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.
In case you missed the buzz around town earlier this month, more than 15,000 members of Lions Clubs International (LCI) convened in Seattle for its 94th International Convention, one of the world’s largest annual conventions of its kind. It was the first time the annual convention was held in the Pacific Northwest, and specific to Seattle, it was one of the largest conventions the city has hosted in more than 20 years, providing a significant economic boost to the city and region.
Lions Clubs International (LCI) selected Communiqué PR to help drive awareness of this high profile event among local and regional media. While the convention presented an opportunity to highlight its impact on the economy (while mitigating the traffic woes), it was also an opportunity to educate the broader community about LCI and change perceptions of it being a “good ol’ boys club.”
Lions Clubs International is the world’s largest service club organization, with a network of 1.35 million men and women in more than 206 countries and geographical locations. Though well known for its successful initiatives in vision health, Lions service is as diverse as its members. Lions Clubs is no longer just for the older, male demographic anymore. Women continue to be the single fastest growing segment of Lions, in addition to providing youth with an opportunity for personal development through volunteering as part of its Leo Program.
Together, they collectively work toward their unified mission: to do whatever is needed to help their local and global communities. And they are making a genuine difference through unique programs that range from caring for the environment and providing aid to natural disaster victims, to feeding the hungry and aiding seniors and the disabled.
In the weeks leading up to the convention, we collaborated closely with LCI and Seattle’s Convention and Visitors Bureau to identify the key messages and facts about the International Convention and Parade of Nations to weave throughout our media materials, and to ensure our outreach strategies were aligned to maximize media opportunities to the fullest potential. We also contacted several local LCI district governors to learn more about their initiatives in the Pacific Northwest, and uncovered some great programs such as Project New Hope.
As a result of our efforts, LCI garnered more than 50 media placements across all major television, radio, print and online media outlets in the greater Seattle market. While many outlets initially ran alerts about the convention and parade’s impact on downtown traffic in the days leading up to the event, coverage shifted to in-depth, feature stories highlighting LCI’s mission, their volunteer efforts and impact on our community, along with highlights of the International Convention and “the largest parade ever in Seattle.” Below are a few of the highlights:
- The Seattle Times, “‘Not your grandfather’s Lions Club,’ says president in Seattle for convention” – July 2, 2011
- KIRO FM/MYNorthwest.com, “Lions Club Looking to Attract New Members with Seattle Parade” – July 5, 2011
- KOMO News, “Thousands pack downtown for one of Seattle’s largest parades”- July 5, 2011
- The Seattle Times, “Lions Take to the Streets as Convention Starts” – July 6, 2011
Here is a video highlighting the Seattle Convention:
It was a pleasure working with Lions Clubs International to support them in their PR activities surrounding the convention, and to have had the opportunity to collaborate with David Blandford and his team at Seattle’s Convention and Visitors Bureau. We hope to have the opportunity to do so again in the future.
For many businesses today, creating a Twitter account is an imperative. According to Media Bistro.com, there are more than 300 million user accounts, so it’s not surprising that Twitter is an increasingly critical communication platform to drive sales, manage customer service and directly engage with consumers while presenting an open, authentic form of communication with your target audience.
However, establishing your brand and building an effective presence on Twitter takes more than setting up an account and posting a tweet here and there. Tweeting as a brand to build influence and create a community of followers requires strategy.
To help get brands on the right track, PRNewsire shares ten tips for tweeting as a brand.
- Find a Twitter mentor. If you follow people or businesses who you think get it right, learn from them. What do they tweet about? How often do they tweet or re-tweet? When and how do they reply to negative tweets?
- Keep it positive. As tempting as it might be, avoid being negative, sarcastic or snarky. No matter how funny you think it might be, always remember that you’re tweeting as your brand, not as you. (Even on a personal level, there is risk that you’ll offend someone and increasingly our personal and professional lives are blending.)
