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.
Twitter has an important role in business. Professionals are connecting over Twitter, building relationships and sharing information. But Twitter is a complex web to navigate and finding others can be difficult, especially because many people use screen names.
As is often the case online, a simple problem breeds hundreds of solutions in the form of Internet start-ups – and the confusing Twitter web is no different. A new crop of Web sites have sprung up to aggregate similar people on Twitter. One such site, JournalistTweets.com, sorts journalists’ Twitter content to provide “a real-time snapshot of what thousands of reporters, editors, bloggers and broadcasters are discussing.” By collecting all journalists on Twitter in one place, JournalistTweets.com helps PR pros find journalists, build relationships and cut through the noise.
Another example is SFGate.com, the Web site for the San Francisco Chronicle. During the beginning of the swine influenza outbreak, the site gathered all swine flu experts on Twitter – including Communiqué PR client Veratect – into one place so readers could easily see updates in real time.
Is this the beginning of a new trend? From my research the answer seems to be a resounding yes. Here are a few sites you may find useful – or at least entertaining:
ExecTweets.com – This site allows people to “find and follow top business execs on Twitter.” The first Tweet I noticed when visiting the site was from Jack Welch, former chairman and CEO of General Electric.
AthleteTweets.com – This site aggregates tweets from professional athletes ranging from Lance Armstrong and Andy Roddick (who’s Twitter bio simply states “I play tennis”) to Gary Payton and Indy 500 racer Sarah Fisher.
TweetFreak – This site is maintained by AdWeek and follows the marketing, media and ad world on Twitter.
CelebrityTweet.com – This site is a live stream of tweets from celebrities including Rob Thomas and Demi Moore (who is fast approaching her husband’s much-hyped million followers). Watch the magic unfold as Miley Cyrus and Perez Hilton carry on a conversation via Twitter.
These sites are likely to keep popping up because, as Bnet.com‘s Catharine P. Taylor writes, “it’s so easy to set one up that it’s a no-brainer of an idea, particularly if you can just attach your new tweet site to a media network and bring in another source of traffic – and ad dollars.”
Have you found any useful sites that help you navigate Twitter?
Heidrick & Struggles, an Atlanta-based recruiting firm, recently conducted a survey to evaluate the success of digital strategies in marketing activities, such as social media, search engine optimization (SEO) and business intelligence. They surveyed 111 senior marketing executives at firms with $1 billion or more in annual revenues and found that while many marketing executives acknowledge the wealth of information about their customers online, many expressed that they’re “not getting what they want out of it.”
Lynn Seid, a partner at Heidrick & Struggles, reports marketing executives are frustrated over the fact that “so much information exists online about consumers – like their search and social media behavior – and yet marketers felt they were accessing it poorly.” Given the current economy, many organizations are focusing on cross-selling and up-selling to existing customers and gaining market share from competitors in order to stay afloat.
A few highlights from the survey include:
Respondents were dissatisfied with their current ability to access information about ROI and metrics on their digital marketing strategies.
Although one of the positive features of digital media is the ability to let marketers respond quickly to new opportunities, only 16 percent of the marketing executives polled rated themselves “very satisfied” with their ability to do this.
The most important features of the digital marketing mix were ROI analysis, Web behavioral analyses and CRM. However, only 18 percent of those surveyed said they were “very satisfied” with their ROI analysis, 13 percent said the same about their CRM program and 19 percent were happy with their search engine optimization (SEO).
A majority of marketing departments would like their IT departments to take the lead on handling analytics including Web traffic and usage reports.
As they look for new ways to market their companies via social networks, SEO and mobile advertising, a majority of marketing executives agree there’s a lot of room for improvement. And while there are a number of digital agencies and suppliers that specialize in social media and search, there aren’t many agencies that manage, integrate and establish best practices in these areas.
In order to implement a successful digital media campaign, you must have a clear understanding of how technology and marketing can effectively work together. A few tips to evaluate your digital media strategies include:
Look at your current digital activity
Have a clear understanding of what your business, communications, and marketing objectives are
Identify how traditional media efforts align with or support your digital media strategies
Understand what your resources and capabilities are
Look at what your key competitors’ digital media efforts are
Outline areas where you can digitally differentiate your business from your competitors
Build a digital media strategy based on your objectives strengths, and capabilities
Frequently review and update your digital media efforts
Understanding and getting the most out of digital strategies such as SEO and social media are also becoming an increasingly important part of PR. We have found that the best way to make sure our clients get the most out of their digital strategies is by clearly understanding their objectives and making sure our outreach aligns with these goals.
How do you rate your digital marketing strategies? Do you agree with the marketing executives polled or have you had a more pleasant experience? We’d love to hear your thoughts!
