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Visibility, Credibility, and Growth.

From media strategy to reputation management, we explore the trends shaping public perception and share the approaches that drive measurable results for growing brands.

Best Practices for Content Syndication

As more and more businesses are creating unique content to reach key audiences, we thought it would be helpful to outline some best practices around syndication agreements. Content syndication is the act of giving other organizations the right to copy or republish your work – in the form of print material, video, music or digital content – in exchange for money or attribution.

It is a common practice at many news organizations and television franchises to syndicate their content as a way to extend its lifecycle, reach additional people or to secure incremental revenue from it. Consider Law & Order, the successful legal drama TV series created by Dick Wolf and his franchise.

Law & Order originally aired on NBC, but later the franchise syndicated the series on other cable networks. According to Wikipedia, “Repeats of Law & Order were first broadcast weekdays on A&E beginning in the mid-1990s and are credited with drawing a new audience to the current weekly NBC episodes. As of January 1, 2014, the series is being telecast on SundanceTV, TNT, WE tv, and WGN America.”

Companies producing compelling original content can emulate Dick Wolf and his team. First, they can publish their content on their own website; then, they can offer it to others who might benefit from republishing it. INRIX does this with its real-time traffic data. They provide alerts to their customers and also make this same data available to local broadcast journalists. Zillow too publishes information on celebrity homes and provides some of this same content to news partners.

While some might be skeptical, content syndication is truly not has hard as you think. Consider Alaska Airlines’ blog. A few years ago Halley Knigge, who runs it, produced a story “Flying with Luly: How to pack a wedding dress.” This story featured videos and step-by-step instructions for packing different styles of wedding dresses. This niche content is interesting to a special group of people, brides who are traveling to destination weddings.

The existence of this content spells opportunity for Alaska Airlines. They could offer Brides Magazine an opportunity to syndicate all or part of this story for publication on its website. In exchange for the content, Alaska Airlines would ask for a link back to its website. Alternatively, Alaska Airlines could offer to develop a series of articles providing tips for planning the destination wedding.

As you think about leveraging the content you create, there are a few rules and best practices to keep in mind.

  • Be clear on your objectives for syndicating content. Why do you want to syndicate your work? Do you think syndication will help you reach different audiences? Will it help you expand your reach to more people? Will it allow you to build your brand or generate revenue? Will it help with SEO? Knowing the answers to these questions will help you be strategic in your partnerships.
  • Identify unique content that only your organization is collecting. For instance, companies such as INRIX and Zillow have compelling and relatively scarce data. Does your company have data that is exclusive and scarce enough that news outlets might be interested in syndicating it?
  • Think about the value of this content as it pertains to your potential syndication partner. Who are your partner’s audiences? How would this content help them? It is important to answer these questions before you reach out to potential partners or begin packaging up your original work. Clarity on your partner’s needs will increase your chance of reaching out to the right potential partner as well as your ability to offer them valuable content, which is the first step in forging a successful syndication agreement.
  • Identify the decision maker. To successful place your content, you need to find a manger with the power to place it. This person’s title will vary depending on the organization and the content you have to offer. For instance, in broadcast TV, you might want to reach out to a producer. If you are trying to place content with Brides Magazine, you should start with an online editorial director. Don’t be discouraged if you get bounced from one person to another. Sometimes you have to reach out to multiple managers to find the decision maker.
  • Consider the frequency in which you might be able to provide content to your partners. You may want to develop and provide content to your partner once a week, month, quarter or year. Your partner may have formal requirements or they might accept content as you have it. Finally, make sure you have the staff and resources to sustain your program. The last thing you want to do is set up an agreement with a partner only to learn you cannot deliver.
  • Put an agreement in place. You want to ensure there are shared expectations on the content you will deliver and when you will deliver it. You also need to know what you will receive in return for providing your partner with the content. Your attorney may want to outline the terms in an explicit letter of agreement or contract.
  • Support your partners. When your partner shares your content, it’s good etiquette to amplify their activities by posting links to their site from your social media accounts.
  • Know how you will measure the success of your program. According to Dominick Miserandino, CEO of Dysleximedia LLC, “Measuring ROI around content syndication is often something that people overlook. They get overly focused on placement of content without analyzing success.” It is a good idea to have evaluation criteria outlined from the get-go. This might include a number of referrals from a publishing partner’s website, incremental revenue generated from syndicated content or an increase in overall brand awareness.
  • Confirm ownership of content. Finally, remember you cannot grant syndication rights for content that you do not own. You must own the copyright before you syndicate content – otherwise, you open yourself up to significant and often thorny legal issues.

