‘One size’ doesn’t always fit when it comes to social media

Chelsey Ross

At some point or another, almost every company wonders whether they should jump on the social media bandwagon. The answer is that you absolutely need to, but in our current digital age, the many forms of social media can be overwhelming. If you don’t have a strategy, social media efforts can be a waste of time, effort and sometimes money. There are many different social media platforms that all serve different functions and will show off your brand image differently. You don’t need to have every platform to have social media success, so choose which one best suits your company needs. 

1. Facebook: Facebook has 1 billion users and gives your company the ability to connect with customers through posting about your product or service; answering consumer questions; giving customers the ability to like and share your posts; and tagging you when they buy or use your product or service. You can also use Facebook to advertise. Side ads and sponsored posts can help your company increase sales and recognition of your brand while growing your audience. You can target ads to reach certain demographics, ensuring you reach the right audience for your brand. Facebook also offers businesses analytics to give companies a better understanding of their customers and advertising/marketing choices on the site. Facebook is beneficial for almost any type of business seeing as the demographics of Facebook range from young to older generation. However, organic visibility has greatly diminished for businesses; higher levels of exposure will only come in a paid format through this platform. 

2. Twitter: Twitter has 232 million users and allows your company to communicate with your audience with short messages of 140 characters or less. The more followers you have, the wider audience you will reach. Retweets are a beneficial feature of the site because even if people don’t follow you, they can see your tweets if their followers retweet your posts. Tweet information your audience wants to hear and are interested in, whether that be your website, blog or tips and tricks of your industry. Use relevant hashtags to also attract a bigger audience to your page. Similar to Facebook, you can target a specific audience through advertising using keywords, interests, geographic areas and more. You can also use analytics to measure your Twitter performance. 

3. Instagram: With more than 300 million users, Instagram offers a unique opportunity very different from that of Facebook and Twitter. Images are necessary for Instagram posts and can only be shared from the smart phone app. Tell your company’s story through imagery and connect the image with a post related to the picture. This platform works better for industries that are visual and can tell about their brand through compelling and visually pleasing images. Instagram also uses hashtags and can draw in a larger audience when you use them in your posts. It also gives an option to advertise through the platform. As users are scrolling through their feed, sponsored posts will appear between posts by the people they are following. Advertising through Instagram though is growing, but hasn’t been utilized by as many companies yet when compared to Facebook and Twitter. 

4. Pinterest: With 70 million users, Pinterest is a more unique platform. Pinterest allows you to connect links to images. Users then ‘pin’ the pictures and links that they have interest in, which are then shared with their followers. This is particularly useful for companies that engage their audiences with blog posts, product pages, reviews or specific engaging areas of the website. Pinterest is also visual, requiring images to get users to click on the links. Rather than posts, Pinterest has short sentence blurbs to describe each picture/link combination. When it comes to advertising, your company sponsors a post and Pinterest charges you only when people go to your website through the pin. You can also use analytics to track user engagement. 

5. Snapchat: A newer platform that businesses are starting to use is Snapchat. About 100 million users snap pictures monthly. Snapchat allows you to “snap” a picture or video and share it for three to 10 seconds. Then, it disappears after a user views it. This is a good platform to use if you have a very visual industry that will attract users who want to view your posts. Include the picture or video in your story, which allows all followers to see what is going on. Snapchat is a great way to increase brand recognition, particularly among a younger audience. It offers advertising, which appears as stories in your audiences’ feed. Snapchat is a way to show your brand’s personality, so take advantage of it!  

6. LinkedIn: With 230 million users, LinkedIn in is “Facebook for professionals.” LinkedIn is a way to share your professional development and achievements. Connect with your industry contacts on the site, as well as friends and family that can help you network. The site also offers job opportunities and areas to post things about your brand. There are also groups you can join, which can attract more professionals to link with you company and learn more about your brand. Similar to Facebook, LinkedIn also offers side advertisements and sponsored posts to help get more visibility for your company. 