- Respond to negative feedback. If someone says something negative about your brand and you don’t respond, the tweet that lingers is the negative one. Given this, communicate back. However, there are two caveats: 1) Be thoughtful in your response. You don’t have to respond immediately. It’s better to take time to think your response through than fire off a tweet that you’ll later regret. 2) Beware of attempts to bait you. Weigh the pros and cons of responding as well as the credibility of the author. If you decide not to respond publicly, consider a direct message instead.
- Steer away from controversy. Controversial topics such as politics or religion are controversial for a reason – there are people who are vehemently on one side or the other. Why alienate either? Again, you’re tweeting as a brand, not as you.
- Humor is subjective. There will always be someone who thinks your joke is in poor taste or inappropriate, so while you shouldn’t censor yourself, stay away from topics or language that can be taken the wrong way.
- Get a second opinion. If there’s something you want to tweet but you aren’t sure whether it’s appropriate, ask for someone else’s opinion. And if you’re still not sure, follow the next rule.
- When in doubt, leave it out. This golden rule of writing also applies to tweets. If you have any doubts, don’t tweet it.
- Don’t get too personal. People are following the brand because they have an affinity with the company and its products and offerings. They don’t want to know about your personal life or what you’re doing later.
- Follow your followers. If you want to promote conversation with your followers, you have to follow them back. When people see someone whose following/follower ratio is pretty even, they find them to be more open, which makes them more likely interact with them.
- It’s not about @you. It’s the mother of all rules, the one from which all the other rules grow. Every tweet represents your company – whether it’s in a positive or negative way is up to you.
Need help identifying a Twitter mentor? Mashable shares 9 Lessons From Successful Brands on Twitter to help us learn from companies who seem to have mastered the Twittersphere and provides tips to help us emulate their success.
Have you found other useful tips and tricks to tweeting as a brand? Please comment and share your successes and lessons learned.
When was the last time you gave thought to your email signature? The other day I was searching for a specific email from a colleague to find an attached document. After sorting my emails by attachments, I quickly realized that every email from that individual showed as one with an attachment as he included an image in his email signature. As a result it was challenging for me to find the specific email I was looking for. While this was frustrating for me, the impact was fairly minor. However an email signature can have a more significant effect.
One’s email signature can also impact the delivery of his or her message. For instance, one of my colleagues discovered her emails were not reaching editors. After significant investigation and delay, she determined the organization’s firewall was blocking her emails because her signature included a hyperlink. While ultimately she was able to get the issue resolved, her email signature could have impacted her ability to communicate with these journalists in a timely manner.
Does that mean your email signature shouldn’t include a link to your company site? Not necessarily, but it does mean you should follow up with a phone call if you do not receive an expected response to an important email.
So, what does the ideal signature contain? The answer will vary depending on a variety of factors including industry and geographic location. Here are some other tips for your consideration:
- Identify yourself. Make sure email recipients can clearly identify who you are and how to contact you. Provide your full name, your company affiliation and possibly your title. It is helpful to include your organization’s website address so recipients can quickly and easily access more information.
- Provide contact details. Contact information listed in an email signature used to be very straightforward – a phone number and email address. Today, however, people include mobile numbers as well as a variety of social media handles. It is important to be concise, and direct people to alternate ways of connecting with you. Although, listing each and every contact method is typically not warranted. we suggest listing your email address, key phone numbers – typically office and mobile – and the most relevant social media profile (i.e. professional profiles, not personal).
- Keep it simple. Most email applications have restrictions on the character length of an email signature. Smashing Magazine’s article, “The Art And Science Of The Email Signature” provides general guidance, tips on what not to do – such as including images – and options for offering a v-card effectively.
- Follow the law. As noted in the Smashing Magazine article, be aware of the regional laws in your area. In the U.K., for example, you may need to include your organization’s registered address and VAT number.
- Know your brand. Consider developing a standardized email signature for company uniformity. Creating consistency across your brand can help build and reinforce key impressions about your organization. To learn more about the benefits of a consistent signature across the company consider the recent article on Technorati, “How Uniform E-mail Signatures Can Help Brand and Promote Your Organization.”
If you haven’t given much thought to your email signature, it might be time to revisit what information it contains. Small changes can ensure your signature is up to date, accurate and effective.
