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.
Think about the last video you watched on YouTube. Now ask yourself, how did you hear about it? Most likely, the video was shared by a friend, colleague or family member. Sharing is how we interact with those around us and create meaningful experiences. Just like a movie recommendation, we rely on those we trust to share meaningful or entertaining online content.
I came across a recent article in Bulldog Reporter’s Daily Dog titled, “Your Customers are Sharing Content – Are You?” which points out the various ways people share content. According to a recent Pew Research report, sharing is one of the most integral activities associated with online news. And because of today’s desire to share content, businesses can leverage this behavior to drive website traffic and referrals.
At Communiqué PR, we are constantly sharing online content such as blogs, videos and articles that we think might be valuable to our clients and colleagues. So just how effective is sharing? Share This, an online platform for sharing and influence, released a study of online social sharing behaviors and discovered the following:
• Sharing generates almost half of the traffic for websites and brands
• Sharing also accounts for 31 percent of referral traffic
• On average, shared links are clicked on 4.9 times
• Everyone who shares is an influencer on that specific topic
• Sharing is a viable marketing solution for reaching audiences when they are most receptive to a particular category of content or information
Sharing can take place on a variety of platforms. Companies can utilize social media, or their company website or blogs to encourage sharing. However, many companies are not taking advantage of this opportunity. One easy solution is to consider a website share button. This makes it simple for visitors to share the content on your website with friends. Yet today, only 34 percent of Fortune 100 companies have share buttons on their websites and 13 percent have share buttons on their newsroom content. The numbers are even lower for smaller companies.
In an age of online information overload, people look to those they know to recommend content so they do not have to sift through the sea of information themselves. Consider connecting your company’s blogs, press releases and news articles to social media, making it easier for people to share your information and increase your brand awareness. It is now more important than ever to reach out to credible influencers to help distribute your content. The chances are, your customers are sharing content, and you should be too.
While on a press tour in May, my client and I found ourselves with about five hours of time on a Monday morning in Washington, D.C. I suggested we find a coffee shop with free Wi-Fi and catch up on work and email, but my client had another idea. He suggested we do a bit of sightseeing around the Capital. We visited the Lincoln Memorial, the Vietnam Memorial and the National Cathedral. It was a wonderful break, taking us well out of our normal business routine and giving us a chance to relax some before a series of intense meetings.
Given this recent experience, I was intrigued by a blog post by Peter Shankman, creator of “Help A Reporter Out” (HARO), about “How to get some fun out of a business trip, no matter how little time you have.” Peter’s busy schedule requires him to spend as many as 300 days on the road for business, and he is able to handle this because he makes certain to have fun on every trip.
Peter says, “People ask me the last time I took an honest-to-goodness vacation, and I can’t remember. I think it was a few years ago? No idea. My last business trip, though? Well, I’m on one right now.”
Whether you have a spare hour or a few extra days, Peter has suggestions for how to make the most of your surroundings and have some fun. His suggestions range from booking spa treatments, to walking tours to take in local sites, to visiting museums or parks. When you have 12 or more hours that you can fill with something fun, he strongly urges doing some planning. A good plan will enable you to do side trips and plan other more elaborate fun activities and ensure you maximize your time.
It is excellent advice to build in some time for fun while on the road for business. Having down time is important. It can help road warriors manage stress and enable them to be more effective when working.
I am now a convert to Peter’s philosophy. If you need ideas for your next trip, I highly encourage you to read his full post and check out the comments. A number of people chimed in with some excellent suggestions for cities around the world. What is your philosophy around combining work and play? What is the most unique experience you had on a business trip?
Since its inception, video blogging has gained widespread popularity. With equipment becoming more affordable, editing software more accessible, and sites like YouTube and Facebook readily available to share content, the process is easier than ever. There is a large demand for video content – YouTube gets more than two billion hits per day – and it’s undeniable that videos are one of the fastest growing segments in the blogosphere. But how can your business leverage this trend?
