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.
The modern public relations practitioner has thousands of ways to reach his or her audience. There are mommy blogs, industry blogs, analyst reports, social media, national dailies, niche market outlets and glossy magazines—not to mention your company’s or client’s own online newsroom.
With so many options available, it’s critical to start with one simple question: Who is your audience? We have been taught to ask this since grade school-level writing courses, and it’s still important.
Our team begins all projects by identifying the audience segments that are most critical to a project or a campaign. We ask: Who do we need to reach to move the needle for our client? The answers can vary widely—a testament to our varied client base and multitude of projects.
Sometimes, the goal is to put a story in front of as many eyes as possible, and an above-the-fold story in the Wall Street Journal or USA Today is the best possible outcome. But there is, understandably, incredible competition to feature your story in these outlets and in many cases, there are a number of smaller, more targeted publications or blogs that would make a great home for your story. And this is where identifying the right audience becomes so important.
Take, for example, the marketing efforts to sign more young people up for the Affordable Care Act (aka, Obamacare). For the system to work, it needed more and more young, healthy people to sign up. To that end, marketing efforts focused intensely on this group. The result? President Obama’s now famous sit-down with Zach Galifianakis on the comedic interview show, “Between Two Ferns,” and a slew of targeted YouTube videos aimed at reaching young viewers. One, for example, featured a number of YouTube celebrities encouraging young adults (their primary audience) to sign up for health insurance coverage through the Affordable Care Act. Another featured celebrity moms in an ad chastising young people for not signing up. AdWeek aptly quipped that its tone was, “We’re-making-you-feel-guilty-haha-no-but-seriously.” It was an effective message targeted toward a very specific audience.
Of course, these ads led to a cavalcade of pundits analyzing their impact (“Did they work?” “Was it presidential?”). Nonetheless, they are a great example of content designed to reach a specific audience—a concept that public relations practitioners exercise each day.
In our work for our client Twisted Pair Solutions, for instance, we targeted our outreach to media based on key sales markets for the client. By starting with the most basic question—who do we need to reach?—we were able to develop content and pitches that we knew would resonate with a specific and impactful audience.
Editors and journalists have to ask the same question. Reporters receive a tremendous number of pitches each day. To evaluate which pitches are a good match, they’re going to ask a number of questions including: Will my readers be interested in this story? By defining your audience up front and tailoring your message and content to meet their needs—before you even click “send” on a pitch—you can make sure that you’re sharing content with reporters who want it, and whose readership will be interested.
If you’ve done your homework, it also means that you’re reaching the audience who can have the biggest, most positive impact for your company or client, and that’s a critical piece of any public relations campaign.
You can read more about our work for Twisted Pair Solutions in a previous blog post, here.
I recently wrote about “non-sexy” brands gaining popularity on social media. One of the ways they were doing this was by focusing on having conversations and interacting with their followers rather than simply fixing their
Image courtesy of @Wendy’s
followers’ attention on product promotion. Ragan’s PR Daily has highlighted yet another secret to gain momentum on social media: Use popular hashtags—specifically, Throwback Thursday, better known as #TBT.#TBT has become one of the most consistent and popular hashtags on social media and brands are taking advantage of it. People magazine posted my favorite example of a brand’s #TBT on Twitter. The post was a picture of the
dashing Justin Timberlake during his ‘N Sync days, highlighting a young face with bleached hair and a stylish ‘90s sweat suit. This post generated almost 600 retweets as well as 461 favorites.
Another interesting example was a picture tweeted by Wendy’s from 42 years ago, displaying the chain’s first drive-thru window. It was nostalgic, like other #TBTs, and imparted a sense of history of the company, giving viewers the chance to feel a more intimate connection with the brand. Younger fans got to glimpse “the old days,” and an older generation could relive them.
These types of posts mimic advertising, but with some significant advantages. Like advertising, these posts appeal to customers’ emotions and help build brand reputation. Unlike advertising, social media is inexpensive and time efficient. Posts such as these also do not have the same tone as an advertisement, giving the brand and company a more peer-like feel rather than coming across as strictly out to make a profit.
#TBT is proving to be a valuable tool on which brands should capitalize. Not only is #TBT one of the most popular and regularly used hashtags—effective for helping promote your brand—but also it shows that providing an interesting conversation topic on social media can be more effective than merely placing an advertisement in front of consumers.
According to a recent, particularly fascinating Pew Research Center report, the path that readers take to arrive at a news site reveals a lot about their level of engagement with the outlet and its content. In other words, the amount of time someone spends reading an article or browsing an online site depends largely on how they got there—whether they typed in the site’s URL directly, searched on Google or clicked through from social media.
For the report, titled “Social, Search and Direct: Pathways to Digital News,” the Pew Research Center’s Journalism Project team looked at U.S. Internet traffic to 26 of the most popular news sites. The findings show that direct visitors—those who have the site bookmarked or type the URL into the search bar—are much more dedicated to a website, spending more time on it and engaging with the content more than other types of viewers.
Specifically, among other findings, the report showed that direct visitors to a news site:
- Spend about 4 minutes and 36 seconds per visit—about three times as long as those who wind up on the site via a search engine (1 minute 42 seconds) or click through from Facebook (1 minute 41 seconds).
- View roughly five times as many pages per month on the site (24.8, on average) as do viewers coming through searches (4.9) or from Facebook (4.2).
- Visit the site three times as often as do search and social-media readers.
Interestingly, the findings hold true across all types of sites—from national news outlets to sites like BuzzFeed with mostly search- and social-media driven traffic. What’s more is that viewers tend to be one type of reader or the other—they’re either a dedicated reader of news sites or they’re not—and it’s difficult to get them to change their habits.