Measurement is one of the most important activities in PR. If you can’t measure success, then how do you prove the value that PR can add? Measuring the reach and impact of traditional media can be tricky all on its own. While you may land a story in the front page of The New York Times or place an advertisement on a highly trafficked website, how do you prove these placements are driving real value for businesses and propelling the people who come across them to action? And how, in this day and age, do you then quantify the impact and reach of social media, which presents a whole new challenge in measuring effectiveness?
Today, businesses increasingly leverage social media as a platform to announce news, bolster their brands and engage with target audiences. In fact, many organizations are beginning to invest in social media departments, hiring staff solely dedicated to supporting the company’s Twitter, Facebook and blogging engagements. If used correctly and strategically, social media can be an effective tool to increase your company’s visibility and thought leadership. But how do you really know you’re making an impact, influencing your audience and achieving results?
While it’s not a perfect science, fortunately, there are several tools to help measure your return on investment. About a year ago, we shared our thoughts on some of these tools in a blog called, “Becoming Proficient in Measuring Social Media.” However, as the infusion of social media continues and technology and features used to measure influence grow in sophistication and usability, we felt it was time to revisit the subject.
Social Media Examiner shares five free tools that offer easy ways to keep track of your influence on Twitter and beyond.
- Klout is perhaps one of the more well-known resources for measuring social media influence. Using data from your Twitter, Facebook, and more recently your LinkedIn and Foursquare accounts, Klout evaluates users’ behavior with complex ranking algorithms and semantic analysis of content to measure the influence of individuals on social networks. Klout’s influence score is based on a user’s ability to drive action through tweets, mentions, and more, as well as friends and followers.
- TwentyFeet is another tool that pulls data from Facebook and Twitter and presents results in easy-to-read graphs. Its statistics are fairly similar to Klout’s, factoring in friends and followers, retweets and status comments as a method of measuring influence. TwentyFeet is a great way to get a quick overview of your activity and influence over a period of time. It’s also a great tool to get in-depth information about your followers.
- Crowdbooster uses your existing data to determine when your posts will receive the most interaction, and have the most influence on your audience. It then recommends the best times for you to tweet the following day. The dashboard also includes a graphic overview of your account, which shows the number of replies, retweets, likes and comments received and the number of people reached.
- TweetStats is incredibly easy to use and is a tool that allows you to enter any Twitter handle, so you can check multiple accounts or compare other user accounts to your own. TweetStats focuses on your own Twitter activity and delivers a page of graphs detailing the different ways you interact with Twitter and the topics where you’re most influential.
- My Web Career analyzes data from Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Quora and web search results to determine your “Career Score.” The score is based on the size of your network, your overall social media presence and the strength and reliability of your connections. It also provides insight into exploring your network and discovering the best way to take advantage of your connections.
What’s my personal favorite? I think Klout provides the most comprehensive value, while still being user friendly. Have you tried any of these tools? Are there any others you’d recommend? Please share!
“Guerilla marketing” is a way to generate buzz without instituting a hefty marketing budget. This method is oftentimes effective because it is attention-grabbing and easy to understand. Arguably one of the most famous guerilla marketing campaigns is the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile. The enormous hotdog-shaped car makes its way across the nation drawing attention from children and adults, stirring conversation and making for a memorable event.
Guerilla marketing is based off of several guiding principles including:
- The customer is more important than sales.
- Targeting individuals is more effective than targeting groups.
- Interactive campaigns in unconventional spots demand attention.
Guerilla marketing can positively position a company by portraying it as targeting the customer’s needs rather than their pockets. Customers that understand the message that a guerilla marketing campaign is portraying will likely spread the idea to their friends by word of mouth or social media, which continues to drive buzz for a company and generate media coverage. Marketing and public relations efforts, when tightly coordinated and in sync, are extremely beneficial in helping drive the success of a business.
