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.
It seems you can’t open a newspaper or turn on the TV without someone talking about the inevitable future of self-driving (autonomous) cars. Forget stressing over parallel parking – take your hands off the steering wheel and your car will do that for you in the future, if it’s not already!
Just like computers, cell phones, and even household appliances, cars are becoming more connected and intelligent than ever before. Whether your vehicle can provide you with better visibility when merging into traffic, or enable you to engage with Amazon’s Alexa from the road (coming to BMWs soon!), your car is the next internet-enabled device.
The types of technology enabling this transformation in the automotive industry are many, and varied. They can range from in-car Wi-Fi and “infotainment” applications embedded into your vehicle’s dashboard, to enhanced electric car batteries that provide longer range, to automated driver assistance systems (ADAS) that enhance vehicle systems for safer and better driving.
It’s not just the cool factor that’s pushing this intelligent vehicle momentum forward – there’s big money behind it as well:
- In November, Uber agreed to purchase tens of thousands Volvo XC90 SUVs, specifically modified for autonomous driving, between 2019 to 2021. “Right now, Uber’s ‘best guess estimate’ is that it will purchase around 24,000 vehicles. … the Financial Times estimatedthe purchase agreement could be valued at over $1.9 billion,” said Forbes.
- In March, Intel purchased Mobileye for $15.3B. Mobileye is a “maker of automotive vision technology used for advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and fully autonomous vehicles. The deal … would set up Intel as the premier provider of autonomous vehicle chip and machine-vision technology for the ADAS industry, which the company estimates will grow to $70 billion by 2030,” according to Computerworld.
- In February, Ford announced an investment of $1 billion over the next five years in Argo AI, a startup founded by former Google and Uber employees to further the development of autonomous vehicle technology. “Ford said its relationship with Argo AI … will combine its existing autonomous vehicle development program with Argo AI’s robotics and ‘startup speed’ on artificial intelligence software,” reported Computerworld.
The common denominator and underlying factor enabling all of this automotive innovation is data. Ultimately data will be the true competitive differentiator for car manufacturers that learn how to harness it.
To create and develop these technical advancements, car manufacturers need to capture and analyze an incredible amount of data. Our client Dell EMC has been front and center in discussing the evolution of data in today’s automotive industry and the impact that data will have in shaping the business models for the industry in the future.
We recently conducted a series of briefings with Dell EMC’s Varun Chhabra, senior director of product marketing for storage (cloud, object and file) and analytics to introduce Dell EMC to the key automotive trade media.
Communiqué PR secured Varun as a guest for a podcast with Ron Hesse, chairman and CEO of Global Auto Industry, which provides information and resources for automotive suppliers, particularly for executives responsible for international operations or development. The podcast was shared via AMN (After Market News), which reaches approximately 20,000 automotive aftermarket industry professionals, and the Automation Alley daily newsletter, which is distributed to 4,000 members and media
You can listen to the podcast, “The Global Auto Industry’s Big Bet for 2018 and Beyond? … Big Data” to learn more about Dell EMC’s work in the automotive industry.
We also spoke with James Amend, a senior editor of WardsAuto, and John Larkin, publisher of Automotive Industries.
Wards Auto has covered the auto industry for more than 80 years. Its flagship product is WardsAuto.com, a comprehensive online resource and community filled with unique news, data and analysis, with full access available as a premium subscription. The online publication gets around 170,000 unique visitors per month.
Automotive Industries provides manufacturers and suppliers with in-depth news, information, insight and analysis on the global events that affect the auto industry. Interestingly, it is the world’s oldest continually published trade publication covering the automaking business. It was founded in November 1895 as “The Horseless Age,” the first magazine created to cover the world’s transition from horse-drawn conveyances to those powered by the new internal combustion engine.
It has been fascinating to work with the team at Dell EMC and to learn more about how these emerging technologies (and the data that power them) will affect what and how we as consumers drive and can expect from connected car innovations.
When conducting a search on Google, how many o’s in the Gooooooooooooooogle do you actually go through? If you’re anything like me, probably two or three tops. Have you ever noticed how the most reputable websites are listed on the top of the page? Have you ever wondered why the top result of your search for “chocolate chip cookie recipe” is bettycrocker.com and not some random undiscovered food blog? The answer all has to do with Domain Authority.
So, what exactly is Domain Authority?