With these best practices in mind, content syndication can prove to be a powerful method of boosting your company’s presence and advancing its goals. At Communiqué, we regularly syndicate our blog posts – you can read more about our syndication experiences here. You can also find more tips on how to repurpose original content here. If you have any additional thoughts or tips, feel free to leave a comment below.

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The Social Media Element You Forgot to Include in Your Plan

As PR professionals, we are often asked to provide counsel or create strategies around social media platforms on behalf of our clients. We all know that social media is an excellent way to engage with target audiences, develop brand voice, establish thought leadership, and share useful content. However, one element has failed to be included in overall social media strategies by an alarming number of brands.

On Thursday, Sept. 15, 2016, our client, Rational Interaction, an award-winning, full-service agency based in Seattle, released a report analyzing how major brands were using social media to provide customer service, what they’re calling “Social Customer Care.” Based on the results, you could say that they actually analyzed how brands aren’t using social media for customer care. Astonishingly, according to Rational, 92.5 percent of brands are failing to provide proper customer support through social media.

When collecting data, Rational focused on brands in three verticals – technology, retail and healthcare –  and concentrated on the use of Twitter because it is one of the most popular, if not the most popular, way for consumers to interact with brands. While other social mediums have large user bases and brand presence, Twitter has 360 million users and over 67 percent of those users (that’s 207 million users) are looking for customer support from brands through Twitter. The point is, that is a lot of customers you don’t want to be ignoring.

Brands stand to lose a lot when customers go unanswered or unacknowledged. Currently 58 percent of Twitter users never get a response from a brand and ultimately this has an impact on the bottom line, with two-thirds of customers reducing spending with a brand after a poor customer service experience. Not only that, but consumers don’t usually keep their bad experiences to themselves, with 60 percent of Twitter users tweeting about their negative interaction, or lack thereof.

So what’s the solution to this obvious problem? There are a couple of tactics that brands can work into their overall social media strategy. First, consider having a specific support handle for customer service. Keep the main company handle that focuses on sharing company updates, industry trends, and the occasional meme. Then create a completely separate handle for support and questions. Not only will this make it easier to track and respond to all inbound inquiries, it will also help maintain the negative or unhappy comments and feedback in one controlled area.

Another tactic to consider is responding to every customer. Yes, this is a large task, but as demonstrated by the data, a very important one! If you run into a product issue or a problem that affects a number of customers, address it broadly, then focus on each individual. The initial and final response to the customer should be done in a public forum. If the problem is a long, complicated one, move the conversation to a private forum, like direct messaging, but be sure to begin and end communication publically. This allows your other customers to see that you are willing to address the issue, offer help and ultimately, find a solution.

Brands that begin adopting these methods into their social media plans quickly will have an advantage over many brands. Ninety-six percent of customer service requests go unanswered by global brands that lack a dedicated, localized customer support handle, such as Adidas, AT&T and Sephora. Making these changes and implementing a proper Social Customer Care program for your social media accounts has the potential to not only reduce the negative perceptions of a brand, but ultimately have larger impacts on the bottom line. What other important social media tactics would you include in your plan?

