social media

Why a Blog Can Change A Business: Three Arguments to Back You Up in the C-suite

Ashleigh Mavros Leave a comment

Why a blog canIf your client or organization is looking to implement an integrated marketing strategy, a blog may be one vital tool for success. However, proposing the idea of a blog many times comes with resistance from the C-suite. If you’re trying to sway this crowd, make sure you’re prepared with these three arguments to get them on board:

1. Blogs are shareable. There is no limit to the amount of times a blog can be shared online. Start by creating great content on your site, and then use social media to promote links back to that content. You’ve heard that adage, “If you want to catch more fish, cast a wider net.” The same principle applies here. Shareable content helps you reach the maximum amount of potential customers. And an added bonus – blogging can help your SEO rankings if you include clickable links and keywords in your posts.

2. Blogs give you an opportunity to engage your audience. Audiences won’t believe your brand is better just because you say it is. Your potential customers need to trust you and your products or services, and the best way to build trust is through engagement. Blogging gives you the prime opportunity to interact with your audience – if you do it the right way. You have to make an effort to build a rapport with your audience by responding to comments on your blog, answering questions or interacting on social media.

There are several reasons why marketing and public relations are shifting away from the traditional TV and radio approach, and one reason is because they don’t give audiences the opportunity to talk back. Blogging does, but it won’t be effective if the audience doesn’t feel like you’re listening. The interaction in blogging creates the two-way communication that is the basis for trusted relationships. (Tweet this!) 

3. Blogging makes you look like a genius. Customers want to believe that they are getting service from the best of the best. Blogging is a great way to show how much you know about your product or field of service. When you share information about what you know, audiences can put trust in your experience (it always circles back to trust). Blogging about tips or inside information about your product or service lets customers know that you care about helping them.

To make an extra impact on your customers, get your organization’s leadership involved in blogging. They can blog about the industry, or they could blog about their hobbies. It really doesn’t matter what they are writing about as long as they are open, honest, and engage with the audience. When customers trust an organization’s leadership, they are more likely to be loyal to the brand. You need to convert potential customers into customers, but then you need to convert customers into repeat customers. Blogging can help you do that by renewing your audience’s faith in the organization with each post.

What results has your company or organization seen from blogging? 

Jennifer MaterkoskiJennifer Materkoski is a graduate of Kent State University with a Master of Arts in Journalism and Mass Communications with a specialization in Public Relations. She has worked as a writer and editor for both newspaper and television and as a member of a non-profit marketing and development team. Materkoski is the owner and principal consultant of a boutique public relations firm, Songbird Public Relations. She is an avid sports fan and a yogi and also owns and operates an online store selling essential oils and natural products. Materkoski resides in Wheeling, West Virginia with her husband and son. Find her on LinkedIn or follow her on Twitter @MrsMaterkoski. She can be reached via email at jen@songbirdpublicrelations.com.

March 2015 #NPPRSA Twitter Chat Highlights: Preparing for a Crisis

Ashleigh Mavros 1 Comment

Twitter Chat 3-18 SquareWe’d like to thank everyone who participated in the March #NPPRSA Twitter chat as we discussed crisis communications–how to prepare and how to react.  We would especially like to thank Jonathan Bernstein, President of Bernstein Crisis Management.

Join us again on April 15 for our next #NPPRSA chat and stay up-to-date with PRSA New Professionals on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+.

Review highlights of the chat below. What did you learn from the March chat? How can you prepare for your brand’s vulnerabilities before a crisis? What can you do to minimize damage once a crisis hits?

 

You can receive FREE New Professionals Section membership for PRSA throughout March!

Lauren Headshot 1.3MBLauren Rosenbaum is the PRSA New Professionals Social Media Co-Chair and Co-Founder of Soversity, a public relations and digital marketing company. You can connect with her on Google+, LinkedIn or Twitter.

Five Tips to Help Simplify Your Social Life

Ashleigh Mavros Leave a comment

As young PR pros, social media has grown into our everyday routines, used as a tool for both Don't stress out. Breathe.personal and professional use. With social media growing ever so rapidly, it is sometimes hard to keep up with the constant changes and advancements.

Producing engaging content and adhering to guidelines to make sure your post gets as much traction as possible can be overwhelming. Thankfully, there are ways you can simplify your social life on both a personal and professional level.

1. Maintain your online presence. Follow people on Twitter, clean up your Facebook, update your LinkedIn, and keep your profiles public – these are the easiest ways to be found via social media.

2. Schedule, schedule, schedule. In maintaining your online presence, you need to make sure you have time to keep the profiles listed above up-to-date. Pre-scheduling posts has made every community manager’s life easier, but it can also help your personal profiles so you don’t have to worry about losing your online impressions. There are numerous free online tools you can use for this including TweetDeck and Hootsuite!

