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.
In our daily lives, we often worry about our reputation. Be well-liked and reap the benefits. Get a bad rep and never live it down.
In the professional world, a company’s reputation isn’t just a valuable asset—it’s everything it has. Unlike in the personal world, companies can’t afford (literally) to just “not care what other people think.” Appealing to consumers and maintaining positive customer relationships are at the heart of a company’s success. Blows to a company’s reputation often won’t just blow over as in daily life, but can negatively affect sales, morale and profits—or even ruin its image for good.
As PR professionals, we work hard to make sure that doesn’t happen to our clients. We know that reputation is often manageable; we correspond favorably with media, build excitement around clients’ announcements and get their name out there in a creative, appealing way. And, when crises do arise, we help clients’ face them strategically, with sensitivity and poise.
However, one often-overlooked—yet highly influential—aspect of a company’s larger reputation is its online reputation. With the advent of review sites like Yelp and the capability of Internet users to create and write whatever they please, search-engine content and online comments now contribute hugely to a company’s image. Negative reviews and unfavorable news at the top of search engines can hurt a company’s brand much more than many realize, making it valuable to monitor online content for successful reputation management.
As proof, a recent infographic from Digital Firefly, re-posted in a PR Daily article, released some startling new facts that address exactly why online reputation management is so crucial. We highly recommend you visit the whole article, but here are a couple important takeaways to consider:
- 83 percent of companies will face crises that will negatively impact their share price in the next five years.
- 70 percent of consumers consult review or ratings before purchasing products.
- 97 percent of users who made a purchase based on an online review found the review to be accurate.
- 51 percent of consumers use the Internet even before making a purchase in stores.
- Traffic to the top 10 review sites grew on average by 158 percent last year.
In the face of such statistics, the answer isn’t to panic, but rather to focus efforts on managing online reputation. Given appropriate attention, online image is as controllable as it is impactful. Our blog post, “Best Practices for Managing an Online Reputation,” offers some helpful strategies for putting your best foot forward online. And, if you need a little help along the way, feel free to reach out—we’d be happy to discuss reputation management strategy with you.
There’s no argument about it—content is currency in social media and in media in general. Companies have a wide variety of platforms through which they’re able to disperse content and create a “voice”—various social media platforms, bylined articles, contributed content and corporate blogs are a few examples. In order to be effective with this content, it’s important to be strategic from the start. This is why we often design editorial calendars (similar to those that publications create) for client content. PR Daily recently shared a piece on “13 tips for creating a killer editorial calendar” that is chock-full of helpful advice. Below are my favorite tips from PR Daily, with a few additions from my experience at Communiqué PR.
Tips from PR Daily:
Assign deadlines to key players. Even if you’re building out an editorial calendar a year in advance, develop a schedule with deadlines for each person involved. Figure out who is responsible for action items like writing, revising, posting and communicating with editors, and assign due dates for action items for each month. This will help hold the team accountable, and can be adjusted later on. It will also allow authors to integrate and prioritize creating content into their work schedule.
Determine targets. Think through what your target audiences are, and make sure that your content is being dispersed across different verticals you might be targeting. It can be easy to get caught up in one category or genre when building an editorial calendar, but ideally, you’ll have content that will resonate with each of your target audiences.
Share with stakeholders. Allow anyone that needs to agree on or contribute to an editorial calendar visibility into it. This creates shared expectations on timing, content and authorship, which is important to clarify at the beginning. To do this, consider an online collaboration tool like Smartsheet, which we use to manage all of our client work and highly recommend. A cloud-based tool allows you to update and access information in real time, which is especially helpful for an editorial calendar.
A few tips from Communiqué PR:
Consider timing. One of the main purposes of an editorial calendar is to be strategic about content. To do this, you’ll need to think about the timing of each post. Consider the events you have coming up, or events that happen year after year. For example, plan posts related to certain holidays, industry events, or trends that you know will happen on a yearly basis.
Switch between evergreen subject matter and newsier items. With a blog or column, you’ll want to leave some room for posts that tap into trend or news items—this content is often unpredictable. However, you’ll also want to schedule evergreen content that is relevant at any time of year. This will maintain equilibrium—it’s time consuming to constantly monitor the news for content ideas, but also important to maintaining quality content. You can strike a balance from the start by planning this into your editorial calendar.
