By Linda Forrest
Yesterday, guest blogger Ken Rosen talked about the importance of using the same language as your customers. He referred to not only communication disconnects caused by language barriers, but also how, in order to be successful at customer engagement, you must speak the same language and define both features and benefits in terms that resonate.
How does this approach translate to PR efforts?
We had the good fortune this week again of having the story of a user of the advanced prosthetic technology of our longtime client Touch Bionics go global. The story had all the makings of a great piece – a precocious young man writes a cheeky request to an idol, who in turn pays for his branded bionic hand. This one had story angles to spare: human interest, business, technology, health, science, charity…
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By Alexandra Reid
I’ll come out honestly and say that I’ve been using automation software for a long time now. Social media purists, go ahead and hiss at me if you will. I only ask that you hear me out.
For the last year or so, I’ve used automation software to schedule posts for this blog and tweets for Twitter. Just last week, I went a bit farther and purchased an automation tool to help me grow Twitter communities. And you know what? I don’t feel the slightest bit guilty about it. As a social media enthusiast and community manager for multiple accounts, I find it a necessary time saver.
Let me be quick to say that I do not use automation software for everything. In fact, I only use it for those menial, repetitive tasks like hitting the “post” and “follow” buttons. All the important work, including crafting messages and direct messages, engaging with others, searching for quality articles to share and locating those key industry influencers is done manually by me. In no way does the automation software deplete the quality of my accounts. It’s because of the automation software that I have time to engage with good people, which, while essential and the most fun, is often the most time consuming part of social media.
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This is the next entry in our “Best of” series, in which we venture deep into the vault to replay blog opinion and insight that has withstood the test of time. Today’s post hails from February 2008. We welcome your feedback.
By Francis Moran
About a month ago, as part of my continuing series of Francis’s favourite fictions, I tackled the too-widely held myth that public relations can’t be measured. I described how, at inmedia, we establish a critical path, or set of outputs, for every project and ongoing program that allows our clients to certify that we’re exerting the amount of effort we said we would. This, I said, was a good starting point for program measurement, but a woefully inadequate one.
I went on to describe what we call outcomes, a set of clear and unambiguous objectives we set that tell our clients what they should expect by way of actual coverage by our target media and analysts, with more granular objectives established for specific program elements such as news releases, product launches, contributed articles, speaking programs, trade show support and so on. Applying such an approach turns the whole PR value proposition on its ear; instead of a cost centre that should be managed down to its minimum, a client can now view the PR function as an investment centre, and can answer the question, “Are these results, or outcomes, a sufficient return on the investment my PR agency or department is asking me to make?”
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This is the next entry in our “Best of” series, in which we venture deep into the vault to replay blog opinion and insight that has withstood the test of time. Today’s post hails from January 2008. We welcome your feedback.
By Francis Moran
Francis’s favourite fictions is a continuing series of posts on common myths surrounding the practice of public relations. When I give this as a presentation, I subtitle it, “Everything I know that’s wrong about PR I learned from technology company executives.” Today’s fiction comes courtesy of a chief financial officer at such a venture who nixed her marketing vice president’s intention to hire us, saying, “I can’t measure marketing so I won’t fund it.”
Too bad; the company she used to work for is now out of business, taking a genuinely valuable technology advance and more than $30-million in investors’ money with it. Maybe now, she at least has a yardstick with which to measure the cost of not marketing.
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By Alexandra Reid
This is part two of my three-part series on tactical methods companies can use to carry out rebranding across multiple social media accounts. Last week, I discussed common pitfalls companies face during the process of changing their names on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter and how to overcome them. Today, I’ll focus on the steps required to change your company’s image across these social media channels, as well as YouTube and blogs.
It should be noted that rebranding is far more than just a change in visual identity and must be regarded as part of an overall strategy. If a brand has lost its relevance, changing its image will not fix its problems. You can put lipstick on a pig, but it won’t hide the fact that it’s still a pig. If this is the case, the company must reevaluate its answers to those core marketing questions about relevance, uniqueness, value, positioning and why people should care.
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