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.

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:

The Rise of the Contributor

While pitching an announcement for one our clients recently I ran into an increasingly common problem: The perfect person to pitch was a contributing writer at the publication and I couldn’t track down his contact information. Eventually I found a way to get in touch with him, but it got me thinking about the balance between contributing writers and full-time staff reporters.

As the digital evolution continues to sweep the media industry some outlets are adapting by restructuring their staff to include more contributors, which in turn could have some benefits for PR pros.

Forbes is a prime example of an outlet that is shifting its structure in order to remain relevant. The magazine still has staff reporters, but they are backed by an army of contributors who are topic experts. According to a Forbes article published last August, the company has about 45 staff writers and 1,200 contributors. Here’s how it works: One or two staff writers head up coverage of a certain topic and have anywhere from 10 to 200 contributors helping out. For example, the technology department has more than 100 contributors, each specializing in a certain topic. Using this model, Forbes produces a wider variety of content and reaches a much broader audience.

Forbes isn’t the only outlet with a large contributor list. Sites such as Entrepreneur, Fortune, Business 2 Community, PC World, Thought Catalogue and more rely on contributors to produce the majority of their content. Conversely, many freelancers write for multiple sites. For example, a writer who contributes to Forbes might also contribute to ReadWriteWeb.

The rise in freelancers means PR pros might have to do a bit more digging to uncover the perfect person to pitch, but in the end the extra research could pay off. Since freelancers write for multiple outlets, forming a relationship with one freelance writer could connect you to several publications.

However, forming relationships with freelancers isn’t always easy. PR pro Krystal Tingle offers helpful tips for working with contributors in her post on PR Daily. Most importantly, stay connected to freelancers so you know what outlets they are writing for and what’s in their pipeline, but be careful not to badger them.

Do you have any tips for pitching to contributing writers?

How to Build a Media List

Finding a list of journalists who may be interested in your pitch is no easy task. The success of a pitch or press release often rides on the shoulders of a thoroughly developed press release. When approaching a media list, I find myself facing asking questions like: How do I find journalists who will be interested? How do I narrow my search? How do I expand my search? Am I targeting the right audience? Where can I find their contact information? Luckily, PR Daily recently shared some useful tips on how to answer many of these questions and effectively tackle this sometimes overwhelming task.

Begin your search and keep it organized

Start by using any search engine, such as CISION, to begin collecting contact information. Try finding an email address or phone number for a specific journalist, not just the outlet’s general information. If you contact someone directly, there is a much greater chance that you will receive a response.

When searching for media outlets, keep your niche in mind. Are you targeting a specific area? Are there trade magazines that your audience would be inclined to read? Try to answer questions similar to these to understand a more specific audience. By targeting a particular audience, you are more likely to find outlets and journalists that make sense for your story and will therefore be more inclined to write about your pitch.

Filter and sort

If you are using a search engine then they will have no shortage of contacts, meaning filters will be a great asset. Start with a somewhat broad term such as “technology.” If that leads you to too many options, narrow it by making your topic more specific to your pitch topic, such as “collaborative technology” or “collaboration tools.”

If this is still producing a selection that is too large, examine how much traffic the outlet generates. It is important to pursue outlets that will reach the audience size for which you are aiming.

Look past the database

In an ideal world, contact information would always be listed for each journalist and it would always be the most up to date information. However, we are usually not so lucky. If you are unable to find an email address or phone number in the database you are using, look at the outlet’s website and look for a journalist profile or contact information listed with one of their previous articles. If all else fails, send an email to the general address to inform them of who it is you want to contact and most importantly, why.

Use Google to your advantage

There is a good possibility that there are journalists who may be interested in your pitch but are not in the database you are using. By searching Google News, you may be able to find articles on related topics and that could lead you to a new contact.

Creating media lists can be a daunting task, but it is a crucial one. Targeting the correct outlets, and more specifically journalists, could be the difference between a successful, well-covered release and one that is simply pushed aside. Following these tips will assist in creating a well-developed list that will hopefully lead to the optimum coverage that your story deserves.

Insights for Leaders Navigating Visibility, Credibility, and Growth.