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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.
Effective Marketing in a Time of Growing Social Media Distrust
It’s no secret that today’s public is increasingly dependent on social media for more than just staying afloat of your second cousin’s new baby, or what a high school acquaintance made for dinner last night. Sectors including politics, world news, and brand communication are increasingly reliant on social media platforms and their wide-reaching audiences for marketing and connection, yet this constant accessibility to information is not without its downfalls in the realm of information security – just take a look at Facebook’s recent Cambridge Analytica user/personal data leak fiasco.
In light of events like these, consumers are increasingly skeptical of how trustworthy social media tycoons are, in turn engaging less, meaning bad news for both the platforms and the brands that rely on them. According to a CMO Council Study, 99 percent of consumers would cut ties with companies that did not earn their trust. I’ve compiled a few strategies about how to beat this growing public skepticism of social media in order to continue your online marketing success.
Tell your story, authentically
Engage your customer base in a meaningful way through photos, words, videos, etc. Relationships matter to consumers when it comes to learning about a brand and deciding whether to purchase its offerings, and that trust is built on a mutual relationship between brand and user. If the consumer is sharing their personal information on a social media platform, seeing that reciprocation from organizations puts both parties on a more level playing field and increases feelings of connection. In doing so, make sure to watch out for over-promotion and appearing too pushy. While advertising and increasing brand awareness are your goals, constant ads on a reader’s feed tends to spur the assumption that revenue is more important than relationship.
Consider employees vs. influencers
Directly related to authenticity, no one knows the intimate workings of a company like its own employees, which is why successful marketing teams are increasingly turning to their organization’s team members in an effort to increase transparency and trust in their public brand recognition. Consumers are more likely to trust promotions coming from someone they know can authentically praise a brand, rather than a celebrity paid to do the same. Sprout Social reports that 61 percent of consumers would research a product or service that a friend recommends on social media, yet only 36 percent say the same of promotions via a paid influencer, no matter how famous.
Make the first move
Engaging with your consumers is just as important as them engaging with you, and it helps if you make the first move. Just like that initial contact with a dating prospect, keep it light, entertaining, and don’t be afraid to make a relatable joke or two to break down the wall. Showing lighthearted vulnerability projects an image of self-awareness and suggests that you don’t have anything to hide from your consumers. Relatability and authenticity directly correlate with consumer trust.
In an epoch of social media skepticism, separate yourself from the notion of the untrustworthy “establishment” by projecting a transparent image to your audience. Advertising you have nothing to hide from your audience is just as important as advertising your products, and a surefire way to gain public trust and engagement.
I had a feature writing professor at Western Washington University who started every class with a lesson on avoiding hoopdidoodle in our writing. He defines hoopdidoodle as useless, extra wording that doesn’t add any meaning to our writing. It’s surprising how much of that we do, thinking we’re including necessary details when in reality these words, phrases and clichés are slowing our readers down and weakening our writing. Other names I use interchangeably for this concept are clutter, fluff, and mumbo-jumbo.
Writing concisely is a life lesson we must continually learn. Even the best of writers deal with removing certain material that simply doesn’t do anything for the reader or the piece itself. Writing concisely doesn’t just apply to novels, press releases, fact sheets, media backgrounders or briefing books. As writers, being concise in every piece of content we put out means being efficient in the short email pitches we send, the appointment confirmations we make with potential clients, and the Twitter posts we produce for current ones.
How annoying is it to have a conversation with someone who beats around the bush, over explains, or doesn’t get their point across in a straightforward way? Writing is the same. We want whoever is reading our work to connect with our message and engage instead of spending extra time just trying to figure out what we’re saying and why there are so many words.
As writers, we have to assume that readers are lazy. If we can get our message across in as few words as possible and still make an impact, why shouldn’t we? If readers have to struggle to reach the ends of our sentences, read over unnecessary adjectives, dead words and/or redundant phrases, their chances of giving up increase.
I’ve found that my writing has improved with the implementation of shorter sentences. Shorter, more succinct sentences make just as much of an impact as longer ones, if not more, because of their precision. Having a healthy mix of both shows how much attention a writer is paying to the art of syntax. Other tips I’ve learned include avoiding adverbs (i.e., “very”, “quite” “really” etc.) when possible, using active voice instead of passive voice (“the client gave me information” versus “information was given to me by the client”), avoiding redundancy (“result” versus “end result” or “summarize” versus “summarize briefly”), and avoiding the use of unnecessarily fancy jargon for the sake of making yourself look like an expert (i.e., exacerbate, auspicious, acrimonious, grandiose).
Working on removing clutter from my writing has helped me remove it from other areas in my life as well. I believe writing concisely and being clear is a lesson we can learn every day because everything is connected. If there are things in your life that add no value, slow you down or cause a roadblock, remove them. Although it’s a practice that takes time, effort, and in many cases, input from those who have your best interest at heart, it’s worth it. This philosophy applies to writing as well.