3. There’s an app for that! If This Then That, LastPass, Evernote, Hootlet, etc. are only a few of the apps that can help simplify your social life. Useful for business and personal profiles, there is the right app for you depending on what you’re looking to post. My favorite is the “recipes” created on IFTTT which automatically posts your Instagram photos to your Twitter using the proper links so you can see the image.

4. Share, share, share. Sharing content! There’s nothing like creating traffic and sharing what people are saying online to get your message across. Always give credit where credit is due by tagging authors or publications in which will also help create more engagement for your profile.

5. Always measure up. Those of us who don’t work in social media don’t think to measure how our online presence is doing. Being able to measure your content helps you to see what posts are working and how to improve your content for the future. This can been seen through many online tools such as Klout, Twitter and Facebook Analytics, Hootsuite, Sysomos, and Sprout Social just to name a few.

What have you done to simplify your social media presence? 

Marcy McMillanMarcy McMillan is the Marketing Communications & Events Coordinator for York University’s Campus Services and Business Operations department. When she’s not working, you can find Marcy discovering new restaurants in downtown Toronto, attending and writing about events or spending some time at the public library. Find her on Twitter @marcy113 or visit her site. 

Five lessons from the NBA’s Instagram

Stephanie Vermillion Leave a comment

5 Lessons from NBA's InstagramFirst and foremost, let me say that this blog post will not include recommendations on the number of hashtags to use when posting for a client or brand. We can all agree that’s common sense by now, right?

Consistently the NBA’s Instagram account ranks above its counterparts (NFL, MLB, etc.) using video as ranked by AdWeek’s weekly chart. As a result, I decided to investigate what lessons social media managers (especially new pros handling social accounts!) could learn from the NBA’s Instagram presence and implement into their own strategies for clients.

1. Embrace video: If you’re a social media manager, and have yet to embrace creative and novel ways to utilize the 13-second video clips on Instagram, shame on you!

No, but really. The NBA captures its audiences’ attention with the ever popular slam dunks, slow motion clips using #PhantomCam, and teasers of player profiles from NBA TV.

  • Takeaway: Use video on Instagram to its fullest extent. The platform recently rolled out the new update that puts videos on auto-loop (GLORIOUS news!), so use those 13 seconds wisely to tell your client’s story in a creative manner.

2. Play to your followers’ nostalgia: Ask any sports fan, and they could tell you that Michael Jordan is one of, if not THE greatest basketball player to ever step foot on the court.

That’s likely why a photo posted asking fans: “If MJ played today, _____ would be his rival” garnered more than 24,000 comments and 166,000 likes.

  • Takeaway: People by nature are drawn to feeling nostalgic. Understand what makes your audience tick, which in part alludes to the next point. If you’re a style brand, take the opportunity to reminisce with your Instagram followers about Audrey Hepburn donning the beautifully crafted Givenchy LBD for the first time on-screen. Manage a hotel’s social media channels? Take your followers down memory lane with a great moment in the property’s history.

3. Know your audience: The NBA knows that its followers aren’t just interested in seeing a ball put through a net. There’s a culture that comes along with it, which includes style.

Try to name the number of professional players that have their own shoe line. I’ll give you a hint: It’s a lot.

This goes to show that followers will be interested in the players’ footwear and apparel. Throughout this year’s All Star game, followers saw not only highlights from the game but a plethora of players’ shoes for the night, using #AllStarKicks.

  • Takeaway: This can come from a series of tests or by simply knowing the demographic of your audience, but recognize their likes and dislikes, and more importantly, their interests outside of your brand. Find what appeals to them without shoving your own product down their throats. A photo of a large plate of meat likely won’t resonate with a vegetarian restaurant chain’s followers. A photo with an inspirational quote about getting outside and stepping beyond your comfort zone would.

4. Consistency: Take a look at the NBA’s Instagram account. You’ll notice a cohesive theme throughout its images and videos.

Now, this isn’t typically how followers consume content on Instagram, but it allows them to easily distinguish a new post from the NBA in their feed.

  • Takeaway: Set yourself up for success by ensuring your followers instantly recognize your brand’s Instagram posts (Click to Tweet!). Apply consistency throughout, whether it be choosing certain filters, using the same color scheme, including your brand logo in the same location for every photo, etc.

5. Build anticipation: Perhaps Taylor Swift did it best and served us all a dose of her amazing-ness (and her PR savvy!) with the build-up to her new album, 1989. But the NBA sure knows how to do it and do it well, too.

Posting videos from previous Slam Dunk contests, including this one from Vince “Vinsanity” Carter, in addition to cryptic messages about a secret performer during halftime helped build buzz and attention for the annual event.

  • Takeaway: Catch the attention of your followers by giving them a sneak peek or preview of what’s to come, whether it’s a big event (like the All Star game) or a new product launch. Get them talking about you before the big day and you’ll have them waiting with bated breath.

To use Instagram well, you have to think outside the box. To use Instagram to its full potential, you have to ramp up your visual savvy. Here are a few visual tools you can adopt that will make your posts a – wait for it – slam dunk.

