Feb 3 2012

The Second Screen: Moving Beyond Twitter

February 3, 2012 – 2:03 pm

By Dave McNamara

With the explosion of the smartphone and the tablet market, a shift known as the second screen is quickly taking over how people consume media.  This phenomenon of the second screen essentially means that while people are watching television in the comfort of their living room, they are simultaneously accessing the web on their laptops, tablets, or smartphones.

nielsen-second-screen

According to the Nielsen Company, in figures they released in October 2011, approximately 40% of viewers use mobile devices while watching television. A majority of the activity currently involves time during commercial breaks checking email or sports scores, looking up actor/actress information, or interacting on social networking sites. While this activity would seem disruptive to traditional marketing models, the Nielsen report also discovered that over 1 in 10 of these users checked product information and coupon deals on their devices.

Instead of trying to compete with the second screen, major media companies are seeking to weave the two screens together into a cohesive social television experience. The screens for every major award show and news show are plastered with twitter hash tags to attract live tweets from viewers.  MTV’s 2011 VMA show attracted a record-breaking 5.6 million hits from social media on the day it aired August 28, 2011. With the revelation of Beyoncé’s baby bump during the show, @twitterglobalpr revealed that twitter received a record bump of 8,868 tweets per second. Culling instant feedback like award buzz allows media companies to adjust their content and social strategies according to what attracts enthusiastic attention.

Beyond shaping content strategies from twitter streams and facebook comments, the second screen poses an entirely new platform for marketing and connecting viewers to products. Traditional ad spots are becoming less and less significant.  As Game Day for Super Bowl XLVI approaches this Sunday, major companies have been pre-releasing promotions and commercials. Honda has released “Matthew’s Day Off” a tribute to the 1986 film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Not to be outdone, Volkwagen has released “Dog Strikes Back” an extension of their 2011 commercial featuring a pint-sized Darth Vader.

But, in the rapidly-changing online world, pre-releasing commercials to just the second screen is already très passé.  The interaction of the second screen and first screen together is the future, and major companies and advertisers recognize this shift.

For Game Day, Google is customizing their search resources into a microsite where users will be able to search for recipes,  an entire game day site complete with recipes, pre-game trivia, and essential mobile information like the scores once the kickoff happens.

Other companies have also created sites to engage users via the second screen on game day.  Coca-Cola has created a facebook app that features a polar-bear game-watching party.  Pizza delivery chain Papa John’s is promoting their site where users can register for the Papa John’s reward program and pick whether the coin toss for the Super Bowl is heads or tails. If a user’s prediction matches the coin toss on Game Day, she will receive a free pizza courtesy Papa John’s. General Motors has created a Chevrolet mobile app for the iOS and Android mobile platforms to enable fans to interact and possibly win promotions. Fans who registered before January 27 received unique license numbers that give them the opportunity to win one of the cars featured in the Chevrolet XLVI commercials based upon matching a fan’s license number to the license plate of one of the cars.

Even though uncertainty about the future platforms of media and advertising persists, capitalizing on the second screen is a considerable opportunity for advertisers. With a well-thought-out strategy and matching execution plan, a coordinated campaign can unite competing media platforms like television and smartphones. With the added benefit of instant feedback and accurate metrics, the efforts can precisely engage target audiences. The viewers can instantly access timely promotions on their second screen devices, improving response rate to the ads.

Captivated Cat

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Dave McNamara | Posted in Digital Marketing, PR Industry Trends | Tagged , | Comments (2)
Jan 20 2012

SOPA, PIPA, The Internet Hasn’t Won Yet

January 20, 2012 – 11:08 am

By Jason Poulos (@TheSaganaki)

sopa

On Wednesday January 18, the Internet spoke out against these ridiculous bills that our government is trying to pass. It’s very nice to see big and small sites take a stand and fight for our Internet freedom. Did this protesting make a difference? Did we influence our representatives? Check out the graphic from ProPublica.org that compares supporters vs. opponents for the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

The Internet won! Right? Obama says he won’t support SOPA, but what about the Protect IP Act (PIPA)? Keep in mind SOPA and PIPA are two separate bills, but I think a lot of people might think it’s one bill. According to ProPublica.org 37 senators support PIPA, and only 22 oppose the bill.  What is PIPA?

