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.
Last week, the 2009 CTIA Wireless IT and Entertainment conference came rolling into San Diego. For those of you who don’t know, CTIA is one of the largest mobile and wireless tradeshows in the country drawing users, carriers, developers and manufacturers together to discuss mobile business.
CTIA can be a fantastic platform to launch a product, establish thought leadership or drive awareness and buzz for a new company or service. We recently helped Mobile On, a company that empowers organizations to quickly and affordably create compelling smartphone applications that work across any platform – without any software development skills or resources, devise a strategy to build relationships with key industry analysts, educate them about the features and benefits and show them a demo of the company’s flagship product, BuildAnApp, which is expected to launch later this fall.
As a result of our outreach, we succeeded in securing six meetings for Mobile On and garnered insight on BuildAnApp from respected analysts with Gartner, Aberdeen Group, IDC, ABI Insights and J. Gold and Associates.
We leveraged briefings to secure press references and analyst quotes about the product and category. If you’re interested in learning more about how to get the biggest bang for your buck at tradeshows, check out our recent blog post entitled, “Are you Ready for Fall Tradeshow Season?” on this topic.
With PR, as with most things in life, it’s impossible to focus your energy everywhere. A strategic approach to PR means concentrating your efforts only on those areas that support your most important business goals, and building consensus for PR right from the start ensures that everyone will rally behind the specific plan you end up implementing later down the line.
As you consider leveraging PR to help you accomplish your goals, it’s critical that you gather support among key stakeholders in the organization. This means building support for PR as a strategic tool, some of the major PR activities you plan to implement, and the level or resources your organization is willing to spend on PR. By building consensus at the beginning, you eliminate the shots across the bow that will otherwise occur once you’ve developed your PR plan and have begun rolling it out. You can ensure that the specific plan you develop is in line with your organization’s resources.
If key stakeholders in your organization haven’t bought into PR you can expect them to raise questions later during the process. They may not understand why PR is a priority. Or they may not have bought into the importance of the particular program you develop, failing to understand how it will bring about the company’s business objectives. Suddenly you’ll be operating in fire drill mode, wasting precious energy responding to people’s complaints rather than proactively implementing your program to achieve the results you seek for your company.
To learn more about how building consensus with key stakeholders can benefit your organization, look for next week’s blog post, which will outline how building consensus can provide the opportunity to obtain additional ideas and understand objections that may not have occurred to you.
Excerpt from Strategic Public Relations, written by Jennifer Gehrt & Colleen Moffitt with Andrea Carlos
We recently reached out to science reporter Dan Vergano of USA Today to pitch a story surrounding the phenomenon of fuel slosh on behalf of our client Tecplot. As a result, we sparked his interest in writing and gained a mention of Tecplot in the article which appeared on Sept. 25 in the “Science Snapshot” section.
We connected Dan Vergano with Tecplot’s customer Dr. Sathya Gangadharan of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU) to discuss the phenomenon of fuel slosh, its affect on spacecraft and the aeronautical industry, and the university’s research around eliminating fuel slosh in spacecraft.
Fuel slosh is a term used to describe the movement of liquid within another object, such as a tank, which is typically experiencing the same rate of motion. Recently, ERAU determined how to simulate fuel slosh using computers versus physical lab tests and also validated that computational fluid dynamic (CFD) models can be used to research this phenomenon.
The article positions Tecplot’s customer, ERAU, in a very positive light and also includes simulation images from Tecplot. Dr. Gangadharan of ERAU commented, “It was a nice article and we are very thankful for the support.”
Click here to read the full article entitled, “Mercury Ready for a Rare Close-Up.”
As a University of Oregon alum it is not easy for me to acknowledge how impressed I am with USC’s head football coach Pete Carroll’s use of social media. The guy is doing a phenomenal job of galvanizing support for his players and team.
Consider this, today Carroll has more than 53,000 followers, and when USC running back Stafon Johnson (number 13) was badly injured in a weight room accident, Carroll provided updates on the situation via Twitter and called on people to show support for him. Specifically, he published the following tweets.
Oct. 2 – “how many follow Friday mentions can we get for @stafon13? Let’s leave no stone unturned!
