Archive for December, 2009

This chart from the Burueau of Labor is quite an eye opener.  Newspaper employment figures are at the lowest ebb in 50 years

We’ve been hearing about layoffs in newsroom, but it’s more than just the journalists.  This trend hits everyone working for a newspaper.  And to see it in graphic form like this really makes an impact. The numbers are back down to what they were in the mid fifties.

Brent Arends of Marketwatch asks: Can the news survive? Share prices have plunged across the board; many publishers are hemorrhaging money. Warren Buffett, a fan of the industryfor decades, now says he would not invest in it at any price.

Silicon Alley Insider says this is good news:  It’s a great opportunity. The next decade will give birth to new forms of reporting, more in tune with today’s technology and news consumption habits.

So how can we as PR people take advantage of this trend? 

• Be aware of the constantly changing news consumption habits.  
• Be proficient in the new technology that feeds these habits.

How will you take advantage of this opportunity?  Share your ideas with us.

Sally Falkow: your social media PR guide.

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Branded content will become an important part of PR in 2010:

Branded content is essentially a fusion of advertising and entertainment, says Wikipedia. Marketers upped the dollars spent on branded content in 2009 – double what was spent in 2008. Branded content snagged 32% of overall marketing, advertising and communications budgets. And the numbers are expected to jump significantly in 2010.

So what is branded content and why will it be a PR trend?

The notion of an advertiser or company producing some engaging content for the consumer in order to sell something is nothing new. That’s why soaps and sponsored radio shows did so well back in the 60s.

The Web 2.0 world is about permission and attention. People don’t want to have messages thrust at them. But they do want to communicate with companies and brands so they can get information they want or need.

The idea is to listen to online conversations and establish what interests your community. Is there a need for certain information? Can you creatively provide that info in an engaging way? Storytelling in articles, with images and video, is one of the best ways to produce branded content. And that’s a PR skill.

GroupM has partnered with Yahoo! to produce branded video content – 5-10 minute “webisodes” that usually feature story lines around a specific product (a show about someone driving cross country in a Toyota Hybrid, sponsored by Toyota, for example) with plenty of product placement.

Being able to creatively brand interesting and valuable online content that attracts readers and viewers might just turn out to be the shortest way to the consumer’s hearts and minds.

Early in December Google announced that they will be including real-time news and updates in their web search pages.  And soon after Yahoo followed suit.

How does this affect the news cycle and PR?  As you can see in this short video news items and Twitter/Facebook status updates are right at the top of the page when you do a search now.

So even though your website might not be on page one for the keywords and phrases relevant to your business or product, if you have content in Google News and Twitter you could show up right at the top of the page!

An increasing number of journalists are using Google and Twitter to find sources and sniff out stories. Other people’s content will be showing up in these real-time search results, so you should be thinking about how to get your news in there too.

Real-time search is just one more reason to make sure you have good quality content in the social web.

How can you socialize your news content?  This short video explains it well

A social media newsroom with news feeds gets the content out here.  Build a community of fans and evangelists on Twitter, Facebook and other social mews site like StumbleUpon so that they pass on the content and start conversations about your company and your brand

Social Media is no longer a fad, or something to try out.  It will become an integral part of PR programs in 2010.  And PR people have to master social media and use it strategically to be effective.
Nothing backs up  predictions like cold, hard facts. 

Joseph Thornly posted this graph from Google Tremnds that shows searches for public relations have been declining since 2004.  Interest in social media and social networking started to pick up in 2006, grew slowly  through 2007 and 2008 and really gained ground in 2009.  In December 2009 searches for social media and social networking passed the number of searches for public relations.  

The news reference numbers are just as interesting.    News about social media grew rapidly in the first half of 2009 and passed PR about mid year.  Social media and social networking are neck and neck in news volume.

Of course we don’t know who does the searches, or exactly what they’re looking for, but it does give some insight into what people are currently interested in.  And social media seems to be the winner. 

