Is PR stuck on “social” and missing the bigger picture?
Apr 27th
How has social media changed how PR Agencies compete and serve their customers? Are they stuck on “social” and missing the bigger picture?”
How has the PR business model changed in the last three years and what’s next?
What does it take to find and attract the best PR talent?
Elizabeth Sosnow is managing director of Bliss PR in New York City, a national agency focused on support for financial, healthcare and personal services. In this video interview she applies her 20 years of experience in the field to discuss the impact of the digital age on public relations and her company.
Have a question for Elizabeth? She just might be available to address your queries in the comment section! What’s on your mind?
A PR 2.0 Success Story: How I Became a Mommy Blogger
Jan 13th
This is a true story. The names have been changed to protect the innocent. Wait, no they haven’t.
The Mommy Blogger Genre is generally not a pool I would splash around in, but I was doing research for a class and I was blown away by the facts and figures about this subculture. Check it out:
- There are 42 million women involved in social media weekly — and about half of them are moms with children at home. Of those, about 11.5 million moms are actively taking part in the blogosphere.
- According to the Consumer Electronics Association report, U.S. moms are more active on social networks than any adult demographic. Moms spend an average of 111 hours online, and one in three moms regularly post product reviews.
- Cision noted that “Mom bloggers are extremely vital to the new media landscape,” and that they “use new media like nobody’s business.”
- Nielsen compiled a list of the 50 most influential mommy bloggers and further dissected the genre into six sub-categories: Queen Bees, Savvy Spenders, Mom-Approved Reviewers, Mamastes, Tech Moms and CEO Moms.
During my research I discovered that General Mills has set up a blog network specifically to serve this group called MyBlogSpark. Mommy Bloggers in the program have insider access to General Mills product freebies.
Wait a minute. FREEBIES? You mean I could get my hands on some limited edition Cheerios or something? Maybe some Chipotle Hamburger Helper? Baby SIGN ME UP!
And that’s how I officially became a Mommy Blogger. You had me at Häagen-Dazs.
I LOVE the idea behind this blogger outreach program. This is a classic case of PR 2.0 and General Mills seems to be doing it right:
- They’re not depending on tired product pitches to get their news out. Influencers are right in the middle of the product introductions. They’re involved with the company and the products.
- They are running an upfront and ethical shop, encouraging bloggers to be transparent about how they receive samples.
- The company asks to be contacted directly for feedback if bloggers don’t feel they can write a positive review. This seems like enlightened brand management.
- General Mills is creating loyalty and community by highlighting and rewarding outstanding bloggers.
There’s been just one little problem so far. I’ve been in the program for more than a month and have yet to receive a single product sample. In fact the only thing I have received was a link to a lame Jolly Green Giant Holiday video.
C’mon. I want some crackers. Throw me some beans or something guys. This Mommy Blogger is ready to rock.
What’s your take on this new blogger outreach program?
Ten reasons to blog – even if nobody reads it
Nov 7th
Building an engaged community through a business blog can be extremely difficult — sometimes impossible. Look at companies like General Electric who do an amazing job with their blog and yet have almost no “community” or comments at all. There must be some good business reason they do it, right?
There better be. Every corporate marketing activity must somehow be tied to creating shareholder value and blogging is no different. Let’s look at ten legitimate business reasons why your company should be blogging — even if you can’t seem to build a community of active readers.
1) Search engine benefits — This may be the most obvious business benefit of blogging. Search engines give preference to websites that have fresh, relevant content. Hubspot research shows that sites with blogs get 55% more traffic than sites without blogs — even if there are no readers!
2) Marketing differentiation — Finding a way to stand-out may be the most difficult chore a business faces. Do your competitors have a blog? If not, this might be an opportunity to establish the voice of authority in your industry and enhance your brand image with customers.
3) Infinite search life — A few weeks ago I received a call from a potential new customer in the Middle East looking to me as a possible marketing consultant.I had to wonder how in the world they found me! Turns out they were looking for somebody who could help explain where the future of social media was going and when they entered this into Google, a blog post I wrote a year ago popped up! Your content keeps working for you month after month!
4) A cost-effective sales call — You might not be able to visit your customer every week or every month but a blog is an excellent way to provide a constant drip-drip-drip of communication to remind them of your products, services, and why you’re special. If they don’t read your blog, re-purpose the content in customer newsletters and sales materials.
5) Your content engine — Your investment in a consistent stream of quality content can be leveraged in many ways to support a content marketing strategy. I use links from blog posts to answer customer questions, as the basis for speeches, newsletter content, and as reading assignments for workshops.
6) Direct sales — Sure, you can sell through your blog! SAP does a great job advertising training services in a sidebar on its blog. This is valuable real estate! Why not use it? Wegman’s grocery store employees blog about seasonal recipes and show how to use their food products in new ways.
