Revolver

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.

Well it’s game on for Apple and Google with the impending launch of Google’s Nexus One, considered by many to be the best retort to the iPhone.  This is countered by a prepackaged announcement by Apple’s CEO Steve Job, stating that the number of iPhone applications downloaded had passed the 3 billion mark and thus “see no signs of the competition catching up anytime soon.”

It’s quite evident that this press release was the latest in a series of quick-fire news leaks and releases out of Apple headquarters.  However, if there’s nothing to fear why deliver such self-serving swanking? Attention from the tech press is no doubt at stake with Google’s smartphone soon to be out of the bag.

As a cutting edge agency offering public relations consultancy, we are conscious of the need to have all our tools close at hand, thus the Google Android is the perfect offering for the digital PR crowd at Revolver.   

Nonetheless, the fact that Google and Apple are jousting with words and press releases makes the road ahead far more exciting to travel.  This is evident in the ChangeWave Research survey of 4,068 consumers in December 2009, revealing that an impressive 21% of people were looking to buy a Google Android, whilst Apple’s iPhone was only mildly ahead with 28%. 

So not such a clear win for the Apple giant just yet.

According to a new survey, 96% of Boston’s citizens use Facebook to communicate with friends and family while 52% claim they couldn’t last a week without social media.

The Prompt Communications research claims that while phone calls remain the most common method of communication – with 99% of respondents regularly using the phone to connect with friends and family – Facebook (96%) is now the next most popular communication tool. SMS came in third at 93%, followed by email with 91%.

The Digital PR and social media consultancy’s statistics revealed that overall, people appear to believe that advances in technology have created a negative effect on their lives and interpersonal communications in several ways. The majority (60%) believes that it relies too much on technology, while 71% believe social media is making communication less personal.

Despite these reservations, people are still using social media regularly. Some 28% of respondents claimed that they could only go one week without using social media, with a further 24% worried about just a few days. These figures compared to just 27% who felt they could live offline indefinitely.

Interesting post by Allan Bisset on Fresh Egg. In a nutshell, he makes the point that while social media channels are increasingly important for PR campaigns, they don’t change the fundamental principles of public relations.

Irrespective of which platforms or services dominate the social media arena, online conversations will continue to happen, people will keep sharing information and businesses will do their level best to wring competitive advantage out of being part of that process. In the end it doesn’t really matter whether services such as Twitter stay the course or fizzle out, because what’s important is that when conversation happens, you’re waiting, listening and ready to contribute wherever and whenever it’s appropriate.