Insights for Leaders Navigating
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.

Infographic: How ‘Non-sexy’ Brands Become Popular on Social Media

When it comes to social media, some brands have it easy. If they have an interesting product that people widely enjoy, gaining followers is not as daunting a task. For instance, GoPro has 888,000 followers on Twitter because
they are constantly posting interesting photos and videos captured by their cameras. Starbucks is another brand that is openly adored by most and their following of 5.8 million is further proof that admired brands maintain a strong presence through social media.

But, what if your brand sells office supplies? Or insurance? How can these simple, seemingly uninteresting brands gain traction on social media? Who Is Hosting This? recently posted an infographic offering three main pieces of advice when it comes to gaining popularity on social media.

First, use humor to create shareable content. Allstate Insurance launched a twitter handle for their character mayhem in September 2013. The handle already has 55,000 followers.

Second, create engaging social media campaigns. Tampax created a campaign that encouraged women to be active while on their periods and post about it. Every week they gave away $500 and a year supply of tampons.

Lastly, focus on more than just product promotion. Staples has developed a handle that focusses on being conversational and posting tweets that people can relate to rather than focusing on product promotion.

Ultimately, any brand, whether it sells feminine products or insurance, can create an interesting story to attract an audience. For more examples of successful social media accounts from “non-sexy” brands, view the infographic below.

What Evolving Media Means for PR – Insights From Pro Gini Dietrich

As any savvy PR pro is aware, the state of the media is in constant flux. New media platforms have meant new opportunities for journalists to locate stories and ideas. Social networks have provided robust new ways to connect with influencers. Evolving technology has led to new mediums for breaking through the noise.

With an ever-changing landscape, it can be difficult for PR pros to keep up and know what works best when it comes to media relations.

I recently participated in a webinar, hosted by Vocus, about the state of the media and its implications for PR. The session featured speaker Gini Dietrich, founder and CEO of integrated marketing communication firm Arment Dietrich, who broke down Vocus’s “State of the Media 2014” report to offer useful takeaways for PR pros. The report surveyed a random sampling of 256 journalists to provide a snapshot of the current media outlook.

Here, I thought I’d share a few of the most interesting insights I learned—and what they mean for PR—from Dietrich’s breakdown of the report:

Media relations has changed a lot. Or has it?

The rise of social media has undoubtedly changed the way we communicate. The media industry is leveraging new mobile and digital platforms that offer tremendous opportunities for connecting in new ways. The global nature of these networks means the chance to reach individuals to whom we previously would not have had access.

At the same time, the same strategies continue to apply when it comes to working with the media. “Nothing has changed from a media relations standpoint,” Dietrich said. “We just have new and interesting tools to do it.” Despite all of the new technologies, at day’s end we’re really still just dealing with human beings.

For PR pros, that means that the most successful pitches still require building solid relationships with journalists—relationships that still take time. Dietrich warns that, while you may already have a great relationship with a journalist on social media, as soon as you pitch a story you take that relationship to a new level. Don’t let the fast pace of social media prevent you from being as engaging, creative and focused on quality interaction as ever.

Social media: Good for relationship-building, bad for pitching.

Despite journalists’ avid use of social media—only 2 percent reported they don’t use it—a whopping 97 percent still prefer to be pitched via email, according to the report.

Dietrich explained that journalists generally don’t want to be pitched via social media for two reasons. One, they don’t want their competitors knowing what they’re writing about or who their sources are. Putting that information into the public realm gives competitors the chance to scoop stories and sources. Two, it’s not nearly as easy to track information over social media as it is over email. Email offers a quick, searchable and comprehensive archive of conversations.

This doesn’t mean PR pros should avoid social media altogether when it comes to media relations. Journalists do use social media heavily for engagement—that means for locating story ideas and sources and, yes, even networking with PR pros. Dietrich’s advice? Use social media to build a solid relationship, then switch to email to actually pitch the story.

Your new PR strategy: increasing page views.

One of the greatest reasons journalists use social media is to promote their work. Journalists are always striving to increase page views of their stories—which translates to ad dollars. That means that if you can help increase viewership of their work, they will be much more willing to work with you or include your client in stories. “They might not say it, but they’re definitely thinking it,” Dietrich said.