Domain Authority, by definition, is “a search engine ranking score developed by Moz that predicts how well a website will rank on search engine result pages (SERPs). A Domain Authority score ranges from one to 100, with higher scores corresponding to a greater ability to rank.” Moz combines over 40 elements including the number of links to the site, links from the site to other reputable sites, age of the site and other factors to produce a single score. This score determines how well a website will perform on a Google search, aka, how high up on the results page a website will appear.
How do you improve a website’s Domain Authority score?
Unfortunately, Domain Authority is rather difficult to influence. Because Google uses more than 200 major ranking factors in its algorithm, a metric that combines all of these factors into a single score is complicated to manipulate. This being said, it is still possible to change it over time. The No. 1 priority for improving a website’s Domain Authority should be to increase the number of quality links back to the website. If there are numerous links back to the website on other sites, it tells Google that the website has valuable information worth linking back to and therefore should be located high up on the results page.
To provide some context, a top-tier publication like the New York Times has a Domain Authority score of 100/100, while a travel blog like the GeekyExplorer has a score of 35/100. Judging from the information presented above, this makes sense. The New York Times has thousands of websites linking back to it on a daily basis and is proven to produce content that is worthy of being shared and referenced. While the GeekyExplorer also has fantastic content, it is relatively unknown compared to the New York Times and does not have many other websites backlinking to it. If the New York Times were to reference the GeekyExplorer in an article, this would be a step in the right direction toward improving the 35/100 score. While Domain Authority cannot change overnight, monitoring of the score constantly, publishing consistently good content, and most importantly, patience will help your website’s Domain Authority to grow.
Why does Domain Authority matter for public relations?
Domain Authority can be the key to understanding which publications to target when trying to place content or drive links back to the client’s website. The average Domain Authority score is around 40/100-50/100 with scores of 60/100 or above considered fairly good. Naturally, PR pros will want to target outlets with a high score because a higher score is quantifiable evidence to support the apparent quality of an internet site. The outlets that have a high score will rank highly in a Google search and therefore will receive the most web traffic. What’s the use of placing an amazing article if no one will be able to find it?
Where can you find Domain Authority scores?
Moz, the creators of Domain Authority has made it incredibly easy to find any website’s Domain Authority. Simply go Moz’s website and use the Open Site Explorer tool to insert the URL of the website you want to know the Domain Authority of, press calculate and voila! A score of x/100 will appear. Another free option is the MozBar which is a Google Chrome extension that gives you a website’s Domain Authority score in the upper right corner of the webpage automatically, without pressing a button or inserting a URL. If you choose to pay for a premium account with Moz, you will get more detailed information about how that score was calculated and recommendations on how to generally improve your website’s SEO.
The art of the media pitch is a difficult skill to master. Media pitching begins with a newsworthy story, customized media list and, typically, a strategically crafted email. After delivering what you think is a brilliant, personalized pitch, reporters may take hold of the idea or may not even respond. Many PR pros debate the question of whether to follow up or not after a lack of response. Reporters and journalists, in most cases, do not have time to respond if they are uninterested or if the pitch came at the wrong time.
So, should you make a follow-up call? Do you send another email? What’s next?
Inbox overload. Emails can often fall through the cracks. Journalists and reporters can receive hundreds or thousands of emails per day. If they didn’t respond, don’t assume they aren’t interested. Refresh their memory in an engaging way, such as including a trending data point or reframing your hook.
A second chance. A follow-up call allows you to reframe your pitch. If they didn’t respond well to the original pitch, change your angle and try to reframe your pitch in a different or more newsworthy way. Do your research on each journalist and tailor your story according to his or her particular beat or content produced on the media outlet.
Assignments change. Journalists often switch beats and cover a variety of topics. You may have caught a reporter at a time when he or she is not interested, but know a colleague who would. Make the call to reach the right contact.
Relationships are key. It’s much more memorable to hear a name over the phone than reading it over email. Using follow-up calls can not only secure placements for your clients but can help create a relationship between contacts you only slightly know or with whom you still have yet to connect.
Persistence pays off. I speak from experience, most recently with two different outlets (print and broadcast) of which I applied all of the above tips over the course of five months. Had I not picked up the phone and connected with these journalists several times throughout this engagement, I would not have been able to secure the coverage.
By way of a continued conversation, I was able to confirm their interest, arrange briefings with spokespeople, and provide localized data to round out their stories. Given the investment on their side, I continued to respectfully follow up in an effort to see the finished product through. And, it worked!
It’s no breaking news that social media plays an integral role in today’s business and personal interactions. In 2017, social media took on a new role in reporting, both in the political and corporate arenas, forever changing the “social norms” associated with social media.