If you haven’t considered an editorial calendar for your business’ blog, guest columns or other content creation, we highly recommend it. Planning not only takes some of the stress out of creating content, but also makes sure that you get the best results from the material you produce. And, if you need assistance with this planning, get in touch—we’d be happy to be a resource.
In public relations, it often seems like slow and steady wins the race. By distributing a steady stream of news, securing key coverage and continuing to put out consistent messages via social media, blogs and contributed articles, your efforts will likely have an impact on your business.
However, sometimes there is a need for speed. As communications professionals, we need to be adept at recognizing situations, whether it is news or holidays that our clients can capitalize on with a witty response, relevant pitch, timely event or infographic.
Ad Week recently published an article titled, “Types of Real-Time Marketing, and the Brands That Got It Right,” by Tim Nudd, which looks at examples of how brands took advantage of situations with a quick response. He refers to it as “right timing marketing.”
At Communiqué PR, we often look for local news events to tee off of for pitches for our clients. Here are a few of my favorite ways brands can take advantage of timely situations:
- Holidays. Companies often look for a way to tie into the holidays. For consumer brands, for example, Christmas often makes sense. However, the holiday season is also a very noisy and crowded time. Standing out requires a great deal of creativity. Lowe’s did a nice job celebrating Fourth of July, by creating a Vine that used exploding tools to imitate fireworks. It was simple, but well-timed and creative.
- Celebrities. Leveraging a celebrity can often help draw attention to your brand. When Prince George was born, many brands tried to give “congrats” or joke about the royal birth. Ad Week called the efforts “disappointing.” However, the Sun managed to put together a clever picture featuring Prince George and other celebrity babies that was well received.
- Newsmakers. Brands often have a hard time promoting their own news in a creative, not overly promotional way. However, one of my local favorites is the Seattle Police Department. I’ve long admired their witty Twitter feed, sharp replies and out-of-the-box campaigns. During last month’s Hempfest, for example, SPD handed out Doritos with the dos and don’ts of marijuana use. Additionally, they tweet real-time updates about crime and respond to followers. It is isn’t all fun and games—the @SeattlePD handle is serious when it needs to be—but they’ve build a steady stream of followers to successfully disseminate the messages necessary.
- Comebacks. Twitter can present a fun platform for witty responses and banter between brands. And, when done well, the back-and-forth can earn you a slow clap from followers. For example, Taco Bell and Old Spice duked it out on Twitter about their products’ respective ingredients. “Why is it that ‘fire sauce’ isn’t made with any real fire? Seems like false advertising,” @OldSpice asked—to which @TacoBell replied: “@OldSpice Is your deodorant made with really old spices?” OldSpice had the last word: “@TacoBell Depends. Do you consider volcanos, tanks and freedom to be spices?”
While these companies really nailed real-time marketing, companies should always make sure that they remain true to their brands. What worked for Taco Bell, won’t necessarily work for Microsoft. Keep an eye out on the world around you—you never know where you’ll find inspiration.
Seattle is a geek’s town and last week the team at aptly named GeekWire hosted some of Seattle’s brightest tech minds for its 2013 GeekWire Summit. From e-commerce to venture capital strategies to the future of video games, the conference covered an array of topics pertinent to investors and tech businesses big and small.
The two of us from Communiqué PR who attended the Summit saw an energized Seattle tech community excited to show off the region’s successes, ideas and potential.
Did you miss out on the Summit this year? Here are our five takeaways that you need to know:
- The Seattle tech scene is diverse. Most businesses know the importance of diversity in their employees, but the tech industry is often critiqued for being a male-dominated field. At the GeekWire Summit, we were thrilled to see the diverse group of people representing Seattle’s tech industry. There was a tremendous diversity of ideas as well. Amazon and Microsoft continue to be huge economic drivers for the region, but the city’s entrepreneurial spirit showed in the range of ideas, businesses and products represented among the Summit’s presenters and attendees. Gaming, communications, retail and real estate are just a few of the markets represented at the Summit and being impacted by technology coming out of the Pacific Northwest.