At Communiqué PR, we get a variety of requests from clients that want to start blogging. Adding videos is an effective tool to keep your readers engaged. Visual elements help to diversify content and, in a world of content overload, it can be an easy way to deliver the information your audiences want quickly. Well-crafted video blogs that are updated regularly can increase your company’s web presence, improve customer communication and drive sales.
We thought it might be helpful to provide a few key points to keep in mind when developing a video blog for your business.
- Keep it short. Just like the length of a traditional blog varies, so do video blogs. But it is important to understand that many people viewing videos have a short attention span. We recommend keeping video blogs to two minutes or less. This may seem like a short amount of time to get your point across, but by organizing your thoughts beforehand, and leading with your most compelling sound bites, this will help to engage your viewers.
- Find visually appealing elements. If you track which videos receive the most hits on sites such as YouTube you will notice they are ones that are controversial, comical or visually stimulating. Video blogs follow a similar premise. We recommend selecting a visually interesting background, avoiding solid white walls, or doing a hands-on “show and tell.” For example, developing a video demo that illustrates the new functions of a product is a great way to utilize video blogging for your business.
- Work on delivery. Pay close attention to body language and voice inflection. These are your most valuable tools when the camera is on you. Do not use excessive hand gestures and pause to emphasize your key points. Also, do not allow the on-camera personality to wear distracting clothing or wild colors. (For tips on dress, check out our blog “Why Style Matters.”)
A good example of video blogging can be found on Seattle Mama Doc. Dr. Wendy Sue Swanson with Seattle Children’s Hospital does a nice job with the three tips included above. Her blogs are traditionally under two minutes, contain visually compelling elements and Dr. Swanson does an excellent job using body language and voice inflection to emphasize her points.
By considering these tips, your business could benefit greatly from crafting compelling video blogs, which help add depth to a website and create a more personal company image. Stay tuned for our upcoming post on tips for producing video blogs. Do you have a favorite blog or video blog? Please feel free to post them in the comments section.
Despite the fact that many people are using Twitter as an integral part of their companies’ marketing and public relations campaigns, many folks may not know why it’s important or how to best navigate the service. Computerworld came out recently with an interesting article titled, “How and why to search Twitter,” which shed some valuable light on the topic.
Twitter now boasts more than 200 million users worldwide, which represents huge potential in terms of marketing reach and diversity of target audiences. A simple search of Twitter can provide insight into how a product launch is going, what announcements have been made, trade shows, or even what a prospective target audience likes to talk about. With more than 140 million tweets per day, it’s possible to discover a plethora of useful information. But how does a person dig through all that data without suffering from information overload?
Computerworld listed several steps for how to search Twitter:
- Use search.twitter.com – Twitter’s proprietary search function lets you easily type in your query and search for the name of a product, person, topic, specific Twitter username, or a hashtag.
- Leverage Google and Bing – Google’s Realtime search lets users peruse content posted on social networks including Twitter, Facebook and FriendFeed. It also lets you organize content geographically when selecting the “nearby” option. Separately, Bing has a similar search experience called Bing Social, which has much of the same functionality of Google.
- Get Specific – Twitter has an advanced search page that makes it easy to use Boolean search, or find locations or specific usernames. There is also a “cheat sheet of search operators” if you need help narrowing down your search.
- Use Search Widgets and Tools – There are many different search widgets and tools, both for smartphones and desktop computers. Computerworld recommends checking out Hootsuite, a customizable interface that allows users to manage more than one username; Klout, a tool that allows companies to track trends and visual influence; and, Trendrr, a powerful dashboard that lets users analyze social activity across a variety of social mediums.
By gaining a more thorough understanding of Twitter and how best to search through the vast amount of data available via the site, marketers can unlock new audiences and join the conversation with potential customers and partners.
What sites or tools do you use to hone in on the social activity that is most relevant to your audience? We’re always learning about new tools and tips, and would love to hear what works for you.