Find more data from Rational Interaction’s Social Customer Care report here: http://bit.ly/2bye9iA

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Delta-Q Supports Lithium Powertrain System Development With Lithium Charger Development Kit

From camping equipment to home and portable electronics to electric vehicles, lithium-ion batteries are becoming increasingly common and a preferred power source for consumer products. With their lightweight battery packs and high voltage capability, the rechargeable battery type is also becoming a common replacement for lead acid batteries which have been used historically to power electric utility vehicles and golf carts, along with electric industrial equipment.

For original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and battery management system (BMS) manufacturers, transitioning from lead-acid to lithium-ion power sources can be an intimidating, if not complicated, process. Not only do these manufacturers want to ensure consistent performance, cost and safety characteristics of their product, but they also need to consider new charging solutions to keep their equipment operating at optimum levels.

Earlier this month, Delta-Q Technologies, a leader in battery-charging solutions for electric drive vehicles and industrial equipment, debuted a new resource intended to support manufacturers aiming to develop lithium powertrain systems. The company’s Lithium Charger Development Kit, which was introduced at The Battery Show, includes the necessary charging hardware and software to help battery companies, OEMs and BMS manufacturers accelerate product development of electric vehicles and industrial equipment. In addition, users have exclusive access to custom training and technical support including training and consulting sessions led by Delta-Q’s application engineering team, development of custom charging profiles and quick-start guides, detailed programming and design documentation.

Communiqué PR understood that this development kit program was significant to Delta-Q, as well as to the broader electric vehicle and equipment communities. To ensure that key audiences were reached with the news, our approach began with the development of a press list targeting journalists covering electric power design, electric vehicles and industrial equipment, BMS manufacturers and battery companies.

The news was shared with journalists on our target list and via wire service distribution in early September. In addition to driving 13 articles for Delta-Q in relevant trade publications, we are working with journalists on feature stories that are slated to publish this fall. We also used the news as leverage to secure two in-person press briefings with Delta-Q representatives at the event.

Following is a list of the coverage secured thus far:

We congratulate Delta-Q Technologies on the development of its new Lithium Charger Development Kit and the response it has received thus far. To learn more about Delta-Q’s innovative power solutions, visit www.delta-q.com.

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“Relax!” – Don’t Do It

Anyone who has worked in PR is aware of just how stressful the job can be. In fact, the job of a PR executive had the honor of being named the sixth most stressful job in the U.S. in 2016, falling just below jobs that place you in immediate physical danger like being a military personal or a firefighter. While PR pros may not be running into burning buildings on their average work day, they are certainly expected to put out metaphorical fires on a regular basis. The unpredictability, running from a client meeting to an event while responding to media requests, and the constant deadlines are just a few factors that can up the stress levels of the most seasoned PR professionals. Even those who thrive in the sort of stressful conditions PR creates aren’t immune to the side effects – no one is. So what do you do when you’re faced with a coworker, employee or even a boss who is clearly on the edge of a stress-induced mental break down? Well I can certainly tell you what not to do: Tell them to relax.

“Relax!” or “Just calm down, OK?” or “It’s not that big of a deal,” may seem like perfectly adequate responses when someone else is stressed out, but in reality it sends all the wrong messages. In fact, if you do tell a coworker, or anyone for that matter, to calm down, there is a good chance they’ll start seeing red. So what is it about telling people to relax that creates the opposite effect?

It’s dismissive

Telling someone to relax immediately invalidates their feelings, making them believe their stress is irrelevant or embarrassing, and can be downright hurtful. The automatic reaction for most people when they feel embarrassed is to suppress their emotions, which almost always backfires. The more an emotion is hidden, the more likely it is to leak out at unexpected times, especially in a fast-paced work environment like PR.

Being dismissive can also make employees or coworkers feel like their work is unimportant. If there is a tight deadline or heavy workload, saying, “It’s not that big of a deal, relax,” can cause people to shut down and question why they are doing the work in the first place.

