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.
Social media is changing business. Twitter enables anyone to broadcast anything to millions of people in an instant. The short 140 character updates seem casual, yet the impact of one message can have significant and sometimes drastic implications. Known brands such as Ketchum, JetBlue, Southwest and Domino’s have all learned first-hand the effect Twitter can have on their reputations.
With more than 25 million users on Twitter according to TechCrunch, some of your employees, customers and partners are tweeting and chances are that your brand, company name or competitors are being mentioned. Do you know what is being said and how it’s impacting your brand?
So what can you do to protect your reputation, brand and image? In addition to securing your brand or company’s preferred Twitter handle immediately, below are some steps you can take now.
Here are a few initial tips:
1. Be an Active Listener. At minimum ensure someone (or multiple people depending on the size of your company) within your organization is monitoring Twitter and other social media to know what is being said about your brand, company and competitors. This can be done tactically via existing advance search capabilities or tools such as TweetBeep. For more strategic listening platforms check out Forrester’s recently published The Forrester Wave: Listening Platforms, Q1 2009 which can be downloaded for free from Visible Technologies home page http://www.visibletechnologies.com/ .
2. Become a Twitterbug. If you are not using the medium – start. You cannot understand it if you have not tried it. Forrester’s George Colony has a good post on this, “How can CEOs understand social technologies?” There are numerous articles and resources online providing a Twitter 101. Once signed up, I found TweetDeck to be extremely easy to use and easier to use .
3. Educate your Employees. Just as spokespeople receive media training, your employees (who now all have the potential to be informal spokespeople) need to be informed on your company’s business objectives, key messages and target audiences. They also need to receive coaching on the impact their seemingly causal posts can have and the perceptions of those updates can create. A Ketchum employee realized the impact of his tweets when an update jeopardized his company’s relationship with key client FedEx.
4. Update your Crisis Communications Plan. With the pace of communications today, executive management does not have days to discuss how to respond in the face of a crisis. Failure to respond or address a crisis within hours can make it impossible for a company to contain the issue, and as we saw with Domino’s, can significantly damage reputations. Having an established communications plan that outlines how the company will address potential crises will enable a company to react in a timely manner.
5. Build Your Following Now. Don’t wait for a crisis to begin using Twitter. Establish a loyal base of people who care about your company or organization today. Then, as Paul Goodrich, Madrona Venture Group, explained at the Perkins Madrona Twitter Conference, when a crisis happens, you can have them help you respond. Loyal followers may even deflect the issue without a corporate response.
Twitter is still relatively new. I believe we will continue to see changes, and more tools that help businesses leverage this medium and analyze trends and information shared via Twitter. However, it is becoming mainstream and companies cannot afford to sit on the sidelines and wait for Twitter to mature. Evaluate the strategies your company is employing to achieve its business objectives and determine how Twitter and other social media can help execute those strategies.
To ensure you are being thoughtful in approaching this medium, solicit input from your legal counsel in addition to PR and marketing experts. For more information please contact us at [email protected]
Corporate blogs can be an excellent way to establish thought leadership, build communities and drive additional traffic to an organization’s Web site. For example, since Communiqué PR started its blog in January 2008, we have seen a 200 percent increase in Web traffic and the blog has been a terrific way to give our clients additional exposure as well as educate potential clients about our work.
A blog also gives organizations the opportunity to engage directly with customers, partners and potential new employees. However, for a blog to be effective, the topics must be relevant, timely and continually updated to keep readers coming back for more. Potential blog topics ideally include corporate news, customer case studies, executive changes, commentary on industry trends, etc.
If your organization is considering creating a corporate blog, here are some steps to help you get started:
1. Identify two to three internal blog owners or champions. Ideally, these are individuals that can create blog posts and comment on other relevant blogs.
2. Develop a calendar of topics. This will help guide the direction of the blog and ensure the topics align with corporate communication objectives. As you develop this calendar make sure you think about how each post will add value to readers.
