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.
On Monday, we shared some best practices for curating content on Twitter. Whether you’re curating or creating original content, the Holy Grail of Twitter is having others share your content through the viral power of retweets.
Not all tweets will be retweeted, but as you develop your content, there are some basic practices that you should consider to make your tweets more shareable:
- Tweet length: To increase your chances of being retweeted, the optimal length for an original tweet is 70-100 characters. With fewer characters to work with, your message will need to be even more concise and creative.
- Timing: Most retweets happen between noon and 2 p.m. To be even more precise, tweeting on Fridays between noon and 2 p.m. can garner significantly more retweets.
- Include links and hashtags: According to studies, tweets with these two elements tend to be retweeted more.
To learn more about how you can develop tweets that are more likely to be retweeted, check out the infographic below.
So your business has a Twitter handle. Now what? Coming up with unique content to share with your followers can be challenging for businesses. Creating an effective Twitter presence is a delicate balance between promoting brand content and sharing others’, so that your brand is offering up its own unique material without appearing too promotional.
One way to address this is by curating content from other sources, which is a great way to position your business as a thought leader and remain active and relevant with your followers. In order to do this, you’ll need to both find content that works with your brand’s message, and figure out how you’ll use this content to add to your brand’s Twitter voice. We’ve outlined a few tips we find helpful on each of these steps below.
Finding Content
First and foremost, finding great content to share is essential. You might feel swamped in the amount of information available, and have trouble finding material that fits your brand’s message. Fortunately, there are a number of tools that help ease this process. An article on Ragan.com suggests, “4 time-saving content curation tools,” which includes:
- LikeHack. LikeHack is a tool that saves you time by aggregating, curating and delivering the top stories on your topics of interest.
- Storify. Storify collects updates from social networks to create a story format that is interactive, dynamic and social.
- Pearltrees.Pearltrees is a visual and collaborative library.
- GetPrismatic. GetPrismatic is about creating a newsfeed based on your interests. It’s along the lines of Google Reader and Flipboard.
Curating Effectively
Once you have found content worth sharing, you’ll need to think about how to best go about posting this content through your business’ Twitter. In order to make your posts more interesting, you can go beyond simply sharing by adding your 2 cents and framing the post.
For example: “Our thoughts exactly } Instead of replacing legacy systems, modernize them via @FederalTimes http://bit.ly/19jX5IA.” In this tweet, you know where the brand stands on the article it is sharing. It contributes to the brand’s voice, even though the business didn’t produce the content itself, and helps to frame the article.
At Communiqué PR, we work with a number of clients on their social media profiles. We’ve been working with our client Attachmate for several years on developing and growing their Twitter handles and finding new ways to provide relevant content to their followers. Our strategy has evolved from being very conservative and simply sharing content without taking a stand, to editorializing tweets when curating. Our client, Tom Scearce at Attachmate, wrote the blog, “For Those About to Curate I Salute You,” that offers some good tips.
We’ve outlined a few best practices to keep in mind when curating content on Twitter:
- Make it relevant. This should be a no brainer, but make sure that the content you are sharing is relevant to your followers. When selecting content, consider your audience.
- Don’t be afraid to rearrange. Just because a tweet is arranged a certain way doesn’t mean you have to keep it. You can cut the tweet down or put the link up front to encourage followers to click sooner.
- Take a stand. Add in your opinion, funny comment or provocative statement to help frame the tweet. This helps to provide context and draw followers in. Make sure to separate the editorial comment from the title of the article or retweet you are sharing. Tom suggests using the “ } ” symbol.
Curating content on Twitter is a great way to add to your brand’s online voice, and create a Twitter presence as a thought leader, not simply as self-promotional. We hope the above tips are helpful as you work on your own brand’s Twitter presence.
What tools do you use to find content for your own social media platforms? Are there any best practices for curating content that you’d add to our list?
The New York Times recently profiled professional networking leader LinkedIn in a June 16, 2013, article titled “LinkedIn Builds Its Publishing Presence.” The article points out what you may have noticed if you’re an active LinkedIn user: The network is no longer just a place to post your resume and call it a day. Rather, LinkedIn has developed a host of interactive features users can (and are) taking advantage of, some of which include written content.
This content, which LinkedIn started offering in October, is produced under the umbrella of “Influencers,” a select group of leaders that post about various topics through LinkedIn (similarly to a blogging platform). Influencers range from Meg Whitman of Hewlett-Packard, to Charles Duhigg of the New York Times, and offer insights on subject matter from career guidance to lifestyle tips.
There are several ways you can make used of LinkedIn’s now fully developed, content-oriented platform:
- Apply to be an “Influencer.” If you think that your experience and interests qualify you to be an influencer, reach out to [email protected] to make your case (or do so on behalf of your CEO or other executives with your company). Accepted influencers will have the benefit of reaching a large audience through LinkedIn’s platform, and being featured can contribute to a person’s perception as a thought leader, as they’re listed among the likes of Bill Gates and Richard Branson.
- Find fodder for blogs and media pitches. Look to what other industry influencers are writing about; it may spark a creative idea for a blog post, campaign or pitch that you can use around your own brand.
- Add your own take. Even if you’re not an official Influencer, you can still share Influencer content and provide your own commentary to your network. This provides an easy way to keep your own, or your company’s, LinkedIn page active, updated and fresh.
LinkedIn is shifting into the contributed-content model we’re seeing across various platforms, including official media sources like Forbes and Harvard Business Review. Not only does this model provide you with a chance to offer your own voice, it gives you a vast pool of curated content from industry experts. Consider taking advantage of this resource, whether for your own brand’s social media and blog content, or for your own thought leadership within your network.
For more on LinkedIn from Communiqué PR, see:
- LinkedIn Introduces Comprehensive Company Pages
- Best Practices for Company Pages on LinkedIn
- Using LinkedIn Advertising to Pitch Media
- 8 Tips for Managing a LinkedIn Group
- Four Tips to Maximize your LinkedIn Profile
With the advent of social media, a very thin line sometimes separates our business and professional lives. Just ask the Central Intelligence Agency, which, according to the Wall Street Journal, recently issued new guidelines for the use of social media among its agents (because clearly spies need to be careful about that sort of thing).
The CIA is an extreme example, but any business can be put under the microscope for a tweet or post that may appear to be a little inappropriate or too casual. Social media gives businesses a direct and immediate communication line to consumers, which can be of mutual benefit to a business and its customers, like quickly solving customer service issues or promoting short-lived sales opportunities. However, it’s important for businesses to understand how to ride the fine line to ensure its communications remain as professional on social media as other marketing channels.
Below are four communications guidelines for keeping your constituents happy to see you on their social media platforms:
- Post a reasonable amount of times – don’t flood newsfeeds. This number could be different depending on the business, but keep your social media posts to things that are relevant and timely for consumers. Consumers may “like” a business, but will quickly click “unlike” if the number of posts becomes a nuisance.
- Thoughtful, well-written content is just as important on social media channels as any other. Good grammar is a first impression that helps a business remain credible.
- Take time for regular moderation to ensure content is timely and relevant and issues are quickly addressed.
- Listen. When a consumer takes the time to connect with a business, this is a chance for that business to shine among all customers. Respond directly and clearly to feedback and always give consumers the benefit of the doubt. It may seem scary to have such a public forum, but a business can benefit greatly from simply showing they are listening and trying to resolve issues for customers.
This Forbes article also provides a great set of do’s and don’ts to help businesses avoid social media pitfalls.
How has your business achieved success using social media? Or, do you know of a business that is a good example of professional social media skills? Please share it here!
Even in an age so focused on the rapidly expanding boundaries of social media, the press release remains a staple of the public relations business. Press releases were once simple Word documents distributed by email or, if anyone even remembers, fax distribution groups and bulk snail-mail offerings. In such an environment, there weren’t a lot of choices and PR firms didn’t have to think much about those choices. Currently, there are many ways to customize press releases and even more ways to get them out to the world.
