Tag Archives: PRSA 2012

Pushing… er, Pulling All the Right Buttons

Posted on October 17, 2012 by | 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 by | 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 by | 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 by | 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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New Career Opportunities at the PR Agency of the Future

Posted on October 16, 2012 by | 3 Comments

PR agencies are in a world of transition and leaders are re-defining roles as they move into unchartered territory. At the PRSA International Conference in San Francisco, heads of some of the top agencies in the nation sat down to discuss what the future holds and contribute creative ways the profession will need to adapt to address changing client needs.

One central theme is around becoming a Specialist instead of a Generalist in PR. Unique titles are emerging such as Creative Catalyst or Community and Conversation Analyst.  At the same time, PR firms are hiring candidates with special skills including videography and even comedy writing.

Key takeaways:

Janet Tyler, co-CEO and founder of Airfoil Public Relations
• The employee of the future will never look, act or think like another, they will understand the power of data is a connector and believe in the power of community.

Jack Martin, CEO, Hill+Knowlton Strategies
• Talent function is the most important part of the business

Fred Cook, CEO and President, Golin Harris
• Employees now go through an assessment process to uncover their strengths and passions which are furthered nurtured.

PR Newswire’s VP of Business Development on the agency vertical, Andrew Meranus talked on camera afterwards to Rob Flaherty, CEO and President of Ketchum and Peter Himler, Founding Principal of Flatiron Communications about these career twists and turns already happening in PR:

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Storytelling: The Lynchpin for New & Traditional Media

Posted on October 16, 2012 by | Leave a comment

A potent video from Facebook Stories – it’ s a masterclass in storytelling.

Is being a communicator for some of the coolest brands a road paved with yellow bricks?  They must have big teams, large budgets, and journalists knocking down their doors, right?  PRSA 2012 International Conference attendees got a look behind the curtain at a session featuring:

  • Jonny Thaw (@jonnyjt), Manager of Technology and Engineering Communications at Facebook,
  • Karen Wickre (@kvox), Editorial Director at Twitter, and
  • Demetra Kavadeles (@metersd), Global Consumer Public Relations Manager at Skype.

Peter Himler (@peterhimler)of Flatiron Communications LLC, moderated the discussion.

I let my geek flag fly, got right up front and waited for pearls of wisdom to be hurled at me in succinct 120 character sound bites – that way I could easily be retweeted and and broadcast their genius across the social sphere. The good news? All three panelists had great wisdom, advice and practices. The bad news? Not in 120 character sound bites.

I found myself so enthralled with the content of their discussion that my tweeting suffered. There were some fun voyeur facts (Facebook has 40 people on their communications team, Twitter has eight, and Skype seven) and that Facebook’s team reports up to the COO, not through marketing.

In addition to all the new school tools, all three still give paramount status to pitching the media. What was truly revealing was not the “peek behind Oz’s curtain” but the very real conversation about storytelling, FTC regulations for bloggers, authenticity and transparency.

Storytelling and blogging have a symbiotic relationship. Both Facebook (http://www.facebookstories.com/) and Twitter (http://blog.twitter.com/2011/11/introducing-twitter-stories.html) have whole sites dedicated to their users’ stories to demonstrate their offline impact. All three companies have a lot of time and resources invested in creating a robust and engaging company blog. Dametra keeps things fresh by getting a variety of contributors creating posts, which then begged the question: how do you get them to write it?!  The consensus of the panel, and I suspect the audience, was that is the biggest challenge to the company blog. Jonny makes sure to offer kudos to those who write for the blog. He says it helps the contributor feel valued, and starts the momentum of others wanting to contribute.

“If they are too busy to even write a bad draft, have someone go over and ask them questions,” Karen offered.  “Provide them with a first draft to edit and adapt.”

As the discussion went on the issue of the FTC came up. They all agreed that when in doubt disclose. Karen referenced her time at Google and shared that she would edit Wikipedia from her corporate email address, disclose who she was, and let them know it was an edit for factual accuracy.

In closing the panel was asked about what companies best utilized their platforms. All three referenced media organizations as top performers. Jonny thought The New York Times does a great job on Facebook, Karen thought that The New York Times and NPR both use Twitter artfully, and Demetra thought that broadcast news organizations have ally learned to leverage the Skype platform well.

Some of the key take always for me were:

  • Harness your internal talent to help tell your story.
  • Be authentic and transparent – to not only stay out of trouble but to engage with your audience.
  • There is value in traditional media telling your story, social and curated content is complimentary.

In the end it still holds true, no matter the company popularity or notoriety as communicators we still have the same challenges, concerns, and conversations – they are just scaled differently.

Author Natalie Bering is an account manager for PR Newswire.

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Sustainable Business & CSR: Will Consumers Pony Up?

Posted on October 16, 2012 by | 1 Comment

In her keynote yesterday at the 2012 PRSA International Conference, June Cotte (@jcotte), an associate professor of marketing at the Richard Ivey School of Business in Ontario, discussed responsible consumer buying habits in over three products: coffee, cotton and chocolate.  The big question she posed was this: Will people spend more on “responsible” products?

