Tag Archives: ROI

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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Posted in Tools & Tactics

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One year, and 100,000 reads…lessons learned from blogging for a brand

Posted on November 30, 2011 by | 2 Comments

In late October, this little blog celebrated its one year anniversary, and about a week later, hit another important milestone – the 100,000th read.   It’s been quite a journey to get to where we are today with Beyond PR, and I’ve learned a lot along the way.

Gaining acceptance

As is the case with any social media endeavor (I’m convinced) the need for a blog was questioned, and until it started really showing some traction, few were convinced of its value.  I won’t kid you, this was annoying at first, especially since I was writing my brains out to keep the blog going, but in reality, I’ve come to realize that internal skepticism is something pretty much any social media manager will confront.  My advice for those in this phase – don’t take it personally, and stay the course!

Showing results

However, the tides started to shift once I was able to demonstrate results in language and metrics my organization understood, namely, media coverage, improved search engine rankings, and click-throughs to other company content and assets.  Life started to get a bit easier at that point.

Integrating with sales and marketing

At about the six month mark, we had developed enough of an audience that we were able to use the blog to “break” some types of news.  One particularly successful effort was around the concept of “visual PR” in which we used analytics data that proved the efficacy of including multimedia with press releases in generating more reads for the messages.  I was able to have our marketing team create an infographic illustrating the data, and blogged in detail about the findings.

(Multimedia content drives better press release results)

It turns out we had a real winner on our hands – this particular blog post was a real hit, in a few different ways.   It was immediately interesting to our readers.  It was also extremely useful to our sales force, and sales of image archival and distribution increased.  The content was repurposed by our marketing department in a customer newsletter.  It was shared widely in social networks by PR professionals, and got good play in some industry media.

(Ragan’s PR Daily: Multimedia news releases grab 77 percent more views)

We followed this formula for a variety of other posts – providing interesting information, data and tactical advice to our audience, while maintaining a strong tie in to a product, and have seen real business results in terms of sales as a result.  We do use this approach judiciously – much of our content (like this very post) is more geared toward sharing our knowledge and participating in the conversation about social communications, rather than selling.   No one wants to be pitched to constantly.  However, we all understand how the world works, and of course Beyond PR exists to support PR Newswire’s business.  This is, after all, a form of content marketing! ;)

Getting others on board

Anyone who manages a blog knows that keeping the content coffers full is the primary challenge.  You have to publish frequently in order to develop your audience, and you have to be pretty well organized in terms of the content you produce.  There has to be some continuity – no one wants to read a mish-mash of unrelated information.   And the whole point of a brand blog is to underscore and illustrate your know-how and expertise in a particular area.  Here on Beyond PR, our beats are public relations, content marketing and social media, with some media relations, SEO and investor relations sprinkled into the mix.

At first, getting others on board with blogging was really tough.  As in it became my own personal nightmare tough.  To compensate (and fill the yawning content chasm that greeted me daily) I started to read and write almost constantly.  Happily, the more you write, the easier it gets.  So for a while I was able to produce decent posts that got results.

They say success begets success, and with respect to the blog, this certainly has been true.  As we’ve been able to gain traction and show business results, people are more interested in contributing writing and videos. The wheels are turning, and we’re headed in the right direction as we move into Year Two of Beyond PR.

The pressure is on as we move into the second year.  My goal will be to grow the traffic, CTR and business integration of Beyond PR, and to continue developing this channel for communications between PR Newswire and professional communicators.    What do you think is missing from this blog?  Your comments, suggestions and ideas are always welcome.

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

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Posted in Digital Content

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What Makes One Press Release More Successful Than Another?

Posted on May 10, 2011 by | 5 Comments

A snap shot of some of the press release measurement details from a PR Newswire Visibility Report.

As manager of release monitoring and measurement at PR Newswire, this is perhaps the most common question I get asked by clients.  It’s the right question, and if answered properly, it can change the course of an organization’s entire communications strategy.

When looking at reporting details, either for one specific release, or for an entire string of releases, there are always two areas we need to focus on:  the good news, and the bad news.  Usually there’s a little of both in every report, and both can teach us volumes about the decisions we’ve made in terms of formulating our communications.

Give me the good news first

As in every other field of human endeavor, the universe rewards communicators richly for strategic approaches to their task.  In the arena of writing news releases, success is easy to see:  high numbers of online views, solid search results, soaring media numbers and amazing engagement; all of these are the rewards of a well-conceived message.  But this begs the question:  What exactly needs to be ‘well conceived” about a message?

Experts tend to emphasize one of two possible answers:  Some focus on the need for optimum and perfectly weighted keywords in the release, while others harken back to the first principles of good communications — writing the release well.  For success in today’s online world, you obviously need both.

