There’s more to PR than just media releases

Producers, editors and journalists are inundated with thousands of media/ press releases on a daily basis. Making your release stand out can often prove to be quite tricky. The article, Why press releases aren’t always the best way to get press on Technology and Web 2.0 discusses tactics that could be more useful.

75% of journalists find well-targeted, well-written news releases useful, according to a recent survey by Oriella PR Network, an alliance of 15 PR agencies from around the world.

As Jeremy Porter, author of Journalistics notes, this sort of information is pretty misleading. Do journalists prefer well-written, well-targeted press releases over poorly-written, off-topic ones? Well sure. Duh. But are press releases our preferred source for information? Do we really like getting them? Meh.

Porter suggests the following: “Take a break from this blog post and head over to one of the news wire services to read today’s headlines. Let me know when you find a release you’d like to write about it you were a journalist.”

Undoubtedly, the press release is in little danger of disappearing. But as Porter argues and I think most journalists would agree, there are better alternatives to getting our attention.

“You know what works better than a press release?” Porter asks. “Try having a real conversation with a journalist.” Pay attention to what topics we cover. Pay attention to how our publications work.

While a press release might cover every detail of your new product, service, hire, funding, or feature, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it will generate a good story – or any story at all, for that matter. Porter offers some other tips that he believes will be more useful:

To read full article CLICK HERE

Facebook: Put in the effort or what’s the point?

Digital Media’s Willem Reyners Tay’s article ‘Fashion Follies – When social media hurts, not helps‘ exposes how a company’s poorly managed Facebook account has become bad for business.

Social media has been proven to be a great tool to grow your business and connect with customers, but it also has the uncanny ability to surface poor business practices without fear or favour.

Sometimes it really makes you wonder why businesses have a social media presence at all, if they clearly don’t know how to use it effectively.

Take the case of Australian Fashion designer Shakuhachi. With a reasonably slick website one could be fooled into thinking the popular fashion brand was running a professional operation.

The sites terms and conditions also clearly state when customers should expect to have their items delivered. In fact for Australians, it should be the next day.

Given the clearly stated expectation, it is a little worrying to see so many negative comments on their Facebook page with no response from the company…

To read full article CLICK HERE

Blogger Generation Dominates Blogging

An analysis of more than 100 million blog posts found the most active bloggers are younger people who have grown up during the blogging “revolution”, which commenced around 2003. According to Sysomos.com, Bloggers in the 21-to-35 year-old demographic group account for 53.3 per cent of the total blogging population.

This group is followed by the generation just behind them – people 20-years-old or under are 20.2 per cent of the blogging landscape:

• ≤ 20 years (20.2 per cent)
• 21-35 yrs (53.3)
• 36-50 yrs (19.4)
• ≥51 yrs (7.1)

The difference between genders in the blogosphere is balanced with women making up 50.9 per cent and males 49.1 per cent of bloggers. This suggests the internet is a gender neutral environment.

When the analysis compared the number of bloggers to Twitter users by country, there were many similarities. The biggest difference was activity by U.S. users – more than half of the tweets come from U.S, Twitter users, while only a third of blog posts are from the U.S. The absence of bloggers from Indonesia and Australia within the top-10 is also interesting. In comparison, both countries rank among the top-10 of users within the Twittersphere.

Source: sysomos.com, June 2010

Social media success – Not bad for an Old Spice

There are no guarantees your social media campaign will become an instant hit. Discovering how to successfully reach and engage target audiences through social media channels is, for many businesses, a trial and error process.

In its most recent campaign, Old Spice has won over social media users, on a global scale. Marshall Kirkpatrick from Read Write Web looks into how Old Spice achieved such instant popularity in his article ‘How Old Spice videos are being made’.

How do you take the social web by storm in a day, winning over even the coldest of hearts and gaining international acclaim – with commercials?

A team of creatives, tech geeks, marketers and writers gathered in an undisclosed location in Portland, Oregon yesterday and produced 87 short comedic YouTube videos about Old Spice. In real time. They leveraged Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and blogs. They dared to touch the wild beasts of 4chan and they lived to tell the tale. Even 4chan loved it.

Everybody loved it; those videos and 74 more made so far today have now been viewed more than 4 million times and counting. The team worked for 11 hours yesterday to make 87 short videos, that’s just over 7 minutes per video, not accounting for any breaks taken. Then they woke up this morning and they are still making more videos right now. Here’s how it’s going down.

