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.
At Communiqué PR we work with companies of all sizes, including a wide variety of start-up companies. From start-ups who are bootstrapping their operations to those who have secured multiple rounds of multimillion dollar funding, I admire the spirit of these entrepreneurs and their unrelenting drive to close a gap or solve a problem in the market.
I think that’s why an article in the May 2013 issue of the Harvard Business Review caught my attention. The article, “Why the Lean Start-Up Changes Everything,” explores the differences between the traditional approach to launching a business and the emerging “lean start-up” method.
In the typical formula for launching a new venture, you write a business plan, seek investors, put together a team, launch the product and drive sales. According to the article, the lean start-up approach “favors experimentation over elaborate planning, customer feedback over intuition, and iterative design over traditional ‘big design up front’ development.” The lean start-up method makes the process of starting a company less risky.
The article also suggests that with the lean start-up concept, operating in “stealth mode” prior to an official launch and orchestrating a big reveal, is rendered obsolete. Rather, companies should focus on releasing minimum viable product because ongoing customer feedback will produce a better end result.
From a PR and communications perspective, there’s something to be said for the impact a well-executed unveiling can have on building awareness. In addition, products that are more fully developed or closer to completion are able to put their best foot forward in the eyes of journalists and customers who may be evaluating those products. However, in today’s fast-paced business climate the race is to be first to market, then to use that position to establish yourself as the best.
Like the entrepreneurs who subscribe to the lean start-up approach, PR/communications pros need to be flexible, nimble and responsive. Tools such as social media, blogs and online-only press release distribution services can help build buzz as products or features are iteratively released. PR pros can also engage in transparent communication with key influencers to ensure that clear expectations for the product are established. This is particularly important with journalists and bloggers who may be reviewing products for their readers.
What do you think of the lean start-up approach? Has it affected your approach to PR?
Every PR professional understands the importance of a good pitch—done well, a pitch is key to securing media coverage for a client. And, as the PR field is changing, so are the channels of communication available for creating effective pitches. For example, nowadays reporters generally welcome pitches via Twitter, an underrated and underused platform for tapping into potential media coverage.
Pitching reporters through Twitter can often be more effective because you reach reporters in real time with an efficient, 140-character message. Moreover, since reporters receive a vast amount of pitches via email, using Twitter allows your pitch to stand out against less noise.
However, bombarding reporters with pitches through Twitter will likely prove ineffectual. Just like in traditional media relations, achieving initial rapport with a journalist is essential to fostering strong media relationships. So how exactly do you go about forming relationships with reporters on Twitter? Samantha McGarry, vice president at PR and social content agency InkHouse, recently offered tips about the subject in a PR Daily article.
I’m compiling McGarry’s four tips below, plus some of my own to set you on your way to forming healthy reporter relationships via Twitter. Starting with McGarry’s:
1. Remember that reporters are people, too.
Just like you, reporters have lives, families and hobbies outside of work about which they often tweet. Converse with them about these interests as you would anyone else. He or she is also a sports fanatic? Great, tweet back with your thoughts on the game or offer a link to a video clip. Humor doesn’t hurt, too; casual jokes or witty tweets relevant to reporters’ interests can go a long way.
2. Understand how your target reporters are using Twitter.
Reporters use social media for different things—and some use it more than others. Is he or she attempting to grow his or her personal brand? Search for news trends? Gather sources, tips and info? Knowing his or her habits will help you gauge how to make your entrance in a welcome way.
3. Be generous with the Twitter love.
Everyone likes a little ego boost, including reporters. Build a foundation for the relationship by spreading the love—compliment their articles or congratulate them on milestones about which they have tweeted. Tweet their stories and re-tweet or favorite their tweets when relevant, making certain to @ mention his or her twitter handle when necessary.
4. Pay attention to timing—it’s everything.
Strategize—follow their tweets to know where they’re at and what they’re up to so you can calculate when is best to make your move. At a news conference? Jump in with that link of yours to an insider’s quote. Tweeting about how great his or her ski trip is? Hold off on any tweet action until he or she is back in town.
And now, some tips I would add:
5. Do your research.
Read about the reporter and the publication(s), as well as some of his or her work. Knowing the way the reporter works as well as the publication’s interests allows you to tailor your tweets to meet them, offering insights that help the reporter while making the connection. Win-win.