In the Internet age, most people often act quickly and pass along information via social media, before they even verify that the information is accurate. We’ve all see the fake Amber Alerts for missing children or the faux-images that fly around Facebook and Twitter, such as the one picture to the right comparing Prince William and Kate Middleton to Cinderella and Prince Charming. These types of misinformation or inaccuracies rarely cause serious or physical harm, but they can be damaging when it comes to causing panic or spreading lies about a company. So, what do you do when there is misinformation floating around on social media about your company?
As an example, McDonald’s was recently the center of a Twitter hoax when unknown parties began circulating an official-looking image on Twitter that appeared to be from the popular chain restaurant claiming that they were charging African American customers $1.50 more due to a string of robberies. Even though this image was quickly discovered to be false (it had been circulated in 2010 as well), it didn’t stop the mass of people tweeting and retweeting the image, which led many people to become enraged with McDonald’s.
In response, McDonald’s quickly posted a tweet letting people know that the image was a senseless hoax, and that the company valued the diversity of its customers and employees. After the image continued to circulate, McDonald’s posted another, more-direct tweet saying that the image was a hoax. While this didn’t stop the image completely – it’s hard to control what people do and don’t share on the Web – it did slow down the angry tweets. And, according to Ragan.com, most crisis communications experts felt that McDonald’s handled the situation well.
So what can your organization do if it finds itself in this situation? We’ve outlined a few easy steps to follow:
- Research the Situation. It’s important to make sure you fully understand what is being passed around. You don’t want to react with incorrect information. This could cause followers to think you are being deceptive.
- Act Quickly. Once you realize there is misinformation floating around, quickly gather the appropriate stakeholders and devise a plan of action. The longer you wait to give your side, the harder it will be to convince people you are correct. For more on this, see our recent post about crisis communication.
- Post a Statement. Make sure to upload a brief statement to Twitter, where everyone can see it. If there is a hashtag being used to discuss the crisis, it would be a good idea to reference it in your response so that everyone can easily find it.
- Monitor the Conversation. Watch to see what people are saying in response to your statement, and determine if an additional statement is needed.
While it’s impossible to completely stop something like this, you can’t ignore its existence either as silence is often equated with guilt. There will always be differing opinions on many subjects. The best a company can do is to react appropriately and in a timely fashion.
Think back to the days when you were a child learning to read. At that age, most of us gravitated toward books that primarily consisted of vibrant illustrations or photos. As a young child, it was often pictures that truly helped us understand words and stories. Now, flash forward to your adult life and you’ll find that not a lot has changed.
Infographics, which are visual representations of data or information, often present challenging topics in a way that helps us digest the information quickly and clearly. While the notion of infographics has been around for quite some time (think cave drawings, or map-making), they’re an integral part of how information is accessed and absorbed on the Internet, serving as an effective medium to relay messages or concepts in a visually compelling manner. They’ve gained so much popularity over the last few years that the Huffington Post even created a news page solely dedicated to highlighting the latest and greatest infographics.
With the evolution of social media, which has helped create an environment where information is published and consumed faster than ever, PR and marketing professionals can leverage infographics as an effective way to add visual appeal to content. Here are few reasons why organizations should consider harnessing the power of the infographic:
- They complement stories. Reporters are often looking for interesting graphics and/or images to accompany their stories. Infographics can be a great tool to enhance a story by providing both supporting points and related visuals.
- They go viral. Once an infographic is published, they’re easy to share. If the content is compelling enough, other sites will often pick it up and embed the image, therefore driving traffic to the site it was originally published on and increasing search engine optimization.
- They’re multi-functional and deepen understanding. Whether you’re highlighting the latest social media stats or your own personal experiences through the latest trend in infographic resumes, infographics can be used to communicate almost anything.
- People enjoy them. Who doesn’t appreciate a simplistic visual that helps you understand a complex topic? They’re a powerful vehicle for sharing your information in a compelling way.
So ask yourself, would you rather read a five-page article that describes a complex concept such as the, “Social Media Effect,” or, would you rather digest the information from a pretty picture? I guess there’s really something behind the old adage, a picture’s worth a thousand words.
Now, in case you’re wondering how to go about creating an infographic, check out these great tips for designing infographics and free tools to help get you started.