- “Innovation” isn’t done yet. There are many in the tech journalism and PR fields who will say the word “innovation” is overused. They may be right, but based on what we heard at the GeekWire Summit, Seattle businesses are doing their best to counter that notion. Early in the day, Dr. Nadia Shouraboura, the CEO and Founder of Hointer, shared some fascinating ideas about how technology can revolutionize in-store shopping. Our client Kymeta’s CEO, Vern Fotheringham, participated on the Summit’s panel on “The Future of Innovation.” Kymeta is working on game-changing satellite antennas that are smaller and flatter and require considerably less power than existing solutions. Things got downright futuristic when Peter Lee, the head of Microsoft Research, expressed optimism about the future of artificial intelligence. There’s a reason that “innovation” isn’t giving up its spot atop the tech lexicon anytime soon.
- Mobile is tops. During one panel, investor Bill Gurley of Benchmark Capital emphasized the dominance of mobile succinctly. “Companies that lead on mobile have an advantage,” he said. His fellow panelist, Zillow founder Rich Barton, agreed: “The platform of the future, in fact the platform of now, is the mobile device.” At Communiqué PR, we’ve seen the rise of mobile reflected in our clients’ business (as we work with companies like Mobidia and Lively) and based on talk at the GeekWire Summit, it doesn’t look like mobile is going anywhere but up. We’ve also seen the rise of mobile in the media industry, as mobile-based news outlets like Quartz are continuing to rise. A timely article from Adweek last week highlighted the increase of mobile news apps via a study from The Reynolds Journalism Institute and Digital Publishing Alliance, which found that 50 percent of smartphone and/or tablet users downloaded at least one news app in the first quarter of 2013. It’s a reminder that PR practitioners need to find ways to pitch content optimized for mobile consumption and appealing to editors who are looking to reach mobile users.
- Gaming – mobile gaming in particular – continues to be huge a draw. With geek culture thriving in Seattle, it was no surprise that GeekWire’s panel on gaming was hugely popular. When one panelist asked the audience for a show of hands of attendees of the recent PAX conference held here, a lot of arms went up. The mobile and casual gaming industries have certainly seen ups and downs lately, but users are still looking out for the next Words With Friends or Candy Crush. David Edery, CEO of the game development studio Spry Fox and a panelist for GeekWire’s “The Future of Video Games” discussion, emphasized that mobile games can drive major revenues from relatively small development teams. Based on the enthusiasm here in Halo’s hometown – also home to studios like Big Fish Games, not to mention the indie game developers who call Seattle home – gaming is going to be a major topic of discussion for years to come.
- Education is critical to the industry’s future. If you work in a tech field, you’ve no doubt heard the importance of creating more opportunities for students to learn critical computer science and STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) skills. You’ve probably also heard of Code.org. Its founder, Hadi Partovi, dropped by the GeekWire Summit to make a pitch to the audience on the importance of teaching students to code. His presentation was stellar. In another discussion, Chase Jarvis, the photographer behind the education startup creativeLive, also argued for the importance of a creative education for students – including coding skills. It was a reminder that all the talk about innovation, or the next great startup idea, won’t go anywhere without a highly-skilled and highly-motivated next generation of thinkers and entrepreneurs!
If you’re looking for more from the GeekWire Summit, head to its YouTube channel for full video coverage of the conference’s panels and presentations.
If you work in media or technology, you might be aware that Google recently introduced a new search page feature, “In-Depth Articles.” The feature, which aims to provide “thoughtful in-depth content” that “remains relevant long after its publication date,” offers up links to long-form articles at the bottom of the search results page—similarly to how images or videos are sometimes queued up at the top of the search page.
This has implications for both media and corporate communications. In terms of media, as PR Daily recently noted, this is a win for traditional long-form publications—long-form content will now be offered up immediately to users searching for relevant keywords. This could dramatically increase viewership, which could be a boon for publications trying to hold onto viewers and increase ad revenues. However, for companies looking to manage their reputations, this might be a win or a loss, depending on what type of in-depth media attention is associated with a business’ name.
With clear implications for media and corporations, you might be wondering: How are these articles selected? Well, only Google really knows, but David Andrew Goldman, chief strategy officer at Five Blocks, Inc., and Richard Dukas, CEO of Dukas Public Relations, recently conducted a study on Google’s new in-depth articles feature and found the following interesting statistics:
- Of consumer-facing Fortune 500 companies, found that 65% of the newly designated in-depth articles were unfavorable by PR standards.