Our government isn’t giving up on passing something completely idiotic, a co-worker forwarded me this info sent out by the New York Tech Meet Up:

“The proponents of PIPA/SOPA are now regrouping and redoubling their efforts to force these egregious pieces of legislation into law by forcing a vote next week in the Senate called “Cloture”, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloture) which in effect forces Senators to vote for a bill as written without debate or amendments. They are doing this as fast as possible because they know opposition is building, and they still think they have the votes necessary to pass PIPA.”

If you haven’t done so, please contact your senator and oppose this bill!

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Jason Poulos | Posted in PR Industry Trends | Tagged , , | Comments (0)
Jan 18 2012

CRT/tanaka Protests The Protect IP Act

January 18, 2012 – 12:24 pm

Many websites are blacked out today to protest proposed U.S. legislation that threatens internet freedom: the Stop Internet Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA). From personal blogs to Wikipedia, sites all over the web are asking you to help stop this dangerous legislation from being passed. Please watch the video below to learn how this legislation will affect internet freedom.

Take action now.

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Jason Poulos | Posted in PR Industry Trends | Tagged , , | Comments (3)
Jan 11 2012

Five Tips for Creating the Perfect Creative Brief

January 11, 2012 – 4:12 pm

ThinkingBy Jeff Wilson, APR (@wilson0507)

 The following article originally appeared in the “Five Tips” section of the Fall 2011 issue of Comunicas: Revista de tendencias en comunicación de Grupo BPMO (Communicate: Review of Trends in Communication) from Spain.

1.       Be Descriptive

In many ways, the best designs – whether for a collateral piece, website or video – are the ones that look effortless.

They hit the mark when it comes to clarity of message, interpreting the brand and connecting with the audience. It all begins with the brief. When constructing the perfect creative brief, be sure that you are as descriptive as possible when providing the most pertinent information for the designer. Some basic questions that the creative brief should answer include: What is the goal of the project? What is the client trying to communicate and why?

2.       Include Project Specifics

Each creative project is different.

While the creative brief shouldn’t completely restrict the creativity of the designer, it should include specifics of the project. For example, is the company logo required for the piece? Is there a specific color palette for this project? Are there fonts that must be used or avoided? Also, include a description of the brand personality, positioning statement, tagline and any other information, such as the web address and phone number. The more specific you can be in the creative brief, the more pleased everyone will be with the product.

3.       Keep the Audience in Mind

 When constructing a creative brief, first and foremost, always keep the intended audience in mind.

Go beyond age and gender and provide demographic and psychographic information. What does the audience already know about your company, product or service? How does the audience currently think, feel and behave in relation to your product, service or company? What unique or focused message should the audience walk away with after reading or seeing the piece? A design piece can be creative, but if it doesn’t connect with the right audience, it’s useless.

4.       Provide a Timeline

From the start, the designer should be aware of pertinent deadlines.

To ensure this, the creative brief should be as explicit as possible with a reasonable timeline. When are the initial creative concepts due? When will revisions be done? At what point will designs be shared with the client? When will the piece be completed? When will the piece be ready for publication or viewing (in the case of advertising), ready for print (for collateral pieces) or uploaded (in the case of websites)?

5.       Explain Measurement Criteria

The last and arguably the most important part of the creative brief should be some criteria for measuring success.

Measurement criteria are not only essential for determining whether or not the creative piece has succeeded, but they also focus the designer to consider how the creative piece is expected to work. Ask yourself, what are the objectives that the design solution will be measured against? These metrics should go beyond sales. They should also include how effectively the piece has captured the brand’s personality and equity.

Here are some links to other articles about writing effective creative briefs related to advertising, PR and logo design:

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Jeff Wilson | Posted in PR Industry Trends | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (0)
Dec 12 2011

Skillsets Every PR Pro Needs

December 12, 2011 – 10:50 am

Guest post by Gini Dietrich (@ginidietrich)

Gini Pro Photo

If you missed it a few weeks ago, the New York Times wrote a piece about redefining public relations.

You see, the last time PR was defined was in 1982. Yes, 30 years ago. And, in the last five years, our industry has completely been turned on its head.

All of the journalists we spent our entire careers building relationships with were suddenly unemployed. Companies began to rush to figure out how to make money with the newest and shiniest penny. Paid and earned media had a new sibling: Owned media. And marketing, public relations and advertising began the “who owns this” fight.

But we’re entering a new year – a year where all of these things are meeting their mid-level experience. So it’s time to think about the key skills you need to have going into 2012 and beyond.