Social media is changing business. Twitter enables anyone to broadcast anything to millions of people in an instant. The short 140 character updates seem casual, yet the impact of one message can have significant and sometimes drastic implications. Known brands such as Ketchum, JetBlue, Southwest and Domino’s have all learned first-hand the effect Twitter can have on their reputations.
With more than 25 million users on Twitter according to TechCrunch, some of your employees, customers and partners are tweeting and chances are that your brand, company name or competitors are being mentioned. Do you know what is being said and how it’s impacting your brand?
So what can you do to protect your reputation, brand and image? In addition to securing your brand or company’s preferred Twitter handle immediately, below are some steps you can take now.
Here are a few initial tips:
1. Be an Active Listener. At minimum ensure someone (or multiple people depending on the size of your company) within your organization is monitoring Twitter and other social media to know what is being said about your brand, company and competitors. This can be done tactically via existing advance search capabilities or tools such as TweetBeep. For more strategic listening platforms check out Forrester’s recently published The Forrester Wave: Listening Platforms, Q1 2009 which can be downloaded for free from Visible Technologies home page http://www.visibletechnologies.com/ .
2. Become a Twitterbug. If you are not using the medium – start. You cannot understand it if you have not tried it. Forrester’s George Colony has a good post on this, “How can CEOs understand social technologies?” There are numerous articles and resources online providing a Twitter 101. Once signed up, I found TweetDeck to be extremely easy to use and easier to use .
3. Educate your Employees. Just as spokespeople receive media training, your employees (who now all have the potential to be informal spokespeople) need to be informed on your company’s business objectives, key messages and target audiences. They also need to receive coaching on the impact their seemingly causal posts can have and the perceptions of those updates can create. A Ketchum employee realized the impact of his tweets when an update jeopardized his company’s relationship with key client FedEx.
4. Update your Crisis Communications Plan. With the pace of communications today, executive management does not have days to discuss how to respond in the face of a crisis. Failure to respond or address a crisis within hours can make it impossible for a company to contain the issue, and as we saw with Domino’s, can significantly damage reputations. Having an established communications plan that outlines how the company will address potential crises will enable a company to react in a timely manner.
5. Build Your Following Now. Don’t wait for a crisis to begin using Twitter. Establish a loyal base of people who care about your company or organization today. Then, as Paul Goodrich, Madrona Venture Group, explained at the Perkins Madrona Twitter Conference, when a crisis happens, you can have them help you respond. Loyal followers may even deflect the issue without a corporate response.
Twitter is still relatively new. I believe we will continue to see changes, and more tools that help businesses leverage this medium and analyze trends and information shared via Twitter. However, it is becoming mainstream and companies cannot afford to sit on the sidelines and wait for Twitter to mature. Evaluate the strategies your company is employing to achieve its business objectives and determine how Twitter and other social media can help execute those strategies.
To ensure you are being thoughtful in approaching this medium, solicit input from your legal counsel in addition to PR and marketing experts. For more information please contact us at info@communiquepr.com
Corporate blogs can be an excellent way to establish thought leadership, build communities and drive additional traffic to an organization’s Web site. For example, since Communiqué PR started its blog in January 2008, we have seen a 200 percent increase in Web traffic and the blog has been a terrific way to give our clients additional exposure as well as educate potential clients about our work.
A blog also gives organizations the opportunity to engage directly with customers, partners and potential new employees. However, for a blog to be effective, the topics must be relevant, timely and continually updated to keep readers coming back for more. Potential blog topics ideally include corporate news, customer case studies, executive changes, commentary on industry trends, etc.
If your organization is considering creating a corporate blog, here are some steps to help you get started:
1. Identify two to three internal blog owners or champions. Ideally, these are individuals that can create blog posts and comment on other relevant blogs.
2. Develop a calendar of topics. This will help guide the direction of the blog and ensure the topics align with corporate communication objectives. As you develop this calendar make sure you think about how each post will add value to readers.
3. Establish a process for writing entries and updating the blog on an ongoing basis. This will ensure blog posts are written in a timely manner, well in advance of your publishing deadline.
4. Develop best practices for blogging and interacting with other blogs. This is an essential step in creating a corporate blog. For example, you may want to outline what company information can be shared, and what should remain confidential.
5. Be transparent. In the spirit of open communication, it is important to fully disclose your identity and intention when commenting on other people’s blogs.
6. Manage comments posted by readers. The blog owner should regularly monitor comments in response to his or her articles and respond appropriately.
7. Get others to link to your site. Finally, as you consider building relationships with other bloggers in your circle, you should consider asking them to link back to your corporate blog.
We hope you find these tips helpful as you prepare to create a blog. If you have a success story to share about your blog, please let us know. We would love to hear any additional steps that have worked well for you.