6. Lead them to you.
Reporters often use Twitter to find trends. Using appropriate hashtags of industry trends might lead them directly to you and build your presence in a space.
7. Don’t ask for anything.
…at least not until you’ve built the relationship enough to make the plunge. Until then, think through how you’re coming across. Relationships between journalists and PR professionals should be positive –nothing sours that like asking for handouts too early on or with too much force. With this type of behavior, you’ll run the risk of annoying the reporter and putting a permanent damper on the relationship.
8. Avoid being overwhelming.
Favoriting or re-tweeting every single tweet becomes overbearing. Reporters often won’t respond to or even read every tweet you direct their way, but don’t take that as a sign to harass them with tweets until they do. Connect with them just enough to make your presence known in an agreeable way. And, if you have been attempting to break through for some time to no response, move on.
9. Don’t think you have a better relationship than you do.
Avoid crossing boundaries by becoming too personal—use sound judgment, remembering always that the basic function of your relationship is professional. Steer clear of insulting or off-color humor and language altogether. You don’t want to risk offending the reporter because you gauged the relationship to be more mutually understanding than it is. This also includes tweeting at them for opinions on controversial topics—reporters know that expressing certain personal views can affect perception of their reporting, so avoid putting them in that awkward position by sticking to more informal tweets.
10. Make the relationship mutually beneficial.
A basic tenet of any professional partnership. Help reporters by enhancing their copy – tweet back with links or data you think might relate to what they are working on. If they ask for tips, offer them.
11. Express gratitude.
If you do finally make a pitch and the reporter responds, even if it is still a “no,” thank them. Showing your appreciation maintains the relationship, leaving the door open to potentially reach out in the future.
Building relationships with reporters is essential in the field of public relations. Potential gains for clients, as well as for your own influence, are huge if you’re well connected. Twitter offers PR professionals an efficient means to make this connection with journalists and publications.
However, effectively pitching through Twitter requires establishing camaraderie with target journalists. Creating a mutually beneficial relationship is a much more healthy approach to pitching than thoughtlessly bombarding reporters with irrelevant information, hoping that something sticks. Consider using Twitter to build out your relationships with reporters, but keep the above tips in mind to set yourself up for success.
According to the latest B2B Marketing Social Media Benchmarking Report, the most popular social media platform for B2B marketers is Twitter, followed by LinkedIn, YouTube and Facebook. Noticeably missing from the list is one of the fastest growing social media platforms: Pinterest.
When most marketers think of Pinterest, they think of it as a great tool for reaching consumers. The visual nature of the platform lends itself well to consumer goods and other tangible objects – from the latest technology and consumer gadgets to ideas for your garden.
However, this doesn’t mean B2B companies should feel locked out of Pinterest, which according to comScore grew from 17.8 million users in February 2012 to 48.7 million users in February 2013.
A recent Vocus webinar led by Jennifer Evans Cario, “Pinterest: Marketing’s New MVP,” further explored Pinterest’s growing importance in the marketer’s toolbox. Bottom line: Despite Pinterest’s bent toward consumers, the platform can still serve as an effective tool for B2B marketers to reach decision makers.
During the webinar, Jennifer cited Constant Contact as an example of a B2B company that has successfully harnessed the power of Pinterest. The company – which helps small business, associations and nonprofits connect with their target audiences through email and online campaigns – currently has 78 active boards, more than 3,480 pins and more than 7,600 followers.
How does a company that primarily works though email and online create a visually rich page? By creating and sharing content that will help decision makers do their jobs.
If you’re considering Pinterest for your B2B business and need a jump start, here are some content ideas for your business page that we gathered from the Vocus webinar and our observations of other Pinterest business pages:
Create graphics. It isn’t always possible for a photo to capture your B2B company’s products. To get around this, create graphics, infographics and screenshots related to your product. Post these on your company blog to drive traffic back to your website. You should also consider pinning/sharing graphics and images from other sources that complement or are related to your products and industry.
Share research. Whether it’s your own or from other sources, research can help educate and inform decision makers about issues relevant to your products and industry.
Post articles. Articles about your company and your industry, which are often accompanied by an image or graphic, can also be of interest to decision makers.
Think out of the box. From tips to help decision makers do their jobs better to motivational quotes, most anything that is relevant and that could be of remote interest to your target audience is great content for your Pinterest page.