  1. Search Engine Optimization. It makes sense that a lot of the content that is being produced comes out of PR. We’ve always been writers and readers. Now we have to take that skill and learn how to optimize our content so it’s being crawled by the search engines, while also being highly valuable and engaging.
  2. Search Engine Marketing. This doesn’t typically fall into a PR pro’s toolbox because it’s pay-per-click and ads. But if you don’t have an understanding of how it works, how to do A/B testing and what to do with the results, you won’t be #winning.
  3. Content Marketing. Content goes beyond the white papers and advertorials we’re accustomed to doing. It’s videos and podcasts and blogs and emails and eBooks and more. The thing about content marketing is, if you don’t do it yourself, you’ll never truly understand it. Start yourself a personal Tumblr blog, get on WordPress, or even try out Blogger (though it’s not as good as the others). When you are developing content for something personal, you begin to understand the applications it has for clients, as well as how to build community.
  4. Inbound Marketing. This goes hand-in-hand with content marketing because it’s all about the engaging and valuable content you’re creating. But it’s driving leads. So you’re going to write content that drives people to your site and encourages them to buy. Content that has headlines around what people search. For instance, one of our highest read blog posts is PR vs. marketing. That’s because people search that term and we have content to fulfill their need (plus a webinar they can buy on it).
  5. Integration. 2012 is going to be the year of integration. PR is going to work with sales. Marketing is going to work with advertising. Customer service is going to work with product development. Instead of the silos we’re all accustomed to having, we’ll become a hub where information is shared and the left and right hands know what the other is doing. No longer will we have the “who owns this” fight.
  6. Results. Gone are the days of media impressions and advertising equivalencies. You need to gain yourself some business knowledge (how the company makes money) and some marketing expertise (how to target audiences to buy, using owned media). This is the only way you’ll understand how the work you’re doing is not just generating sales, but creating profit.

It’s a great time to be in this industry. We get to learn, expand our horizons and get out of our comfort boxes. So go do it!

Gini Dietrich is the founder and CEO of Arment Dietrich, the author of Spin Sucks, the founder of the soon-to-be-launched Spin Sucks Pro and a co-author of the forthcoming Marketing In the Round.

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Admin | Posted in Digital Marketing, PR Industry Trends | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (8)
Nov 10 2011

Thanksgiving Lessons for PR Pros

November 10, 2011 – 12:30 pm

By Jenn Riggle

Normal Rockwell's famous painting, "Freedom of Want"

Thanksgiving is a time when we overindulge, heaping our plates with turkey and mashed potatoes, not to mention pumpkin pie. And while the food may be wonderful, you can sometimes have too much of a good thing.

The same is true with press releases. While press releases are a great way to share your news with the media, you can overdo it.

Here are some PR lessons learned from Thanksgiving dinner:

You can go to the buffet table too many times: If you’re issuing press releases more than twice a month or you’re issuing a lot of “market releases” to generate buzz, you can damage your organization’s credibility. Reporters may start to view your releases as marketing or spam. This is especially true if you’re reaching out to a limited number of trade reporters who cover your industry.

Don’t forget your veggies: With so many tasty things to eat, you can sometimes forget the basics. By the same token, it’s important to remember that press releases are actually “news releases.” The goal of a news release is to share news and information with the media and the general public. So remember that you should issue news releases when you have something newsworthy to say, such as announcing:

  • New products or services
  • Executive appointments
  • Major sales (group into one momentum release)
  • Awards
  • Research findings
  • Events such as a TweetChat, Twitter Party or Webinar

It’s all about relationships: The holidays are about spending time with family. Press releases also are a great way to develop your relationships – with reporters and editors. There is a marketing rule that you need to reach out to people three times in order to make an impression. That’s why we talk about using a “rolling thunder” strategy and issuing press releases on a regular basis. Not only does this help keep your organization top-of-mind, but it you can use these releases as a way to develop relationships with key reporters.

After cooking all day, someone needs to clean up: The work isn’t done once the dinner is cooked. Someone needs to go back and clean all the dishes. The same is true when issuing a press release. It’s not enough to just issue a press release on the newswire. You need to reach out to reporters. Don’t call them to follow-up on a press release. Instead, follow-up on a story angle and ask them what types of stories they’re working on and whether they’re interested in this type of story.