The Econsultancy report on social media and PR revealed that only about half of the companies who participated in their survey are “satisfied” with their agency’s level of social media and online PR knowledge. Only 13% are “very satisfied”.  More than one quarter are  dissatisfied – 16% being “mildly dissatisfied” and 11% “very dissatisfied”. 

It seems we need to up our game.  A poll of 450 PRSA Counselors Academy members listed mastering social media as one of the most important things for PR practitioners to do in 2010.

Learning how to do a social media strategy would be a good place to start.

Sally Falkow

Your social media and online PR guide

The Proactive Report

Follow me on Twitter

If you plan to increase your use of social media in the new year here are 5 tools that can help you be more effective

1. Feeds – The web isn’t about pages any more. It’s about streams, feeds and syndication.  RSS feeds are the blood vessels of the social web.  It’s how you read news updates from friends on Facebook and Twitter.  And since Google is now indexing real time content such as status updates and displaying them right at the top of a search results  page, it’s vital for PR people to understand feeds and search.  Feeds make it possible for your content to join the content stream on the social web.  
2. Monitoring conversations:  It is essential to have a good tool that can help you keep track of what is being said online.  You can do this manually with RSS technology. Set up a custom page at MyAllTop.com or use the latest premium version of NetVibes.com.  Take a look at a sample dashboard here.  And there are several good monitoring tools: Radian6, Filtrbox, Trackur, SM2 and eCairn. 
3. Measuring your progress:  You can use the  tools above to keep track of some of the stats you need to keep an eye on, but you also need to learn how to read your web analytics.  Google Analytics is free and it is an excellent system.   You need to know how many unique visitors you get, what days are best to post content, what content people read most, what sites refer traffic to you, etc.  Google Trends and Google Insights for Search can also provide valuable data.
4. A branded, interactive  video player that gives you analytics. Online video is growing at a rapid pace.  Networks, cable companies, marketers and technology firms are getting quite serious about online-video distribution.  A recent study shows that small businesses’ interest in online video has increased by 75% over the last year. (Marketing Profs)  eMarketer predicts that online video will jump by 40% in 2010.  Aand while it is important to have your video content on YouTube – now the 2nd largest search engine after Google – thnk about the value of having your conten on your website in a branded payer that offers the ability to add information, trackable links, buttons to a shopping cart or EBay and back-end analytics, so you can see how many people watch the video, how long do they watch, where do most people leave.  Check out Veeple.  And read Greg Jarboe’s book Video Marketing an Hour a Day
5. A Social Media Newsroom.  Once you have content flowing in the social stream, create a space on your website where it can all be easily found and searched. Bloggers and journalists are under immense pressure today.  They don’t have the time to figure out where your content is.   They might run acorss one piece of content in a search or see it on Twitter. But if they want to find out nore they will visit your website.  Make it easy for them to find everything you have and dead simple for them to take it and use it. Our recent survey shows that about 65% of companies and agencies have some form of newsroom online.  Now is the time to upgrade to a social media newsroom.  Offer your content in social media format – give them multi- media elements with the embed codes right there.  Offer a custom search function that searches your social content.  Give links to all your other social profiles and pages.  Let them save and share your content with just a click.

Ther are many other tools and platforms out there, but these are the 5 social media tools I recommend to get you off to a great start in 2010.

A case study about their 72 hour fare sale

The trick to good PR and social media measurement is to work very closely with the online marketing team.  Learn to use tracking links and landing pages for each press release and social media channel.  That way you can track the results and the success of each activity.

This sale was so successful that the traffic shut down the southwest.com site.  Southwest rankied on Google Trends and a trending search term. $25 fare was the lowest fare in their history – and saying that their fare was the same as others charge for bags!

The sale resulted in 5000 bookings . Twitter and Facebook were about 80% of the bookings. Employee email came in next with 18%.

The PR department has produced a simple one-sheet report that goes to the CEO each month that shows major points – followers and fans, messaging, commenting, perceptions about the brand.

Shabbir Safdar is giving tips about how to monitor and deal with a crisis online.

