’re busy building the next generation of content delivery mechanisms, including lightweight widgets that simplify multi-language syndication, and dynamic media players that deliver refreshed content automatically.

We’re doing a pretty good job, too.  In fact,  the dynamic media player is at the heart of our award-winning ARC Engagement Platform, a content distribution tool that marries branded HTML page and an embeddable, shareable, interactive media player.  The ARC enables PR professionals and marketersto easily create, manage, and update digital content and connect with their audiences through multimedia content, national distribution, social sharing and specific calls-to-action throughout the course of a campaign or messaging cycle.

We’re proud of the fact that the ARC has been recognized with a slew of awards this year, including:

Custom Content Council – Pearl Awards Gold Winner for Best Microsite

PR Newswire and Mullen Advertising were recognized for Mullen’s use of the ARC as the primary vehicle to drive the Men’s Wearhouse’s Fifth Annual National Suit Drive.  By creating a branded, content-rich hub, sharing ongoing campaign updates and incorporating specific calls-to-action to drive clothing donations and online fundraising, Mullen successfully converged their earned, paid and social media efforts and executed an integrated, content marketing campaign that exceeded campaign goals.

PR News Digital PR Awards: Digital Marketing Campaign (under 100k) & Ragan’s PR Daily

PR Newswire and Apple Vacations received recognition by PR News and Ragan’s PR Daily for the use of the ARC to execute a digital marketing campaign promoting winter getaways in the Dominican Republic.   Apple Vacations tapped into the power of  PR Newswire’s ARC to not only share a complete library of visual content of their own and of their travel partners, but also to support their SEO strategies and help them align their traditional earned media efforts with their paid media efforts.  PR News awarded the campaign an honorable mention in their Digital PR Awards and PR Daily is slated to announce the winners of their Digital PR & Social Media awards in January 2013.

Expo Magazine E.X.C.I.T.E. Award

The ARC has also proven to be a successful tool to manage a communications strategy throughout the entire life of an event.  Earlier this year, PR Newswire,  Freeman  and Exponation for their use of the ARC as a dedicated microsite for the 2012 Digital Signage Expo (DSE).  The ARC, which housed a suite of event-related multimedia content, acted as a comprehensive microsite for both event exhibitors and attendees. DSE was able to generate significant event exposure, while also sharing relevant, timely content as it became available to maintain interaction with its existing audience, as well as attract new audiences.  The 2012 DSE show was their most successful to date.  (See our digital event marketing case study for details.)

We know that multimedia content generates more views and engagement than plain text, which isn’t at all surprising, since humans are visual creatures, and because most search engines and social networks give visual content more weight (and thus, visibility).   So we’re continuing to forge ahead in developing new ways to distribute content and connect with audiences.

Want to learn more about the ARC?  See some additional details and request more information about it right here.

Sarah Skerik is PR Newswire’s vice president of social media.

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