Try it, you’ll like it: I read a great post from Mickie Kennedy, founder of eReleases, which explained that sometimes it’s better to forego issuing a press release and find another way to share your information. Consider the following:

  • Developing a bylined article – If your goal is to generate news coverage, there’s really not a better way to do this than writing the news story yourself. This not only lets you frame the news, but it also helps to establish your executives as thought leaders.
  • Writing a white paper or case study – Like a bylined article, this is a great way to tell your own story, but doesn’t require having to sell it to a reporter. These types of documents can be posted on your website and used as a sales tool. What’s not to like?
  • Turning it into a blog post – Blogs are social media’s answer to the OpEd. Granted, it might need a little tweaking to be more conversational in tone, but you can either post it on your website or pitch it to a more established blog. Then you can post links or excerpts via Twitter and Facebook.
  • Turning the release into a video – A picture is worth a thousand words. Consider whether you might be able to shoot a short video that brings your story to life. It’s a great way to have people put executive names with faces. Again, you can post this on YouTube and your website and post links via Twitter and Facebook.
  • Pitching an exclusive story – Reporters love an exclusive. So instead of issuing a press release, consider developing a targeted media pitch and offering it to one of your key reporters. Not only does this offer the potential for a high-visibility placement, but it offers you another opportunity to offer greater value and hone relationships with key media contacts.
  • Developing an OpEd or Letter to the Editor – These can provide another way to generate coverage in one of your target media. However, these can’t be “overly promotional” and need to be clearly linked to a news angle.

After all of the Christmas parties and family feasts, we’re all going to be counting calories after the holidays. When planning for 2011, you may want to consider putting your release schedule on a diet as well. You’ll thank yourself later.

This post was originally published December 2, 2010.

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Jenn Riggle | Posted in PR Industry Trends | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (4)
Nov 9 2011

Ten DOs and DON’Ts for An Effective Hispanic-Targeted Social Media Campaign

November 9, 2011 – 11:26 am

 

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Note: Today’s guest Buzz Bin post is written by Gaby Alban, Co-Founder and CEO of Conexión (www.conexionagency.com), a full-service marketing firm specializing in the Hispanic market with offices in Los Angeles and Miami.

By Gaby Alban

What’s one part public relations, one part customer service, one part advertising, one part digital programming and one part marketing genius?

Answer: The perfect social media campaign.

Effective social media campaigns that successfully target Hispanics and deliver solid results are hybrid campaigns requiring a broad range of skills. In fact, the biggest pitfall of such campaigns is that the person or department who developed the idea far too often wields total control over the project, from budget allocations to the delegation of individual tasks. Digital departments may see social media as a reason to build a new app or implement a new tracking system. Marketing views it as an extension of existing ad campaigns and budgets it primarily as a media buy. Customer service departments value the direct customer interaction and assign staffing for rapid response. Most importantly, managers underestimate the challenges of reaching Hispanics in a culturally and linguistically appropriate manner in this intimate marketing channel.

Here are 10 Dos and Don’ts for effective Hispanic-targeted social media campaigns:

1. Do divide the jobs of community building and community management

Creating a social media fan base is a different job than maintaining one. The job of creating a vibrant Hispanic online community from scratch requires knowing how to target fans in the appropriate language for each social platform, then advertising and then optimizing to discover what engages them. Once a community is up and running and the social media voice is established, the job becomes more about encouraging existing fans and friends to spread the word to keep the community growing. Make sure you staff each phase appropriately.

 2. Do have a separate community manager

Fans and followers are the building blocks of any social media campaign. A community manager speaks to them in a tone and language that is engaging and keeps their needs and interests at the forefront, fueling their enthusiasm, and thereby encouraging rapid growth of the community. Part customer service representative and part marketer, the community manager monitors and responds to the day-to-day needs and interests of the community, gleaning information that can impact ads, content and timing.

3. Do have a separate content coordinator

If content is king, then content coordination is surely queen. Tweets, Facebook posts, recommendations and comments come from many people in an organization, as well as partners and agencies. Some posts will be in Spanish, some in English, but all of them need to stay “on message” and appear in a timely manner. The full-time job of the content coordinator is that of a good PR manager, keeping everyone on message, keeping them culturally relevant and encouraging participation, all while taking feedback from the community via the community manager to evolve the message.

4. Don’t ignore the value of advertising

Facebook and YouTube users are accustomed to seeing ads that are part of the conversation. Don’t fall into the trap that social media campaigns are exclusively about earned media, while ads are a separate item controlled by marketing. Ads on Facebook grow the fan base and increase fan interaction. Good ads reflect current community interests, inform users of new ideas and keep them connected with their friends’ likes and postings.