According to Cotte, over the past 40 years the reasoning in which a consumer would buy one product over another has changed dramatically.  In the past a consumer would try to buy a cleaning detergent without phosphates which have potential health impacts and pollute water supplies.  Today, labor practices, animal abuse, and philanthropic cause have an influence over the decisions people make.  However, she found that there is a gap between attitude and actual behavior.  A person may have an prejudice towards a product but, when no one is looking still buys it for financial reasons.

Whether it is T-shirts or coffee, there is a premium some will pay based on some measure of corporate responsibility, Cotte noted. People were willing to spend more than $3 more for a T-shirt if the garment contained organic cotton.  Oddly, the premium consumers were willing to pay remained consistent if the shirt was made of 25% organic cotton or 75% organic cotton.  It seems as long as there’s an effort being made, the consumer will agree to pay more.  The same principle applies to coffee and chocolate, only different variables are taken into consideration –  such as labor rights and fair trade.

Interestingly enough, a brand always known for responsible behavior can launch new products and reap the benefit of their existing image.  However, companies with bad reputations generate proportionally greater rewards when they start marketing responsible products. I guess consumers like to see companies make decision to change something beside their bottom line and are willing to support that notion.

The hard part for brands, according to Cotte, is informing the public of the cause or environmental initiative they’ve chosen to tackle.  Most of us make buying decisions based on habits or brands we’ve grown to trust over our lifetimes, underscoring the challenge brands face when communicating new initiatives.

Author Michael Seghieri is a divisional vice president with MultiVu, a PR Newswire company.

Does your company emphasize sustainable practices or corporate social responsibility? If so, our free white paper, “How To Benefit From Authentic CSR” can help you communicate your story to your audience, and build the bottom line.

A whole new way of doing business is emerging and now is the time to rethink your corporate social responsibility programs and take action through real community engagement. Introducing Business4Better (B4B)—the event, the community, the movement—that will bring together businesses and nonprofits to accelerate community engagement and create meaningful partnerships that benefit both businesses and communities. It is the platform that enables both businesses and nonprofits to thrive, share, inspire, educate and prove that Business4Better is truly better for us all.

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Communications Keys From Pandora: Hands On & High Touch

Posted on October 15, 2012 by | 1 Comment

Tim Westergen, founder of Pandora Media, was one of the keynote speakers at PRSA this morning and he shared some amazing insights and thoughts on what has made Pandora such a huge success (they currently have over 150 million registered users!)

Tim strongly believes that word-of-mouth marketing was a key to Pandora’s success.   He also said that the cornerstone of their public relations effort is to find an opportunity to speak with someone using Pandora.   Tim provided evidence to support this by telling the audience how he has spoken at over 400 town halls across the country to speak with evangelists….these have ranged in size from 2 (in the very beginning) to more than 1000 people.

Hands-on, high-touch response also plays a role in Pandora’s communications success.  Tim noted that his team personally responds to all emails (they receive more than 80,000 each month!) further demonstrating the company’s commitment to speak with their users and drive their word-of-mouth marketing effort.

Tim shared that he believes that company’s need an icon (public face) on social media to be successful.  As a Pandora user, I have been impressed with Tim being this icon for years.  Tim mentioned the power behind this and that a few years back when copyright laws that would tremendously impact their business were in Congress, he reached out to ask his users to help.  This resulted in a flood of emails and faxes to Congress….in fact, more than the legislators received about the Iraq war — and the proposed bill was not passed.

Tim also shared some fun facts about music and his dream playlist (this is Pandora, after all!)  It included music from Ben Folds and the Beatles (Abbey Road).  Tim was very genuine and truly demonstrated why he is a great icon (and evangelist) for Pandora!

Author Leslie Brell is an account manager with PR Newswire.

We know that word of mouth is key for modern PR.  What else characterizes our profession today?  Tell us what you think PR is by tweeting your answer with the hashtag “#PRis.”

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May The Forces Be With You: Collaborative Communications

Posted on October 15, 2012 by | Leave a comment

It’s not uncommon to hear about the difficulties communications silos create for an organization.  However, we don’t hear too much about the benefits derived from a collaborative communications environment. During a session with Nicole Ravlin of PMG Public Relations (@PMGNicole) at this year’s PRSA International Conference,  attendees heard about the importance she places on collaboration.

“It’s not about ownership any more but about collaboration,” she said.  By collaborating, you receive shared outcomes and shared rewards.    If the PR Deparment works with Marketing who works with whomever handles social media for your company, everyone will have a more unified message.  As a result, SEO increases, as does engagement.

Sometimes it is tough to convince management to do this since, they’re so used to traditional models, but taking baby steps may help.  After all, in today’s connected world, one department’s owned media can be the basis for generating another group’s earned media.

Speaking of engagement, Nicole reiterated the importance of all of us being publishers today.   I must agree that publishing intriguing content consistently has become important in today’s world of content marketing.  Nicole also suggested using customer engagement as content.  Consumers love to help in any way they can.  They like to get involved with a cause or watch a business grow.  Ask them what they want.