So, professor John Harris, I write this blog post in your honor. Thank you for teaching me how imperative it is to write concisely. Believe it or not, your lessons on avoiding hoopdidoodle have come in handy in more ways than one.
Our increasingly distracting digital society has created relentless competition for attention, and as a result, the emotional appeal of a pitch can often be the determining factor of who gets coverage and who doesn’t.
“With the current state of the media industry (less people doing more jobs), the competition for media attention is tight,” says Markstein’s Nicole Wyatt. “The emotional appeal of a media pitch has always been important, but now more than ever it is crucial.”
It’s imperative that as PR professionals we continue to hone our ability to tell a captivating story that is driven by emotional intelligence. If we as professionals can’t take a cue from what is now commonplace for educators across the country who are teaching the importance of emotional intelligence to young children, we’re in trouble.
Since the concept of emotional intelligence was introduced decades ago it has been proclaimed by many as the secret, intangible key to success. There are various, complex definitions for what makes up the concept of emotional intelligence, but Inc. managed to sum it up in a single, simple sentence: “Emotional intelligence is the ability to make emotions work for you, instead of against you.”
Emotional intelligence covers five main areas: self-awareness, emotional control, self-motivation, empathy and relationship skills. It is, of course, important for good communication with others – and is therefore a gateway to better learning, friendships, academic success and employment. Skills such as these, developed in our formative years at school, often provide the foundation for habits we’ll need later in life.
Which is why Dave Yonkman’s “Why PR pros should focus on audience emotions” article on PR Daily made me stop, read and reflect on his three distinct points of recommendation.
How emotion grabs consumers
Emotional appeal is pivotal, but you still need a story. Your product or service needs something new, interesting or tangible to make it newsworthy. The tricky part is connecting emotion to an inherently unemotional object or topic.
For example, Communiqué PR works with several technology companies where it can be challenging to pull out the emotional appeal of data storage as a standalone topic. But when coupled with the importance of backing up your family photos, it gets real – and emotional.
Becky Honeyman, with SourceCode Communications, says, “If you can make someone ‘feel’ something, you will increase the response rate or engagement level tenfold. It’s fundamental for brands today to build relationships with their audiences. They can only do that by communicating consistently and authentically on subjects that are genuinely meaningful to them.”
How emotion piques media interest
The emotional appeal can help start the conversation, but it can only get you so far. The combination of a data-driven and personal approach to outreach is what will help you break through the noise.
At Communiqué, we have seen the most success when including data to validate any claim we make in a pitch or byline. We always look for credible and objective sources that support a unique point of view to demonstrate how that the issue impacts a broader audience.
Additionally, we recognize relationship building is not something that happens overnight and takes considerable time to cultivate and maintain. Part of that is demonstrating your value and providing journalists with ideas that correlate with their interests and coverage priorities.
This can take shape in a variety of ways and is obviously dependent upon personal preferences, but it can be as simple as reaching out to compliment them on a recent story – without a pitch in hand, referencing recent coverage in a pitch, or retweeting them on Twitter, for example. You don’t necessarily need a grand gesture, but it will lay the groundwork for future interactions.
“What’s in it for me?”
Emotional intelligence is the underlying theme here, spanning the importance of appealing to your target audience while also capturing media interest. The ability to understand and articulate the news value and how it resonates with specific media targets will make or break your campaign.
The old saying of walk a mile in someone else’s shoes still holds strong.
A seasoned PR professional, whom I look to as a mentor, has helped me embody this spirit in that when developing a pitch, she recommends starting by envisioning the aspirational headline you’re trying to achieve and working back from that to determine why the reporter should care, why their readers should care, what value this brings to our client, or other insights that can drive the pitch or byline.
While the internal optimist in me likes to believe that all people have an altruistic purpose, the reality is people react and respond quickly when it directly impacts them and satisfies their specific needs at that very moment. Whether right or wrong, the awareness can make all the difference.
With so much going on in the news right now, from Pride Month to the World Cup, there are many opportunities for PR professionals to jump on the bandwagon and promote their brand, aka the newsjack. I’m not going to go into depth explaining the term since it has been around since 2012 when David Meerman Scott wrote a book on the topic, but as a refresher or quick insight to those who do not know: Newsjacking can be simply defined as “injecting your ideas into breaking news.”
While most PR pros know about the idea and attempt it frequently, many of their efforts fail or receive little or negative feedback. Here you will find tips on how to appropriately and effectively take advantage of popular news, as well as ways to avoid poor and tasteless newsjacking.
Do:
Be timely: When trying to jump on a story, you should be sure to do so before everyone else does. This way when people are trying to research and learn more about a story, your content will be first to reach them. No one is trying to get more information on a story that has already passed. News moves quickly, and if you post too late, your key publics will have moved on to something else by then. An example of good timing is this tweet by Aldi, a European supermarket that jumped on the impending World Cup match up between Denmark and Australian.