5. Do make sure ads are adapted and optimized quickly

Ads are entertainment content in social media. Facebook and YouTube ads need to be fun and encourage participation by new and current fans. Just remember, the ad cycle is quick in this environment, requiring weekly refreshing and optimization.

6. Do respond to fans and customers in appropriate language

It’s extremely important that everyone on your team is speaking the same language in your campaign. Be sure to set a clearly defined voice — whether it is in Spanish or English, formal or informal — for posts. Once your campaign is in motion, be flexible and respond to comments in kind whether people respond in a different tone, language or even Spanglish. Most importantly, be friendly and respond appropriately.

7. Do involve marketing early when developing new apps and technology

When developing new technology apps, customer service and marketing are your best resources, not your programmers! A brilliant but slow-loading application is a waste of money, so trust your team’s connection to the customer when looking for the “next big thing.”

8. Don’t rely too heavily on automated tools to track sentiment, particularly in Spanish or bilingual campaigns

Measurement in social media changes monthly, and there are new tools that promise to automate many jobs, but tracking sentiment in Spanish and bilingual communities is still a job best done by hand. Even in English, understanding context, slang and regional differences is difficult for software. In Spanish, the ability to accurately measure those factors is still a few years away. Using your community manager to understand the true nature of the conversation is your best option and will ultimately determine the value of the intelligence you derive from your campaign.

9. Do define your success metrics at the start so everyone is watching them during the campaign

While social media metrics seem vague in general, avoid relying on arbitrary metrics like total number of fans or followers. The best metrics are based on business objectives. Some good examples are:

  • Market research data
  • Lead generation or sales
  • Usable content, such as comments, posts, tweets or likes for a website or other marketing program
  • Increased awareness

These will be more significant in shaping your social media campaigns than the number of fans or followers you acquire. Relying on these business objectives to guide the development of your social media campaigns will help your business achieve real results and a useful ROI.

10. Do make sure the campaign is managed by someone who knows the audience and the platforms being utilized

Social media is made up of fast-moving conversations that are filled with slang, irony, daily events and culture. Make sure the campaign manager has a rock solid understanding of the Hispanic contingent on the platforms being utilized — Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and others. A solid foundation in these platforms will allow you to adapt quickly to the changing conversation and use it to reap solid ROI and long-term results. 

Photo from Hispanically Speaking News

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Jeff Wilson | Posted in Digital Marketing, PR Industry Trends | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)
Oct 12 2011

The Rise of Texting, The Fall of Phone Calls: New Options like Apple’s iMessage Makes Texting Free

October 12, 2011 – 2:44 pm

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By Jeff Wilson, APR (@wilson0507)

I admit it. I’m slow to embrace change. The older I get, the more that seems to be true.

Case in point, text messaging. I text. Not because I particularly like it. It’s out of necessity. I have friends and family who refuse to pick up the phone to talk, yet will respond to text messages almost instantaneously.

Which makes me wonder, is the old-fashioned phone call becoming a dinosaur?

Not yet, but it could be heading that way.

According to a study released in September by the Pew Research Center, nearly three out of four Americans send text messages, and among those who do, 31 percent prefer texting to talking.

Not surprising, young adults are the biggest “texters.” The study states that cell phone owners between 18 and 24 exchange an average of 110 text messages a day, which works out to more than 3,200 texts in a given month.

Free Texting Coming to a Phone Near You

The one drawback to text messaging has been price, with wireless carriers still charging up to 20 cents to send a text message and another 20 cents to receive it. But even that could soon become a thing of the past.

“There are now a growing number of ways to bypass text-message charges using an Internet connection — much as Skype allows people to make calls without relying on a traditional telephone line. If these services catch on in a big way, analysts say, they could take a big bite out of the profits that text messages generate for wireless carriers,” The New York Times reports.

The launch of Apple’s new iMessage will allow iPhone users to send messages with text, photos and video to other iPhone owners over a Wi-Fi or cellular data connection. The service, part of an update to Apple’s iOS mobile operating system, will automatically handle messages sent between iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch users who have upgraded to the latest software free of charge.

The Apple Insider calls iMessage Apple’s answer to the popular Blackberry Messenger (BBM) application that allows BlackBerry users to instant message each other.

Samsung and Google also are reportedly working on similar services that would allow Android users to communicate via free messages instead of pricier SMS texts. Meanwhile, Microsoft is said to be readying its own instant messaging system for the Windows Phone platform, according to Apple Insider.

The Pitfalls of Texting  

While the ability to text more without added charges is a good thing, we should still remember the pitfalls of texting.