In a recent Advertising Age article, authors Marissa Miley and Michael Bush offered readers marketing tips for surviving the recession. They aimed to answer the question, “How are you (marketing executives) supposed to discern what is right for your brand?”
With a focus on providing tips from in-the-field professionals, Marissa and Michael garnered the perspectives of marketing executives at companies and organizations including Wunderman, Behance.net, Initiative, Barkley U.S. and McGarrybowen.
Here are a few high-level marketing tips we took away from the article that can also be applied to PR:
Connect with customers in a relevant and important way. The worst thing to do is completely go dark. – David Sable, vice chairman and chief operating officer, Wunderman
Evaluate your priorities and strategies. Ask questions such as: Is my current marketing mix really the best use of my resources? Should I focus on maximizing the profitability of my existing base or should I go out in search of new markets? – Stewart Owen, chief strategic officer, McGarrybowen.
Re-engage your rolodex. Now is a great opportunity to reconnect and strengthen your network. – Scott Belsky, founder and CEO, Behance.net.
Focus on your core customers and demonstrate your commitment to them. – Janet Fitzpatrick, worldwide director of communication and planning, Initiative.
Reward innovation. Dream of something people want that nobody else offers and then invest in that dream. – Brian Brooker, CEO and chief creative officer, Barkley U.S.
We thought these tips were spot on and wanted to hear more ideas, so we reached out to marketing executives across the country. Here are some additional guidelines that may help marketing executives weather the recession:
Make your Web site work harder. Now more than ever, businesses need to optimize the marketing potential their Web site holds, primarily through leveraging critical search terms that drive traffic – and new customers -to their doorstep. – Robert Oltnanns, president, Skutski & Oltmanns.
Market smarter, not harder with efficiency being key. Devoting dollars to areas such as social media is one great way to do this. It allows organizations to build visibility and brand awareness online without having to do a “buy” on a site or in a magazine. – Holly Matson, online marketing manager, Risdall Online Marketing Group.
Be creative and bold. The bolder (and smarter) you are, the more response you will get for less money. – John Follis, president and founder, Follis Advertising.
It is easy to see how these tips can be specifically applied to PR. For example, while it is important for marketing executives to be creative and bold in their ideas, PR professionals are also looking to approach media in fresh and creative ways. The changing landscape in traditional media and the rise of social networking are forcing PR professionals more than ever to be creative, bold and present relevant ideas.
Another one of the marketing tips that transcends to PR is the need to work smarter, not harder. Budgets are strained and organizations are looking for ways to tighten belts. From a PR perspective, we are working smarter, not harder, to provide organizations with the greatest return on their PR investment.
No matter if you are working in marketing, or specifically in PR, it’s probable that you are seeing the impact of the recession. We would love to hear from you and know what tips you have found most helpful. Write to us at info@communiquepr.com or post a comment below.
The power of Twitter is evident. For the first time an individual can broadcast a message to millions of people in an instant. But how companies will leverage that power to achieve their business objectives is not yet as evident.
I recently participated in a panel hosted by Perkins Coie and Madrona Venture Group focused on how businesses can leverage Twitter. The panel was moderated by Paul Goodrich and Ayush Agarwal from Madrona Venture Group. It was fascinating to hear from legal experts Tom Bell and Susan Lyon from Perkins Coie, and discuss the business implications with Avelle CEO Michael Smith, and Alaska Airlines’ Navin Mithel.
While there were numerous points of interest from this event, I want to highlight a few key points I believe companies need to understand when they engage Twitter.
1) Authenticity and Transparency – Be open and honest about who is twittering. If you claim the Twitter account is maintained by the CEO, be sure the CEO is the one tweeting. Social media is about relationships and honesty is fundamental to strong relationships. The Twitter profile should specify the organization or individual who is tweeting and what type of information they plan to include in their tweets.
2) Know your audience – Leveraging social media effectively requires clarity of who you are trying to reach, their needs and wants and how you can add value. Increasing your followers and ensuring they align with your communication goals and business objectives is dependent on understanding what information is valuable to your audience and how often they want to hear from you.
3) Compelling Content – Twitter is still evolving. The amount of information exchanged is daunting and clearly not all content is of interest. Those users that provide relevant and compelling information will attract followers, supporters and a large audience. Users who do not provide value or don’t communicate clearly will lose followers.
Business leaders also need to understand that expectations are changing. Consumers are starting to demand immediate responses to their tweets. Companies will need to change to adapt to the new level of expectations to compete. Those organizations that are perceived as accessible and responsive will build a loyal following that may become the front lines in deflecting negative tweets and promoting positive experiences.
I anticipate the Perkins Madrona Twitter Conference ë09 will be the first of many events as businesses look to learn how to leverage Twitter to help execute on their key strategies and accomplish their toughest business objectives.