According to Dietrich, what journalists often want to know is whether you can help them with their reporting in relation to promotion. If they run your article, are people going to click? Do you or your client have engaged followers on social media who would circulate their work? Is your client influential or producing content that would lead readers to their stories?

To translate this into actionable terms: Show journalists exactly how you can help them in your pitches. Explain how you can promote their work through your own or your client’s large or engaged social networks. Make photos, videos, visual information and other multimedia a part of your pitches that will help draw readers to content. Tactics like these result in a win-win for both parties—and give you a much higher chance of placing a story.

For more insights, you can download a copy of the full “State of the Media 2014” report from Vocus here.

Lessons From Sochi’s PR Challenges

The closing ceremonies of the Winter Olympics last Sunday marked the end of one of the most memorable games in terms of PR. The little host town of Sochi, Russia, got off to a rocky start when many of its hotel rooms were only half finished at the start of the games and the controversial moments continued to pile up from there. Rumors of alleged corruption swirled around the Games’ hefty $50 billion price tag and Russia’s anti-gay law sparked a public outcry.

Russia has faced considerable criticism from traditional media outlets and the host country’s less appealing aspects have been publicized on social media through trending topics like #SochiProblems. When a company or organization is involved in a scandal it can be incredibly difficult to navigate the situation, and the Russian government’s cringe-worthy reactions to the problems surrounding the games are a reminder of how an organization should respond to public criticism:

Speak up. Although it’s important to understand the scope of a situation before responding, an explanation should be issued in a timely manner. For the most part, the Russian government remained silent and let the public draw their own conclusions about the controversies surrounding the games. If it had offered an explanation it could have cleared up some of the rumors so people could stop speculating.

Take Responsibility. Organizations make mistakes, and when they do it’s critical that they take full responsibility and offer a sincere apology to all the affected parties. When the Russian government claimed that journalists were exaggerating problems in Sochi it fueled even more critical coverage.

Accept criticism. Negative feedback can hurt an organization’s reputation, but attempting to stop people from making negative comments will only make the situation worse. When the Russian government tried to control how athletes and accredited media used social media during the games it angered the public and did not stop the flow of commentary about the problems in Sochi.

Despite the controversy, the games still had a positive impact on the town of Sochi. The Olympics gave the little town’s economy a huge boost, and now that Sochi has been turned into a tourist spot it could continue to attract visitors and fuel its economy. In fact, Sochi is set to host not only the Paralympic Games but a G-8 global summit in just a few months.

Here’s hoping that the old saying “There’s no such thing as bad PR” proves true for Sochi.

CVS Removes Tobacco Products in an Effort to Tie Communications to Long-Term Business Objectives

CVS recently announced its decision to stop selling tobacco products. Since tobacco previously took up a fair deal of shelf space in CVS stores, this removal was clearly newsworthy.

CVS addressed the topic openly on its website. The title alone was quite a standout: “CVS quits for good. This is the right thing to do.” The page was lined with info graphics regarding the negative health effects of smoking, along with videos from the CVS upper management team.

CVS is stopping sales of cigarettes and tobacco products by Oct. 1, 2014, affecting more than 7,600 stores in the US. This will clearly have revenue repercussions, but CVS’ rebuttal is that this is “the right thing to do for the good of our customers and our company,” adding that, “the sale of tobacco is inconsistent with our purpose – helping people on their path to better health.” CVS ended their online statement with, once again, “This is the right thing to do.”

This significant move, one with financial risk and social backfire potential, is receiving a wide range of coverage, including gaining the approval of President Obama, who said the company is setting a “powerful example.” Obama believes that this move “will have a profoundly positive impact on the health of our country.”

NPR wrote an excellent piece on this topic. The article pointed out that in this day in age companies need to be on top of their marketing and PR efforts. Pharmacies have been positioning themselves of late as wellness centers, but cigarette and tobacco products offered in its stores directly contradict that positioning. President and CEO Larry Merlo pointed out that this decision is “about where [CVS is] headed as an organization, where we expect to be in the future as a healthcare company.”

