Where In The World Is [Insert Target Audience]?

Sarah Lichterman

Remember the days when Carmen Sandiego could be found all over the world on your childhood computer screen? Created to get children interested in geography, this computer game used a simple question as a catchphrase to turn into a multi-media franchise. How can asking this question be valuable to your business?

One job of a public relations professional is to determine the best communication strategy for our clients to connect with their target audiences. In the age of the World Wide Web, it can be difficult to make your message stand out among the millions of other streams of information available. However, one way to ensure your message is getting to your audiences is by finding out where in the world your audiences are located. Once you have determined this, you can use geo-targeting to more effectively share your message.

What is geo-targeting? Geo-targeting is a tool that helps specify your target audience or demographic based on their location. For example, a local electronic store that just opened in East Memphis would use geo-targeting to let people know of its services via Facebook. Ultimately, the store managers want everyone in Memphis to know about their services, but especially those in the surrounding neighborhood. Therefore, they use geo-targeting on Facebook to promote the company as the “neighbor electronic store” to users in East Memphis. Whereas, they would promote the company as a “local electronic store” to users located in other areas of town. This tool is a necessity to ensure you are delivering the best content to potential customers in distinct locations. From experience, I can verify that using geo-targeting on posts engages and interests more users because they can more closely relate to the post.

The phrase “geo-targeting” is most commonly used in reference to targeting audiences on social media. Many social media platforms have the option to only send your post or tweet to users in a specific location. How do they do this?  There are two main ways – IP or recorded address. An IP address is tracked by software through the web browser that determines where a user logs in. A recorded address is the current street address and city/state that a user has listed on his or her profile. In addition, you can filter your audience further by including age, gender, language, interest or connections.

Geo-targeting sounds like an intimidating process, but never fear, it is actually pretty easy. Click here to check out a blog post by Constant Contact to learn more about geo-targeting and how to use it on popular social media platforms.

In conclusion, remember that just like Carmen Sandiego, your audiences can be anywhere in the world. And, your message can be, too, by using tools such as geo-targeting to ensure the most appropriate content is delivered to each of your audiences.

Is it time for a website redo?

Lauren Hannaford

An organization’s website is oftentimes the first or second impression for a new customer, and if the site is outdated, dysfunctional or unorganized, it could be the No. 1 reason customers aren’t calling. The Obsidian team recently attended a PRSA Memphis luncheon where Amanda Mauk, digital marketing manager at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital, walked attendees through the long process her team went through to develop Le Bonheur’s new website. I was amazed at the insight she provided and was impressed by the level of organization it took to complete their final website. 

That discussion got me thinking. When should a company redo their website? Well, there’s no clear or definite answer, but Amanda’s presentation gave me a few ideas. Many of our clients, new and long-term, ask us what we think about their websites and if we think it’s time for them to update. It truly depends on a number of things, like budget, goals, purpose or potential rebranding. Let’s start with a few questions:

1. Did you create your website yourself? 
2. Do you have to pay boatloads of money just to make a few content changes on your site? And, does that take forever?
3. Is your website stuck on the second page or further of Google organic results?
4. Do you have the right amount of content on your site?
5. Can you track results or leads from your website?
6. Is your website compatible with Google? (Is the platform doing its job when it comes to search engine optimization?)

If you answered “yes” to the first three questions (and you aren’t an expert web developer) and answered “no” to the last three questions, it may be time for you to redo your site. 

Jumping into a website redo is no easy task. I think one of the first and most important things to remember is that you should not rush. It’s important to get it right so that your investment does not go to waste. Amanda talked about how Le Bonheur’s website redo took a year to complete, but the end result was exactly what they wanted and needed. 

Secondly, don’t go with the cheapest company you can find to redo your website. Go with a company who has proven results and a great track record. Ask for a list of clients you can speak with about their experience before you make a decision. 

