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.
Since its inception, video blogging has gained widespread popularity. With equipment becoming more affordable, editing software more accessible, and sites like YouTube and Facebook readily available to share content, the process is easier than ever. There is a large demand for video content – YouTube gets more than two billion hits per day – and it’s undeniable that videos are one of the fastest growing segments in the blogosphere. But how can your business leverage this trend?
At Communiqué PR, we get a variety of requests from clients that want to start blogging. Adding videos is an effective tool to keep your readers engaged. Visual elements help to diversify content and, in a world of content overload, it can be an easy way to deliver the information your audiences want quickly. Well-crafted video blogs that are updated regularly can increase your company’s web presence, improve customer communication and drive sales.
We thought it might be helpful to provide a few key points to keep in mind when developing a video blog for your business.
- Keep it short. Just like the length of a traditional blog varies, so do video blogs. But it is important to understand that many people viewing videos have a short attention span. We recommend keeping video blogs to two minutes or less. This may seem like a short amount of time to get your point across, but by organizing your thoughts beforehand, and leading with your most compelling sound bites, this will help to engage your viewers.
- Find visually appealing elements. If you track which videos receive the most hits on sites such as YouTube you will notice they are ones that are controversial, comical or visually stimulating. Video blogs follow a similar premise. We recommend selecting a visually interesting background, avoiding solid white walls, or doing a hands-on “show and tell.” For example, developing a video demo that illustrates the new functions of a product is a great way to utilize video blogging for your business.
- Work on delivery. Pay close attention to body language and voice inflection. These are your most valuable tools when the camera is on you. Do not use excessive hand gestures and pause to emphasize your key points. Also, do not allow the on-camera personality to wear distracting clothing or wild colors. (For tips on dress, check out our blog “Why Style Matters.”)
A good example of video blogging can be found on Seattle Mama Doc. Dr. Wendy Sue Swanson with Seattle Children’s Hospital does a nice job with the three tips included above. Her blogs are traditionally under two minutes, contain visually compelling elements and Dr. Swanson does an excellent job using body language and voice inflection to emphasize her points.
By considering these tips, your business could benefit greatly from crafting compelling video blogs, which help add depth to a website and create a more personal company image. Stay tuned for our upcoming post on tips for producing video blogs. Do you have a favorite blog or video blog? Please feel free to post them in the comments section.
Despite the fact that many people are using Twitter as an integral part of their companies’ marketing and public relations campaigns, many folks may not know why it’s important or how to best navigate the service. Computerworld came out recently with an interesting article titled, “How and why to search Twitter,” which shed some valuable light on the topic.
Twitter now boasts more than 200 million users worldwide, which represents huge potential in terms of marketing reach and diversity of target audiences. A simple search of Twitter can provide insight into how a product launch is going, what announcements have been made, trade shows, or even what a prospective target audience likes to talk about. With more than 140 million tweets per day, it’s possible to discover a plethora of useful information. But how does a person dig through all that data without suffering from information overload?
Computerworld listed several steps for how to search Twitter:
- Use search.twitter.com – Twitter’s proprietary search function lets you easily type in your query and search for the name of a product, person, topic, specific Twitter username, or a hashtag.
- Leverage Google and Bing – Google’s Realtime search lets users peruse content posted on social networks including Twitter, Facebook and FriendFeed. It also lets you organize content geographically when selecting the “nearby” option. Separately, Bing has a similar search experience called Bing Social, which has much of the same functionality of Google.
- Get Specific – Twitter has an advanced search page that makes it easy to use Boolean search, or find locations or specific usernames. There is also a “cheat sheet of search operators” if you need help narrowing down your search.
- Use Search Widgets and Tools – There are many different search widgets and tools, both for smartphones and desktop computers. Computerworld recommends checking out Hootsuite, a customizable interface that allows users to manage more than one username; Klout, a tool that allows companies to track trends and visual influence; and, Trendrr, a powerful dashboard that lets users analyze social activity across a variety of social mediums.
By gaining a more thorough understanding of Twitter and how best to search through the vast amount of data available via the site, marketers can unlock new audiences and join the conversation with potential customers and partners.
What sites or tools do you use to hone in on the social activity that is most relevant to your audience? We’re always learning about new tools and tips, and would love to hear what works for you.