Content that  gets posted online stays online.  Forever.  If Google sees it as the most relevant content it will still be there years later. You can move it off page one by posting lots of positive content.

Ben Popken’s (Consumerist.com) 3-step systen for fixing a corporate gaffe:

1. Admit you were wrong
2. Stop doing the wrong thing
3. Make a material gesture of apology

A good example is Circuit City and Mad Magazine. When Mad did a spoof on Circuit City was badly handled and it hit the AP wire. The communication department then dealt with the crisis in a very smart way – they did a ‘mea culpa’ in a very amusing way and the AP update was very postive.

Motrim Moms – some moms got offended and it escalated online.  (Tip:  Use Google insights for search to see spikes of searches for your brand.)

How to do it wrong.

• Attempt to suppress some statement online.  Particularly criticism, parody or satire, which are protected by the 1st Amendment
• Cease and desist letters – those who try to suppress content online only make them more popular
• Enforce your trademark like a bully.  (You get bonus points for picking on brand evangelists!) 
• Talk about the critism publicly – repeat the allegations or criticism
• Refuse to acknowledge a burgeoning crisis
• Go silent on all fronts – don’t put out any other content

PR should make partnerships with customer service and legal.  Good customer service can avert crises – for example if United had admitted wrong doing and apologized the video about United Breaks Guitars would never have seen the light of day.

Educate legal and customer service – show them some case studies.  Work out a plan ahead of time. 

And build a community of fans before you need them.

Anne Carelli, Digital Comm Manager for Coke is talking about their social media activities

Several years ago Coke realized that Coke.com is not their home page – it is Google.com, digg.com and YouTube.  Take the time to keep abreast of what is showing up for your brand in thee new social sites and search engines.

New mantras that have arisen out of social media-

1. Fish where the fish are.  Don’t build new communities and micro sites.  Go where the people already are.
2. Keep fans first

Cokes social media strategy revolves around 4Rs

1. Review – listen to what’s being said
2. Respond – what to respond to and who should respond. Be accurate and transparent.
3. Record – create more compelling video content. People are 7 – 10 times more likely to click on a video than text.
4. Redirect.  Search and SEO are very important. Make sure the right content is found when people search.  User generated content is getting more search attention.

Yesterday when Anne won her award for Digital Communication she said that if she were given an extra $500 000 to spend she’d put it into SEO and video.

Coke’s new social media program for 2010 is Expedition 206 - Happiness Goes Around.  They conducted a search online for 3 young people to be Happiness Ambassadors.  They’ll  travel to 206 countries in 365 days and report back on what makes folk happy in each place.  They’ll be blogging and tweeting as they go.

  Stay tuned and watch how this program rolls out.

More about the program on Mashable

Sam Ford of Peppercom:

Listen at all opportunities – make every moment a listening moment. We’re talking to our customers all the time but are we listening?

We have new media platforms – blogs, Twitter, Amazon, Yelp and Get Satisfaction. Everyone is a publisher. Technology has changed the way people communicate.  It’s changed the way we find news and information.  It’s changed the source of influence.

Now that the customer has a voice and a publishing platform customer service issues become PR issues.

You can use new media platforms to do traditional PR activities – like surveys.  You can do online focus groups.  Communispace is one way to build an online community for focus groups.   These are managed conversations.  And you should be listening to organic conversations as well.

How does listening help a company?

• Product development – getting insights from your cusotmers can help improve products
• Improve customer service
• Solifying/Adapt messaging
• Crisis Preparation
• Outreach
• New Business opportunities
• Finding new audiences/markets

Learn to share information internally. Set up systems so that different departments can listen and share what you find.  Who are the stakeholders internally that need to share this info?  Make a comm chart that connects these people.

Questions:

Who should you respond to?  Look at their motivation, is it isolated or is it gathering comments, how prominent is the blog, what is their traffic, who links to them – all these things will give you a sense of their influence.

I am in Washington DC today at the PR News How-To conference.  The first session starts at 9 am with How to Listen to your Stakeholders.  The trainer is Sam Ford Director of Customer Insights, Peppercom and he will cover: