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.
With the economic downturn, layoffs, H1N1, massive changes in the media, and the growth of social networking impacting our world, 2009 proved to be a challenging year for many of us. At Communiqué PR, we looked at the uncertainty and adverse business climate as an opportunity to be even more focused in our efforts for our clients.
Many of our clients had limited marketing dollars and needed us to demonstrate clear return on investment (ROI). Fortunately, the Communiqué team loves a challenge and is adept at securing results that help clients move product, sell services and grow brands, even in the midst of a fierce recession.
As we look back on 2009, some of the high points included the following:
- We added the following nine clients to the Communiqué roster: Aveso Displays, Dashwire, Digonex Technologies, Isilon Systems, Mobile On, OnRequest Images, SAM Medical Products, Tecplot Inc. and Veratect Corporation.
- Veratect Corporation came to us in April to help get the word out about its role in detecting the first outbreak of H1N1. The interest in Veratectís story was staggering. We worked with journalists from all over the world placing more than 150 articles with ABC National Radio, the Associated Press, BBC, Financial Times, MSNBC, USA Today, Washington Post, Wired and many more.
- Aveso Displays, headquartered in Fridley, Minn., makes flexible display solutions which are being integrated into an array of products – including bank cards. To support the companyís business objectives, we secured more than 10 briefings with industry analysts who follow the security and/or banking industry. We also placed contributed articles in Electronic Design, Bank Systems & Technology, ECN and Wireless Design.
- Coverage highlights for Tecplot Inc., a developer of CFD software, included articles in USA Today, The Gazette, CFD Review, Puget Sound Business Journal, Desktop Engineering, Aviation Week and Red Orbit.
- In the summer of 2009, we took on a project for SAM Medical Products, a company in Portland, Ore. Specifically, we assisted the company with the introduction of its dual-purpose CELOX Trauma Gauze and secured coverage in Popular Science, EMS Responder, Journal of Emergency Service, Portland Business Journal as well as several other publications.
- For OnRequest Images, a provider of custom photography, we focused on the placement of contributed articles. CEO Carla Stratfold contributed articles to the following publications: Atlanta Journal Constitution; Media Postís Marketing Daily, AMA Marketing New Blog, and The Advertiser. In 2010, we anticipate three additional articles will appear in Pharmaceutical Representative, Pharma Magazine and Pharma Marketing News.
- Digonex Technologies, an Indianapolis-based pricing software developer, came to us in March looking to drive awareness around their technology and establish themselves as a thought leader in dynamic pricing. Our efforts primarily focused on targeted, proactive outreach with a series of buddy e-mails and bylined articles. As a result of our efforts we secured coverage with Publisherís Weekly, Red Herring, Reuters, NPR, TicketNews.com and Billboard.
- Seattle-based Attachmate had several successful product launches this year including a new family of products called FileXpress, which is targeted at the managed file transfer market. We secured coverage in technology publications such as Network World, IT Jungle and IBM Systems Magazine. In addition, we continue to help the company maintain strong relationships with key industry analysts from Gartner, IDC and Forrester.
- We helped launch the open beta of BuildAnApp, a do-it-yourself mobile application development solution for one of our newest clients, Mobile On. We were able to create some early buzz for the company with key placements in MocoNews.com, PC World and Wall Street Journal. Weíre excited to officially launch the company in 2010 and continue to provide counsel on social media activities.
Internal Milestones for the year included the following:
- In April we celebrated the publication of our book ’Strategic Public Relations: 10 Principles to Harness the Power of PR. The book continues to get positive reviews on Amazon and has recently been selected as required reading for a course on public relations. It was also reviewed in 2009 by PR Week: Costco Connection; University of Puget Soundís alumni magazine, Arches; and in the Oregon Quarterly.
- We participated in numerous speaking engagements throughout the year. A few of them included:
- Communicators Conference – The Changing Media Landscape and the Impact on Todayís Communications Professionals, May 6, 2009
- PR Works Show (Small Planet Radio), May 7, 2009
- Perkins Coie Madrona Twitter Conference 2009, May 13, 2009
- Business Wire Luncheon – The Changing Media Landscape, Jun. 4, 2009
- American Marketing Association, – Twitterphoria: Adding Twitter Power to Your Marketing Mix, Sept. 9, 2009
- Law Seminar International Social Media Law – Social Media Marketing: Anticipating Legal and Public Relations Issues to Maximize Benefit and Minimize Risk, Sept. 11, 2009
- Tacoma – Pierce County Chamber of Commerce – The Power of PR, Sept. 22, 2009
- Northwest Environmental Business Council, Social Media & Your Business, Oct. 7, 2009
- Tacoma – Pierce County Chamber EXPO Workshop, Oct. 20, 2009
- We wrote more than 111 blog posts and began using Twitter to drive traffic to our Web site as well as to clientsí online content and journalistsí articles.
- We joined the Council of PR Firms, an organization formed in 1998 with the goal of creating the first national association and a mission of advancing the business of public relations. More than 100 of Americaís leading PR firms are members.
- Lastly, we initiated the redesign of the Communiqué PR Web site. In October we began work with Susan Giordano and the team at GKD, a Seattle-based firm specializing in corporate branding, custom Web site design and product packaging.
As we look toward 2010, we want to thank those of you with whom we had the opportunity to work. We feel blessed to have a wonderful group of clients with compelling stories to tell, strong relationships with journalists around the country and world, and many other supporters.
The media landscape has changed dramatically over the past couple of years. During a time when many print publications and newspapers are experiencing tremendous challenges, Google announced it will offer publishers a new approach to presenting news online – through one single URL. The project, which is called Living Stories, was developed in partnership with The New York Times and The Washington Post as ’an experiment in presenting news, one designed specifically for the online environment.