It lacks empathy

Everyone who has a job has experienced stress at least once, there is no way around it, so it’s a feeling we all understand, yet it can be incredibly hard to empathize with. The problem is that stress hits people in different ways and for different reasons, and it is very hard to compare one cause of stress to another. Unfortunately, a majority of the time people who appear stressed are not looking for someone to fix all their problems, but are looking for someone to validate their feelings and empathize with their current state.

It can lead to mistrust

Other people’s stress is uncomfortable if you don’t feel the same pressure, there is no way around that, so telling someone to calm down can give the impression that you are trying to create some distance to make yourself feel more comfortable. This can be an especially big problem as a leader. If an employee comes to you looking for advice or empathy and you dismiss their feelings because it is uncomfortable, there is a good chance that employee won’t feel comfortable coming to you anymore and will create tension in the workplace.

The best way to aid someone who is having a hard time is to acknowledge the problem, show empathy and ask questions to try and find a way to relieve some of the burden. The more open and communicative a workplace is, the less often stressful situations will arise, which can result in higher job performance and greater workplace satisfaction.

So then next time you’re faced with an overly stressed colleague, instead of saying, “Relax,” try “I know you are stressed, is there anything I can do to help?”

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Blurred Lines: Content Marketing and PR

As the lines between marketing and PR continue to blur, it’s no surprise that effective marketers are investing more and more in content marketing. In fact, according to a report issued by the Content Marketing Institute (CMI), the most effective B2B marketers allocate 42 percent of their budget (up from 37 percent in 2015) to content marketing, whereas the least effective allocate 15 percent.

According to the CMI, “Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”

At the core of this strategy is the assumption that when businesses deliver valuable, compelling information to buyers, they will a) view the business as an expert in the industry, and b) reward the business with increased loyalty.

While examples of content marketing can range from blogs and microsites to podcasts and contributed articles, the key to a successful content marketing campaign is compelling content. According to a recent report, however, 60 percent of marketers say that they struggle to develop engaging content on a regular cadence.

The Key to Compelling Content?  Write for Your Audience

And with the rise of publications hungry for contributed content (Forbes now has over 1,000 contributors), developing compelling B2B marketing collateral will become only more critical to a brand’s success.

The key to creating compelling content is to know what your audience cares about, offer a fresh perspective and align the content with your brand voice. A brand that’s mastering content marketing is Simple Finance, a modern, branchless bank that appeals to millennials. The company’s blog offers a wealth of content that’s compelling, timely and, most importantly, significant for its key audience. From articles on how to save for a baby to how to budget for a road trip, the company’s blog rivals a quality editorial site. (See “The Rise of Contributed Content: 5 Tips to Make Yours Sing” and “Considerations to Stay Competitive in Creative Content Marketing” for more tips on creating great content.)

And Simple is just one company that’s nailing content marketing. As companies continue to leverage both blogs and editorial publications to share their content, the lines between marketing and PR become increasingly blurred.

Marketing and PR Should Work in Concert

While content marketing may appear to fall squarely in a seasoned marketer’s camp, PR professionals have deep experience with content marketing. From developing thought-leadership bylines to crafting social media content, content marketing is central to a PR pro’s expertise.

Unfortunately, PR and marketing teams have typically operated in remote isolation, but the rise of content marketing calls for working together to achieve the same goals.

With the majority of marketers struggling to produce compelling content, it will be increasingly important for PR professionals to actively engage in marketing discussions and leverage their expertise in editorial content for content marketing.

At Communiqué PR, we’re passionate about content creation and welcome the opportunity to snap into marketing teams to assist with their content marketing initiatives.

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Leverage Your Personal Brand and Build Your Corporate Connection

A personal brand is the story people think of when they hear your name. What are you known and remembered for?

If you’re a top executive and hope to be a thought leader in your industry, building a personal brand is imperative in this day and age, as surveys reveal declining trust of corporate brands. Recent survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers found that 62 percent of millennials trust brands less today. Millennials are increasingly looking to experts and individuals, who they trust over corporate brands, to guide their purchasing decisions.