Texting – or emailing – while driving slows reaction time and makes drivers more likely to miss a flashing light, according to new research from Texas A&M University’s Texas Transportation Institute.

In the study, 42 drivers between the ages of 16 and 54 drove on an 11-mile test course while sending or receiving text messages, and again while focusing completely on the road. The researchers asked the drivers to stop when they saw a flashing yellow light and recorded their reaction time.

The typical reaction time without texting was between one and two seconds, but while texting it increased to three to four seconds, regardless of whether the driver was typing or reading a text. The researchers also found that a texting driver was 11 times more likely to miss the flashing light.

The Loss of Interpersonal Connections

Don’t get me wrong. Texting is good. It’s convenient. And it isn’t going anywhere any time soon.

But I do wonder about this upcoming generation of kids I see with heads down and fingers feverishly texting away almost constantly.

Are they losing some interpersonal communications skills? If so, how will this impact them in the future, particularly in the workplace?

Only time will tell.

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Jeff Wilson | Posted in Digital Marketing, PR Industry Trends | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (1)
Oct 3 2011

Best Practices in Enterprise-wide Social Media Policy: Four Big Brands to Learn From

October 3, 2011 – 12:10 pm

By Priya Ramesh (@newpr)

think-before-you-speak

Think before you tweet!

The recent Nielsen report was a little bit of a shocker for me when I saw the following stats. I mean, how in the world do we have so much free time on hand? BUT these are key indicators to understand how your consumers (and more importantly your employees!) might be spending their time online, so pay close attention:

  • Americans spent a total of 53.5 billion minutes on Facebook in May
  • 70 percent of all adult social-network users shop online
  • 60 percent create reviews of products or services
  • About 31 million people watched nearly 157 video streams on social networks or blogs in May
  • A growing segment – about 37 percent – access social networks with their mobile phones
  • More than twice the number of Internet users age 55 and older accessed social media on their phones than a year ago.

Let’s first accept that whether we like it or not, employees in large to small organizations alike are increasingly using social media both during and after working hours. The bigger question that you need to ask as a corporate communications pro is, “Are they saying things online that could potentially jeopardize your brand’s reputation or on the contrary enhance your brand value?” We all know, social media is here to stay and as companies figure out ways to leverage digital platforms for a wide variety of reasons: customer service, online reputation, consumer campaigns, internal collaboration across multiple offices, cause marketing, it is critical that they also implement a SOCIAL MEDIA POLICY FRAMEWORK that lays certain ground rules for engagement. Don’t let the word “policy” alarm you. I will share with you some best practices on how some big brands have laid out their online communications framework to facilitate an enterprise-wide adoption of social media so you can pick and choose what works best for your organization. The key point to remember is your social media policy is an evolving document and must be revisited and revised periodically. I have shortlisted four big brands that represent a range of verticals (B2B, B2C, Hospital, Non-profit) to highlight key fundamentals in creating a policy that works for you. Keep in mind that the nature of your business defines how specific your social media policy guideline needs to be. For e.g. the rules of engagement for a hospital system need to comply with patient privacy/HIPPA regulations while a financial services company needs to adhere to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) guidelines.  

Best Buy:  Helping Employees Humanize the Brand (Be Smart, Be Human, Be Respectful)

Best Buy does a great job of keeping their social media policy simple and straightforward and the core focus is on helping their staff humanize the brand. The rules of functioning in an electronic world are “the same as the values, ethics and confidentiality policies employees are expected to live every day, whether you’re Twittering, talking with customers or chatting over the neighbor’s fence.” Besides reminding their employees about transparency, respecting privacy, legal use of company and customers’ information and acting as brand advocates, what I also like about Best Buy’s policy is the gentle reminder of the consequences someone might have to face if they violate the online policy:

“Just in case you are forgetful or ignore the guidelines above, here’s what could happen. You could:

• Get fired (and it’s embarrassing to lose your job for something that’s so easily avoided)
• Get Best Buy in legal trouble with customers or investors
• Cost us the ability to get and keep customers

Here’s the link to Best Buy’s Social Media Policy http://forums.bestbuy.com/t5/Welcome-News/Best-Buy-Social-Media-Policy/td-p/20492.

