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.
Keeping abreast of PR industry strategies and tactics is important to ensure that you’re continuing to innovate and provide fresh ideas to clients. Recently I read about interesting new ways to pitch media in the article, “5 creative PR pitches that caught reporters’ attention.”
The post included a number of ideas but one really caught my attention: pitching via pay-per-click ads on websites such as LinkedIn. Originally highlighted by online marketing company aimClear in their post, “Media Relations in the Social Age: Pitching Reporters Via LinkedIn PPC,” the idea is to target niche audiences for specific pitches. LinkedIn provides a number of demographic options for serving targeted ads. (See our recent post, “Best Practices for Company Pages on LinkedIn,” for details.)
As an example, let’s say you’re writing an energy efficiency-focused pitch and you want to target energy and business reporters at top-tier publications. You draft your pitch first and then you can select pitch/advertising targets on LinkedIn. On LinkedIn, you can select targets by title (energy reporter, green tech reporter, business reporter, etc.), by outlet (New York Times, Wall Street Journal, etc.) and any other attributes you think are important. Then, only reporters at those specific publications with those specific titles will see your ad.
aimClear noted some of the pros of this approach, as well as the cons, including:
- Pro: Gauge interest – Reporters can indicate their interest by actually clicking on the ad, which can redirect to supporting materials.
- Pro: Hone pitching skills – Copy can be limited to 75 characters, so you need to be concise.
- Pro: Less disruptive way of pitching – Your target will only see the ad if they’re using that social outlet, which usually happens when they have some free time and aren’t working against a deadline. They might even be browsing for a story idea.
- Con: Lack of response – You won’t be able to know whether the reporter saw your ad or not unless you secure a click or they contact you.
- Con: Cost (~$3 per click) – While it’s fairly inexpensive if you’re micro-targeting reporters, and only paying per click, it still costs more than outreaching via email.
- Con: Questionable method of pitching – Pitching via advertising could have a negative connotation, so it’s important to do it selectively.
After thinking about this idea for a few days, and chatting with the team at Communiqué PR, I came up with additional pros and cons:
- Pro: Provide comprehensive supporting material – When the reporter clicks on the ad, you could send them to a specific webpage with supporting material that builds on your story and provides a comprehensive package for the reporter. This could include graphics, video or other content that creates a compelling story.
- Pro: Target the right people – With the opportunity target such a specific group of people, you could enhance your pitching outside of your traditional media list. With this method, you might even find a new reporter covering your company/client if they respond to your ad.
- Con: Ad could be overlooked – There is a lot of noise on social networks. Many people identify the advertising locations on the pages and tend to glance over them. The flip side is that if it’s not seen and not clicked on, then you don’t pay. But you may have wasted valuable time on an ad that didn’t have any ROI.
- Con: Lack of credibility – Internet advertising has a bad reputation among consumers for not being credible. This sentiment could carry over to reporters as well. Some reporters trust pitches from specific sources, so an ad may not meet their bar.
- Con: Doesn’t feel customized – If one reporter is seeing your ad, he or she may think a thousand other reporters are seeing it, too. Exclusivity remains a top incentive for influencers. Plus, reporters like having pitches customized for their outlet and readers. Ad copy contains the same text regardless of your target.
Have you tried this method of pitching or would you consider it? Share your thoughts with us below!
You have one chance to make a good first impression. Whether it’s a face-to-face meeting with a prospective customer, a conference call, or an email introducing yourself and your services, your initial contact is your chance to either impress or disappoint. In many first impressions, you may not even have the opportunity to directly connect with someone. Instead, people’s first impression often come from your company website and it may be the difference between whether someone chooses to engage or walk away.
When people visit your website, they should immediately have a clear understanding about who you are and what you do. Your website should be easy to navigate and information should be easily discoverable. However, according to Entrepreneur Magazine, statistics show that many small business websites lack the fundamentals, putting them at risk of losing customers with one click.
Several of our clients often ask us for counsel on their website redesigns. What should be included? How do we pick the right images to complement our messages? So, we thought it’d be helpful to share Entrepreneur’s recommendations around “5 Things That Belong on the Front Page of Your Website.”