In the Internet age, most people often act quickly and pass along information via social media, before they even verify that the information is accurate. We’ve all see the fake Amber Alerts for missing children or the faux-images that fly around Facebook and Twitter, such as the one picture to the right comparing Prince William and Kate Middleton to Cinderella and Prince Charming. These types of misinformation or inaccuracies rarely cause serious or physical harm, but they can be damaging when it comes to causing panic or spreading lies about a company. So, what do you do when there is misinformation floating around on social media about your company?
As an example, McDonald’s was recently the center of a Twitter hoax when unknown parties began circulating an official-looking image on Twitter that appeared to be from the popular chain restaurant claiming that they were charging African American customers $1.50 more due to a string of robberies. Even though this image was quickly discovered to be false (it had been circulated in 2010 as well), it didn’t stop the mass of people tweeting and retweeting the image, which led many people to become enraged with McDonald’s.
In response, McDonald’s quickly posted a tweet letting people know that the image was a senseless hoax, and that the company valued the diversity of its customers and employees. After the image continued to circulate, McDonald’s posted another, more-direct tweet saying that the image was a hoax. While this didn’t stop the image completely – it’s hard to control what people do and don’t share on the Web – it did slow down the angry tweets. And, according to Ragan.com, most crisis communications experts felt that McDonald’s handled the situation well.
So what can your organization do if it finds itself in this situation? We’ve outlined a few easy steps to follow:
- Research the Situation. It’s important to make sure you fully understand what is being passed around. You don’t want to react with incorrect information. This could cause followers to think you are being deceptive.
- Act Quickly. Once you realize there is misinformation floating around, quickly gather the appropriate stakeholders and devise a plan of action. The longer you wait to give your side, the harder it will be to convince people you are correct. For more on this, see our recent post about crisis communication.
- Post a Statement. Make sure to upload a brief statement to Twitter, where everyone can see it. If there is a hashtag being used to discuss the crisis, it would be a good idea to reference it in your response so that everyone can easily find it.
- Monitor the Conversation. Watch to see what people are saying in response to your statement, and determine if an additional statement is needed.
While it’s impossible to completely stop something like this, you can’t ignore its existence either as silence is often equated with guilt. There will always be differing opinions on many subjects. The best a company can do is to react appropriately and in a timely fashion.
Think back to the days when you were a child learning to read. At that age, most of us gravitated toward books that primarily consisted of vibrant illustrations or photos. As a young child, it was often pictures that truly helped us understand words and stories. Now, flash forward to your adult life and you’ll find that not a lot has changed.
Infographics, which are visual representations of data or information, often present challenging topics in a way that helps us digest the information quickly and clearly. While the notion of infographics has been around for quite some time (think cave drawings, or map-making), they’re an integral part of how information is accessed and absorbed on the Internet, serving as an effective medium to relay messages or concepts in a visually compelling manner. They’ve gained so much popularity over the last few years that the Huffington Post even created a news page solely dedicated to highlighting the latest and greatest infographics.
With the evolution of social media, which has helped create an environment where information is published and consumed faster than ever, PR and marketing professionals can leverage infographics as an effective way to add visual appeal to content. Here are few reasons why organizations should consider harnessing the power of the infographic:
- They complement stories. Reporters are often looking for interesting graphics and/or images to accompany their stories. Infographics can be a great tool to enhance a story by providing both supporting points and related visuals.
- They go viral. Once an infographic is published, they’re easy to share. If the content is compelling enough, other sites will often pick it up and embed the image, therefore driving traffic to the site it was originally published on and increasing search engine optimization.
- They’re multi-functional and deepen understanding. Whether you’re highlighting the latest social media stats or your own personal experiences through the latest trend in infographic resumes, infographics can be used to communicate almost anything.
- People enjoy them. Who doesn’t appreciate a simplistic visual that helps you understand a complex topic? They’re a powerful vehicle for sharing your information in a compelling way.
So ask yourself, would you rather read a five-page article that describes a complex concept such as the, “Social Media Effect,” or, would you rather digest the information from a pretty picture? I guess there’s really something behind the old adage, a picture’s worth a thousand words.
Now, in case you’re wondering how to go about creating an infographic, check out these great tips for designing infographics and free tools to help get you started.
Ever thought about a museum dedicated solely to you? Intel did, and found marketing and branding gold.
Following the concept of LinkedIn’s more basic “Connection Timeline,” Intel recently released the “Museum of Me,” (MoM) in which the viewer is able to tour a virtual museum display dedicated to his or her life – or at least that which has been posted to Facebook. While LinkedIn’s “Timeline” details your LinkedIn history visually and across time, MoM quickly and easily exhibits your online social history.