In terms of SEO, we know that optimized content stands a better chance of connecting with target audiences than content that has not been optimized for search. The question for most communicators is, how does one achieve effective SEO?  Here we all have many resources at our disposal, from industry-leading SEO sites such as SEOmoz, to customized services such as PR Newswire’s step-by-step content optimization OptimizationMax tool, all the way to full scale SEO consulting services.   The source of one’s information matters less then making sure that you have the SEO info you need, and that you know how to use it.    Keyword research, gauging the competitiveness of synonymous terms, understanding keyword density, and knowing where the hot spots are in a release or website where keywords matter most, this is the nub of the SEO gist.

That said, SEO is far from the end of the story.

Communicators forget at their peril that they are not, in fact, writing for search engines, but rather, for real people.  As Maria Perez captured in her Day in the Life of a Freelancer post, audiences give your content only one shot, and it starts with your headline.  If you don’t get reader attention there, then all the SEO you’ve implemented in your release is for naught.  It truly is all about the “snappy, grabbing lead,” says freelancer journalist Roberts-Grey.  “If [a headline] doesn’t grab me right away, it’s outta here.”   Rod Nicolson recently reminded us of a universal truth, which is, that “Everything is a story,” ( Storytelling Rules & Writing Better Press Releases ).   Especially in this age of content marketing, communicators need to make absolutely sure that their news releases –  i.e., their ‘stories’ — are compelling.  It’s simply a fact that the visibility of your entire message is at stake.  I see customers get reminded of this every day.

“Break it to me gently”

Reporting never lies. It’s easy to tell when we’ve hit the mark with our releases; it’s equally easy to tell when we haven’t.  You may have generated good online views, but poor media resonance; your first two releases might have gotten very high index scores, but your third release did not;  the amazing numbers of spider hits you obtained with your last release looked great, but the release garnered surprisingly fewer search views than any release you’ve issued so far…. What happened?  What’s the pattern?

This question was posed to me recently by a very large and well-known company.   They couldn’t fathom why one of their releases got surprisingly lower-than-average scores.  This prompted us to look at the results from their past 10 releases.  Lo and behold, a clear pattern emerged.  For starters, we noticed that this company’s earnings releases seemed to always garner the same amount of visibility –high but not through the roof.  This makes sense, as the audiences interested in earnings releases differ from those who follow more consumer-type releases, etc.  Also, these audiences tend to be stable.   Next, the company had issued two personnel releases, but one that announced the hire of a more well known individual than the other.  No surprise that the former got much higher views.  The biggest incongruence did indeed relate, as the client noticed, to the two more ‘lightweight’ releases recently issued.  One got head-spinning results, and the other didn’t.  They both dealt with the same topic.  Upon closer look, we see that the headline of the popular release mentioned a high-profile tech-y gadget; the other didn’t.  Otherwise, the releases were very similar.  Quite simply, the tech gadget angle ended up being a writing decision that paid nice dividends in terms of visibility.

In writing news releases, success should be our guide, but we need to also note the patterns.  Results garnered from soft news shouldn’t necessarily be compared with those for conference call announcements.  These two types of communications have very different goals and will show very different viewer and engagement information.  We should first learn to compare apples to apples, and THEN analyze similar releases to see why one apple fared better in the marketplace than the other.

Effort still matters

Even when you think you’ve covered all your bases, however, think again.  As NBA finals draw near, those of us who follow basketball painfully remember the occasions when our favorite championship teams have lost critical basketball games during the regular season.  After any one of these shocking losses, it’s worth noting the coaches’ reaction.  NBA coaches never come out and criticize the skill level of their players.  Instead, what you hear over and over again is the lack of ‘effort’ in the game.    This actually does have a  parallel in the news release world!    Let’s say you’ve just issued your news release:  you’ve written it well and you’ve optimized your content.  What’s left?  There’s actually a lot of footwork still left to do.  Did you post the release to your organization’s Facebook page?  Did you Tweet about the release?  Did you follow up with journalists and bloggers who usually cover this area? Are you actively networking, and building your own social networks for the areas you cover in your releases? Are you actively tuned in to the context of your message?

High scores are ‘earned’

In the end, ‘earned media’ is what it says, ‘earned’.  It takes both skill and effort to pull off an effective communications campaign.  Looking at the patterns in your reporting results will tell you quickly what you did right, and what you might improve on to get better results next time.

Author Denise Perez is PR Newswire’s manager of release monitoring & measurement.

Related articles:

Optimizing Press Releases for Maximum Online Visibility


http://blog.prnewswire.com/2011/02/07/optimizing-press-releases-for-maximum-online-visibility/

Writing the perfect headline


http://blog.prnewswire.com/2010/11/02/how-to-write-better-headlines-and-gain-pick-up/

SEO Tips for Press Release Writers


http://blog.prnewswire.com/2010/10/22/seo-tips-for-press-release-writers/

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Posted in Measurement & Monitoring

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