- Top publications featured in the new section include The New York Times, BusinessWeek, Vanity Fair, Wired and Rolling Stone.
- So far, Google has added in the search feature for only 28 of the Fortune 500.
- Some articles go back as far as 2007.
For those interested in reputation management, this information makes clear what media coverage will be important in terms of Google search results. Securing a media placement that lands in Google’s in-depth features section has implications for a client, long after the story runs. This also means that, more than ever, it’s important for companies to carefully consider their public persona and media portrayal; negative attention can now end up on the screens of potential customers around the world.
This development also signifies a change in media that will be interesting to follow over the coming year. As Goldman and Dukas point out in their article, the conversion to long-form media is thought-provoking, as the public has grown accustomed to short articles, often in list format. However, Kindle Singles, ProPublica, Byliner and others are all media outlets that are successfully reaching audiences with long-form stories. We’re curiously watching this shift pan out.
If your business needs counsel on reputation management and media relations, do get in touch. We’d be happy to see if we can work together.
My husband and I are into biking vacations. We find them to be an ideal way to see new countryside, meet the local people, learn about an area, and earn the benefits of exercise. When you are cycling 25, 35 or 65 miles a day, you can pretty much eat whatever you want!
This year we signed up for Backroads’ Big Sur trip – cycling from Monterey to Santa Barbara along California’s renowned Highway 1 before exploring the Santa Ynez Valley. Some good friends joined us and our vacation was everything we expected. The Pacific Ocean was a vibrant blue, the sun bright, and the group interesting. And it provided a much-needed break from my work in the world of public relations.
Nonetheless, while peddling out of Carmel, I got to thinking about business – specifically Backroads’ business and the lessons I could learn from my observations. Founded in 1979 by Tom Hale, a fellow Oregon Duck, Backroads is now the world’s No. 1 travel company and for good reason. Backroads seems to be unfailing in its commitment to making its trips as fun as possible – and they do this for each “individual” person. This is no easy feat. On our Big Sur trip, there were 22 people of varying ages, fitness abilities, interests and backgrounds. So how do they do it?
As far as I can tell, Backroads’ recipe for success is built on 1) its leaders; 2) its training process and 3) its marketing.
The trip leaders are Backroads’ most important asset. Certainly, there are others – fleets of well-maintained bikes and vans, trailers, ample food, etc., but I believe that without question the leaders are the most essential ingredient to creating a consistently excellent guest experience and building the brand. In my five trips over nine years each was first-rate and memorable.
These leaders are the ones that put the trips together: selecting routes, restaurants and hotels. They fix broken bikes, share safety tips, answer questions, solve problems and accommodate myriad requests. They consistently demonstrate an amazing array of skills – they are well-organized, articulate and natural leaders adept at managing a group. They can maneuver heavy vans and trailers. They are dedicated, hard workers – often up at the first light of day setting up and preparing for the morning route rap, and the last to go to bed after making sure the group has dinner and is comfortably ensconced in the hotel.
Since the leaders are my heroes, I asked one of our guides, Courtney, about the hiring and training process. She explained it is a rigorous process involving applications, interviews and a Leader Hiring Event. Tom Hale, she said, still attends many of the Leader Hiring Events and takes an active role in selecting leaders. Apparently, he can tell whether a candidate will make a good leader just from his or her introduction.
Once hired the new employees receive intense training to further develop their skills and learn about the regions where they will be leading. Courtney explained many people opt out during this process, but the ones that stay on are poised for success guiding trips in some of the most beautiful regions worldwide.
My final observation involved Backroad’s marketing. It is true that Backroads has a comprehensive website, newsletters and expensive-looking but entirely free catalogs with beautiful photos, but the customer experience really speaks for itself. People love these trips and truly believe Backroads is a better way to see the world. Backroads capitalizes on this with an entire section of its website devoted to customer testimonials. They also invite guests to enter annual Backroads Photo and Video contests and offer compelling prizes to winners – many of the people on our trip were working to capture a winning image.
Backroads is a role-model company. I am already daydreaming about my next bike adventure and hope someday to actually get the opportunity to meet Tom Hale.