7. YouTube: Although YouTube doesn’t immediately strike many as a way to promote your brand, videos increase a person’s knowledge of a product by 74 percent. Additionally, YouTube is the second largest search engine behind Google! Videos can range from how-to tutorials to staff interviews to informative videos about your product or service. YouTube also offers advertisements as commercials that appear between videos when people are watching. Creating your own YouTube channel allows you to tap into the site’s ever-growing audience while putting your videos to work in other ways (like embedding into e-newsletters and cross-posting on other social media platforms). Analytics are available that can help you track views and demographics, as well. 

Power of the Pen

Daniel Wade

Power of the Pen

What can you do to distinguish yourself, to set yourself apart? What is your goal, how badly do you want it and what will it take to get there? These are questions that driven individuals ponder on some level all the time but should also have application to what we do everyday. You don’t have to be creating a startup business in your basement or dissecting a corporate merger to think about these things. You can have a similar value proposition as the next guy or gal, yet your unique tactic or slant can make the difference.

Let’s get out of the clouds and into something practical that you can wrap your hands around. It’s a small yet powerful example that has made an impression on me in the last year. When was the last time you received a handwritten note? It doesn’t matter the occasion – a thank you for a gift; an appreciation for a visit or going the extra mile somehow; an out-of-the-blue acknowledgement for something you worked hard on - or, even better than these, just because. What made that special and different? From my perspective, those same sentiments may have been communicated in other ways, but they took on a new level of meaning when I held the paper and read the words.

Can I let you in on a little secret? This blog post is as much for me as anyone who happens upon this space. I’m on the laptop all day, so why can’t I just send an email? They know I love them – does it really matter if I write it out? You’re just being sappy and dramatic. My handwriting is chicken-scratch anyway. Handwritten notes are for grandparents. Here comes the big one. I just don’t have time to sit down and write out handwritten notes. They’re busy; they’ll understand.

So, here’s my small exhortation to take those big questions/thoughts from earlier and choose a simple, practical way to apply them. Be intentional. Don’t use it as a sneaky sales tactic. Be genuine. I was talking to a reporter a month or two ago, and he brought up a client by name – “Got a handwritten note from [so and so]; boy, you sure don’t see those much anymore.” I’ve had a boss who excelled at this characteristic, as well as a father who modeled this as well.

I don’t know about you, but it’s high time I picked up the pen and paper.

My first year in public relations…

Ali Glemser

As I wrap up my first year as a public relations professional, I feel confident (and very lucky) that I found a job I truly enjoy so early in my career. Time seems to move faster every year now. So, I thought it would be useful to share some important lessons I learned in the last 12 months, before my first year blends together with the next five. Hopefully, one of these points, if not more, will save others an embarrassing moment or perhaps settle their expectations as they begin their careers in PR, too.

Research. Research. Research. – Everything. Your clients. Their industries. Their locations. Relevant media outlets, competitors and business partners. Most of all, leverage the resources you have and ones you can easily access for research. Your plate will be too full to do it all, so at least know where you can find these answers in case you need them.

Have a plan with a timeline. – And refer to it often. No matter if days, weeks or months are calm or hectic, having a planned timeline you created and approved with a client is imperative. This allows you to keep goals in mind and cross them off the list when you’ve met them. Allow this planned timeline to be flexible. Short-term projects can appear at any second and can stray you from your original goals, but if they can fit into the plan, they will harmonize well with client success.

Capitalize on your strengths and identify your opportunities. – None of us are good at everything, but that’s what allows us to be great at something.  I’m fortunate to work in a team environment where we all benefit from everyone’s strengths and are able to help develop each other’s opportunities. I know I have plenty more to find out about myself, but I feel like I have been able to pinpoint my personal strengths and leverage those as best I can in my work. I jump on items quickly that allow me to use those strengths so that I can support my team members and meet client expectations. Conversely, I consciously identify action items that allow me to work on my opportunities, and I seek help to build on those as they happen.

Too much communication? There is no such thing. – Rarely do I send a work email or text message to only one person. There is always someone else copied on it. I would rather over-communicate than under-communicate to any client or business partner because too little information creates problems. And, as communications professionals, we are held to the highest of these expectations.