Even if you’re still undecided about Pinterest and whether it’s right for your business, at Communiqué PR we counsel many of our clients to claim their business page now. Should marketing or social media priorities change, your company name is secured and you’ll prevent someone else from claiming your name.
Is your B2B company on Pinterest? Share your tips for getting up and running on Pinterest in the comments below.
Social media can be an amazing tool for businesses, brands and individuals, and there are some great complimentary tools that can help automate the process to be more manageable. However, it is important to ensure you are sensitive to what is happening in the world, and listen and react accordingly. For many brands Twitter is an amazingly deft place to promote content, but depending on world events and how you react to them, your content can be perceived as insensitive. At times, disabling automatic tweets and not distributing content is absolutely the right thing to do.
We provide support for a number of our clients in the social media realm. We create posts, monitor interactions and curate content. Last week when the Boston Marathon explosion rocked the country, we advised our client Attachmate to refrain from posting promotional content on the day of the bombing. In many cases silence or acknowledgement and condolences are the best responses to what is happening around the world.
Since the incident we have been evaluating the appropriateness of tweets on a day-to-day basis.
We learned in fact that some people who kept tweeting and promoting were slammed across Twitter. I came across this article on Ragan.com, “Guy Kawasaki is too ‘popular’ to stop autotweets during Boston bombings,” that talks about how Twitter guru Guy Kawasaki continued with his automated tweets when news of the bombings broke. He was widely criticized throughout the Twitterverse for being insensitive.
So how do you decide when it is appropriate for your brand to tweet when confusion, fear or devastation has swept the country? We’ve outlined three things to consider when deciding if you should post those 140 characters in the wake of tragedy.
- How will your message be perceived? Internalize what has happened and consider how your followers might perceive your message. What is the timing of your tweet and how could your followers react? Could you be perceived as insensitive?
- What are other brands doing? It is a safe bet that if other brands, especially those with a similar business to yours are quiet, you should stay quiet too. As a rule of thumb, go silent the first day of a tragedy. The exception is if there are customer service-related posts to respond to; those are typically acceptable and would not be construed as promotional.
- How much time has passed? The first few hours and throughout the day after a tragic national event has occurred are typically when people use Twitter to update event information. It is a safe bet that the first day of a tragedy is a good day to stay quiet. Each day following the event should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, but many businesses typically go back to posting business as usual.
Part of being an effective Twitter user is not just creating the content, but listening to what is happening and how that can impact your message. Communiqué PR can help your business with developing a social media strategy and provide recommendations for your individual brand. Please visit www.communiquepr.com for more details.
We came across an article in the Economist that serves as an important reminder for us all. Simply put: Journalists are inundated- inundated with more topics to write about, deadlines and, most likely, pitches from PR professionals (and sadly, some of them aren’t very valuable). The article states that for each journalist in the U.S., there are approximately six PR professionals.
This statistic should stop us in our tracks. Particularly since this article was published two years ago, meaning the ratio of journalists to PR folks is probably even more out of proportion today, and journalists are more bogged down in emails and voicemails than ever.
This begs the question, what can we do about this to ensure that our messages are heard? Our goal remains the same as always: great coverage for our clients. And at the end of a journalist’s day, their goal also remains the same: a compelling story. Below are a few nuts and bolts to ensure that PR professionals’ outreach to journalists helps to achieve both of those end goals, rather than adding to the noise:
- Story: Have a good story idea, which includes well-rounded facts and sources and may include references that reporters can check out for themselves. Don’t make unsubstantiated claims assuming that a journalist is going to simply write your points at face value. It’s bad for credibility – both yours and the journalists. Good stories offer context to give readers perspective. It might be interesting to you, but how and why should it be interesting to the journalist’s audience?
- Variety: Have a variety of different ideas and angles to share with journalists throughout the year. Of course this doesn’t mean peppering emails to journalists on a daily basis. It means developing a variety of solid angles (see #1) that may appeal to the journalist so, when the time is right, you can share those ideas. Which leads us to the next point…
- Research: Do your homework. As the last two points suggest, you must know your audience. Research publications first to know their specific readership and what kinds of articles are typically written. If your story idea doesn’t pass the “what’s in it for me” test (from the reader’s point of view) then it shouldn’t be sent.
