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.
2014 has been a momentous year for Communiqué PR, bookended by two significant milestones: the firm’s 10-year anniversary in February and moving into new office space in December!
We look forward to celebrating both of these milestones with an open house in Q1 2015! (Stay tuned for more information.) However, before jumping into the New Year, we’d like to reflect on some of the highlights of 2014.
Throughout the year we were extremely fortunate to work with a variety of interesting, exciting, and dynamic companies. Here are a few highlights from the year:
- Smartsheet secured additional investment in May and continued to build momentum with the launch of its data visualization tool for enterprises;
- Nintex strengthened its executive team and board reinforcing it as a company to watch in 2015;
- Mobidia drove awareness for its app and shared compelling data regarding app usage. Mobidia’s data was included in articles in Forbes, Tech Crunch and Wall Street Journal;
- Kymeta was recognized by MSNBC as one of the Disruptor 50 for 2014 (for the second year in a row) and concluded the year by announcing the company raised an additional $20 million in funding;
- Real estate development company Schnitzer West began construction on three buildings in Seattle and Bellevue – Madison Centre, Urban Union and Centre 425.
- Larry Nguyen, founder and CEO of Summit Imaging secured recognition as one of Puget Sound Business Journal’s 40 under 40;
- Spaceflight, Inc. launched Spaceflight Networks, a business dedicated to cost-effective spacecraft communications and operations for small-satellite customers.
2014 was a great year of growth with several new full-service clients coming on board including AnswerDash, Apical, PointInside, Rational Interaction, Revel Systems, Vālant, and VoloMetrix. Additionally, we provided PR counsel and support on several project accounts including know’N’act, OpenCar, Parllay, sphingotec, Sworl, Syntonic Wireless and World Diabetes Day Seattle.
We also continued to expand our international reach by collaborating with PRN member agencies Proof and Sympra on several projects and participating in PRN member meetings in Germany (January) and Italy (July).
Among the many highlights of the year were brown-bag meetings we hosted with key media from GeekWire, Puget Sound Business Journal, Seattle Business, Seattle Times, and other media outlets, which helped facilitate deeper relationships among our team and these journalists.
Best of all, we took time to celebrate with our amazing (and growing) team of PR professionals: kayaking on Lake Union; attending the 2014 Seafair Foundation Breakfast and the Blues; running the Seafair 5k; barbecuing at the office during the summer; attending the GeekWire roof-top party and Sounders’ game; visiting New Day Northwest; carving pumpkins for Halloween; joining the fun at the GeekWire Gala; and cooking together at our holiday party at the Hot Stove Society.
Thank you for your support in making 2014 a huge success. We look forward to a fun and prosperous 2015!!
This week was an exciting one for our client AnswerDash, the provider of contextual answer technology for websites and apps. Fresh off the heels of revealing its general availability this fall, AnswerDash just announced its integration with Zendesk, a major player in improving online customer service. The integration makes it easy for websites to display help content from the Zendesk Help Center on actual web pages, rather than in siloed FAQs or knowledge-bases. The effect is that website users will have access to the Zendesk Help Center wherever they have questions, with just the click of a mouse or tap of a finger.
The integration also makes it simple to transform Zendesk support tickets into new AnswerDash contextual Q&A. As users ask questions via Help Center tickets, the Q&A will appear in the AnswerDash tab. Commonly asked questions will no longer require a unique response from a customer service agent, as Q&A will “live” on the webpage or app contextually. This frees up customer service agents to answer complex or unique questions, rather than routinely responding to the same Q&A.
According to AnswerDash’s CEO Jake Wobbrock, “For most online businesses, 80 percent of support ticket volume is due to just 20 percent of the most frequently asked questions, leading to customer service agent fatigue and inability for support teams to cost-effectively scale. Our integration with Zendesk helps transform traditional assisted customer service into highly efficient customer self-service, reducing the number of help tickets and enabling support teams to scale.”
Key features of the AnswerDash/Zendesk integration include:
- Bringing Zendesk Help Center Articles to Users’ Point-of-Action—Customer service teams now can sync their Zendesk Help Center articles into AnswerDash’s point-and-click contextual answer service, providing users with instant access to Help Center content on relevant objects on websites. Syncing occurs every 10 minutes to ensure that AnswerDash surfaces the most up-to-date Help Center content.
- Answering Commonly Asked Questions Once—The AnswerDash app that plugs into Zendesk allows customer service teams to turn frequently asked Zendesk tickets into AnswerDash contextual Q&A for all future visitors to see. By enabling common questions to appear in the interface as contextual Q&A, those questions see a 60-percent reduction in turning into support tickets. By empowering customers to self-serve, redundant questions are deflected and support agents are freed to focus on valuable high-touch customers with more personalized needs.