1. Contact information: A recent survey by BIA/Kelsey, a media and advertising research group, showed that that nearly 75 percent of small-business websites don’t have an email link on their homepage. And six out of 10 don’t have a phone number. I’m surprised by this number, as I assumed including easy-to-find contact information was a given. Potential customers are not going to stick around digging for an email or phone number. They will, instead, go elsewhere.
At a minimum, your site should have a clear email link and a phone number. If you have a physical location, you should also include the full address and a map with directions.
2. Images that represent what you do: Images speak a thousand words and oftentimes it’s the images featured on your website to which people are first drawn. Make sure that the graphics and images are relevant to your company and complement the website text. It’s surprising how many websites actually use irrelevant graphics or abstract photos that are difficult to interpret.
3. Clear navigation with working links: The front page of your site should have a clear navigation system either across the top or down one side of the page. Search fields are also critical to helping customers quickly find what they’re looking for. Additionally, we recommend including an “about” tab or link on your homepage that features background on your company, a FAQ, etc.
It’s also important to check your links on a regular basis to make sure they all work, or use Google Webmaster Tools or other software to identify errors. Broken links are frustrating for visitors and can create a perception that you’re careless with your own business.
4. An email signup box: One effective way to encourage customer loyalty is with a regular newsletter or some other touch point. Put a signup box on the front page of your website to offer rewards or discounts (if relevant to your business),or provide ways for customers to stay current on what you’re up to, whether it’s attending events or launching a new service.
5. Social media links: Help customers stay in touch by providing links to your social media accounts. Use recognizable icons linked to Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or LinkedIn and place them on your homepage and throughout your site. There are also widgets you can leverage to make your content easily shareable via social media and encourage customer interaction.
For brands hoping to engage consumers and maintain a consistent social media presence, a Facebook page can be an effective tool. Despite debates over what a Facebook “like” is actually worth, or whether the company is here to stay, Facebook provides an excellent resource for sharing content, engaging with fans, and telling your brand’s overarching story.
If you are part of a small team, however, managing the constantly changing interface of Facebook can be somewhat complex and time consuming. Thankfully, Ragan’s PR Daily recently compiled a list of 25 Facebook tips every social media manager needs. Here are five highlights.
1. How to schedule posts in advance
Just like Twitter, Facebook allows you to schedule update releases. When you post a photo, video, offer, or status update, there is a clock symbol below the update. You can use this tool to schedule when the post will appear.
How is this useful? If you’re a restaurant, for example, you might release an offer for 25 percent off a Friday night meal on Wednesday or Thursday. Or, if you’re using your Facebook to establish your brand as a thought leader, you might schedule regular links to timely industry articles, but stagger them throughout the day.
2. How to add multiple admins
If you have multiple people that might manage the Facebook page, you can add multiple administrators from their Facebook accounts (as opposed to having one Facebook account).
Add admins by clicking on your Facebook page, clicking “Edit Page,” and then clicking “Manage Admins.” You can send each individual an invite to their Facebook account, or via email. Through this, you can manage who has administrative access to your brand’s Facebook page, and you don’t need to change the password for a shared account when someone might leave the company.
We use this feature at Communique, so that everyone who might need to use our Facebook page is able to, with the supervision of management.
3. How to promote your updates
Facebook has an advertising tool that helps your post get seen by more people who “like” your page. This can be useful if you have a specific update that you might want publicized, or an offer you think will be very successful. When you update a status, you will see a “Promote This Post” button, which will allow you to select how much money you are willing to spend on promoting the post.
4. How to target posts
This is an interesting feature I was not aware existed—you can target a post’s demographic by language or location. Click on the “Public” icon next to the “Post” button, and enter countries and languages you would like to target, separated with commas. This might be helpful if you are a company with customers in the U.S. and Canada, for example, and want to promote a deal to your Canadian audience.