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Shandi HuberShandi Huber is a senior account executive at Wordsworth Communications, a public relations agency in Cincinnati, Ohio. An enthusiast for all social media platforms, you can often find her pinning her dream closet on Pinterest or posting photos of her new puppy on Instagram. Connect with Shandi on LinkedIn and Twitter (@shandihuber).  

#ThrowbackThursday with Heather Whaling

Stephanie Vermillion Leave a comment

Heather w PhoneEditor’s note: This is the second post in our monthly #ThrowbackThursday series, which features a prominent, successful PR pro taking a look back and sharing tips from his/her days as a new pro. 

Are you following Heather Whaling on social media? You should be. Consistently making her way onto “Best PR Pros You Should be Following” lists on PR News , Cision and The Muse – just to name a few – Heather is making her mark on the social media industry.

She’s the president and founder of Geben Communication in Columbus, Ohio, co-moderator of the weekly social media #pr20chat Twitter chat and runs one of the most popular social media blogs in the industry – prTini. 

As an admired professional in the social media industry, we take a look at Heather’s thoughts on her early beginnings (MySpace!) and how she’s not only kept up, but thrived, within the ever-changing industry.

Question 1: What were the first social media platforms you ever used, whether for personal or professional use? How did you predict these channels would develop?

If we’re not counting things like AOL Chatrooms, then my first social platform – in terms of how we think about social now – was MySpace. I hadn’t totally bought into social, so my friends actually created my MySpace profile for me.

Who knew I’d be dragged into MySpace and then go on to make a career out of helping brands excel in a social world!

Question 2: How did you stay knowledgeable and updated on the fast-paced world of social media as a young professional?

When I first started incorporating social media as an extension of PR, I was the director of PR for an agency in Orlando. They gave me a lot of freedom to research and experiment. After we did some internal testing and iterating, we offered our services pro bono to a few nonprofits.

We learned a lot and those nonprofits were seen as early adopters and maximized the benefits of being “first” in their market. Learning by doing is incredibly helpful (Click to Tweet!).

Then and now, I try to read as much as possible. I also carefully curate Twitter lists to help me find really great content that I may otherwise miss.

Question 3: As a young professional, how did you work with clients or brands that were resistant to new social media and digital trends?

When you pitch an amazing idea to a client, it’s tough to stay energized and engaged if the client shoots down the idea.

But, instead of getting frustrated, take a step back and try to understand WHY the client is resistant. Once you understand the apprehension, then you can develop a way to get them on board.

You may need to start small – perhaps a pilot program – before they’re ready to go all-in on a social/digital strategy. Stay focused on the big picture goals. Help them understand how this social thing you’re proposing will help them achieve the goals they’ve already prioritized.

It can also be helpful to present skeptical clients with research or case studies that show how similar companies approach social and the value it provides their organization.

Question 4: What has been your most memorable campaign or program that has embodied effective social media strategy?

At Geben, we’ve had the opportunity to develop and implement a number of social media campaigns. That said, I still think the best efforts integrate traditional and digital PR to maximize the value and outcomes, but I digress …

Here are a few of my favorite campaigns (with case studies if you want to learn more details!)

Question 5: If you could go back five years and tell yourself anything about the way social media would transform the communications industry, what would it be?

I started my company just over five years ago, making a big bet on the fact that social media would radically transform PR and open new doors for a fresh approach to traditional PR best practices. Thankfully, I made the right bet!

Looking back, I’d tell myself to get ready to meet some of the nicest, most helpful people. I’m always amazed at how the people I’ve met through Twitter and other social channels are so willing to make introductions, send you new business leads and generally root for you.

The social community’s generosity is incredible. I’d also tell myself to hang on for a wild ride and to embrace the crazy ( — one of our House Rules!)

More about Heather:

As president of Geben Communication, Heather Whaling (aka @prTini) leads new business development and client strategy. An avid Twitter user, Heather can trace 75% of Geben’s business back to relationships that began online. This ability to turn social networking into business outcomes has helped Geben evolve into a highly respected, sought-after, award-winning PR firm. In addition to helping clients secure coverage in a range of high-profile media outlets – from the New York Times and Wall Street Journal … to Huffington Post and TechCrunch – Heather has been quoted in Inc.com, Entrepreneur  and BusinessWeek about technology’s impact on communication and business.

Heather was selected as one of Columbus Business First’s “Forty Under 40” and named one of Columbus’s top 10 entrepreneurs by The Metropreneur. She also serves on the Board of Directors for The Women’s Fund of Central Ohio.

Heather was one of five women bloggers to join Fairwinds Trading and Macy’s in Haiti in March 2010 to learn about the “Heart of Haiti” economic development initiative. She was also one of three social media correspondents selected by Outback Steakhouse to document the 2012 Outback Bowl via social media.