Setting the Stage
Old Spice, marketing agency Wieden + Kennedy and actor Isaiah Mustafa are collaborating on the project. The group seeded various social networks with an invitation to ask questions of Mustafa’s character, a dashing shirtless man with over-the-top humour and bravado. Then all the responses were tracked and users who contributed interesting questions and/or were high-profile people on social networks are being responded to directly and by name in short, funny YouTube videos.

The group has made videos in response to Digg founder Kevin Rose, TV star Alyssa Milano (now big on Twitter) and many more people, famous and not.

It is well done and it appeals to peoples’ egos – but there is something more, too. It feels very personalised, even if it wasn’t directed at you. Those people that got responses, and many people who didn’t, have Tweeted, Facebooked and otherwise shared links to the videos back out across their social networks.

Iain Tait, Global Interactive Creative Director at Wieden, is leading the effort. “In a way there’s nothing magical that we’ve done here,” he explained by phone this afternoon. “We just brought a character to life using the social channels we all [social media geeks] use every day. But we’ve also taken a loved character and created new episodic content in real time.”

How They Are Doing It
Tait says that the primary differentiator between this campaign and others is how closely technical and social media specialists are working with the creative team.

“We brought social media experts right into the creative process,” he told me. Tell that to the next person who claims that all so-called social media experts are just hot-air. Tait’s own savvy no doubt played a large role in the success of the campaign as well. He’s just been at Wieden for 3 months, after leaving a UK agency he co-founded 8 years ago. He was voted the Most Influential Person in the UK’s New Media Age Top 100 Interactive Agencies Guide last year.

To read full article CLICK HERE

Using Twitter for business: Engaging your customers online

People are often sceptical when we explain engaging in Twitter can really benefit their business. Creating a Twitter account for your business opens up opportunities for communication and attracts new customers for businesses – when managed correctly.

Twitter is an effective method of reaching your target audience in real time, however having a presence on Twitter and getting your desired audience to follow you are very different things. To get people to want to follow your business’ Twitter account it needs to present a personality and, like all business communications, a strategy for using Twitter needs to be put into place.

Create a personality
If your tweets come across as marketing ploys or if they are really promotional, followers will see straight through you. If you display an honest and interesting personality, followers will recognise that there is a real person behind your tweets. If they see this they might be more inclined to take note of what your business has to say.

To create a Twitter personality for your business:

Hold two-way communication
A common mistake people often make when starting out on Twitter is to broadcast messages rather than watching conversations people are having and joining in where possible.

When people follow you, follow them back and engage with them. You can tweet questions or interesting ideas that encourages a response from your followers. You can also tweet about events taking place in your office or events your staff may be involved in. Show that you’re listening to others by re-tweeting relevant tweets and replying to people.

Don’t use your logo as your profile picture
People find it harder to relate to a company when they use their logo as their profile photo. You can show the ‘human-side’ of your business by featuring actual staff photos on your Twitter account’s profile picture. If you really want to use your logo, position it as the background of your Twitter page.

A good tip for larger companies that have no choice but to use their logo, is to include your first name within individual tweets to keep the messages personal.

Devise a strategy that aligns with your communications plan
Engaging in Twitter should be an element of your business’ communications plan. You should have a Twitter strategy aimed at achieving a specific objective. There is no point having an account simply because everyone tells you, you should.

Factor the following into your Twitter strategy:

Tweeting
Decide what your business wants to communicate through Twitter. Messages do not all need to be specific to your company, followers will find respect your business more if you tweet about news and events within your specific industry.

Start by setting up a few Google News Alerts that will deliver you daily information about the topics you choose. You can then post interesting articles and topics relevant to your industry on Twitter. Ask open questions to engage stakeholders and potential clients and to get the conversation started.

The most valuable tweets are those that that share information about your field and offer comments on topical issues. This will build your credibility and encourage trust between your business and your followers.

Schedule
How often should your company be tweeting? It’s important that this is decided on as part of your strategy so employees responsible for Twitter know how often they should be tweeting. This will make sure that your Twitter presence is consistent on a day to day basis. Three to six tweets a day is recommended however this will depend on the conversations that are taking place on any given day.