7) Indirect sales — Featuring blog-only promotions and offers or opt-in content can expose new sales leads.
PR – Blog posts have the opportunity for massive reach. When one of my posts gets picked up by an aggregation service like ragan.com, my message has a chance to be heard by hundreds of thousands of people. That opportunity would not occur with a press release or status update.
9) New product development — Many companies use blogs as a way to engage customers to solve problems and create new ideas. Caterpllar has blogs dedicated to each major product line. Starbucks blogs about customer ideas as a way to crowd-source new product innovation.
10) Crisis management — A blog is an essential channel to explain the facts amid chaos. In less than an hour after the earthquake hit Haiti, The Red Cross blog had news of their activities and information on how to donate. Company responses through blogs are often quoted by mainstream news sources.
So when your company has seemingly unrealistic expectations about building an online blog community, pull this blog post out as a reminder that there are many solid business reasons to have a blog, even if the crickets are chirping in the comment section! Is a commenting community important to you and your company or do some of these benefits make sense?
Ten social media problems that drive marketers nuts
Oct 22nd
Trying to deliver measurable business results from social media marketing can be frustrating. My friend and {grow} community member James Adams has been plowing this ground for some time now and in this guest post shares his personal view of his biggest annoyances …
“Use social media marketing to build your business.” Sure, these are captivating buzzwords, but few understand how difficult marketing through social sites can be until they try it! I’m learning this from experience. The truth is that social media marketing is difficult work. To help minimize the impact of this frustration on the beginning marketer, here are my Top 10 annoyances as I try to market through the social web and a few comments on how I’m dealing with them:
1. Marketing for producing votes – Users of sites like Digg and Reddit rate links, allowing some to soar and others to languish in obscurity. When I found myself trying to write to secure votes and work the system, I decided to re-focus on simply creating quality content in spite of the kind ratings I get.
2. Converting followers – I have hundreds, perhaps thousands of followers: Now what? Followers are not the same as sales leads are they? I’ve learned to think differently about expectations and conversion rates. Over time, buyers will come, but you need to be patient and accept a low conversion rate as you focus on building relationships, not quick sales.
3. Dealing with spammers, flamers, freaks, and dissenters – I find few things as annoying as having some troll following me around wherever I go kicking up dirt. I found that on some sites you can allow other users to rate comments driving out the problems, but be prepared: some of these people never go away. I deal with them gracefully, ignoring most of what they say and do most of the time.
4. Creating consistent content – Creating content that is consistent and excellent is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do as a marketer. The ideas are one thing. Finding the time to do it is another. I handled this by getting on a schedule. I budget my time like I do money and somehow I make it stretch until I can get everything done.
5. Platform pressure – One blog, Facebook page, or Twitter account is not enough any more … and you still need to get on YouTube and Linked in. I do the best I can on what I’m doing right now and don’t worry about expanding too quickly.
6. Standing out – It is getting really crowded out here. I find it challenging to be different in social media, especially when you have to sell a legitimate product and be heard above all the MLM and other spammers out there with far more resources than me! I have tried drawing, promos, and special games and have had some success. Ultimately, I find that participation and real engagement is more important than being cute.
7. Building a brand online – Developing goodwill and brand recognition is challenging and frustrating. I find that persistence is the key; keep at it over time and one day you will wake up at the helm of a well- known, well-respected brand. I’m finding it might be better to consistently show up rather than show off.
8. Finding quality help – Learning the best practices in social media marketing is difficult: most of the free advice out there is what you already know, and paying for training can be perilous with all the schlocky gurus around. I’m finding that identifying some consistently reliable resources like Mark’s blog can be my best teacher. What resources do you rely on?
9. Leveraging social media for public relations – Even if you don’t sell, you want to find ways to cut through the clutter and use social media marketing to promote your business. This can be frustrating, but by offering some free advice and real life examples of how my business has made the world better, I have had some success.
10. Putting my brand in the hands of others — If you focus on social media, what happens when your favorite site becomes changes the terms of their conditions, makes dramatic interface changes or becomes “uncool” and goes out of business? What are you going to do when Facebook or another platform gets hacked, bringing your marketing effort to a screeching halt? Remember when MySpace was the ultimate venue? I am learning to buffer myself from the failure of others by giving most of my attention to what Google, Bing, and Yahoo can do for me and owning my content.
So these are some of my concerns and frustrations. As you market on the social web, what are YOU finding out there?
James Adams covers the latest gadgets and tech announcements as well as writing detailed reviews of hardware like the CLI-521 at an ink cartridges supplier based England.
Illustration: toothpaste for dinner.com
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-Mark SchaeferFollow Mark
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