Even a simple Google search makes you feel like you’re sipping from a fire hose with the sheer number of press release distribution services available. They offer a staggering array of options and great variance in pricing. This begs the questions: How does a business choose the right one? While these services can offer a dizzying plethora of menu items, here are five salient factors to consider:
- Geographic distribution: Many companies have tiered pricing based upon state, regional, national, and even international distribution. The logical step is simply is to choose the one that most closely matches your intended market. However, that may be shortsighted. In business, just like in chess, you need to think several moves ahead. If your marketing strategy is to expand beyond the regional level relatively soon, it might make sense, if your budget allows, to pay the incremental additional cost and have it distributed nationally for greater exposure.
- Sector distribution: Some services distribute by sector or industry. The technology and financial sectors are common offerings, for example. This can be very useful for a company whose target market is limited to a sector or two and is not concerned with geographic distribution. However, this can limit your message to an echo chamber that has already heard it, reducing its effectiveness.
- Editing services: Many offer editing services. Does your business need them? In the case of a tight or impossible deadline, or small, under-staffed startup company, the editing services could be advantageous. But if your company can adequately handle the requirement, don’t pay for something you don’t need.
- Feedback, research and analytic services: Some of the higher-end services offer traditional and social media monitoring and feedback. This could be an invaluable tool for businesses that can afford it and don’t have the resident capability. Feedback on what messaging is working and what is not can prove invaluable.
- Multi-media and other services: Know what your needs are before you shop for a service. Many of the lower-end price packages are limited to the traditional Word document press releases. If your business wants or needs videos, images, or specialized links, don’t waste time with services that can’t provide them. And shop around – prices will vary.
While this is not intended as a comprehensive list of what is available, it should serve as a solid starting point as you begin your hunt for a distribution service. Most importantly, carefully consider what your company needs to support your marketing strategy before choosing one of these services.
In today’s workplace, we’re inundated with emails all day long. While the use of email has obvious benefits, confronting your inbox(es) can be a daunting task. A slew of email can also make it easy to lose important items in the day-to-day shuffle.
For me, transitioning from student life to professional life meant a transition from sending a handful of emails a day to sending and receiving hundreds. This presented an unexpected organizational challenge. However, in my past year at Communiqué, I’ve learned to make use of the below tricks to manage my own personal and professional email effectively:
- File or delete first. When I arrive in the office every morning, and when I return to my desk after a prolonged period away, I immediately go through the email I’ve received and delete unnecessary items. I also file items that I’m CC’ed on that don’t require a response from me. This allows me to quickly narrow down what in my inbox actually requires my attention, without losing track of important information.
- Decide what to do with every message. I learned this effective habit from a co-worker: If I’m not going to delete a message, file it, or reply to it, I make myself add it to my to-do list. This forces me to deal with action items immediately or add them into my current work queue, rather than leaving emails stagnant in my inbox or filing something without dealing with it.
- Actively unsubscribe. This applies more to my personal account than my business email, but every time I receive an email from a listserv I’m not interested in, I go through the process of unsubscribing. Although time spent deleting these emails is minimal, it can add up. I now receive almost nothing that I’m not interested in, which makes checking email fun and interesting, rather than intimidating and annoying.
- Take some activities out of the inbox. Online collaboration tools (Smartsheet is what we use at Communiqué) can significantly reduce the amount of redundant email you process. Rather than sending an Excel document containing project lists back and forth, or updating a manager on the status of something via email, Smartsheet allows you to update project work in the cloud, helping to minimize the amount of email flowing through your inbox.
Managing email overload is certainly something that takes time, fine-tuning and customization for your own needs and work style. However, applying the above proactively to my own daily routine has allowed me to focus less on wading through email and more on getting work done.
For more tips on managing email, see:
- About.com: Email Management Tips for Improved Productivity
- Microsoft at Work: Empty your Inbox: 4 ways to take control of your email
- PCMag: Get Organized: 11 Tips for Managing Email
How to you manage your email?
Heather Campbell