Will you be saying skål to the Danes or cheers mate to the Aussies in today's game? pic.twitter.com/fh3NKl41Fi
— Aldi Stores UK (@AldiUK) June 21, 2018
Plan if possible: While jumping on a breaking news story can be effective, you are pressured to come up with an effective message in a short amount of time. If you look ahead at what big news stories will be coming up, such as the Olympics or the birth of a royal baby, you have time to create and edit the perfect message to capture the attention of your audience. An example is this Coca-Cola tweet, which looked ahead to the birth of the royal baby and created a graphic that was witty and creative to go along with the occasion.
Time for a Royal Celebration! #Royalbaby pic.twitter.com/lITsX3lHfQ
— Coca-Cola (@CocaCola) July 22, 2013
Jump on positive messages: While much of the news we see today is negative, that doesn’t mean you can’t be successful in newsjacking an uplifting story. You want your brand to be seen in a positive light, so it is a good idea to attach it to news that is also positive. It might be tempting to jump on negative stories since they can be more popular, but this can easily be done poorly and can leave your brand open to scrutiny. See below for examples of what can happen if you newsjack a negative story in poor taste.
Don’t:
Promote at any cost: Make sure you are only newsjacking stories or events that your key publics will care about. If you are doing PR for PR’s sake, you’re wasting your time and your publics’ time. Your message will come off as pushy and will leave a bad taste in your audience’s mouth, rather than elevating your brand. An example of this was @UrbanOutfitters tweet during Hurricane Sandy in 2012. The tweet gained so much bad press that it had to be deleted, but it read “this storm blows but free shipping doesn’t!”. Not only did they belittle a storm that killed over 100 people, but they tried to turn it around into a promotion for free shipping. This story was irrelevant to their brand and they should not have tried to newsjack it.
Copy: This may seem self-explanatory, but do not copy other brands attempts at newsjacking. You may see a great tweet and think you can spin it to fit your brand and no one will notice, and you might get away with it, but there is a greater chance someone will spot the similarity and you will be scrutinized. If someone is looking at content under a hashtag and finds your post, they will probably find the post you copied. Remember that every post or tweet has a timestamp and you will be viewed as lazy or uncreative in the eyes of your publics.
Definitely Don’t:
Offend anyone: The worst thing you can do is newsjack a sensitive news story to boost your brand’s image. No tweet is worth the risk of offending people and creating a scandal for your brand where you will have to go into crisis mode. If you take anything away from my tips, make sure you get your posts proofread by multiple people. Hopefully, if a couple people look over your content before you post it, you will catch offensive messages before they go live, and you will avoid having to post an apology later. Another example that has since been deleted, is @kennethcole that tweeted “Millions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumor they heard our new spring collection is now available online”, during the deadly political mayhem that was unraveling in Egypt in 2011. This tweet lead to an apology the company had to issue in the face of the scandal that ensued.
In today’s world of online dating, many people have had the experience of connecting with someone that looks great “on paper” and spending time texting and engaging with them online, only to meet them in real life and immediately know the match is not meant to be. Finding a PR partner can be somewhat similar. Marketing leaders and agencies invest a lot of time and energy into an involved RFP (request for proposal) process – after which finalists are brought in to meet with the team and determine the fit is lacking.
Selecting a PR partner is an important decision, which does require time; however, the traditional RFP process is typically very involved and requires a significant investment of time both from the business team as well as the prospective agencies. And over the years some leaders have shifted away from the traditional RFP process for some of the reasons shared here: Seven Reasons Why Agencies Should Not Respond To RFPs, opting for a more efficient process and one that fosters more collaboration and teamwork from the get-go.
This has left some business leaders wondering what the best process is for securing a PR partner. Below we’ve outlined steps to select the right PR partner for your needs and ultimately deliver on your key objectives.
Outline your business and communication objectives. It is important to have clarity on what business objectives you need to accomplish. To have a productive conversation with a potential PR partner, you will want to inform them of your objectives, so they can provide valuable counsel and guidance.
Define budget constraints. Your budget will guide the prospective agencies on a realistic scope that can support the specific business objectives. It may also help define the types of agencies you reach out to and the level of engagement a partner can provide.
Solicit referrals and recommendations. To determine which firms to consider it’s important to do your homework. Provide your network with a sense of what you are looking to accomplish and your priorities for the engagement. Word of mouth referrals are a great way to ensure you are talking with agencies that can deliver the quality of work, and possess a working style, that will integrate well with your organization.
Secure request for qualifications. Connect with each firm and provide them with background on your organization, as well as your business objectives and available budget. Ask them to respond, summarizing their qualifications and demonstrating why they believe they are the best partner for you and your organization.