These points come into play every day at work for me. Admittedly, I’ve made my fair share of mistakes to understand how important each of these points is to my personal success, but I hope others can learn from these and pay it forward as well. The exciting part is to see how far I’ve come and know how much more I can learn in 2015. Three cheers to many more years in PR!

Why you need to know who’s who

Lauren Hannaford

The topic of my blog post applies to more than only public relations professionals. It applies to anyone in a profession that requires a person to be connected to the community and stay current on what’s going on, who’s doing and saying what, the political landscape and how certain projects in the community are affecting its members. The list goes on, really. This month, Memphis Magazine released its annual City Guide issue, and as I was flipping through the pages, I found myself playing trivia. I turned to the “Who’s Who” section and without reading the profiles, I asked myself what I knew about each person.  

It can take a long time to become engrained in the daily “happenings” of your city, but the quickest way to do that is to read the news. We instill this principal within new PR managers who come to work for us. It can’t be done by reading only one paper or watching only one nightly newscast. We read the news in print and online, we watch local news whenever we can, and we keep up with breaking news through social media and news outlets’ email subscriptions.

Why is this important? As a PR professional or as someone who must be engrained within the community, the “who’s who” and “what’s happening” comes up in conversation more than you realize. And, sometimes those people, events, political developments, etc. affect clients in ways you may not realize. I’ve been in numerous meetings where clients have brought up all kinds of news about what notable people are doing and saying, controversial topics and other relevant community news. If I hadn’t been paying attention to the news, I would have looked like the most unconnected PR professional in town. 

Another rare but unpleasant scenario is running into someone that you should know, and then ending up looking like a total moron when they introduce themselves because you weren’t aware. I experienced an awkward exchange with a client at a TV morning show one day a few years ago. A congresswoman was there to talk about a project she was working on, and when she introduced herself to my client with her name only, my client looked at her earnestly and said, “Now what is that you do?” I admit in the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t that big of a deal, but if I had been the one to ask that question in front of my client, what would they have thought?

Absorb as much knowledge about your community as you can. I promise it will help you in ways you won’t realize until suddenly it does.

Native advertising: You’re doing it right?

Crissy Lintner

Last week, I gave my first thoughts on native advertising. I left off stating that while earned media coverage is the preferred method of exposure, I would recommend an online advertorial opportunity to my clients if the budget existed and only if we can ensure the content is valuable. I wanted to expand on that (without my first post becoming a novel) because it can be done right.

Valuable content, paid or unpaid, is valuable content. Period. I love this example of a paid post on The New York Times website. Netflix is promoting its original hit series, “Orange is the New Black.” The article is multifaceted, utilizing copy, video, photos and audio components. It is informative, engaging and very well done – arguably, a stellar piece of pure editorial content, if only it weren’t paid content. I came away from this article with a greater understanding of the challenges women face in prison, how the prison system is changing to meet their needs, and where some formerly incarcerated women are today – living successful lives after having been incarcerated for years in what for some were drug-related or “minor” crimes. This is a brilliant way that Netflix and “Orange is the New Black” are using native advertising to bring awareness to an issue with the prison system while promoting the show. Note how NYT makes it impossible for you not to realize you’re reading content that was paid for – it’s even in a special section of the website that uses a URL with “paidpost.nytimes.com” at the beginning, a banner that says “Paid Post,” and the logo for Netflix and “Orange is the New Black.” Even the graphics use brand colors: orange and black.

Screenshot of Netflix’s “Orange is the New Black” paid post on nytimes.com    

However, this is paid content that makes an impact, and it’s an ingenious way to garner eyes and drive the message home while promoting a brand. This is why native advertising can be beneficial.

Of course, BuzzFeed is the king of native advertising – as referenced on this episode of “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” on HBO, which I mentioned in my previous post. However, nonprofits take note: you can participate in native advertising on BuzzFeed without paying for it! See our client Literacy Mid-South’s BuzzFeed Community page and note that on each actual post, there’s a disclaimer that explains why LMS does not pay, even though they are a brand publisher. Sure, all of their posts are about LMS, but that’s the point. This is a fun way to have unique content for social media and newsletters, enhance SEO and perhaps be found in the community by potential supporters. LMS is effectively using this unique aspect of BuzzFeed, and we love it!