3. Establish a process for writing entries and updating the blog on an ongoing basis. This will ensure blog posts are written in a timely manner, well in advance of your publishing deadline.
4. Develop best practices for blogging and interacting with other blogs. This is an essential step in creating a corporate blog. For example, you may want to outline what company information can be shared, and what should remain confidential.
5. Be transparent. In the spirit of open communication, it is important to fully disclose your identity and intention when commenting on other people’s blogs.
6. Manage comments posted by readers. The blog owner should regularly monitor comments in response to his or her articles and respond appropriately.
7. Get others to link to your site. Finally, as you consider building relationships with other bloggers in your circle, you should consider asking them to link back to your corporate blog.
We hope you find these tips helpful as you prepare to create a blog. If you have a success story to share about your blog, please let us know. We would love to hear any additional steps that have worked well for you.
In a recent Advertising Age article, authors Marissa Miley and Michael Bush offered readers marketing tips for surviving the recession. They aimed to answer the question, “How are you (marketing executives) supposed to discern what is right for your brand?”
With a focus on providing tips from in-the-field professionals, Marissa and Michael garnered the perspectives of marketing executives at companies and organizations including Wunderman, Behance.net, Initiative, Barkley U.S. and McGarrybowen.
Here are a few high-level marketing tips we took away from the article that can also be applied to PR:
Connect with customers in a relevant and important way. The worst thing to do is completely go dark. – David Sable, vice chairman and chief operating officer, Wunderman
Evaluate your priorities and strategies. Ask questions such as: Is my current marketing mix really the best use of my resources? Should I focus on maximizing the profitability of my existing base or should I go out in search of new markets? – Stewart Owen, chief strategic officer, McGarrybowen.
Re-engage your rolodex. Now is a great opportunity to reconnect and strengthen your network. – Scott Belsky, founder and CEO, Behance.net.
Focus on your core customers and demonstrate your commitment to them. – Janet Fitzpatrick, worldwide director of communication and planning, Initiative.
Reward innovation. Dream of something people want that nobody else offers and then invest in that dream. – Brian Brooker, CEO and chief creative officer, Barkley U.S.
We thought these tips were spot on and wanted to hear more ideas, so we reached out to marketing executives across the country. Here are some additional guidelines that may help marketing executives weather the recession:
Make your Web site work harder. Now more than ever, businesses need to optimize the marketing potential their Web site holds, primarily through leveraging critical search terms that drive traffic – and new customers -to their doorstep. – Robert Oltnanns, president, Skutski & Oltmanns.
Market smarter, not harder with efficiency being key. Devoting dollars to areas such as social media is one great way to do this. It allows organizations to build visibility and brand awareness online without having to do a “buy” on a site or in a magazine. – Holly Matson, online marketing manager, Risdall Online Marketing Group.
Be creative and bold. The bolder (and smarter) you are, the more response you will get for less money. – John Follis, president and founder, Follis Advertising.
It is easy to see how these tips can be specifically applied to PR. For example, while it is important for marketing executives to be creative and bold in their ideas, PR professionals are also looking to approach media in fresh and creative ways. The changing landscape in traditional media and the rise of social networking are forcing PR professionals more than ever to be creative, bold and present relevant ideas.
Another one of the marketing tips that transcends to PR is the need to work smarter, not harder. Budgets are strained and organizations are looking for ways to tighten belts. From a PR perspective, we are working smarter, not harder, to provide organizations with the greatest return on their PR investment.
No matter if you are working in marketing, or specifically in PR, it’s probable that you are seeing the impact of the recession. We would love to hear from you and know what tips you have found most helpful. Write to us at [email protected] or post a comment below.
The power of Twitter is evident. For the first time an individual can broadcast a message to millions of people in an instant. But how companies will leverage that power to achieve their business objectives is not yet as evident.