As companies plan marketing campaigns for 2018, strategically intertwining marketing efforts with social media activities is guaranteed to be a successful best practice to help companies interact with its target audiences, increase website traffic, attract new talent and simply boost engagement with its current customer base.
Below are four social media trends that both Inc. and Entrepreneur have reported as on the “must watch” list for 2018:
Instagram Stories are in. In 2017, users experimented with Instagram stories. After working out the kinks and quickly ridding doubt, consumers, business influences and celebrities moved away from Snapchat and fled to Instagram’s “Story” feature to promote new products, share glimpses into daily-life activities and more. Now over 200 million individuals use Instagram Stories each month, if this trajectory continues, nearly half of all Instagram users will be using Instagram Stories by the end of 2018. For companies looking to boost engagement with its target audiences on Instagram and hire new employees, Stories present a great opportunity to showcase product innovations and company culture – a feature that is crucial in attracting new talent.
Facebook is ditching the desktop. Unlike predominantly mobile-accessed social media like Snapchat and Instagram, Facebook was originally designed for use on a laptop or desktop. 2017, however, saw an increase in mobile engagement with 88 percent of Facebook’s advertising revenue for Q3 2017 derived from mobile advertisements. In addition, Facebook Live and subtitled videos – content that caters to individuals scrolling through their newsfeeds on mobile devices or tablets, in most cases without headphones or volume – increased in popularity from consumers, celebrities and corporate brands. In 2018 Facebook videos will continue to rise in popularity, and by 2020, experts predict that nearly 60 percent of users in the U.S. will access Facebook using mobile devices. This immense increase of traffic to Facebook mobile presents a great opportunity for companies to get visual content on the social media platform.
Augmented reality (AR) should not be overlooked. In 2017, Snapchat entertained users with AR by combining its 3D Bitmoji and World Lens features to experience their Bitmoji on the screen in front of them. Similar to this use case, this year Wayfair – the home furniture and décor company – integrated AR into this mobile application through its “View in Room” feature, letting shoppers view the furniture in their homes before making a purchase decision. Next year, the AR market is expected to grow to 200 million users, an increase from just 60 million users in 2013. Just as Apple has integrated AR face recognition to unlock its new iPhones, social media platforms will continue to experiment with AR as a way to increase market share and create new opportunities for companies to build following and interact with them.
Influencer marketing is worth the investment. Listed on nearly all of the 2017 marketing predictions lists over the past year, influencer marketing continued to increase in popularity among B2C and B2B businesses because of the added customization and flexibility these programs provide companies for recruiting brand advocates and interacting with customers. In 2018, businesses are going to increasingly coordinate influencer marketing efforts with social media activity. This synchronization will help design brand advocacy programs that add value to customers and help businesses achieve their overarching objectives. Influencer’s activity on social media will continue to grow in popularity as companies turn away from traditional advertising methods to connect with new audiences such as Generation Z who are quickly entering the workforce and becoming more active consumers.
When putting the final touches on social media calendars for 2018, consider these four trends. If utilized properly, they can help boost advertising efforts and increase engagement through maintaining a regular stream of visual and interactive content.
Did your company experiment with any of these social media approaches in 2017? Are they on your radar for 2018? If so, please share in the comments below!
Speaking from experience, blogging can sometimes seem like a daunting task. Finding topics that your readers will view as interesting is challenging and then developing them into posts that maintain someone’s attention and adds value can sometimes feel nearly impossible. However, blogging is an impactful tool that provides a platform to highlight results, share perspectives on trends, increase SEO and create content to leverage for social media.
But with other deadlines knocking on your door, you may be finding yourself wondering how much value blogging will add to your business. Is it really worth your time? Well, to address your questions I did a little digging to uncover and illustrate the benefits of blogging.
If you haven’t jumped on the blogging bandwagon yet, here are a handful of stats that will inspire you to add this strategy to your 2018 plan.
- B2B marketers that use blogs get 67 percent more leads than those who do not. (Source: HubSpot)
- 82 percent of marketers who blog get positive ROI from their inbound marketing activities. (Source: HubSpot)
- Companies that blog get twice as much traffic from their email marketing than those who don’t blog. (Source: HubSpot)
- 1 in 10 blog posts are compounding, which means organic search increases their traffic over time. (Source: HubSpot)
- 94 percent of people who share posts do so because they think it might be helpful to others. (Source: nymarketing.com)
If those numbers have convinced you to start blogging, here are several tips to keep in mind as you begin to build out your blog:
- Use your blog as a portfolio for your work. Develop case studies or write about a successful campaign to not only highlight your company’s ability to deliver results, but also as a way to build a portfolio that you can easily refer to in the future.