- Delivering New AnswerDash Questions as Zendesk Tickets—New questions asked via AnswerDash are delivered as Zendesk tickets. As each ticket turns into AnswerDash self-service Q&A, ticket volumes decline for the most common questions on a site.
The integration news garnered coverage, including the following original articles:
- Xconomy, Seattle Roundup: Skytap, Mercent, AnswerDash, FlowVella, Impinj
- Website Magazine, Ease the Pressure on Your Support Team with New AnswerDash Integration
- Destination CRM, AnswerDash Integrates with Zendesk
- Small Biz Daily, Cooking Lessons for Startups, Video Contests and More
- Beta News, Self service platform helps cut online help desk requests
The following publications also reposted the press release:
- Smart Customer Service, AnswerDash Integrates Contextual Self-Service Platform with Zendesk
- AdTech Press, AnswerDash Transforms Help Center into Point-and-Click Contextual Self-Service Platform with Zendesk Integration
- Adotas, AnswerDash Transforms Help Center With Zendesk Integration
For more information about how to integrate AnswerDash with Zendesk, please visit: https://www.zendesk.com/apps/answerdash/
As 2014 ends and the new year begins, finding creative ways to stay organized always seems to be top of mind, particularly for PR pros. Start off the new year fresh with these helpful apps and resources.
What I have used this year and love:
theSkimm— this bite size email newsletter arrives daily at my computer and helps me quickly process the most recent happenings in the world with a bit of humor added. This email helps me stay current with the news, highlighting the big stories and providing links to longer reads if I want to research the topic further.
Flipboard—I recently downloaded this app and am pleasantly surprised with the versatility and enticing user interface. The personal magazine aggregates a wide range of topics—users specify which of the over 30,000 topics they want displayed in their newsfeed—that users can then “flip” through. The social newsreader has allowed me to easily filter relevant topics for myself and access timely news, as well as fun and light-hearted articles, photos and videos.
Wunderlist—this website and app has helped me stay organized with my upcoming tasks, allowing me to set reminders on my to-do list. This simple-to-navigate resource keeps me on track and ensures that I don’t miss upcoming deadlines, even emailing me reminders.
What I want to try out in the New Year:
Tweetdeck— managing clients’ mentions and/or tracking competitors’ tweets is no easy task, especially when multiple clients are involved. My colleagues suggested this powerful Twitter tool that allows users to track, organize and engage in real-time, allowing users to find exactly what they’re looking for on Twitter and successfully manage multiple accounts.
AP Stylebook—the popular PR resource is now accessible through an app, available for iOS. While the app is somewhat pricey at $24.99, I think most PR pros could benefit from having this tool easily accessible.
Staying organized and informed is crucial in the PR industry. The apps and resources that I have used have proven to be extremely helpful, keeping me up to date with condensed information that is easily accessible, and the tools that I have not yet utilized will hopefully aid my continuous pursuit of organization and informative resources. What are other apps or PR resources you can’t live without?
Not a week goes by when there isn’t a story in the news about a high-profile security breach. Inevitably, after each incident knowledgeable PR experts weigh in on how the crisis could’ve or should’ve been handled. There are always new lessons to be learned.
Perhaps it’s the influence of the work that we do on behalf of clients in the enterprise technology space, but the latest wave of hacks to make worldwide headlines actually prompted a different PR discussion in our office. In addition to thinking about crisis communications takeaways, the data breaches are an important reminder about the care PR practitioners must take to protect sensitive client data and information.
No organization, no matter its size, is immune to a data breach. According to a 2014 study by the Ponemon Institute, one of the leading privacy and security research centers, a whopping 43 percent of companies have experienced a data breach in the past year. While PR agencies may not store credit card information, agencies are entrusted with confidential information about clients’ future company and product plans, as well as sensitive data about employees.
What can you do to ensure your organization doesn’t become a data-breach statistic?
Think twice about using consumer cloud apps for work activities. From Google Drive to Dropbox, there are a number of free services that allow employees to store and transfer company data in the public cloud. These services are great for transferring large files to external partners, but they are not bulletproof and could be a major exposure to your organization. Instead, consider using private cloud or enterprise-grade file transfer services which have a higher level of security.
Only use IT-sanctioned apps. PR people juggle multiple priorities and move at break-neck speed. When something needs to be done ASAP, in the absence of immediately having the right app or tool, it’s easy to go rogue and turn to services that have not been vetted by IT. For the sake of your computing network, don’t do it.