According to another report, “Millennials are more than three times as likely as Boomers (22 percent vs. 7 percent) to turn to social channels. They’re on the hunt for feedback from experts and people with common interests – not just personal connections.” And millennials matter because by 2017 they “will have more spending power than any other generation.”

Given millennials’ spending power, individuals who leverage their personal brand to create an authentic connection between their company brand and target audiences/consumers will be significantly more effective in building trust and increasing sales. Consider, for example, the often course, raw and insightful John Legere, CEO of T-Mobile. Legere has leveraged his personal brand to the benefit of T-Mobile – from the magenta t-shirt and outspoken critique of his competitors, to his direct engagement with customers via social media. The results show he has built trust, driven customer acquisition and increased revenue for T-Mobile.

These days, people want to buy from brands that align with their values, and CEOs especially should authentically live and breathe their respective brand’s values. As Shelly Lazarus, former CEO of Ogilvy & Mather shared in a Harvard Business Review article about personal branding for your career, “When you’re leading people toward something important, losing your authentic voice is the last thing you want to do.”

So how do you develop and promote a personal brand and thought leadership platform? Below are four steps to get you started.

1. Identify issues and topics you’re passionate about and that move the business forward. First you need to identify a topic that resonates deeply with you, that you are passionate about, and that you have the credentials to comment on or a topic on which you have a unique perspective. Make sure the topics are authentic and true to you.

Consider, for example, Arivale CEO Clayton Lewis. As a competitive triathlete and a seasoned venture capitalist with many years of experience on the Board of Trustees for Harborview Medical Center, he has a unique perspective and passion around scientific wellness. Clayton lives and breathes the brand values of Arivale, a company that “uses cutting-edge science, personalized data, and tailored coaching to deliver prioritized, actionable recommendations that inspire its clients to achieve and sustain their wellness potential.”

2. Create a mission statement and ensure your personal brand topics align with this statement. A personal mission statement will help to keep you focused, be a guide for decision making and provide direction. A mission statement will ensure you are consistent and do not go off topic or get pulled into activities that do not align with your mission.

A famous and well-cited example is that of Sir Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group – “To have fun in [my] journey through life and learn from [my] mistakes.”

There are numerous articles that provide guidance on how to develop a personal mission statement, including Scott Wylie’s article “Why Business Leaders Must Set a Personal Mission.”

3. Contribute your perspective on your industry’s most important problems. To build your personal brand and become an established thought leader, add value to ongoing conversations by offering solutions to address problems that plague the industry via networking events, contributed content and social media. Ensure that proposed solutions or predictions are insightful, evidence-based and provocative.

Cindy Gallop, former president of global ad agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH), is actively contributing her perspective to address the lack of gender diversity in the advertising industry. She has leveraged a variety of mediums to drive the conversation including an article in The Guardian, “White men running advertising only pay lip service to diversity,” as well as a podcast interview by The Takeaway and broadcast via NPR.

4. Keep it authentic. Authenticity is key to personal brand management – clients and the general public can sense inauthenticity and a lack of sincerity and veracity. You cannot build meaningful connections if you are not authentic.

“Authenticity is not the product of pure manipulation,” offers Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones, authors of Managing Authenticity: The Paradox of Great Leadership. “It accurately reflects aspects of the leader’s inner self, so it can’t be an act. But great leaders seem to know which personality traits they should reveal to whom and when.”

Furthermore, research indicates that authenticity is correlated with higher self-esteem, lower stress, and greater life satisfaction.

Social and digital media have made it easier than ever to connect an executive to the company where that individual works, but the separation of personas has become harder to maintain. Companies would be well served to educate and guide their executive teams on how to manage and build their personal brands in order to better reinforce and build the company’s brand perception in an authentic manner.

Intentionally building and managing your personal brand may seem daunting, but it’s vital and worth the investment. Take positive action toward the above steps and then work closely with your marketing/PR team to help define your platform and amplify your activities. It will dramatically help build your personal brand and that of your organization.

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