This new tool will provide complete coverage of an on-going story in one URL. It will allow users to quickly navigate between news articles, opinion pieces and features without long waits for pages to load. According to The New York Times, Google has recently taken steps to ’project an image of itself as a friend to the industry. If Google deems this project to be a success, publishers interested in the project will be able to leverage it on their respective Web sites. They could also sell advertisements on those pages.
This new service could be a great tool for journalists looking for background information about certain companies, products or services. It will also be beneficial to companies looking to quickly get an update on breaking news and news surrounding their organizations. According to Josh Cohen, business product manager for Google News, having all the materials appear on a single page will help the page rank higher in Internet searches. Additionally, readers will be able to read an entire article without navigating away from the subject page, saving them time and hassle of managing multiple tabs and Web pages.
As public relations professionals continue to partner with journalists on stories, it will be interesting to see if tools such as the Living Stories project will be able to revive the publishing industry and keep online publications afloat.
2009 was the year of social media with social mediums such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, experiencing explosive growth as consumers increasingly turned to these networks for recommendations on products and services. In fact, a recent Razorfish survey of digitally connected customers found that 97 percent of their online experiences influenced their purchasing decisions. Some additional interesting data to consider:
- Facebook now has more than 350 million active users. Fifty percent of those users check their Facebook page every day.
- In October 2009, Twitter had more than 58.3 million unique visitors.
- LinkedIn has more than 53 million members around the world including executives from all Fortune 500 companies.
As we approach 2010, we believe social media will become even more ubiquitous and continue to evolve as more businesses and organizations leverage these mediums. Some key trends for 2010 that we anticipate on the horizon include:
- B2Bs will continue to leverage social media to drive sales and achieve business objectives.
- More business decision makers will look to social networks for information.
- Real-time search results will make social media content and posts more discoverable.
- Social networks are here to stay. We are going to see companies increasingly turning to social media to engage with and provide value to their target audiences.
For more information on how businesses can leverage social mediums such as Facebook and Twitter, revisit some of our past blog posts including:
On Mon., Dec. 14, Twitter began testing a new feature called Contributors. According to PC World, this new feature ’allows business users to manage how its employees post 140-character messages from a single account. Writer Ian Paul says this new feature indicates Twitter is ’interested in commercializing the service.
The primary focus of Contributors is to create a more authentic engagement for business accounts. It allows organizations to manage multiple contributors to their account to optimize engagement opportunities via Twitter. For example:
- With the Communiqué PR Twitter handle (@Communiquepr), multiple employees could contribute to the handle and post updates.
- If @CMMoffitt (Colleen Moffitt) was posting a tweet on the companyís behalf, then a tweet from @Communiquepr would include @CMMoffitt in the byline. Below is an example from Twitter:
The exact launch date has yet to be announced, however, the company says the Contributors feature will eventually be available to all business users through its Web site and through third-party clients such as Seesmic and HootSuite. Commercial accounts are expected to be rolled out by the yearís end. These accounts will be subscription services with some form of analytics incorporated to help businesses better leverage Twitter to reach out to consumers.
While some companies are adding employeesí initials to the end of the tweet to disclose the person behind the update, this new feature could mitigate issues surrounding transparency and enable users to ’get to know the real people behind the organization.
Do you have any thoughts on this feature? How do you think it will impact your business and your organizationís use of Twitter?
Weíd love to hear your thoughts. Leave us a comment or send an e-mail to [email protected].
Many of us have heard about the mistakes companies, such as Dominos and United Airlines, have made around crisis control. However, there seems to be a dearth of information about how companies can use social media in the right way for damage control during a crisis.
In late January, I am moderating a panel on ’Damage Control in Social Media: Discussing Effective Strategies for Turning Negative into Positive. The discussion will center on how companies can react to and prevent negative outbreaks on social media platforms.
Specifically, I plan to ask the four panelists to share their perspective on the following:
- What are the three or four most important steps a company can take around social media to prepare for a crisis?
- Once a crisis has begun, what can an organization do to effectively respond using social media? What are the best practices around leveraging social media for damage control?
- What strategies can be used to stop the negative news outbreak?
- How can businesses turn negative news into a positive situation?
- After a crisis, what can a company do to evolve its plan to be more adept in the future?
- What are some suggestions for integrated communications (social media with traditional PR activity) to prevent or control negative news?
- What percentage of a social media expense budget should be allocated to online crisis management?
The expert panelists include:
- Dolf Wittkamper, virtual worlds new business director with Philips Electronics;
- Ellen Leanse, head of enterprise marketing communications at Google;
- Robert de Haan, marketing director with Paypal Benelux; and
- Mike Moran, chief strategist and author on social media marketing
Please let me know if you have other questions that youíd like me to pose to these individuals. In early February, I plan to write a follow-up post on this topic to share what I learn from executives with these companies.
The conference, called Enterprise Social 2.0: RIP or ROI, will take place on January 27 & 28, 2010 at the Dorint Hotel in Amsterdam. I am looking forward to the event and suspect it will be a lively and interesting two days with people in attendance from around the world.
On December 1, Ward’s Dealer Business published an article from Jennifer Gehrt titled, “5 Tips for Better Brand Building.” This article provides insight on how auto dealers and auto makers can leverage digital assets to build brand awareness and increase loyalty with consumers.
Many dealers are striving to differentiate themselves and want to encourage consumers to purchase vehicles from them. It is now more important than ever for dealers to positively position themselves as the ’ideal place to shop for and buy a new vehicle.
Jennifer shares examples from companies including Volkswagen, General Motors (GM), Carter Subaru in Seattle and Honesdale Auto Mart in Pennsylvania.
To read the article online, click here. If you have questions about how to build brand awareness and leverage digital assets and social mediums to reach target audiences, contact us at [email protected].