5. How to create milestones
This is an easy way to showcase the story arc of your company and brand. Milestones indicate important moments in your brand’s history. You can pick and choose your milestones, and include an image. Milestones might range from the obvious, such as when your company started or went public, to more specific facets of your brand’s story, such as when a specific customer started using your product and had exceptional results.
To view the rest of the list, click here: 25 Facebook tips every social media manager needs.
For more from Communique PR on Facebook, check out:
In the last 11 years, Wikipedia has become one of the most influential and searched sites on the Internet. Because of its Internet prowess, it is a great tool to promote a business or product. A Wikipedia page for your brand influences search engines, validates your presence, tells your brand’s history—and it’s free. At Communiqué PR, we typically recommend that organizations leverage the power of Wikipedia.
For those of you who may be unfamiliar, Wikipedia is a collaboratively-edited encyclopedia that allows Internet users to contribute and edit information. However, despite being a straightforward service, getting a successful page posted and accepted by Wikipedia can be more difficult than one may expect.
Jay Walsh, a spokesperson for the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit organization that oversees Wikipedia, has said that although it is not a written rule, writing about yourself or your own business is highly discouraged because it detracts from the neutrality the site attempts to have. Herein lies the challenge for businesses hoping to develop a Wikipedia page: How can you craft an accurate and flattering Wikipedia presence for your company, if Wikipedia’s content is constantly being scrutinized for marketing ploys?
I recently read “Use Wikipedia as a Marketing Tool,” an article by Minda Zetlin on Inc.com, which covers a few interesting tips to ensuring the success of your business’ Wikipedia appearances.
1) Begin with a general PR campaign. If your company is mentioned in blog posts, social media and articles it will help legitimize your business, and this is valuable when Wikipedia is reviewing pages. Also, make sure that your website is constantly up to date, offering accurate information for users who might add to your Wikipedia page. The more consistency, the better.
2) Search your company’s name in Wikipedia. This may seem like an odd strategy, but there is a possibility that your company’s name could be mentioned in another post. If your company has been mentioned, you have the opportunity to add to existing information about your brand on this Wikipedia post. This may give you an additional spot to share a little more information about your company without starting a new post of your own.
3) Start with a small post. Develop only a few sentences or sections at a time on your Wikipedia page. This encourages other people to add more and is seen as a “challenge” by Wikipedians. If you put up a large amount of information at once, regular users are likely to request that your page be removed because it is perceived as a marketing scheme. The thought is that it takes away from the collaborative aspect integral to Wikipedia.
4) Include links to other sites. Providing third-party links legitimizes your brand’s Wikipedia page. Wikipedians will look to see that your company has been mentioned in other articles or publications before posting about your company.
5) Use the discussion page. Every Wikipedia page has a discussion page. This can be used as a tool to add more links, explanations or information you may see as beneficial to the post.
6) Keep an eye on your post. Because Wikipedia is collaboratively edited, anyone can add to your post. After your post is first created, Wikipedians will most likely find it and edit it quickly. It is crucial that you leave some time to work on it. It is important to constantly review your page in case some unwanted edits or attacks are made. The best way to go about editing these is through the Wikipedia community. If the edits are made by you or members of your own company, then it appears to be censorship. One option to help avoid this issue is to create a “controversy section” within your Wikipedia page, in order to clarify negative issues that other users might post.
Wikipedia receives a huge amount of Internet traffic, and can thus be a valuable resource for your brand. However, due to its wide range of viewership and accessibility, it is important to make sure that all the information shared through Wikipedia reflects your business correctly, and as positively as possible, especially because anyone can create it. If carefully executed, a self-made Wikipedia page for your brand has the potential to be an excellent form of strategic communications.
All eyes were on the presidential debate this week in Denver. But prior to the big debate, both parties were busy preparing for possible scenarios and anticipating questions, hoping to shine. In any speaking platform, preparation is key and I thought it might be helpful to look at how each candidate prepared and the takeaways for PR professionals.
In preparation, President Barack Obama and Gov. Mitt Romney both spent diligent hours preparing, and each camp worked to highlight their individual strengths and avoid showcasing their weaknesses.