Follow your target audience
Many of the people you follow on Twitter will follow you back. Try to follow your target audience by searching similar companies and publications within your industry and follow their followers. Your list will gradually grow over time by adding new people you hear about through others on Twitter. Follow people based on their interests, conversation topics, location, mention of your business or based on who they’re following (ie competitors or other stakeholders).

If you are transparent and honest your followers will return the favour. Twitter is a pool of business opportunities, enter it with a direction and presence and your business’ Twitter personality will flourish along with your business.

Pitching to a TV show

We were speaking to one of the producers of A Current Affair recently and asked them what they specifically look for in a pitch, because an idea that works brilliantly for print may never get picked up by TV and may leave you scratching your head as to why?

Here is some great advice on pitching to TV producers that might just get your business or client in the spotlight.

Images, images, images
Regardless of if it’s the evening news, a morning show or a current affairs program, if you want your story to get on TV you need to put some thought into the visuals. There is no point offering a media release on your great new product or survey results if there are no images to go with them.

Make it easy for the producer to say yes by suggesting a few different visuals they could use in relation to the story you’re pitching. This creates less work for them and more chance of success for you!

Keep it topical
If you’re aiming at news programs obviously a strong news angle will be required. Even if you’re pitching to a morning show or current affair program you will have the best success if you link your pitch to something topical. If the producers can relate your idea to a current story in the media it gives them more incentive to run with the idea.

Case studies and interviews
Real people add real interest. Rather than offering dry information or statistics, try to provide interesting case studies with people who are happy to be interviewed and suggest some related visuals to go with these interviews. Provide the producer with a rundown on the interviewee’s background and involvement, the juicier the better.

Be direct with your pitch
There is no time for beating around the bush. A producer will usually just skim the first few sentences of the hundreds of emails they receive daily so you want your pitch to stand out. Don’t wait until the third paragraph to get to the point.

News or promotion?
TV producers will start running if you’re pushing a product, an event or a business without a good hook. Your business should take a back seat to the actual story and keep in mind that any mention of your company is valuable but it is the story that will get you TV coverage. A good tip is to clearly state why the story you are offering is topical but different to others that have been run recently.

If you’re pitching to a story-telling show like Today Tonight or A Current Affair, try offering them a clear beginning, middle and end to your story as their audience appreciates a contained and interesting package.

Tips on how to secure coverage in national publications

With the amount of breaking news and interest stories that inundate journalists on an hourly basis, it can often prove quite difficult to secure media coverage in a publication, particularly in a national newspaper. 72point.com has come up with ‘20 Tips To Help You Secure National News Coverage’.

The golden rule to securing press coverage is to read the nationals every day – in print and online.

Only by understanding these publications can you hope to communicate with them in a way that can secure you coverage.

But to help you along the way, here are their top 20 tips:

1. The benchmark is what News Editors consider to be interesting, so remember to:

• Challenge or reinforce stereotypes: “Truckers have the best diets”  or “Blondes have more fun”
• Make a lifestyle statement: Death of the fry-up / The bath is making a comeback / Tea overtakes coffee
• Create acronyms
• Identify syndromes
• Split people into types / groups
• Calculate lifetime spends
• Find “the average Aussie”

2. Remember the product may be exciting to you but think: If you told one other person, would they pass the information on? How did your partner /friends respond when you told them about it?

3. Don’t forget the detail. The Five ‘Ws’ and one ‘H’ Who / Why / What / When / Where / How. If a journalist writes about a story they will want to know everything.

4. Make sure your intro is not over two lines long, and, where possible, that the copy follows the ABCA rule:

A) Is the opening paragraph. It has to be short, sharp and punchy - “Britain is in the grip of web rage, according to new research.”B) You have created the momentum with a hard hitting opening paragraph: now crank it up another notch with a powerful second sentence – “More and more people are getting wound up over the length of time it takes to download material.”

C) Third paragraph is the consequence opportunity - “Now one top web provider has appointed an online counsellor to sort out internet rows.”

A) Fourth paragraph can be used to support the attention grabbing opener with a ball-busting quote or knock-out fact - “The cyber-rage phenomenon e
merged from a survey of 3,000 computer-owning households by XXX”

5. When selling in over the phone, don’t make it sound like the most exciting story in the world.  It’s not likely to even be the most exciting story that day – remember you are talking to people who deal with the most dramatic and incredible stories in the world on that day. Again: DON’T OVERSELL.