Don’t forget about mobile. BYOD (bring your own device) has given us the freedom to use the mobile device of our choice to get our jobs done and has forever changed the way we work. However, for many in the security industry BYOD actually spells “bring your own risk.” To address this, security experts recommend implementing a number of safeguards including the ability for IT to erase a device’s internal storage remotely and passcode locks.
Since I began practicing yoga a year ago I have started to appreciate how the eight limbs of yoga can be applied outside the studio to all aspects of my life, including my career. The eight limbs act as guidelines around how to live a meaningful and purposeful life by offering advice for moral and ethical conduct as well as self-discipline. Although seemingly unrelated, there are several lessons that PR professionals can learn from these ancient teachings to be more purposeful as well. No headstands or downward dogs required.
Build a strong foundation
The limbs of yoga can be viewed as a progression, each one building on the next and preparing the yogi for the next stage of their practice. For example the third limb of yoga, which focuses on postures, is meant to develop discipline and the ability to concentrate in preparation for meditation.
PR professionals can apply the same approach when they start working with new clients. Before diving into media outreach it is important to clarify the client’s key audiences, nail down their messaging, and identify their goals. Once this foundation has been built, develop a long-term strategy outlining the steps that need to be taken to achieve those goals.
Focus your energy
Tapas, one of the 10 living principles of yoga, is about directing all of your energy toward the task at hand. Using your energy in a more disciplined way can help you stay focused and enthusiastic about your current project. PR professionals who work at an agency represent multiple clients and it can be difficult to focus on the task at hand when you’re being pulled in multiple directions. Applying the idea of tapas can help. It’s important to be able to switch gears quickly, but it’s just as important to focus all of your attention on your current task. Whether you’re writing a press release or participating in a conference call with your client, you’ll be more efficient and alert if you’re not multitasking.
Approach each project with a clean slate
Yoga is a liberation teaching, which means it seeks to abolish any notions of “why we are” or “what we know.” Liberating the mind leads to a mental clean slate and allows us to approach each situation without any pre-conceived notions.
Many of us have firmly established ideas around how we should communicate with our clients or what the best strategy for a certain type of announcement is. But just because an approach has been firmly established doesn’t mean it’s the most effective. Having a clean mental slate will allow you to consider suggestions for new approaches and create innovative new ideas yourself.
Breathe deeply
The fourth limb of yoga is about recognizing the connection between the breath, the mind, and the emotions. Although PR can be a lot of fun, it can also be very stressful. When you’re feeling overwhelmed, take a deep breath, let it out, and repeat. Namaste.
Throughout my time in college and now in the beginning stages of my career, friends, professors and colleagues have all stressed the importance of networking. While nothing will ever replace face-to-face networking events, there are continually new ways to network from the comforts of your own home. Specially, people now look to LinkedIn to make connections with other professionals.
While LinkedIn provides an easy solution for networking, it can also be an overwhelming tool due to a dizzying array of functionalities and opportunities. Users can upload their resumes, endorse skills, join groups, and soon everyone will have the ability to create long-form posts—see my past blog on LinkedIn long-form—just to name a few of the site’s capabilities.
With so many opportunities available, simply “being” on LinkedIn isn’t enough anymore, as Liz DeForest pointed out on the Bliss Integrated Communication blog. Networking is a complicated and time-consuming task, but is one that is worthwhile—and one that I definitely need to take some more time to master.
DeForest suggests engaging as much as possible in order to become a better networker and in return enhance your professional brand. So how exactly does one “engage” on LinkedIn?
- Share your thoughts and ideas. Post in groups, share articles you find inspiring, or write long-form posts on experiences in your industry. By actively posting, sharing, and writing, your profile exposure will increase. Be sure to utilize the space on your profile to highlight items that didn’t make your resume.
- Use your connections and use your connections’ connections. Utilizing these relationships can help in client pursuits, personal career growth, and/or recruiting. Strategically connect. Connecting with friends and colleagues is the easy part; the hard part is to remember to connect those who you had positive interactions with in your personal and professional life.
- Make yourself available and visible on LinkedIn so the right people get in contact with you. Maybe a reporter is looking for a resource for an article or maybe a recruiter is looking for the ideal candidate. Regardless of the query, make yourself available for all opportunities that may come your way.
One of my New Year’s resolutions is to better utilize this powerful tool. LinkedIn has proven to be a great resource for many professionals, enhancing their personal brand and extending their network. Professionals share great insight and offer advice from their experiences and expertise, and as the site gains more popularity and expands its capabilities, it will be increasingly important to be active on LinkedIn.