So, what exactly does this all mean for PR pros?
The findings suggest that, when you place a contributed article in a target outlet, the individuals you’ll impact the most are the devoted readers who fit that site’s demographic. And that’s good news—you’re reaching the audience you hoped for when you pitched the story. These loyal site visitors will absorb and digest the content more than the guy who just clicks on the link from his Facebook wall.
As a post on Media Bistro’s PRNewser pointed out, this also means that traditional earned media placements are still your best bet for reaching clients’ target audiences. Despite all the hype around alternative forms of content and SEO and social-media strategies, nothing beats old-school editorial coverage when it comes to influencing readers. This relieves some of the pressure of trying to create viral content that generates clicks and search visits—those viewers won’t take as much away from the story anyway as do the site’s everyday readers.
So, it seems that the “quality over quantity” argument holds true when it comes to placing content for clients. Spreading the news via social and SEO tactics certainly doesn’t hurt but, in the end, it’s still more important to build solid relationships with journalists and earn media placements than worry about social-media numbers or search-engine rankings.
For more detailed findings, be sure to check out the full Pew Research Center report here.
Up until last week, one of our clients had four Twitter handles. At first, it made sense—a handle for each unique product and its unique audience. But we soon realized we could build a bigger, stronger social media presence with one handle to encompass it all. We were then faced with a dilemma: How could we make a smooth transition to one handle without losing any followers?
We came up with the following strategy:
1) Update your bios. As an initial announcement, change each account’s bio to let its audience know that the account is moving and to direct them to its new home.
2) Notify your followers. Remind each handle’s followers every day for ten business days that the account is moving by tweeting something along these lines: “We’re moving on March 4! Follow @[name] to continue getting our updates.”
3) Stop regularly scheduled tweets. During the transition period, only tweet reminders about the move from the handles that are being discontinued. All other updates should be tweeted from the new handle.
4) Direct Message followers you might lose. To ensure each account brings all its followers when it moves, reach out to each person who isn’t already following the new account to notify them about the move. An easy way to do this is to export each account’s followers and compare them. SocialBro and Simply Measured both offer this feature, along with other helpful analytics tools.
5) Lock down your accounts. After ten business days, lock down the handles that are being discontinued and update the account bios to let current and potential followers know that the account has moved.
We found this to be an effective way to merge our clients’ Twitter accounts and we’re now well on our way to building a bigger following. Do you have any other tips for easing the transition to a new Twitter handle?
Getty Images recently announced its decision to make some, but not all, of their images free. Nearly 13 million images without watermarks will now be available to the public by simply embedding a code for the image. These embedded images will contain a footer with credit linking to the company’s licensing page.
We have been paying to use Getty’s services for years, so after hearing that free images are now available, I wondered, what’s the catch?
In the past, Getty images could be Googled and then captured with a screenshot that did not include watermarks. This process of attaining images is illegal. Getty understood that this was taking place and sought to prevent illegal use of images. The company reasoned that by offering some images for free, there would no longer be a motive to use images illegally.
Mashable pointed out that through these new embeds, Getty will have the opportunity for a new source of revenue. Getty will now have the ability to “gather user information and run ads within branded, embeddable frames.” Another potential “catch,” noted by The Verge, is if Getty were to remove the image from public consumption, the embedded image would disappear from where you placed it as well.
As Ragan’s PR Daily pointed out, it is important to note Getty’s terms of use. These embedded images are not for commercial use, including advertising, promotions or merchandising. Furthermore, the terms prohibit use of these images for endorsement or sponsorship.
These free embeddable images, however, enable private users to enhance their work with images, all while doing so legally. As long as Getty does not remove your image and you are willing to bear the credit footer in your image, these high quality, free images are quite the steal. Getty has made it easy for anyone – from bloggers, social media users, and companies alike – to use the power of images to strengthen their piece.
Recently, as I browsed articles on Ragan.com, I came across “What PR courses should teach undergrads,” written by Ed Zitron. The piece caught my attention for a couple of reasons. Earlier this year, we received word that our book, “Strategic Public Relations: 10 Principles to Harness the Power of PR,” would be used as a textbook at Xavier University for a course taught to juniors. Secondly, we often have college students as interns and, whenever possible, try to hire them.
In his article, Zitron explained that he took a PR course at a major state university and it did not address how to work with the media. He then shared his perspective on the core elements he’d recommend applying to every curriculum, which included a heavy concentration on media relations, especially those related to the relatively new “social” variety.
While I agreed with many of Zitron’s points, I do wonder about his assertion that educators are not teaching the right theoretical information to their students. My experience is limited, but I have found that graduates of the University of Washington—especially those majoring in communications and journalism—are well prepared for their work in PR.
When Communiqué looks for entry-level PR people, our ideal candidates are ones who possess excellent critical thinking and communication skills, not necessarily ones honed at university-level PR courses. I believe a strong manager can provide training around the mechanics of research, the ideal elements and length of a pitch, how to use social media, or any of a number of specific PR elements, but it is much harder to help someone develop intellectual horsepower.
The world of PR needs people who can deal with concepts and complexity comfortably, who are quick at separating fact from fiction, who can find some success at building a strong network and media connections, and who are good problem solvers. While I agree with Zitron that it would be good for PR programs to teach some of these more granular tactical lessons, I think our major educational systems must continue to develop core competencies around critical thinking, persistence, negotiation and communication.
With those skills and some dedication, fine-tuning a successful career in public relations is certainly attainable.