- Credibility: Be an honest, credible professional. As the article points out, mud slinging against competitors seems to be a more widely used tactic in public relations than ever before. This is inappropriate and does a disservice to you in the long run. You have to earn trust with journalists just like you do with anyone else. Your voice will be heard above the fray when a journalist knows you as smart, respectable and honest.
- Respect: Treat each journalist with professionalism and respect. This should be true with any human being, but it must be said here because in today’s world, everyone can be a published journalist. One blogger’s comments could skyrocket to the New York Times or all over Twitter in an instant; be respectful and professional when speaking to and about others in your industry.
All of the above relate to mindful communication. We must always be aware of a journalists’ point of view if we want to be heard above the fray. Do you have additional tips for engaging with media?
It seems that bad news is all around lately. I’ve heard this comment a lot from people who reacting to the news of the Boston Marathon, bombings, Newtown, Conn., shootings and fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas. “When it rains, it pours,” we are all saying.
Unfortunately, we’ve also seen a lot of bad reporting raining down on us from news organizations. While under pressure to be first with the news, some are getting it terribly wrong. For example, CNN and the Associated Press erroneously reported that a suspect was in custody for the Boston bombing on April 17. The New York Times originally, and incorrectly, identified the Newtown shooter’s brother as the perpetrator in the awful elementary school attack in the first hours of the event. These are respected news organizations that set the gold standard for reporting in our society, not inexperienced bloggers or tweeters. In their haste to get it first, they neglected to get it right, which has led to a certifiable credibility problem with these once-trusted institutions.
All of this bad news is uncomfortable to absorb and dwell upon. But the news gaffes we have witnessed recently are a good reminder for business to revisit their crisis plans and practice their responses before a crisis hits. It is also a reminder that inaccurate news reporting happens not only because of the pressure reporters are under to get the story quickly, but also because misinformation can come from the news source itself. In times of intense public scrutiny and pressure to distribute information, public officials, first responders, and business people often relay information the accuracy of which even they are unsure at the moment.
If you are your company’s spokesperson, it is your job to make sure you are not that guy (or gal.) Here are a few tips to help in the early moments of a crisis.
Take a breath
You just received some very bad news. At this moment you are probably feeling the same senses as a news reporter who just heard the same news: an incredible adrenaline rush, and a need to get away from your desk and go the “scene” wherever that may be. Unless you are in immediate danger, take three deep breaths. This will take about 30 seconds and will provide the moment of sanity and clarity you will need for the next several hours (or perhaps days) as you work through your crisis response.
Corral your communications team
Today, there is typically more than one person on a communications team. And, they may be scattered across offices, agencies and even geographies. Get them together either physically or digitally. Remind them that you have a crisis plan and how to locate it. Remind them of their specific responsibilities under the plan, be clear about who the authorized spokesperson is for the company, and remind them that each of their roles is important. All need to be working together to make sure Facebook, Twitter, blogs, media liaisons and CEOs are communication the same information, accurately.
Execute against your plan
In my previous blog post “Media Training 2.0” I wrote about how crises are different and perhaps scarier that they once were. No matter what the crisis is, it is important to remember that at the time you wrote the plan you had time to think through the scenario and build an appropriate, level-headed response. Yes, your current crisis may have some elements you did not anticipate and for which you will have to adapt, but the basics you outlined previously still apply. Trust your work.
Fight the urge to react
You will have many people both internally and outside your organization asking, “What is going on? What do you know? What will happen next?” Your role is to provide facts, not speculate. By relaying news to people in your organization ahead of, or instead of, the appropriate outlets of information, you are increasing the chances of misinformation, perhaps escalating the crisis via unintended consequences, and risking your own and your company’s credibility.
Conduct a post-crisis follow up
Once the danger or crisis has past, you need to review the problem and your teams’ response. What worked well? What did you not anticipate? What mistakes did you make? Then, update your systems, roles and tactics appropriately. Finally, communicate this information with your superiors, your fellow employees, and if appropriate, your customers and the general public. Here are a few post-mortems from news organizations that publically acknowledge their mistakes and how they will adjust in the future, that may offer some valuable tips for you as well:
“Getting It First or Getting It Right?,” The New York Times
“Get it Fast, But Get It Right,” American Journalism Review