Thirdly, identify your target audience. Drill it down to exactly who you believe the primary customer utilizing your site will be. 

Then, make sure your company’s branding materials and messages are consistent across the board. Your collateral should also match your website. 

Finally, don’t do it alone if you don’t have to. Form a website committee that can work together to complete the redo. If you don’t have someone to help, ask friends or family to review your content and the proposed design before you finalize the project. 

Whether it’s the right time for you to completely redo your website or not, don’t let the site become stagnant. Take time often to update sections with relevant information. Otherwise, people will stop visiting. 

Three Questions to Consider When Writing Social Media Posts

Jenn Taylor

Throughout my internship at Obsidian, I have been given various assignments. From the basic intern-type tasks, like collecting the newspapers in the morning, to the more in-depth tasks, like formulating a media contact list, there is one particular task that I feel has grown on me quite a bit. Researching content for social media posts is an assignment that I consistently do every week. While working on these projects, I have learned that there are three very important questions everyone should ask when writing these posts. 

The three questions are: 

What audience am I trying to reach? 

I believe this question is the most important of all because if we do not know to whom we are speaking, how could we possibly know what content would be of interest? For example, we would not want to write about fashion or about celebrity updates for an accounting firm. The update on the latest E! network show, “Eric and Jessie: Game On,” is probably not going to be beneficial to the firm’s current and future clients. Considering the audience not only shapes the message, but also the tone of any post we craft. 

What is relevant, and what is currently trending? 

Something that I did not think about when I first started writing social media posts was that, yes, we need to ultimately use the company’s information and updates to write the posts, but we need to also remember that important events and holidays are occurring outside of the company. This approach helps pull in your followers who may not be completely invested in the company’s everyday posts but could easily relate to a general “Happy President’s Day” post. If anything, the most basic and timely posts can help keep those followers engaged through a possible retweet on Twitter or a share on Facebook. 

What is the overall mission/message the company wants to communicate? 

We have all visited our fair share of company websites to learn more about a company. Usually, one of the first things we read about or notice on the website is the company’s mission statement. The mission statement lays out the purpose of the company or organization and its reason for existing. It is vital to understand the mission statement of the company you are writing for to ensure consistent implementation of the company’s values and beliefs into the content. This will also help connect to an audience that may be alike in those values and beliefs. 

With social media becoming a popular communication channel for businesses and organizations of all types, I believe this newfound knowledge will be useful to me in my future career in public relations.

Messaging? **blink, blink**

Kim Morrison

For those of us in the PR business, when we talk about messaging, we know exactly what we’re talking about, but sometimes we forget that the concept isn’t as clear to everyone else. We talk about consistency in it, shaping it for the right audiences and getting it out in a timely manner, but what exactly are we talking about when we say messaging? So, here’s a little PR 101 for you on messaging.

Messaging pretty much incorporates any communication you’re sending out to your audiences, whether we’re talking about internal audiences, external audiences and any mode of communication, whether it be a newsletter, morning show interview, elevator speech, etc. We want to make sure that our communication about our clients -- what they do, their missions, their goals, etc. -- is accurate, consistent and concise, from the wording and phrasing we use down to the color palette we use for clients various print materials. If there’s a variance in those factors, you can possibly confuse your audiences, sound unsure in your position and potentially lose audience members due to lack of consistent communication. People like consistency, people remember consistency and people trust consistency. 

The best thing you can do to ensure the quality of your messaging when reaching out to anyone is to take an extra minute to step back and look at your email, newsletter, poster, etc., from an outsider’s perspective. Does it make sense? Is it too lengthy or too short? Is it missing any information? If you didn’t already know this information, would you receive a similar level of understanding from the communication you created? Will it capture your audience’s interest, or is it boring?

With just a little extra work, you can make sure that your intended audience is receiving the best messaging possible to communicate your point. Good communication is the foundation for any good relationship, especially business ones.