Set to the music of Takagi Masakatsu, the multimedia artist recently profiled on Apple’s website, the MoM tour guides the viewer through a virtual museum of photographs, words and video clips, all drawn from the user’s Facebook data. With the purpose of displaying the muscle and might of Intel’s Core i5 processor, Intel has succeeded in creating a widespread and truly resonating marketing campaign.
Intel’s Facebook page activity skyrocketed following the June 1 release of MoM with “Likes” jumping from one million in late May to 1.3 million on June 1, currently weighing in with 1.6 million “Likes.” Additionally, well more than half a million people currently “Like” the MoM site itself. With these “Likes” distributed to more than 500,000 news feeds, the impact of MoM is enormous for Intel’s Facebook and social media presence.
What is interesting about MoM’s success is not the concept itself but the logic that drives it. The idea behind the campaign is a basic one: consumers clearly enjoy seeing information about themselves posted online. Intel made the marketing campaign about the consumer and garnered significant interest and participation. In an arena where the average consumer is constantly projecting themselves publicly via social media outlets, appealing to the consumer’s ego is increasingly pertinent.
Successful marketing is based on establishing the relevance of a marketing campaign with individuals. In our interactive world, it is possible to not only provide direct relevance to the consumer, but to involve the consumer directly and personally, the way Intel has done with MoM. They’ve made their campaign irresistible for consumers to participate in by personalizing the experience for each participant and utilizing familiar forms of online communication, such as Facebook.
Intel showed that simple, creative and interactive strategies can be useful and attractive to consumers by appealing to their own social life and interests, while still displaying a product and increasing brand awareness. This innovative strategy marks a milestone in the evolution of interactive advertising by directly involving and catering to each unique consumer. The logic behind the MoM can be applied to any marketing campaign that hopes to drive consumer involvement. Intel’s creative concept provides tremendous insight into how to successfully involve consumers in the distribution of a marketing campaign.
When Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton released her book, “It Takes a Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us” in 1996, it was met with rave reviews and became a modern classic. The book centers around the impact individuals and groups outside the family have, for better or worse, on a child’s well-being, and advocates for a society which meets all of a child’s needs. Much the same can be said for an organization looking to build a new category within an established industry. It takes many people including visionaries, industry analysts, partners and customers, and proven products to drive awareness and demonstrate success around an emerging category.
In a Fast Company article, Kahain Krippendorf outlines thoughts on creating a new category saying, “When a new category is created, innovators take advantage of that new niche’s competitive advantage.” So, ask yourself these questions to see if you can find a new category that you can own:
- What category does my business fit in?
- Is there a way to blend two or more categories to offer something new?
- Do I see a demand and a market that isn’t being served, and if so, how can I create a new category and gain a competitive edge?”
One of our clients, Opscode, is working to build a new category within the cloud computing and infrastructure management market called, cloud infrastructure automation. Their approach of automating infrastructure management via the cloud is changing the way enterprises tackle systems configuration enabling them to cost-effectively improve infrastructure management efficiency and quickly scale infrastructure to meet business needs.
To help elevate this shift in the industry, we worked with Opscode to develop a strategy and plan that leveraged a combination of internal survey data, customer case studies and new products to demonstrate how Opscode’s approach to cost-effectively improve infrastructure management efficiency and quickly scale its infrastructure to meet the needs of the business.
Next, we bundled three key announcements to help underscore the need for cloud infrastructure automation in the enterprise amid the widespread shift to cloud computing. These announcements included the general availability of Hosted Chef, a new product called Private Chef, and an umbrella release that outlined the key drivers behind this trend and included key proof points including survey data as well as analyst, customer and partner quotes.
We also pre-briefed media and analysts to introduce them to Opscode and garner support for the launch.
As a result of our efforts, we secured more than 20 briefings with key technology media and industry analysts such as The 451 Group, IDC, Forrester, Gartner, RedMonk and more. We also garnered more than 17 pieces of original coverage including Network World, Light Reading, Enterprise Systems Journal, ReadWriteCloud, GigaOm, SearchCloudComputing, Data Center Knowledge, among others .
We have discussed how to launch a new product in a new category, but in order for media, analysts and potential customers to get on board with a new category and help build credibility, it is critical to outline and demonstrate how the new product, approach or solution is disruptive to the existing landscape (vis-à-vis case studies, data, third-party validation, etc.).