Meet with finalists. Chemistry and fit across your team matters. Take time to meet with the teams that are in your final consideration. People tend to do their best work when they are working with people they enjoy and with whom they have shared values. Meeting with the team can provide insight into the interpersonal dynamics that can impact the success of your working relationship.
It is important to take a thoughtful approach to finding and hiring a PR partner. Be sure your process is efficient, effective, and aligns with your objectives and resources, while also involving the people on your team that will work most closely with your PR partner – and those that are most invested in the success of the relationship.
For additional guidance please refer to our book, Strategic Public Relations: 10 Principles to Harness the Power of PR. Principle Two: Selecting Your PR Team examines the pros and cons of having an in-house team versus an external team, and the option of a hybrid approach. We also provide guidance on the steps for selecting an external team – including the steps for conducting an RFP.
Last month, Muck Rack released a report in which they surveyed more than 500 journalists across the U.S. and world to understand their perspectives on the state of journalism. The survey covered topics such as objectivity, reporting in the current political climate, social media and shareability, data and analytics and the use of press releases.
While there are many important takeaways in this survey, the points that will be most informative for PR professionals are that journalists are influenced by social media, both in how their articles are shared as well as how they digest news. Additionally, the survey sheds light on journalists’ perception of their relationships with PR professionals and their perspective on press releases.
The Influence of Social Media
Of the more than 500 journalists surveyed, 41 percent of them indicated that the potential shareability of an article influences what topics they choose to write about. Additionally, 63 percent of journalists in the U.S. track the number of shares their stories earn on social media.
There are a variety of ways journalists can measure the traction their articles are gaining, whether it’s pages views, time on a webpage, or where the clink-through came from, but it is incredibly helpful to know which numbers journalists are considering when developing their stories. As you consider positioning stories, it will be important to weave messages into the pitch or release that demonstrate the shareability of the story. Take the time to craft an attention-grabbing subject line, unearth shocking data points or secure a controversial perspective. All of these items will help the journalists clearly see the story you’re offering as well as make it more appealing and shareable.
The survey also uncovered which social media platforms journalists often turn to as a source of news. Twitter remains the top news-source tool, with 27 percent of journalists referring to it as their primary source of news. What’s also interesting is what social media platforms journalists believe they’ll spend more time on in the coming year. For both Twitter and Instagram, 37 percent of journalists expect to spend more time on the platforms. Given the nature of the content, consider how to incorporate images or leverage them as a way to provide more information. Content on both platforms tends to have limited text and it’s important to use images to your advantage.
The Relationship with PR Firms and Press Releases
The relationship between PR professionals and journalists can be somewhat inconsistent. There are journalists who build strong relationships with PR teams and get access to stories and spokespeople, and there are journalists that prefer not to interact with PR firms. The perspective is varied and unpredictable. According to this survey, more often than not, journalists see the benefits of PR professionals. Fifty two percent of journalists in the U.S. view their relationship with PR professionals as mutually beneficial, and 21 percent of them see it as antagonistic, but not inherently a bad thing.
The key to building strong relationships with journalists is being thoughtful in what you’re offering. It is important to present story ideas that the journalist would find interesting, but also think through the elements you’re providing. Is there enough to craft an article that will capture their audience’s attention?
Another important aspect of building a strong relationship is asking for feedback. If it’s a reporter you are eager to work with, ask what they need to make this story interesting. If they aren’t going to cover something, ask why they didn’t find it interesting. This will inform your approach with them moving forward and make it more strategic.
As people’s preferences around news consumption evolve, so has the method in which journalists want to receive the news. While press releases still hold value in announcing news, providing detailed facts and building SEO, not many journalists rely on them anymore. Only 3 percent of journalists in the U.S. rely on press releases heavily and only 29 percent rely on them somewhat. In fact, 53 percent of journalists in the U.S. stated that they do not rely on them at all.
Interestingly, 15 percent stated they rely on press releases, but would prefer something different. As indicated by additional findings, it appears that incorporating meaningful visual elements may capture more attention. Nearly 50 percent of journalists stated they would pay more attention to a press release if it contained an infographic and 13 percent said if press releases had video components they would pay more attention.
While press releases may not be dead, we can evolve how we craft them and incorporate elements that make them more intriguing and easier to digest. In addition, having visual elements can also be useful when sharing the news on social media and may lead journalists to view the news and its accompanying resources as shareable.
This helpful survey gives insight into how journalists are choosing the stories they plan to cover, define successful articles, what they think of their relationships with PR professionals and their perspectives on press releases. This information can be leveraged to be more strategic in our outreach and how we present stories to journalists. Our relationship with journalists is critical to our success and the success of our clients. Just as we constantly seek to provide value to our clients, it is crucial that we provide value to journalists and strive to build and maintain mutually beneficial relationships.