Revolver

It was brought to my attention last weekend, following a little jaunt down South, that even the big boys can get it wrong.

Let me explain myself a little more. A very well-known high-end high street store, to which I am rather fond of, had recently captured the attention and more important the purse string of a close friend. 

However, not to be too frivolous with her hard earned cash she took her time to make the right decision with her purchase, afterall a half a day’s worth of soul destroying work was at stake.

But when it’s right it’s right, right? To say she was content with her purchase was an understatement. Polishing for 10 mintues after every day’s wear of the patent gems.

It wasn’t until our reunion, and her bragging, that we discovered not all well-respected brands get it right every time. Yet it does depend on how you deal with the problem when it arises.

I can safely report that the matter was swiftly taken onboard and my friend got a brand new pair of ones & twos.

Not forgetting, she continues to have only good things to say about the shoe masters in question. So when it goes a bit pete tong, the answer is.. sort it.

How digital tools are changing public relations forever.

Your public relations program could encounter deficiencies if it is not redesigned for the digital era.

Digital public relations requires rethinking and restructuring on conventional public relations techniques, not just a digital overlay.  Several high-tec companies have attained industry visibility that is not necessarily justified by their market position or technical leadership, but rather by their ability to leverage the concept of digital public relations. You should be one of them.

However, when adopted in the political sphere attention to detail and hightened care must be taken.  This is evident in the latest spin conjured up by the Tories, with quite funny consequences. 

It was supposed to display how the modern Conservative Party could harness the power of the internet, yet instead, the Tories’ latest attempt to engage the web backfired outstandingly. 

They launched the “Cash Gordon” website over the weekend as part of an internet campaign to highlight links between the Prime Minister and Unite. The Party then invited the public to contribute through social networking websites Facebook and Twitter.

Things somewhat went array in their plan when this morning, the website had been flooded with mocking and abusive messages.  In the end, hackers infiltrated the page so that visitors to Cash Gordon were redirected to the Labour Party website, porn sites and an infamous video of Rick Astley singing on YouTube.  In a matter of hours the Conservative Party was forced to take down the site, saying it was due to “techinical problems.” 

Cash Gordon had entered the digital world as a slick webpage, using the latest features of Facebook and Twitter in an effort to gain public interest in the campaign but exited in a much more bashful manner.

Silly silly silly.  Key to the Tories’ strategy for Cash Gordon was to invite the public’s comments.  It published all tweets that included the phrase #cashgordon.  This meant that the Cash Gordon website would feature comments praising the campaign, but also, as was more the case, those criticising it.  Clever hackers also wrote tweets that included simple computer codes, meaning that visitors to the site were automatically redirected to toher pages.

It is clear that the Conservatives had built the website in haste and had not learned from the mistakes of others.  Avoid this by teaming up with an effective digital PR  team.

Digital PR is in the know for creating an online buzz and harnessing the web.

End clients are more digitally savvy and they request more digital projects than they did before.  Kate Fitzpatrick, digital marketing manager at publishing house HarperCollins, holds the belief that dedication to the craft doesn’t go unnoticed and is the key to success on the digital platform.

This is a growing requirement as consumers are getting used to high standards online; they expect to be wowed.

Saying that, technology is easy accessible but there are still only few who can master it and use it in creative ways.  For instance, by participating in the social web with digital PR, you’re going to inspire attention for your brand. And attention on the web almost always equals links.  Links earned through PR in and other link building tactics can be a major boost in both rankings and referral traffic.  In addition, editorially earned links are some of the most powerful around.

Everyone in the marketing/PR world know this is true – what is visible is all that matters, and what is unseen counts for nothing.  Attention is one of the most valuable assets of the current economy, and focused attention is a rare resource on the web.

When people come to you through a trusted referral you’re far better positioned than if you had to pay directly for that attention through advertising.  Pull is the most powerful strategy on the web, whereas push is largely ignored.

As Mike Masnick of Techdirt pointed out last year, advertising is content (and content is advertising).  So if you can permeate a niche with content that people spread and share like crazy, you’ve amassed a group who will handle your brand’s advertising for you.

Every company is now a media company.  And what defines a successful media company?  Attention – something that is a result of creating content with the purpose of spreading.  Without attention, which in time will lead to a subscriber base, you’re invisible.  Start to think more like a media company would – in other words, how do I actively court the attention of a like-minded group of people?  If your success as an individual or business is tied to visibility, this is essential.  Whilst also considering that ultimately the type of content you’re producing doesn’t matter, it’s more about activating your audience.

Digital technologies have made media more personal and more accessible.  The brands with a face behind them are the ones emerging as the most trusted.  They are the ones building followings of users in a way that encourages transparency and authenticity.  They are also connecting their users in meaningful ways, and building followings behind shared ideas.  They are tomorrow’s big successes and the people/brands with real influence.  Do you want to be one of them?  Part of the buzz?