Oct. 1 – “RT @stafon13 – Hay Twitt world its SJ feeling better & better by the hour with the love and support I appreciate this… Fight on”
Sept. 29 – “I’m visiting with stafon…he wants to say…he’s coming back and through his yrs as a Trojan he’s learned to be strong and fight on.
Another example of how Carroll is using social media includes his YouTube video blogs, which he posts regularly. See below for links to a couple of these blogs:
Video blog #4, UW Game Week and Ohio State recap, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ht_YKAAXnA
Video blog #5 – Overcoming Challenges, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sp1if8jRkss
Finally, I want to point out that Carroll appears to be deliberate about the information he shares. You don’t see him posting willy-nilly comments about politics, food, or what he is doing. He shares information about his team, other athletes, and trivia like the song of the day (#SOTD) that will resonate with this key audience – USC college students, faculty and staff as well as alum.
Although I am not a Trojan, I am impressed with how he is keeping the Trojans top of mind and securing support for the team. You can find Pete Carroll on Twitter at www.twitter.com/Petecarroll, on Facebook or check out his Web site http://petecarroll.com/
I believe more CEOs and leaders could learn from Carroll’s use of social media.
This graph (courtesy of www.twittercounter.com) shows how Carroll’s followers have grown from the week of July 4 through October 2.
In August, we wrote about a new Communiqué PR client, Aveso, Inc., in a post entitled, “The future of One-Time Password (OTP) Technology.” Since then, we have made good progress helping Aveso educate people about the merits of its technology, building the category and raising the company’s profile as a thought leader.
Specifically, in the past six weeks, we have been focused on writing and placing byline articles as well as securing conference calls with industry analysts following the security or credit card market.
Building and maintaining strong relationships with industry analysts is a great way to raise awareness of a company’s product and services, as well as secure third-party references for media and press materials.
I am excited to say we have secured 10 briefings with influential analysts following security and/or the banking industry with Gartner, Forrester, Frost & Sullivan and IDC among others. These individuals have been interested in the market opportunity and how Aveso’s flexible displays are being embedded onto bank cards so consumers can take advantage of OTP technology to prevent online identity theft and fraud.
In addition to our work with these analyst firms, we also have a number of byline articles in the works. To learn more about Aveso, please click here to read the contributed article we developed on behalf of Dennis Brestovansky, president and CEO, which was published by Electronic Design.
Reuters is a well-respected, influential news outlet. With 196 editorial bureaus in 130 countries and 2,400 editorial staff members, the newswire covers international news, regional news, politics, social issues, health, business, sports and media. A story placement with Reuters can provide a fantastic opportunity to raise the visibility of a company, establish thought leadership on a particular trend and gain credibility within a particular market.
Reuters’ stories are picked up by a variety of newspapers and online publications across the country and world, making them a compelling vehicle for reaching a very broad audience. However, the current economic climate and shifting media landscape are forcing reporters at the outlet to juggle multiple beats or cover very niche beats such as pediatric health or mobile and wireless.
In order to secure coverage with Reuters it’s critical to craft a compelling story idea that appeals to a broad audience or target market. We have found from our past experiences working Reuters that they’re typically interested in story ideas around trends that impact a broad audience or events and announcements that are disruptive to a particular market.
When approaching Reuters consider the following elements:
Establish a clear objective for the story – What is the purpose of the story you envision a Reuters reporter writing? Is it to establish thought leadership on a particular trend or market? Is it to displace a competitor? Raise awareness for acquisition? Establishing a clear objective will go a long way in helping craft a compelling story and help you determine which messages you want to communicate throughout the story.
Craft a compelling story with broad appeal – While big name companies like Microsoft and Starbucks may routinely land Reuters stories, smaller organizations and startups have an equal opportunity to garner coverage with Reuters. The key is to develop a story idea that demonstrates how a particular product or service will change the behavior of a broad audience or significantly impact a market. You might consider looking at trends in your particular industry, recent newsworthy events or upcoming events to determine if you can leverage these to help tell the story you envision.
Bring the story to life – Incorporate other elements to help bring the story to life. These elements could include industry data points or offering the perspectives of either a customer or market analyst to help validate the key points of your story.
Check out two recent stories we’ve secured with Reuters on behalf of our clients Dashwire and Digonex.