Evaluating ROI on Your PR Efforts

Ali Glemser

For many years, the concepts and efforts behind public relations were underestimated due to the inability to determine exact return on investment. It was difficult to attribute specific increases in sales numbers or revenue generation as a result of intangible concepts like reputation building, brand management and community relations. Fortunately, this has grown to be easier and more quantifiable thanks to the advancement of technology in the digital age. As relationships are built between a brand and its audiences through traditional public relations efforts in the digital space, they can be tracked and quantified for summarization and analysis. 

Breaking down your digital analytics into the three categories below will make them easier to understand and allow you to identify and target your public relations strengths and weaknesses.

Outputs

These are measurements that can be determined from utilizing various communication channels, including the media. They include frequency, journalist inquiries and reader contacts. By assessing these numbers, you can draw conclusions about how valuable your content is to the audiences of these communication channels. For example, was a particular article that you pitched about subject “XYZ” read and shared over various platforms to multiple readers? How many media outlets contacted you about doing a follow-up story? If your answer included large numbers to all of those questions, then you had a strong return on investment from that news story.

Outcomes

Measure outcomes by assessing the effects of your public relations efforts among your targeted audiences. The results of these efforts would be changes in knowledge or awareness of your brand, product or service or in the opinions and attitudes toward your brand, product or service among your key audiences. This is normally assessed through surveys about brand association or product use. 

Business Results

Business results are the most straightforward assessment of the successful public relations efforts. If you see a positive correlation between increased numbers, such as revenue, market share or stock price, and increased public relations efforts, such as brand messaging, media relations or internal communications, then you can determine the percentage of value added through your PR efforts by comparing your increased figures to what they were prior to those efforts.

After gathering the numbers for your efforts across these three categories, identify where you excel and where you should consider placing more focus for different results. Every situation is different, but identifying these strengths and opportunities will allow you to better plan and execute a well-rounded public relations strategy.

Habits of Strategic Thinkers

Liz Hutton

Recently, I had a conversation with a coworker about my personal business goals and what comes next after “intern life.” As I am extremely new to the PR world, this discussion got me thinking about not only what I want for myself in the industry, but also about the skills I need to get to the next level in my career. 

Following this conversation, I took time alone to consider these personal goals. One specific topic that came into mind was how to become a strategic thinker and the importance of strategic planning for a PR professional. This is one skill I definitely need to work on. 

From a fishbowl perspective, I am the person looking in, absorbing every email, brainstorm, meeting and new opportunity to learn about the PR world and the skills my coworkers have mastered. From time to time, we receive requests from our team members looking for insight on specific client needs, such as ideas for a new campaign. Everyone participates as emails begin shooting back and forth between coworkers sharing thoughts, stirring up ideas and backing up their reasons why certain ideas would work best for the client. This is what we call a team brainstorm. In the midst of the chaos of every brainstorm, I find myself wondering how to respond. Where do I even start? How did my coworkers master this skill to be able to spout out incredible, innovative and thoughtful ideas that work so perfectly for our clients? After a few more brainstorms, I realized that my strategic thinking needed a bit of a tune-up.  

I have come up with a guide of questions to hang on my desk and ask myself from now on before every brainstorm: 

• What is the client’s current situation?
• What is the client’s overall business goal?
• How can you generate new ideas? (Insight)
• How can you separate the client from the marketplace “noise”? (Competitive advantage)
• What are the benefits/costs of the offerings? (Value)
• Where should you focus capital, talent and time? (Target audience)
• Are you able to visually capture the essence of the business issues?
• How can you create new value for customers? (Innovation)
• Does the client have a well-developed mission, vision and values? (Main purpose/key message)
• What is the strategy?

Once those questions are answered, it will be much easier to put down into writing how and why the client should move forward. It’s not always easy to transition back and forth from right-brain thinking (creative, intuitive and subjective) to left-brain thinking (logical, analytical and objective), but for a PR professional it is a necessary skill.