How to win friends and engage your brand circle
Digital marketers understand that there’s strength in numbers better than anyone. After all, in a world where a campaign’s success depends on 'buzz,' numbers are something brands live by, whether they’re spreading the word or planning new ways to engage fans and customers.
But strength in numbers is essential for building a reputation, too. Just look at Governor Chris Christie’s recent press disaster, 'Bridgegate.' At the first hint of scandal, his band of supporters, the Republican Party vanished.
But what if Bridgegate had happened just before the 2016 presidential election? Chances are, Christie would have been getting support left and right. (Well, maybe just from the right.)
At that point, his 'brand circle' (the Republicans) would have tried to win swing voters. And a group is more powerful than an individual, especially when…
Examples and tips of using ORM to protect your Brand and increase brand loyalty
Online Reputation Management or ORM is a vital part of any online branding strategy. It is the new PR. Word might spread fast in print, but it doesn't come close to the speed in which messages reach the masses on the Internet.
Managing your online reputation is not as difficult as you think, Over the past few years, many online reputation management companies have sprung up, but in many cases are a waste of your time and money as I'll explain.
A major part of managing your online reputation revolves around heightening the amount of good exposure in the results of various search engines and minimizing the amount of negative exposure. This is particularly the case for brand name related searches.
Essentially, you only want positive results showing up on Google's first page, as users do not usually proceed beyond…
Brands place real-time marketing value firmly in relationships
In my previous article I wrote about the challenges of managing real-time marketing since processes are changed, focus is drawn to live data and content is being produced by the hour.
In this follow-up I will look at our research showing how marketers rate the benefits and some examples which show the value in real-time marketing (RTM).
Where is the value in real-time marketing?
There are blogs aplenty about Oreo’s ‘dunk in the dark’ real-time coup at the Super Bowl. Jerry Daykin from Mondelez (owners of Oreo) spoke at our Social Speakeasy event a few weeks ago. He made the point several times that although it achieved marketing success; it was engagement, not reach that made it successful.
So we surveyed brands for their perspective on real-time social. And the resulting benchmark…
Research showing how brands can struggle with the real-time challenge
In theory, real-time marketing seems straightforward. Follow the trends, be responsive to the interests of your audiences and build a live, relevant relationship with them. In practice, real-time marketing is not quite so easy though. Combining real-time online PR and social media marketing and integrating it with offline communications is time, resource and investment intensive.
In the latest benchmark report from immediate future, ‘In The Social Moment’, our research shows the practical hurdles of managing real-time marketing. It seems the struggle is more operational than about the risk to reputation...
It’s the everyday management, processes, technology and people, that is proving to be difficult. Most of the report’s survey respondents came from well-known, established brands. Brands with complex structures and traditional ways of working. The results reflect the…
The move to more proactive sourcing of partnering opportunities
PR Newswire recently ran a survey which reinforces how PR has changed. As I see it, as traditional media either evolves or dies, the traditional media relations-only model of PR will evolve or die with it. Public relations work will transform more into earned, owned, and paid media generation, and PR professionals will find themselves increasingly doing work that transcends the traditionally rigid boundaries of earned, owned, or paid media.' The survey results showed some new focuses and traditional challenges.
Using more video in communications and incorporating content marketing or “slow PR” tactics into the mix top the resolutions of the public relations pros who responded to our recent informal survey. Two perennial challenges – improving PR measurement and better utilization of social channels – are also high on PR’s list of things to do this year.
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4 steps to encouraging influencers for your Twitter campaigns
Influencers are vital to the success of your Twitter campaign. But exactly who are they, why do they matter and how can they be identified?
Whether you’re a retail outlet or a business professional, a school or a mail order business, being on Twitter presents a challenge. It’s a conversational platform where you’re supposed to talk to your customers. But how are conversations going to drive sales? And who has the time to have online conversations with hundreds or thousands of individual customers?
And that’s where Twitter is misunderstood. You don’t actually need to talk to a lot of people, you simply need to talk to the right people:
People your target audience follow
People your target audience engage with and respond to.
These people are known as influencers.
When you talk to an influencer on Twitter, it’s like sitting on stage and having a public conversation…
Recognising and Rewarding Online Advocacy
Every brand will have its Advocates and its Detractors. There’s no avoiding the fact that some online users will be negative about your brand, but this is why you must value your advocates (find out how to respond to those comments in this Smartinsights article on managing online conversations).
They will come to your defence, balance any negativity and even, in some cases, turn your detractors into new advocates for you.
So what is an Advocate? In simple terms, an Advocate is 'a person who publicly supports or recommends a particular cause or policy’ or, in this case, a particular brand, service or product. We’re talking about real advocacy, not people who have been paid to talk about a brand; organic advocacy is much more valuable.
These are the people who rave in forums about your products,…
Ideas for improving your blogger outreach
In a world where consumers are bombarded by advertising, how can you cut through the noise to deliver your brand message in a meaningful manner?
Word of mouth recommendations are nothing new, but with the evolution of social media, recommendations can now reach hundreds if not thousands or millions of people. Then of course, there’s the new breed of influencer - the blogger.
With established communities, bloggers command authority and trust from their readers having spent years honing their writing skill and content, studying their analytics and engaging with their readers. They know their audience better than anyone else and can talk about your brand in a way that they know their readers will relate to.
A positive opinion about a brand or product by a blogger can be transferred to their audience, resulting in referral traffic and sales.
So, we’ve established that there’s significant value in engaging…
Aberdeen Research shows how content marketing is becoming more integrated into Public Relations
Value/Importance: [rating=3]
Recommended Link : Aberdeen Research: Content Marketing is the new PR
In March 2013, Aberdeen Research undertook research to investigate how social media has impacted PR and how companies are reacting to this, through an integrated strategic marketing communications strategy and focus on their content strategy.
Their research is compiled from surveys, interviews and data analysis, from 70 end-user Marketers and Communication professionals. Aberdeen present their findings as 'Leaders' and 'Followers'. Here is our summary of two of the key takeaways and the full report can be downloaded freely from Aberdeen's website.
1. What are the aims of integrating Content Marketing into PR?
63% of respondents identified as leaders are aiming to adopt or increase their use of content marketing and 31% view it as a means to improve their brand image (build brand equity).
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An interview with ex-Googler Andre Weyher
You may have noticed we enjoy reviewing tools that help marketers manage their online marketing. In most cases, particularly for search marketing, new tools are variants on existing tools for keyword or backlink analysis. So, I was interested to hear more about Netcomber since it offers a different type of service, still closely related to search, but also with potential for applying more generally for reputation management and affiliate marketing. Here I talk to Andre Weyher about how the Netcomber service has evolved and how it can be used by brands.
Q. What was your inspiration for developing Netcomber?
NetComber is the result of my personal wish of making the Internet a more transparent place. After working in Google for close to 5 years, the bulk of that period in the Search Quality team, I learned a lot about the workings of search engines.
When I moved to…