When considering Europeans spend more time online from mobile devices than they do reading newspapers or magazines with an average of 6.4 hours spent browsing mobile websites, this is THE place you want your business to be.

With 71m Europeans accessing the internet via their mobile each week, 121m people using broadband and 46% of homes owning at least one laptop, their is obvious impetus for European businesses to jump on the bandwagon and invest of digital PR.

In addition, and particularly more interesting, is the fact that Eastern European countries are expected to see increasing internet pentration. Polish people already spend more time browsing the web on their mobiles than any other nationality, 10.3 hours a week on average.  As accurately put by Alison Fennah, executive director of the European Interactive Advertising Association (EIAA), the study provides a “compelling case for brands to explore” and incorporate a growing number of complemetary interactive platforms into the marketing mix and public relations strategy.  She goes on further to highlight that “mobile is the only medium” you can plan regionally in a properly centralised way.

Indeed. What does the phenomenon of Facebook have to offer?  Amongst other things free samples of the new Marmite savoury cereal bars.  Yum?

Embarking on a campaign using Facebook’s new sampling ad format, Marmite is looking to encourage users of the social networking site to test its new offerings.  Being the second advertiser to use the format, this is actually the first Facebook ad unit that allows users to input their address in order to receive product samples or information from advertisers.  They’ll then be asked to join Marmite’s facebook page and report whether they love or hate the product.

As well as free sample offerings, Facebook goes one leap furtherby signing a payment and ad deal with PayPal.  Those with a PayPal account will now be able to run an ad campaign on Facebook as well as use the online payment system to buy virtual gifts from the Facebook Gift Shop.  The partnership allows payments accepted in key parts of Facebook’s advertising and developer systems.  The availability of ad campaigns to PayPal users will inevitably entice a more rounded offering of smaller, international companies to advertise on the site.  What a partnership huh? Not to mention a fantastic form of online  pr for the soon-to-be companies involved.

The advent of the digital generation has fundamentally transformed the nature of public relations and corporate business.

Industry leaders have revealed that the world’s top companies are increasingly turning to social media to convey their messages to both the public and their stakeholders, with 79 % of Fortune Global 100 companies admitting to using at least one social media platform as part of their communications strategy, according to a study by Burson-Marsteller.

On average, companies claimed to have 4.2 Twitter accounts, 2.1 Facebook fan pages, 1.6 Youtube channels, and 4.2 corporate blogs.  More specifically, Asia-Pacific companies are more likely to have blogs than engage on other social media platforms.  50% of companies surveyed have a blog, while 40% use Twitter and 40% use Facebook.

Burson-Marsteller Asia-Pacific’s lead digital strategist, Charlie Pownall, noted that regional companies have been slower to integrate social media into their strategies, but are changing. “International firms are leading by example in their use of social media; Asian companies have proved more conservative, remaining concerned about resourcing, costs, measurement and the potential reputational risks,” he said. “As their domestic audiences continue to move online, and as the technology infrastructure improves across the region, Asian companies will come to use social media as the core business tool that it has become in the US and Europe.”
Globally, 82 per cent of the polled companies had tweeted in the last week, and 59 per cent had posted content on their Facebook fan page.  In the prior month, 68 per cent had uploaded a video on YouTube and 36 per cent had posted an entry on a corporate blog, reveals Media Asia.

Media Asia further adhere that companies have used social media to interact with audiences as well as using the platforms to relay their own messages.  Thirty-eight per cent of companies affirmed that they respond to audience tweets, and 32 have reposted user comments.
This is interesting to note when news comes that Twitter has passed the landmark figure of 50 million tweets per day and passes Myspace, whilst also considering to allow businesses to personalise accounts used by multiple memebers of staff by adding their own ‘byline’ to tweets in what is the first of a series of additions for business users.

At the moment there seems to be a bit of attention surrounding the challenges that exist for PR agencies in the digital world.  Industry professionals draw attention in particular to the enormous amount of competition, with social media professionals inbedded in competing agencies and specialising in search engine optimisation/marketing, email marketing, web design and build, direct marketing and advertising.  This creates further fragmentation for clients – who do they turn to for digital communications? Reflected Meredith Bradshaw, director of the digital practice at Fleishman-Hillard London.

Bradshaw goes on further to report that in its 2008 annual report, Omnicom (F-H’s holding company) points out that organisations are consolidating their varied marketing needs with fewer agencies.   It reports: ‘In an effort to gain greater efficiency and effectiveness from their total marketing budgets, clients are increasingly requiring greater co-ordination of marketing activities and concentrating these activities with a smaller number of service providers.’