Literacy Mid-South’s BuzzFeed Community page    

So, when it comes to native advertising, if the point is to drive a message home or to share something important, should brands be penalized by the consumer? How about media outlets for inviting brands to place advertorials? Nope. Regardless of whether an outlet engages in native advertising with companies, credibility in the media still exists. There will never be a time when sources for pure editorial will be unnecessary. Some outlets and native advertisers do a terrible job at it, which can harm the reputation of the media outlet (like John Oliver’s example from The Atlantic’s January 2013 sponsored content from the Church of Scientology; see The Atlantic’s effort to clean up afterward here). But, most try to provide useful, engaging content.

I think consumers are wiser than the FOX News experts gave them credit for, and they will only become more so as the years pass. Awareness of native advertising will make all of us savvier. Brands will become better at ensuring content is valuable to readers. And, if I see an article that looks like it could offer interesting or entertaining content, I’ll read it. Then, it’s completely on me – a consumer – if I feel like it was a waste of my time to read what turned out to be shameless promotion or biased content created by a company, political group or other entity.

What’s so wrong with ‘native advertising’?

Crissy Lintner

BuzzFeed. I love it. If I had to name three of the biggest time sucks for me during downtime, it’s Facebook, Etsy and BuzzFeed. I can get sucked into all the memes and lists – more often than not, I’m only reading the ones that make me laugh until I’m in tears (See: 27 Reasons Why Old People Are the Best People on the Internet). But, I digress.

A few weeks ago on “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver,” the host ranted about the new trend of native advertising, a form of digital advertising known as sponsored or paid content that is designed to look like editorial content (to learn more, read Ali’srecent blog post). Swiffer and GE were two of the examples of advertisers who provided sponsored content on BuzzFeed in particular. Then, FOX News’ “Media Buzz” had an ethical debate on the topic – is it OK that advertisers are providing paid content disguised as editorial?

As a practice, pay-to-play isn’t new. Newsflash: print journalism has always engaged in advertorial practices and pay-to-play “editorial” opportunities. Have you read a magazine lately and found yourself reading an article only to notice “Special Advertising Section” printed in small type at the top? On the flip side, what you may not notice are the magazines whose editorial sources directly correlate to their advertisers. Yes, some publications (even some TV news shows) require businesses to pay for ads or time on the air in exchange for editorial content. That said, why should native advertising be viewed differently in the online space?

To some degree, I agree with John Oliver and the FOX News experts – you do feel a little manipulated when you’re reading an article you think is editorial but is in fact sponsored content. However, is that always a bad thing? Our goal as PR professionals is always to think outside of the box for our clients. We regularly pitch ideas to journalists that will be informative to readers. John Oliver used the example of Swiffer’s “9 Ways Cleaning Has Become Smarter.” Read it. Aside from the blurb at the top that screams “sponsored content” and No. 6 on the list, the content really has nothing to do with Swiffer – but it relates to the concept of their products: smarter cleaning solutions.

In Ali’s post, she made the point of the importance of being aware of what content you are consuming. I don’t know about you, but I generally pay attention to what I’m reading online and in print and recognize which is true editorial and which is not. Maybe that’s due to my profession. If I’m being totally honest, I’m less likely to initially notice the “special advertising section” disguised as an article in a magazine than I am to miss it online. Not because I’m not paying attention, but my eyes are not usually at the very top or bottom of the page where the disclaimer is listed. That’s why this works.

So, I guess my point is this: if it gives me interesting and engaging content – like tips or a good laugh – is it really a bad thing? Don’t get me wrong – I am 100 percent in favor of earned media coverage versus paid any day of the week. It’s why we exist as a firm. But if I have a client with a budget to participate in digital native advertising, I would absolutely recommend that over a print ad or TV commercial any day. However, I would also ensure that what they’re putting out there is valuable to readers.