CVS handled this situation perfectly from a PR standpoint, taking negative reactions and refocusing these reactions on the healthy lifestyle CVS wants its customers to live. To risk potential sales and backlash from the public made this decision undoubtedly a hard one, but CVS made it unequivocally to enhance the health in its customers’ lives. It could not have been an easy decision to let go of an estimated $2 billion in revenue that cigarettes and tobacco brought to the company, but in so doing, CVS is now better positioned to promote its purpose of helping its customers on their path to a healthier life. This bodes well that CVS will earn increased respect for its effort to effectively and successfully tie its communications to its long-term business strategy.

Infographic: Must-Know Social Media Statistics From 2013

While 2014 may already be in full swing, there’s still much that can be learned from 2013. I came across an infographic from SpareFoot which summarizes some truly interesting social media statistics from the past year. As you formulate your social media strategies for 2014, consider the following:

In 2013, 30 percent of traffic from social media was from SlideShare.net.

Takeaway for 2014: If SlideShare.net isn’t already part of your social media mix, consider adding it. Content on SlideShare isn’t limited to just slide presentations. Many companies publish whitepapers, documents and infographics much like this.

In 2013, Google+ added 25,000 new users every day.

Takeaway for 2014: While Google+ has yet to hit the same number of members as Facebook, there’s no doubt that it is a formidable social media network. Even if your current social media plans don’t include Google+, it would not hurt to claim a custom URL for your organization now.

In 2013, a branded Vine video was four times more likely to be seen than a regular branded video.

Takeaway for 2014: Diversify your video assets and distribution channels with micro-videos like Vine (up to six seconds) or Instagram Video (3–15 seconds) along with longer-form videos. While YouTube isn’t going away anytime soon, Vine was ranked as the fastest growing app of 2013 with a growth rate of 403 percent.

You can find more fascinating social media statistics in the infographic below.

How has your social media strategy changed from 2013 to 2014?

Courtesy of Sparefoot (Sparefoot.com).

Reaching New Customers for Twisted Pair Solutions

Last week my colleague Heather looked at some of our team’s great work for our client Mobidia. This week, I thought we would take a look at our work for Twisted Pair Solutions, a company here in Seattle that delivers push-to-talk over broadband solutions.

Need to link all different types of communications networks and devices together? Twisted Pair is your answer. Its WAVE® communications platform lets enterprises and public-sector agencies extend land mobile radios and other communication systems to allow teams of employees, whether mobile or in offices, to connect through voice, text and data regardless of network, carrier, protocol or device.

That means that a police officer in the field with a radio handset can easily talk to his supervisor in the office carrying a BlackBerry or an iPhone—a really game-changing bit of technology for a lot of public- and private-sector organizations.

We began working with Twisted Pair in the spring of 2013 to grow awareness of its suite of software applications in key markets, including public safety, aerospace and transportation, utilities, retail, logistics and more. To do this, we set a few objectives for ourselves:

Build brand recognition among key customer segments and develop thought-leadership over competing solutions
Educate press and potential customers about the benefits of Twisted Pair’s software in business- and mission-critical communications
Position Twisted Pair as the leader in push-to-talk over broadband solutions

Our Strategy

Over the last 10 months, we have worked to create more awareness of Twisted Pair’s product among key markets in several ways. For one, we developed case studies on the implementation of Twisted Pair’s WAVE software by several customers. We were then able to share these case studies with press, while Twisted Pair’s sales team could use them as marketing tools as they introduced their solution to new markets.

We also supported Twisted Pair around ongoing news and announcements by developing press releases and blog posts and by sharing product updates and company news with media.

Twisted Pair’s marketing team also attended a number of industry events and trade shows, such as the annual International Wireless Communications Expo (IWCE) and the annual conference of the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO). We leveraged these events to schedule on-site briefings with press who also attended the conferences, helping introduce Twisted Pair to relevant reporters and plant the seeds for coverage down the road.

Finally, we undertook a campaign to develop and place contributed articles on behalf of Twisted Pair. These articles were targeted toward Twisted Pair’s key customer segments. They focused on the benefits of Twisted Pair’s technology, told the stories of customer successes with WAVE or shared Twisted Pair’s perspectives on industry trends.

Over an eight-month period we placed a total of 29 articles for Twisted Pair, including 16 contributed articles. Our work garnered coverage in print and online outlets heavily read by Twisted Pair’s customer targets. A sample of these includes:

Insights for Leaders Navigating Visibility, Credibility, and Growth.