To read the full article CLICK HERE

Can Facebook improve productivity and wellbeing?

As the social media phenomenon became more popular,  many employers were quick to take action to see that access to Facebook and Twitter sites was denied to their employees. Employers viewed social media applications as potential distractions and were fearful that if allowed, use of social media would result in a decreased rate of productivity.

A recent article on Bigpond News begs to differ saying ‘Social media improves productivity‘ based on the findings of a new book about wellbeing.

Managers beware. Ban Facebook at your peril.

This is one finding from a new book on wellbeing, which says employers need not fear social media as it can actually help improve productivity.

Wellbeing: The Five Essential Elements, to be released later this month, draws upon Gallup Consulting research from more than 150 countries.

The study identified five essential elements to overall wellbeing – career wellbeing, social wellbeing, financial wellbeing, physical wellbeing and community wellbeing.

The book’s co-author, Tom Rath, says a person thriving in all five elements will be a better employee.

‘What’s best for the individual as we look across those five elements is by no means in disagreement with what’s best for the organisation,’ Mr Rath said in a video message played to journalists at the book launch in Sydney this week.

‘As individuals and work groups and organisations invest in the well-being of their employees, the families that surround the organisation and the markets they serve as well, that also results in substantial financial returns for the organisation and communities.’

According to the book’s finding, part of the reason blocking Facebook and Twitter at work may prove detrimental is that people need about six hours of social interaction a day, whether they are introverts or extroverts.

To read full article CLICK HERE

Why engage in B2B social media? Look at the stats…

The Where to Get it Team have posted the article, ‘Social Media Relevance for the B2B Marketer’. This article outlines why B2B companies are spending less on marketing and focusing more on social media.

In today’s economy B2B companies are decreasing their marketing dollars and spending more online. A recent survey by B2B Magazine revealed that over 48 percent of those surveyed were increasing their online marketing spend. So what makes social media so effective? Social media allows companies to relate to one another in an out-of-the norm way that builds relationships and helps bypass the stiffness of traditional sales contacts. In a recent study of B2B technology companies, done by KnowledgeStorm, it was revealed that:

• 90 percent participate in video
• 80 percent participate in blogs
• 80 percent participate in wikis
• 69 percent Participate in social networks
• 53 percent Participate in podcasts

In the same study, reportedly 69 percent of B2B buyers use social networks “primarily for business networking and development.” So if over half the businesses surveyed are doing it, why aren’t you? For starters, B2B companies should get involved in social networks where their customers already are- to learn what’s going on and to monitor your competitors as they engage. In this way, businesses can begin to explore opportunities to reach key influencers in your target market and learn how to optimise your brand for social media applications.

Social Media Allows Companies To:
• Share/disseminate knowledge and expertise
• Position yourself as a thought leader/contributor
• Tap into the trends of what your customers are doing/saying
• Engages prospects through a less sales-focused medium (lower pressure atmosphere)

To read the full article CLICK HERE

Social media – Act now, not later!

The internet has become an integral part of the business environment.

From a public relations perspective it is important to ask which channels are best suited to reaching your target audiences. The answer for many businesses will be the internet.

Many businesses have recognised that they need to have an online presence in order to strengthen and maintain open communication channels and relationships with stakeholders and potential clients.

For these businesses it is imperative that they stay on top of the current internet trends affecting their target audiences behaviour. The trend to watch at the moment is the increasing use of social media.

BP have tried to use social media in their crisis communications response to the oil spill in the gulf of Mexico. You cannot enter into social media as a back up plan. For businesses engaging in social media there should be a social media strategy in place.

Sharon Gaudin’s article on Network World, ‘BP Fails to Exploit Web 2.0’s Potential,’ explains how BP should have already engaged in social media applications before the crisis.

BP PLC has mostly failed to take advantage of an unprecedented opportunity to use social networks to at least partially blunt a public relations nightmare that started two months ago when an oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico , causing a massive spill.

“They’re playing by old rules,” said Patrick Kerley, a senior digital strategist at Washington-based PR and crisis communications firm Levick Strategic Communications.

“Dealing with a crisis has totally changed because of social media. They didn’t get that,” said Mr Kerley.

The company apparently had no strategic plan in place for using social networks to defend its response to a crisis. “It’s too late for companies if they don’t use social media right away when a crisis strikes,” Kerley said.

To read full article CLICK HERE