Some good video examples of effective guerilla marketing can be found in the Mashable article, “10 Excellent Examples of Guerrilla Marketing Campaigns.” My favorites from that article include:
- Absolut Temptation. A box full of Absolut Temptation-flavored vodka was placed on a baggage claim belt in the Amsterdam airport forcing those waiting for their luggage to be “tempted” to grab a bottle. This campaign was very simple, yet effective, and drew a clear correlation to the idea of being “tempted” and the Temptation vodka itself.
- Nike Boot. On International Car Free Day, Nike placed a “boot” with a Nike running shoe on 100 cars along with a ticket, resembling a parking fine, to promote running instead of driving in Prague. The campaign played on the recognizable experience and added a little humor to create recognition of the slogan “run on air.” This is also an example of timing is everything.
- IKEA Everyday Fabulous. In the “Everyday Fabulous” campaign, IKEA invaded the streets of Manhattan by making little pockets of the city “homier.” For example, IKEA decorated a bus stop with a couch, throw pillows and curtains. By placing decorative items in plain sight, it helps demonstrate IKEA’s merchandise and keep it top of mind for consumers.
- Loctite Coin on the Street. Loctite Super Glue 3 offers the simplest example of utilizing guerilla marketing all while demonstrating the power of the product. For their campaign, Loctite glued a coin to the sidewalk and filmed as people tried to pick up the coin. The Loctite sticker was placed right next to the coin. The result? Dozens of duped passers-by left with the knowledge the Loctite Super Glue 3 works and the resulting YouTube video received thousands of hits.
- UNICEF. In 2010, UNICEF used a bottled water vending machine to convey a powerful message, how something we take for granted is not such a luxury in developing countries. The organization filled the machine with bottles of dirty, diseased drinking water that people in certain areas of the country regularly consume due to lack of a cleaner option. By raising awareness to the cause of clean drinking water in such a vivid and tangible manner, UNICEF saw the donations pour in. In addition, the stunt garnered significant media attention.
The phrase “guerilla marketing” was coined by Jay Conrad Levinson and defined in The Guerilla Marketing Handbook. In it he writes, “In order to sell a product or a service, a company must establish a relationship with the customer. It must build trust and support. It must understand the customer’s needs, and it must provide a product that delivers the promised benefits.”
If you are going to adopt a guerilla marketing campaign for your company, take into consideration how everyday people utilize your product or service, and how you can best demonstrate that in a fun or vivid manner to ensure the event makes a memorable impression on your consumers.
Do you have any guerilla marketing campaigns that you have found especially memorable? Please feel free to share them with a comment.
In fact, according to a recent study from Retrevo that looked at how people should use gadgets in their lives, 35 percent of people have posted something online that they later regretted and smartphone owners were twice as likely to post something they’d regret than non-smartphone owners. While in most cases, unintentional posts or posts that you wish didn’t publish don’t lead to dire consequences, there’s a growing roster of people who’ve been fired from their jobs because of social media outbursts.
Luckily, if you ever find yourself in a similar situation, all is not lost. While you might not be able to remove all the damaging content from the Internet, Mashable shares a few SEO tips and tricks to help you evaluate and improve your online reputation.
• Step 1: See Where You Stand – Google yourself. Yes, it’s that simple. Before you can manage your online reputation, you have to assess it. Type your name in search engines and set up alerts.
• Step 2: Post Positive Content – Reduce visibility of unflattering content in search results by proactively publishing useful, positive information about yourself and/or your business. Publishing relevant, positive content will help push negative search results down.
• Step 3: Create an Identity Hub – Creating a hub that links to all of your content will also push your positive online presence further up in search results. Claim your domain name, mention yourself in content, link to your content and post often.
• Step 4: Consider Automating the Process – Take advantage of companies and services that help you manage your online reputation for a small fee. There are also free tools to take advantage of such as the recently launched, “Me on the Web” tool, included in the Google dashboard to help manage search results for your name.
Whether you’ve posted something online that you regret or someone else posted harmful content about you, a damaged online reputation can easily affect your offline reputation and a single negative comment can quickly snowball into PR crisis. Online branding and reputation management are critical to the success of any brand. Keep an eye on your online presence and think before you post.