Coca Cola: Investing in Employee Training with Social Media Certification Program

For a consumer brand like Coca Cola that gets over 5,000 conversations a day, the pressure is high to keep it fresh and “happy” for their fans and followers online. If you are a consumer brand with a potential to get a high volume of interaction online, you can imagine the army of social media brand evangelists you need to have to respond in real time. What we can learn from Coca Cola is the investment they have made in the CONTINUOUS LEARNING and TRAINING that’s required to build a cross-functional team of employees who understand different channels.  All Coca Cola Associates who wish to officially represent the company online must complete the Social Media Certification Program prior to beginning or continuing these activities. Read more about Coca Cola’s Social Media Policy here http://www.thecoca-colacompany.com/socialmedia/

Ministry Health Care and Affinity Health System: Simplifying Your Social Media Policy  Sometimes when we communicators followed by lawyers write down the social media policy for an organization, we tend to make it more complex than it should be. The main goal of your policy is to explain in simple terms how your employees are expected to engage online. Ann Tracy Mueller, Co-Editor, Healthcare Communications News in her blog post “Five Healthcare Social Media Policies You Must Read” highlights what Ministry Health Care and Affinity Health System has done to create a comprehensive policy which also has more simplified version to help their staff understand the basics of engagement (see bullet list below).

  • Don’t betray our patients’ trust (and don’t get arrested). 
  • Don’t cheat your employer.
  • Don’t think your Facebook posts are private.
  • Don’t jeopardize your reputation and/or future employment opportunities.
  • Don’t alienate your co-workers.
  • Ministry loves the Internet.
  • We need a tech-savvy workforce.
  • The best advertising used to be word-of-mouth. Now it is word-of-keyboard.
  • Share your knowledge.

American Red Cross: Empowering 600 National Chapters to Actively Engage

Wendy Harman, director of social strategy at the American Red Cross has set a great benchmark in the non-profit world by creating a social-media policy based on the work of WOMMA, Dell, Sun Microsystems, IBM, Hill and Knowlton, and Fellowship Church.  The Red Cross social media policy guides the charity’s more than 600 national chapters. Wendy does an excellent job of encouraging all Red Cross chapters to blog effectively. The rules of blogging are well laid out in Red Cross’ policy http://sites.google.com/site/wharman/social-media-strategy-handbook . What I really like about the Red Cross social media policy is the tone that Wendy uses to encourage all her chapters to participate online without the interference of the National Headquarters.

Part of my job as CRT/tanaka’s Social Media Director is to ensure our clients have implemented a social media policy that their employees are fully cognizant of and facilitate training sessions to help them get started. Our agency provides a standard social media policy template that you can customize according to your organizational needs. Please drop me a note if you would like a copy of the template pramesh@crt-tanaka.com.   

If you are attending PRSA International Conference (Oct 15th-18th) in Orlando, FL, please do join my panel on “Identify, Implement and Train: Moving Beyond Social Media Policy” on Sun, Oct 16th, 4:15-6PM. Details available at: http://bit.ly/nkzKy1. Panelists include noted PR/Digital leaders Diedre Breakenridge (President of Mango!), Diane Gomez (PRSA’s Communications Manager) and George Faulkner (Program Manager, Social Engagement, IBM) who will help you formulate a policy framework that meets your business goals.

Also check out PRSA’s social media policy toolkit http://www.prsa.org/AboutPRSA/GuidelinesLogos/ that was released earlier this year to provide social media best practices for PRSA members and volunteers. If you have a question about social media policies or need help getting started, drop me a line pramesh@crt-tanaka.com. Thank you and hope to see you at PRSA International (@PRSAICon).

Image Courtesy: Internet Marketing and Social Media http://bit.ly/nXL95S.

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Priya Ramesh | Posted in Digital Marketing, PR Industry Trends | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments (2)
Sep 19 2011

Americans Prefer Texting to Calling: Add Mobile Calls-to-Action to Your Holiday Campaigns

September 19, 2011 – 1:18 pm

By Priya Ramesh (@newpr)

mgive-asks-you-to-text-haiti-to-90999-to-give-10-to-red-cross-mLet me start by making it clear that I am NOT a fan of texting while driving but YES I do believe texting is a lot easier than asking your audience to visit a website, participate in a photo contest or even a video contest. Campaigns that ask your audience to do less actually do more in terms of engagement and participation. So if you have a charitable giving component to your PR efforts this holiday season, think about TEXT campaigns to make it easier to GIVE.