- Be consistent. Develop a blogging schedule that is consistent, yet realistic. People are hungry for content, so the more content you can share the better, however, be thoughtful in your approach.
- Keep your blog top of mind. This is a skill I am always trying to work on, but one of the things I’ve observed from some of the best bloggers at our firm is that they are constantly thinking about how something can be turned into a blog post. The topic could be inspired by a social movement, a conversation you had with a colleague at lunch, an interesting article you read, or even a struggle you are facing. Point is, there are topics all around you – you just have to be able to recognize them.
Adding another item to your to-do list is always intimidating, especially one that will require time and creativity. However, if you don’t already have a blog, or have a blog but don’t share content consistently, seriously consider adding the strategy to your 2018 plan – the added benefits and impact on your business will be worth it.
Imagine sending out a tweet, going to bed, and waking up to 53,000 replies. That is what happened to actress Alyssa Milano when she decided on the evening of Oct. 15, 2017, to send a tweet in support of her friend who had been assaulted by Hollywood mogul, Harvey Weinstein.
Alyssa Milano’s Tweet read, “If you’ve been sexually harassed or assaulted write ‘me too’ as a reply to this tweet.”
The impact of this single tweet was enormous. By Oct. 16, Twitter confirmed to CNN that people had used the hashtag in tweets more than half a million times and within 24 hours, nearly five million people on Facebook used the hashtag.[1] Facebook soon reported that 45 percent of its U.S. users had a friend who had posted using the term.[2]
Now, Time magazine’s editors have selected the #MeToo movement and the people behind it (The Silence Breakers) as the Person of the Year for 2017. However, the “Me Too” movement is not entirely new: Tarana Burke, an activist and supporter of victims of sexual abuse named her movement “Me Too” in 2006. She coined the term to show support for the girls and women in her community who have experienced sexual violence and viewed “Me Too” as a way to show empathy and solidarity for what they’d been through.
Burke never anticipated “Me Too” would be such an instrument of change, but Milano’s tweet galvanized women in a manner that was unprecedented. Clearly, there were myriad factors that played a role in birth of this movement:
- The year began with the 2017 Women’s Marches across the nation to push for legislation and policies supporting human rights, women’s rights and other issues.
- Journalist Ronan Farrow deeply investigated Harvey Weinstein, and while NBC initially passed on running his story on grounds it was incomplete, he did more work on it and took it to The New Yorker which published it on Oct. 10.[3] (This once again demonstrates the power and value of investigative journalism. For more on this topic, please see my blog The Importance of Investigative Journalism.)
- Finally, social media and #MeToo gave many women the opportunity to identify themselves as the victims of inappropriate or unwanted sexual attention, abuse or violence — which emboldened many others to come forward.
According to academics, social movements have a life cycle. They have a period where they emerge, coalesce, grow, achieve success and then dissolve and it makes one wonder at what stage we are today. Will the #MeToo movement continue to grow? Will this movement have a longer-term impact on workplace and societal norms? It is true that many prominent men have lost their jobs, but will there truly be lasting change? And if there are changes, what metrics will measure them?
While there has been significant analysis of the effectiveness of boycotts, it can be challenging to determine their effectiveness, in part because it is hard to determine the specific objectives of the individuals participating in them. Can’t the same be true for the #MeToo movement?
I hope this is not the case. All people deserve the opportunity to work in an environment that is free from harassment and the abuse of power. Furthermore, individuals who have abused their power should not be in leadership positions in business, government, or in our community.
As Abraham Lincoln said: “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” Shouldn’t our leaders be people of upstanding character? Otherwise, who wants to follow them?
For more about Time magazine’s Person of the Year and the #MeToo movement, please check out these articles:
- Washington Post – #MeToo? In 80 years, no American woman has won Time’s ‘Person of the Year’ by herself
- Time Magazine – The Story Behind the Woman You Don’t See on TIME’s Person of the Year Cover
- CNN – How #MeToo could move from social campaign to social change
[1] CNN, Cassandra Santiago and Doug Criss. “An Activist, a little girl and the heartbreaking origin of ‘Me too”.
CNN. Retrieved December 7, 2017.
[2] France, Lisa Respers (October 16, 2017). “#MeToo: Social media flooded with personal stories of assualt”.
CNN. Retrieved December 7, 2017
[3] Puente, Maria (December 1, 2017) “After Matt Laurer firing, NBC chief Andy Lack faces more questions about a network in crisis”.
USA Today. Retrieved December 7, 2017.