R&R: Relationships and Reputation

Daniel Wade

Pull out your old college textbook and the definition of public relations might say something like “managing relationships with various publics or stakeholders.” In 2012, the Public Relations Society of America revised an earlier definition from a few decades ago and stated that public relations is “a strategic communications process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.” If you read this and still can’t tell your neighbor what PR is, it’s OK – there’s no quiz at the end of this post.

For the record, I’ve always maintained that public relations is who’s talking about what you are doing. Is it positive? Is it negative? Are you in the conversation at all? The word “relationships” can’t be ignored in any definition or understanding of PR. Like it or not, regardless of a particular industry, you are a representative of your business and brand in both word and deed. So, it really doesn’t matter how clever and witty your advertising slogan is when your customer service team treats a client with disrespect. Word spreads faster than ever in 2014, folks.

I was reminded of this in a recent unpleasant interaction with my property manager. When I approached this individual in a firm yet appropriate manner about an issue that had gone unresolved for nearly three weeks, I was met with a harsh, defensive reply full of misguided assumptions and highlighted by a key message of “if you don’t like it, you can leave.” We all have bad days; I’ve surely had my fair share. In an effort to see the best in people, I’m working hard on giving this person the benefit of the doubt.

The problem is that this individual is in the people business – real estate with a side of property management. Of all the industries to consider, I would have thought a person in this field would understand the importance of quality customer service and maintaining a good reputation. If the reaction I received is typical when presented with other clients who express concern, I’m shocked that the doors remain open. Like it or not, I can’t in good conscience recommend this individual/agency to others who may be looking for a trusted real estate agent for help in purchasing a home.

PR lesson for the day? Remember that you and your employees are constant ambassadors for your brand. As Obsidian’s principal, Courtney Ellett, always says, “This is a highly-valued, ever-present responsibility.”

What are people saying about you?

Keep your mind open and your chin up: Advice before entering college

Sarah Burgess

Before you embark on the college journey, there are a few things that you need to be aware of. But, before I dive into my advice for incoming college freshmen, let me share a story about my college experience.

After graduating high school, I was so incredibly sure of myself. I was sure of who I was, what I believed in, what kind of people I wanted to be friends with and the path in life that I would take. But, as is usual in an angsty adolescent story, I was critically wrong. I began my college career as a landscape architect major. I was going to use my knowledge and degree to become an architect for sustainable building and do my part to save the planet one structure at a time. Looking back on that now, I have no idea what I was thinking. I hate math and science, and I extremely lack the creativity and ingenuity necessary to be successful in that capacity. 

Within the first month, I realized what a colossal mistake I had made as I struggled with each assignment, feeling like that one kindergartener that could never manage to color inside the lines. Before I could say “pergola,” I found myself hopelessly overwhelmed, feeling like there was no way out of the mess I had gotten myself into. 

After getting advice from every adult I knew and taking countless “what job is best for you” quizzes online, I discovered that my university offered help from a career center on campus. I had a great meeting with a career counselor and was then instructed to take yet another job quiz. Some of the results were truly comical considering the applicant – librarian, florist, anthropologist. What? But there among the chaos was something that finally sounded interesting – journalism/public relations. I had always enjoyed writing and language arts classes infinitely more than the rest. It was worth a shot, I supposed. I met with the head of the journalism concentration in the Department of Communication and found myself hanging on her every word. Apparently, this department gave you the opportunity to concentrate on more than one area of study – from communication studiesand broadcasting to journalism, public relations and theatre! Needless to say, I changed my major as soon as I could. Journalism and PR sounded infinitely more interesting than drawing up site designs.

Once I finally found the right major, everything fell into place. By the end of my four years, I had joined clubs related to my major, was accepted as an ambassador for my department and college, and had three internships under my belt. I don’t say that to brag on myself but rather as an example of how students can succeed when they finally find the right fit for them. 

As you enter college, I urge you to learn from my mistakes. Being stubborn in college will make everything much more difficult than it should be. Open your mind to alternatives, seek advice from professionals and know that it’s okay to change your major! But most importantly, understand that you will not leave college as the same person that you were as a freshman. Use these years as a time to grow, learn and be exposed to a variety of beliefs and opinions. Keep your mind open and your chin up, and you’ve already won half the battle!