Mitt Romney’s team is fully aware that Gov. Romney gets into trouble when he is challenged, and his team worked to help him avoid this. He spent hours watching tapes from past debates with Obama and running through scenarios that would cause himself to lose his cool. By challenging his downfall head on, Romney’s team was able to help him prepare for possible situations where he might get heated. According to an NPR article titled, “Hours Of Preparation For Romney Ahead Of Debate,” this happened during a primary debate in Las Vegas when Texas Gov. Rick Perry accused him of hiring illegal immigrants. Mr. Romney tried to interject and said, “I’m speaking. I’m speaking. I’m speaking.” He was agitated by the accusation and at one point put his hand on Perry’s shoulder.
Likewise, President Obama spent his time preparing, but his team’s objectives were to keep the president in charge of the debate without being too combative. Obama aides reviewed tapes of Romney’s previous debates to identify possible “pitfalls” for a challenger.
Another tact that both Romney and Obama used prior to the debate, was lowering the expectations of the viewers. Both candidates came out applauding their challenger as a talented public speaker and said that they themselves have not had much time to prepare or are not very experienced. This tactic is designed to make the audience surprised if a candidate does well and show compassion or expect for a candidate to do poorly. Think of it like giving a great present. If you tell a loved one that you are buying them a fantastic gift, you could oversell the present. However, if you say you’ve had very little time to shop for their birthday present, your gift will be a welcomed surprise.
During Wednesday’s debate, Mitt Romney did seem to become agitated when President Obama talked about the Affordable Health Care Act and indicated that Romney’s health plan would not address preexisting medical conditions like he claimed. Moderator Jim Lehrer tried to move the discussion along, but Romney insisted that he be heard: “No I have to respond to that,” interrupting Jim Lehrer. However, the interruption did not escalate. His aides predicted correctly and both candidates seemed to know what got under each other’s skin.
President Obama did avoid being combative during the debate. In a CNN article, “Romney takes debate to Obama over economy, healthcare,” Tom Cohen said, “The president firmly defended his achievements and challenged his rival’s prescriptions as unworkable.” However, it was Romney that seemed to command the debate.
So, what is the takeaway for communications professionals? We know that panels, interviews, speaking opportunities and debates can be a great opportunity for an organization’s spokesperson to be seen as a thought leader and increase brand awareness. However, it doesn’t stop at securing the opportunity. As a PR professional, it is important to know the strengths and weaknesses of your spokesperson to properly prepare them to take the stage. It is also important to know the strengths and weaknesses of the other participants.
As PR professionals, we can learn from the approach of each camp. It is important to not only prepare for what messages you want to communicate, but prepare for how you’ll react in possible scenarios. We typically develop briefing materials for our clients that provide background on members of the media, analysts or other panelists to anticipate what questions might be asked and what hot button issues might peak a journalist’s interest. Our clients may not spend the hours that the Presidential candidates spend preparing, but we can certainly model the strategy.
How do you prepare for speaking opportunities?
Having a corporate blog can be a huge resource for driving traffic to your company’s website, building out your business, and garnering media coverage. However, with so many competing platforms and styles of blogging, it can be difficult to determine what is best for your business. I recently attended PRNewswire’s webinar “ Corporate Blogging Best Practices: Building Your Brand & Boosting Business Through Thought Leadership,“ to see what a couple pros had to say about best practices for corporate blogging.
The webinar was led by Jeff Corbin, CEO of KCSA Strategic Communications, and Thomas Hynes, manager of Blogger Relations with PRNewswire. Corbin brings expertise as an integral voice on KCSA’s corporate blog, while Hynes is familiar with blogs of all kinds—he runs PRNewswire’s blog, Beyond PR, as well as two personal blogs (Tomblr and Bike Gang!). The two blogging pros offered the following tips on best practices for successful corporate blogging:
- Grab attention quickly. If you want people to read your blog, you have to get them interested in what you have to offer. After all, as Hynes notes, what’s the point of a blog if no one is going to read it? In order to gain traffic momentum to your blog, use snappy, catch titles. Also make sure you start off with a bang – the average user gives a web page three seconds before deciding to hit the back button, according to Google.