I recently participated in a panel hosted by Perkins Coie and Madrona Venture Group focused on how businesses can leverage Twitter. The panel was moderated by Paul Goodrich and Ayush Agarwal from Madrona Venture Group. It was fascinating to hear from legal experts Tom Bell and Susan Lyon from Perkins Coie, and discuss the business implications with Avelle CEO Michael Smith, and Alaska Airlines’ Navin Mithel.
While there were numerous points of interest from this event, I want to highlight a few key points I believe companies need to understand when they engage Twitter.
1) Authenticity and Transparency – Be open and honest about who is twittering. If you claim the Twitter account is maintained by the CEO, be sure the CEO is the one tweeting. Social media is about relationships and honesty is fundamental to strong relationships. The Twitter profile should specify the organization or individual who is tweeting and what type of information they plan to include in their tweets.
2) Know your audience – Leveraging social media effectively requires clarity of who you are trying to reach, their needs and wants and how you can add value. Increasing your followers and ensuring they align with your communication goals and business objectives is dependent on understanding what information is valuable to your audience and how often they want to hear from you.
3) Compelling Content – Twitter is still evolving. The amount of information exchanged is daunting and clearly not all content is of interest. Those users that provide relevant and compelling information will attract followers, supporters and a large audience. Users who do not provide value or don’t communicate clearly will lose followers.
Business leaders also need to understand that expectations are changing. Consumers are starting to demand immediate responses to their tweets. Companies will need to change to adapt to the new level of expectations to compete. Those organizations that are perceived as accessible and responsive will build a loyal following that may become the front lines in deflecting negative tweets and promoting positive experiences.
I anticipate the Perkins Madrona Twitter Conference ë09 will be the first of many events as businesses look to learn how to leverage Twitter to help execute on their key strategies and accomplish their toughest business objectives.
Recently I presented at the 2009 Communicators Conference in Portland, Ore. My discussion focused on the changing media landscape and its effect on communication.
It was fun and interesting to talk about the changes I am seeing. With so much transition occurring in our industry, I think it pushes each and every one of us as communicators to be more resourceful as we look to tell our stories or our clients’ stories.
Clearly change can be frightening, and disruptive. However, with the right attitude and actions, I believe we can continue to find great opportunities.
I began my presentation by noting the changes in traditional media and then juxtaposed this with information about social networking sites, hyper-local news sites and consumer generated content. As part of this discussion I honed in on the stats surrounding Facebook and MySpace.
Clearly Facebook has come a long way from being a site for college kids. In early April, the social networking giant announced it surpassed 200 millions users world wide. Facebook also reports it has five million new people joining each week.
Twitter, the social media darling, is also very interesting. As an open network, it provides companies with an easy way to monitor public sentiment and engage with customers in a non-obtrusive manner. In 2008, Twitter grew an astounding 752 percent.
But what about MySpace? No one in my network uses it and I began to wonder about MySpace’s future. To get the most current stats for my presentation, I reached out to MySpace’s PR manager to request the latest user statistics. Here is the data about MySpace she shared with me:
- MySpace has more than 130 million monthly active users around the globe. (March 2009 comScore)
- MySpace has more than 70 million total unique users in the U.S. (March 2009 comScore)
- MySpace is the country’s most viewed site on the Internet. (March 2009 comScore)
- 89 percent of MySpace users are of voting age (18 or older). (March 2009 comScore)
- 40 percent of online Americans are on MySpace. In the UK, it’s as common to have a MySpace account as it is to own a dog.
- 70 percent of people visiting mobile social networks are visiting MySpace. (ABI Research)
- Internationally, MySpace hit 60 million unique visitors, beating September’s record of 54 million. (February 2009 comScore)
- Europe MySpace users surpassed the 29 million user mark, up 0.8 million unique users from August 2008.
- Latin America MySpace users are up 16 percent over the past seven months, reaching 6.8 million users in November 2008.