The bottom line, Nicole advised — listen to your customers and team up your internal resources to increase the effectiveness of your marketing and communications strategy.

Sara Whitner is a business development manager for PR Newswire.

Collaboration is key for modern PR.  What else characterizes our profession today?  Tell us what you think PR is by tweeting with the hashtag “#PRis.”

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The New Rules of Modern Communications: From Owned Media to Agile Engagement

Posted on October 15, 2012 by | 1 Comment

Michael presenting at PRSA this week.

The opening of the PRSA 2012 International Conference took place yesterday in San Francisco (#PRSAICON if you want to follow along at home via Twitter) with Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter, opening with his keynote.  In his talk to the attendees and delegates he made the following statement (that was then tweeted around the world):

While it wasn’t planned, this was the perfect lead-in for my talk at the conference on the topic of agile wngagement and the new rules that need to be applied.    I started my discussion talking about the role of content today and how the media landscape is shifting faster than I can type out this blog post and upload my presentation to Slideshare.

New Rule: Content Needs To Be Unified

One of the challenges that organizations face today is the unification of their content.   Companies and Organizations are trying to keep up with the pace of conversation and content online today, however we are often moving so fast, that we don’t coordinate all the moving parts.   If you think about all the different groups in your organization today that are creating content – blog posts to tweets to white papers – from different groups such as marketing, PR, advertising, investor relations, sales, human resources, etc…..that’s a lot of content coming out of departments that often don’t talk with each other very much – and that’s just in a small to medium enterprise, what about a multinational organization?

In order for content unification to really be achieved process can sometimes be a very good thing.  Open discussions across the organization for campaigns can help push that message further and deeper into your intended audiences.

New Rule: Content Must Have Context

It’s often said that, “Content Is King” but as I often say,  “If Content Is King then Context Is The Almighty”.

Content today needs to be created with context – especially with the idea of the context that our audience might be coming across our content with.  For instance, today there is a great shift happening with how we view our content.  The screens that we view our content on shift throughout the day, mobile devices, laptops, tablets, televisions, etc…  However, as marketing communications professionals, we don’t often thing about creating our content with the context of devices and location of the person.

As search plays a deeper role in our lives, we search using multiple devices, and now location factors into those results.  This adds another layer of added context to our content.

However, on the simplest level the multimedia that we use such as photos and video only have context by the words that are surrounding them.  Too often we post photos and videos with no real titles or descriptions hurting our ability to make that content easily searchable by our audiences.

New Rule: Make Your Content Easy

We need to strive to make our content easy for our audiences to access, easy for them to view, and easy for them to use.

As we get better at creating content with context, our audiences should be able to easily pass along this information or directly go to where we are asking them to go to next.   This also means that we need to be more direct and proactive with that content.  For instance, there is very little reason to send our audiences to our homepages when we should be sending them to the specific page that allows them to take that action which we really want them to take.   The more proactive we are with our messaging and directive we are, the easier it will be for our audiences to take those actions which include downloading content, purchasing our product, or to just simply pass along and share that content with their audiences.

New Rule: Search & Social Work Together

In July 2012, there were over 17.9 Billion searches performed in the US according to Comscore.  For the last 3-5 years, Google has owned 65%-68% of all these searches.   While social media continues to expand its’ reach, people still turn to the search engine to get the answers to their questions – today, more than ever before.

Over the last couple of years, Google has made too many changes to their algorithms to detail right here, but at the end of the day it still comes down to creating content that reads well to humans – not search bots – and the social interactions that we have with that content is now effecting the future searchability of that content.  The social signals that are sent when we share, retweet, +1, content gives a validation of that content to future searchers.   Today we must think about creating content that won’t just speak to our intended audiences, but hopefully encourage them to give their stamp of approval by sharing that content or simply passing along their approval.

New Rule: Visibility + Engagement = Multimedia Content

We all want the best visibility and engagement with our content as possible.  If that is the case, ask yourself if you are really using multimedia to help tell your story.   The sad truth is that while we are reading more than ever, we still prefer to watch whenever possible.

At PR Newswire, we have just completed our second study that will be released next month, that re-affirms our study from last year that when you use multimedia content with your messaging, you get more views.    Multimedia content doesn’t just get more views, but also encourages deeper engagement with content.

New Rule: Know Your ROI

ROI in the PR & Marketing world can sometimes be a very fickle thing.  While we all want numbers and dollars that we can point too, sometimes that’s not going to be the metric that we can easily point too.  Share of voice, links built, actions taken, are some of the other kinds of metrics that we also need to look for.

In my presentation at PRSA 2012, I use a video of Burberry CEO Andrea Ahrendts speaking about the Burberry Art of The Trench campaign in which she talks about the fact that she is less concerned with the purchasing of the product than the mindshare that they are trying to create.

The ROI discussion is one that is too long for this post, but in a simple way, it boils down to having a goal in mind with each piece of content.  Ask yourself the simple question, “What do I want someone to do next after they’ve finished reading this.”

Michael Pranikoff is PR Newswire’s director of emerging media.

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