- Be helpful. Blogs need to offer something to the reader to gain readership, not simply be a means to selling your services. Make sure to offer advice that positions your company as a thought leader on the subject, without being self-serving. Always remember, regardless of SEO practices and timing your posts, quality of content is paramount to gaining a blog readership.
- Know your audience. Who is reading your corporate blog? Or, who do you want the audience to be? What are they interested in? A corporate blog for Nordstrom, for example, might have a very different readership than the corporate blog for BMW. Think of who you are trying to reach with this blog, and who you want to view you as a thought leader—then, pick your subjects accordingly.
- Use voice. People want to hear from other people. Dry content won’t connect with the audience, and isn’t easy to read or understand. While a corporate blog should be informative and professional, let your own leadership voice and personality shine through. Blogs are conversational, not academic. Use them as a way to give your corporate voice personality.
- Maintain brand consistency. This is extremely important—don’t let your brand be about one thing, and your blog about something else. The whole point of a corporate blog is to communicate from your brand. How can you do this? KCSA has a social media head who vets all of their blogs before they are posted. Here at Communique, we have established values that guide all of our communications, and a blog goes to more than one team member before it goes out. The easiest way to ensure your blog is consistent with your brand is to…
- Have a strict corporate policy. KCSA maintains corporate guidelines for its blog, of which all staff are aware. If your company is public, this policy needs to abide by FCC regulations. Corporate policy on blogging gives your staff an exact outline of what is and what is not appropriate for the corporate blog, and can save you future headaches and wasted time over poor blog content.
- Think about traffic. While your blog should be about communicating your company’s point of view on industry topics, it can also help drive traffic to your site—something that is extremely useful for business development. Make your blog easy to share, link to other posts in your blog, and guest blog for other sites—all of these will optimize your SEO. Incorporate key words in your headline and subheads, and tag all of your posts with key concepts or keywords. Additionally, do a little outreach: issue blogs as press releases or HTML emails, list your site on blog search engines and directories, and syndicate your content.
- Use a schedule. Both Communique PR and KCSA have this blogging practice in common: schedule out posts. Assign posts on a cyclical basis to staffers, and keep that schedule public. This way, everyone contributes a different perspective, and your corporate voice is well rounded. This is a fun thing for the office to work together on, and builds morale—everyone is responsible for the voice of the company, not just the higher ups. Additionally, a schedule keeps the blog regular and organized, and doesn’t leave the weight of blogging on one single employee.
- Be careful with comments. Replying to comments on your blog can open a can of worms. Hynes has thought long and hard about allowing comments on press releases on PRNewswire, and has come to the conclusion it would not be valuable. If you have a point of view, you’re confident in it, and it complies with your internal corporate policies, then replying to comments on your blog can establish your corporate voice more thoroughly. However, this type of engagement can be a waste of time and resources. Additionally, if your company is public, FCC regulations will apply. Whatever you decide to do, think long and hard about your corporate blog’s stance on replying to commentators—and develop a thorough corporate policy around the issue, so that your attitude remains consistent.
”Corporate Blogging Best Practices: Building Your Brand & Boosting Business Through Thought Leadership: was a fantastic webinar with many useful tips on creating an effective corporate blog presence. These tips are useful when it comes to maintaining our own blog at Communique PR, and can be effective for brands of all scales. Blogging is an excellent way to cultivate a corporate voice and establishing your company as a thought leader within its industry. Additionally, brands are able to insert themselves into topical conversations, which can result in media coverage and increased website traffic. However, as corporate blogs are a direct line of contact between a corporation and the public, they need to be carefully strategized and executed. Following PRNewswire’s best practices is an excellent way to strategize around your own corporate blog.
For more on corporate blogs, see:
- The 40 Best Corporate Blogs In The World, Simply Zesty
- 10 Tips for Corporate Blogging, Mashable
For more from Communique PR on corporate blogging & thought leadership, see:
- Creating a Corporate Blog
- Thought Leadership – what is it and why is it so important?
- The Power of Blogs