ENGAGEMENT
MySpace is the top social network in all engagement categories according to comScore. In March 09, users
- spent 16 billion total minutes on the site
- viewed 35 billion total pages
- spent an average of 226.2 minutes on the site
The company has localized versions in 30 regions across 15 languages, including:United States, U.K., Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Latin America (EspaÒol), Mexico, Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Australia, China, India, Japan, and New Zealand.
MySpace is one of the fastest growing Web sites of all time:
- 827 Billion rows of data
- 27 Billion comments on the site
- 34.2 Billion mails on the site total
- 41 Million mails per day
- Eight Billion friend relationships
- 6.8 Billion images
- 18 Million images uploaded daily
- 62,507 new videos uploaded to MySpace Video daily
- More than five million artists and bands are on MySpace Music
- Acts including Lily Allen, Sean Kingston, Arctic Monkeys, Colby Caillat, Dane Cook discovered on the site by users
The stats are impressive, but still there are a number of industry luminaries who believe MySpace’s future is limited. To better understand their perspective I recommend reading a New York Times article from May 3, 2009 entitled, “Losing Popularity Contest, MySpace Tries a Makeover.”
If you have a point of view on the future of MySpace, we would love to hear from you. Let us know what you think. Is the bloom off the flower? We welcome your perspective and/or examples of how you use MySpace.
While reading about Amazon’s recent launch of the Kindle DX, the large screen addition to the Kindle family, I was surprised to learn textbooks are a $9.8 billion dollar industry. In a bold move to become a major player in this market, Amazon introduced the Kindle DX in hopes of “spearheading a paperless revolution,” as described by Brian Chen with Wired.com in his recent article, about the launch of the DX.
Although Amazon’s cause to move towards a paperless revolution may be noble, its entry has been met with some initial skepticism. According to Chen, several of the students polled by Wired.com via Twitter expressed concerns regarding the DX’s expensive $500 price tag as well as its difficulty for studying. One polled student said, “I’d need five Kindles just to hold a single thought while writing essays. Books work just fine”
Regardless of this sentiment, Amazon is moving forward and announced partnerships with several universities and publishers. According to an earlier article written by Chen, the DX will be made available to students to use in place of textbooks.
From a PR perspective, I believe Amazon’s move to partner with universities is a smart one. It will allow the company to:
1. Secure feedback from students about their experience using the DX versus textbooks.
2. Begin building the DX customer base which may translate to lifelong Kindle users and advocates for the product.
3. Track and publicize the positive benefits to universities and students of going paperless – a topic that is close to the heart for a generation of young adults growing up in more environmentally aware society.
For example, Princeton, one of the participants in the program, is hoping the Kindle DX will decrease the amount of paper used on its campus. If the program is successful, Amazon should develop a case study to make the argument for other why universities should adopt the DX.
I had a few other ideas on how Amazon might leverage and publicize its partnerships with the universities.
– Hold Focus Groups & Publicize the Findings. Amazon could identify students to participate in focus groups. Several of the students could use the DX while others would rely on textbooks. This would allow Amazon to directly compare changes in behavior, attitudes around costs, impact on studying habits, etc. with students using the DX versus text books. Focus groups are an invaluable tool for acquiring feedback and the potential market acceptance of a product.
– Leverage Social Media. Create a Twitter page to share best practices for the DX and motivate users to tweet about their experiences online. I believe there is a huge opportunity to share tidbits about DX features so students derive maximum benefit from their readers and libraries.
– Reward Good Behavior. Hold a contest to identify and publicize the top environmentally-friendly universities across the nation. Share best practices for going green and the DX’s role in reducing paper use.
These are just a few of our preliminary ideas on how Amazon can leverage student experience to demonstrate the benefits of the DX versus traditional textbooks.
It is clear Amazon is seizing the opportunity to create a compelling PR campaign around one of the most talked about gadgets of the year. It will be interesting to see if it can deliver on driving the paperless revolution.