The latest Pew Research center’s Internet & American Life Project shows that “Some 83% of American adults own cell phones and three-quarters of them (73%) send and receive text messages. Pew Research  asked those texters in a survey how they prefer to be contacted on their cell phone and 31% Study-SMS-Still-Way-More-Popular-Than-Social-Networking-For-Mobile-Userssaid they preferred texts to talking on the phone. So there you have it. While we might be becoming a generation of texters versus talkers, I think it’s important to keep in mind that “ease of engagement” is key to your campaigns and texting definitely makes it easier to follow that Call-to-Action at the end of your message (radio/TV/print/email/social media).

So now that you are nodding your head in agreement, let’s think about some simple ways you can incorporate texting to your ongoing efforts:

Text to Donate This Holiday: If you have charitable giving/fundraising plans for your non-profits of choice, make it easier for your employees/customers to simply reach out to their phones to donate. The Verizon Foundation, Verizon’s philanthropic arm recently launched a text to donate campaign to assist the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army with Hurricane Irene relief efforts.  Verizon Wireless customers can support relief efforts by making a $10 donation to one of nine organizations by sending a text message. Donating is easy; customers simply text a specific word to the organization’s designated short code:

  • American Red Cross Relief: Text “REDCROSS” to 90999
  • Salvation Army: Text “STORM” to 80888
  • Vermont Food Bank: Text “FOODNOW” to 52000
  • World Vision: Text “IRENE” or “STORMUSA” to 777444
  • United Way Greater Capital Region (Albany, NY): Text “IRENE” to 80888
  • United Way of Hudson County (NJ): Text “UWHC” to 85944
  • United Way of Bergen County (NJ): Text “CFUND” to 85944
  • North Carolina Baptists Mission: Text “IRENE” to 85944
  • Operation Compassion: Text “HURRICANE” to 85944

We all know how successful the Text to Help Haiti campaign was with the American Red Cross raising a whopping $5M for Haiti relief. http://mashable.com/2010/01/13/haiti-red-cross-donations/. By combining social media promotions especially Twitter to your text to donate campaigns, you can aim for a wider reach and increased fundraising for your CSR efforts.

Add Mobile Call-to-Action to Your Email Campaigns: This is for companies that are sitting on large email databases, a gold mine of contacts that you have access to. If you are investing heavily on email marketing for holiday sales, think about adding a simple Mobile Call-to-Action to your targeted emails. You might just increase your conversion rate with a texting component to your email marketing. I want to share a Mobile Marketer feature on what Simon Malls (owned by Simon property Group, largest real estate company in the U.S.) did as part of their 2010 Holiday campaign that showed a 34% conversion rate to their Mobile Shopper Club.  Simon Malls smartly combined their holiday email campaigns with a mobile call-to-action. The email offered consumers a chance to win a $10,000 American Express Simon Giftcard and the chance to meet singer Selena Gomez by either going to the company’s site, its Facebook page or by texting the keyword WIN to the short code 71610.

After consumers texted, in they received a message back from Simon Malls that said “Great! Please reply with the name of your favorite Simon mall to start getting msgs. Max 5 msgs/month. Msg + data rates may apply. STOP = optout, HELP = help.”

Twenty-five percent of consumers who received the email messages texted in. “The one that definitely blew me away was the email to text,” Patrick Flanagan, vice president of digital strategy and marketing at Simon Property Group’s Simon Brand Ventures said. “As a marketer, email is about driving a click. “Over a fourth of our holiday sweepstakes entries came from our holiday call- to-action,” he said. “It was unintuitive – for us it was a breakthrough.”

Read more about the Simon Malls holiday text campaign at http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/resources/webinars/9186.html

Other links to holiday text campaigns:

http://countrymusictattletale.com/2010/12/04/st-jude-launched-text-to-donate-holiday-campaign-that-includes-lady-a-jewel-danny-gokey-and-more/

http://www.mobilecommercedaily.com/2010/12/07/american-red-cross-runs-25-per-text-holiday-mobile-giving-initiative

You must subscribe to www.mobilemarketer.com if you are planning to do more with mobile going forward. They have a wealth of information on what brands are doing with mobile.

Text campaigns are NOT expensive but yes you do need to invest in some planning/promotions for your campaign just like any other. Also remember that text campaigns may not be for all brands especially if your audience construes it to be spammy but for the millions of us who do opt in to get a text on weekly discounts, holiday savings delivered right into the palm of our hands, adding texting elements to your promotional efforts might show increased results. Think different, think smart this holiday season!

Photo courtesy: http://moconews.net/image/mgive-asks-you-to-text-haiti-to-90999-to-give-10-to-red-cross/.

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Priya Ramesh | Posted in Digital Marketing, PR Industry Trends | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (3)