As the strategic communications partner to brands, PR agencies are best positioned to take the lead in digital.  We are in the position to put forward the benefits of digitally enabled public realtions.  As online marketing blog toprankblog.com suggests, you’d be hard pressed to find any modern public relations agency practice that isn’t already researching or implementing a digital PR strategy including search engine optimization, blogging/blogger relations and social media.

As a result, industry insiders are now charged with embracing the online culture of user generated media and the social web.  Participation, transparency and conversation are the buzz words for the future of PR.  The question is, “How to best start incorporating the new rules of the social web into a digital PR effort?”

Come to us, we know

Increasing emphasis on the digital and social side of communications has caused some in the PR industry to say that in the context of digital PR, social media and search engine optimisation can work together to compound results.  As some contend, as PR efforts continue to emphasise content publishing, digital and social communications, the opportunity to keyword optimise content for search is “low hanging fruit,” says Lee Odden, TopRank Online Marketing.

What forward thinking companies must apparently do well is assess the SEO and social media readiness of their marketing and PR resources.  Important when considering that social media marketing efforts that factor in keyword optimization of content can directly influence the discovery of communities and social content via search engines.  Additionally, social content is known to boost links to your website, improving search traffic and Pull PR results. In other words, if you’re going to create it, why not optimize it?  Implementing social media and SEO as silos misses a significant opportunity, which is why it can factor highly in adoptions by digitally enabled public relations consultants.

Meanwhile, industry insiders also nod to search optimized and social media friendly blog content which can extend the reach of company news to search engines as well as social media news and bookmarking sites.  With this in mind, public relations consultants have turned their affections in recent years to the power of search engine optimization for growing the impact of pull based PR efforts.

Search engine marketing is constantly evolving and it is said many companies simply do not have the time or resources to keep current with search engine optimization (SEO) strategies and tactics, which is why the search engine marketing business is rapidly growing as an integral part of today’s online PR activities.

Punch have announced the latest offerings of support to achieve a successful PR campaign, nodding to the importance of social media tools in particular.  They recommend six specific steps to achieving this.

1. Engagement – In an age where knowledge is free and consumers are more likely to be acquainted with the products that are relevant to them, Punch say that engagement is a key element when it comes to influencing brand perception online, leading to positive conversation.

2. Conversation – As social media has the potential to be like a fan to the flames of a relevant and interesting story, they say by highlighting news and articles to relevant consumers is a great way of expanding brand reach, whilst also creating online chatter around a subject.

3. Targeting – Reaching out to specific individuals via social networks is a way of influencing industry leaders and initiating interaction with them, resulting in positive relationships emerging.  In general, responding to specific consumers directly will serve to assure users that there is a human behind the brand, not an automated robot, and in the long term can help in the development of a group of brand advocates, says Punch.

4. Addressing Issues – One of the best uses of social media is to address any issues that consumers may have with a brand, regardless of whether it is positive or negative. Punch say that positive feedback should be met in a positive way, whilst also negative sentiments should be listened too and tended too.

5. Crisis – Crisis communications exercises are difficult at the best of times, but as Punch reveal, social media can play a bit role in measuring how much a crisis has affected users online, whilst also social networks are a great medium for keeping people updated, ensuring a measured process of the dissemination of information.

6. Search Engine Optimisation – Punch are aware that the promotion of content through social networks is a great way of generating backlinks to a brand website. With Google having recently implemented social networking conversation into search results, and the value of links from social networks being high, brands can benefit from significantly increased website traffic from social networks.

Needless to say, by outlining the tools and the subsequent benefits of social media this in turn highlights the value and need for digitally enabled public relations consultancy.

Following the recent undertakings by Coca-Cola and Unilever, who dropped their traditional digital campaign sites to focus all efforts towards community platforms such as Facebook and YouTube, social media appears set to dictate a number of major marketing activities in 2010.

Year on year business giants are moving away from sites created on a campaign-by-campaign basis in favour of investment in existing communities.  Yet is this the right move?  As the digital marketers Econsultancy highlight, your social media weapons should be selected by your strategy, objectives, and overall business structure.  And not use something just to look cool.  Doesn’t that sound familiar?  We all remember when Skittles, jumping on the social media bandwagon, replaced their official website with a Twitter search page showing, in real time, every Tweet mentioning Skittles.  Ok this seems like a pretty cool idea until you consider the deadly combination of cheap internet, short attention spans, and that thirst for internet fame.  It didn’t take long before the page devolved into profanities, racial slurs, and suggestions for crude new slogans. Needless to say Skittles soon resumed regular service.

It goes without saying that it is extremely beneficial to hone your social media skills by continuously educating yourself and by reviewing your existing strategies, not to mention having an exceptionally experienced public relations team behind you.