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Persuasive Picks – Week of August 17, 2015

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“Is Marketing on Twitter Worth the Investment”, authored by Huffington Post contributor, Jayson DeMers, discusses the advantages and disadvantages of using Twitter, from hashtags to personalization. DeMers reminds us that Twitter is a constantly evolving platform, and it has many new functionalities in the works.

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The popular topic of consumer behavior is covered in a MarketingProfs article called “Harness the Power of Personas for Social Media Marketing”. This article, authored by Keith Quesenberry, offers insight on creating personas to increase the relevancy of your social media marketing methods.

Forbes contributor, Cheryl Conner, talks about PR mistakes and successes in an article called “When PR Goes Really Right (Or Dead Wrong)”. She offers examples of entrepreneurs who took a chance on a unique PR strategy and it either bombed or created a real buzz.

Persuasive Picks – Week of August 10, 2015

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“7 Social Media Platforms That Could Explode Before 2016”, authored by Forbes contributor, Jayson DeMers, offers insight on the upcoming platforms that social media professionals should expect this year. SlideShare and Shots are on the list as well as social shopping app, Wanelo.

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Kimberlee Morrison, contributor to AdWeek’s SocialTimes, pens an article on the value of social media presence for consumers. Her article called “Consumers Value Social Media Presence — But Some Small Businesses Aren’t Buying In” reports on data from Enplug that shows that small business owners don’t think social media is a good value for their business. The results show that small business owners aren’t quite aware of the weight consumers give to social media content. “How Do you Create a Strong Global Marketing Campaign?” covers the timely topic of personalizing your global campaign. This article, authored by Courtney Huber, recommends that companies customize each campaign based the country and language.

Persuasive Picks – Week of August 3, 2015

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“Less Than 10% Of Companies Are Using Marketing Automation, Here’s Why”, authored by Forbes contributor, Mike Templeman, discusses the important topic of marketing automation. This technology has been around for half a decade, but companies aren’t utilizing it due to an upfront time consuming implementation process.

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Entrepreneur contributor, Rocco Baldassarre, reports on 5 online marketing tips for entrepreneurs. These tips include social media, testing new advertising channels, upselling and more. The article called “5 Online Marketing Basics Every Entrepreneur Needs to Know” also recommends utilizing tools such as Google Analytics and Facebook advertising.

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Burson-Marsteller tops the list of PR firms in PRNewser’s “PR Agency Report Card (Part 1)”. This annual ranking of PR firms highlights the champions of communications in the PR world.

Persuasive Picks – Week of July 27, 2015

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Business2Community author, Anna Rodriguez pens an article called “The Good And The Devil Benefits of Virtual And Social Media Management”. The article focuses on the recent survey from WorldatWork that found found that the number of American employees who worked virtually at least one day a month reached 17.2 million in 2008. The article goes on to offer tips on managing a virtual workforce effectively. 6-ways-to-manage-a-virtual-work-force   ‘Why You Need To Diversify Your Marketing”, written by Forbes contributor, Mike Templeman, offers insight on why companies need to consider more than one channel in their marketing efforts. Once a company finds their marketing channel where they can achieve traction, it is incumbent upon that company to seek out and establish and second, third, or fourth effective marketing channel. Business2Community also covers the topic of storytelling in marketing in its article called “Using Storytelling in Your Software & Technology Marketing”.  Author Stephanie Kapera discusses how storytelling in campaigns and videos as well as blogs offers marketers a chance to have their customers understand them better. Kapera also offers tips on when storytelling is not appropriare.

Persuasive Picks – Week of July 20, 2015

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Business2Community author, Susan Gilbert discusses how positive vision in marketing will protect you from failure. “Positive Focus Creates Better Marketing Results” provides 4 easy steps for positive focus, including how to monitor your time on social media and being open to new marketing strategies.

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“7 of the Best Tools to Aid Your Content Marketing”, an insightful piece by Julia McCoy, covers some of the latest content marketing tools out there that can help you be smarter and more accurate in your content marketing strategy.

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Mike Templeman contributes an article called “How Facebook And Twitter Fit Into B2B Marketing”  which discusses two lesser-used social media platforms, Facebook and Twitter and how they can be a real value in B2B marketing.

Persuasive Picks – Week of July 13, 2015

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Forbes contributor, Theo Priestly pens a story discussing the challenges marketers face in these fast paced times. “Marketing: 3 Reasons To Tell A Story, Not Sell Technology” states that organizations need to turn their attention more towards storytelling and explains how to approach this task effectively. storytelling-18642-3-1940x1293   TheNextWeb’s article called “5 Social Media Fails and the Apps That Could Have Saved Them”, points out various social media mistakes by well known brands such as DiGiorno, New England Patriots and McDonalds. It offers insight on the apps that could have helped these brands when human error could not have been avoided. shutterstock_171257771 Justin Lafferty authors an article for AdWeek’s Social Times called “Was Amazon’s #PrimeDay a Social Media Failure?”, delving in to the success of this social media campaign. Though Amazon said that Prime Day sales surpassed Black Friday or 2014, a lot of the chatter around the sale event was negative or bland, according to Talkwalker.

Persuasive Picks – Week of July 6, 2015

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Forbes writer, Nicole Narea, discusses the latest PR nightmare for Subway in “Lessons For Brands From Subway’s Jared PR Nightmare: Act Fast, Be Transparent” . She takes a look back at other PR blunders by brands such as Best Buy and Urban Outfitters and reviews the lessons we have learned from them.

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What is a social media influencer and why should you care? CIO contributor, Lauren Broussell, takes an in-depth look at the pros and cons associated with marketing to “internet influencers” and whether it is worth the effort. In this article called “Inside the murky world of ‘social media influencers’”. She also discusses “affiliate networks” and their importance to marketers.

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“The data-driven marketing revolution” authored by David Benady covers why brands are investing heavily in the latest digital technology. This very thorough Guardian report includes viewpoints from data technologists, website marketers and digital leaders.

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Persuasive Picks – Week of June 29th

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“Brand Advocacy is the topic of AdWeek’s article called “How IBM Got 1,000 Staffers to Become Brand Advocates on Social Media“.  Author Christopher Heine talks about IBM’s strategy that is catching attention worldwide. And last week, IBM’s #NewWayToWork effort garnered Armstrong’s team a Viral Marketing Campaign of the Year distinction during the 13th Annual American Business Awards in Chicago.

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Mashable contributor, Dorey Clark discusses strategies to build a stratospheric social media fan base.This article “3 ways to turn your brand into a social media juggernaut” talks about early adoption of new social channels, hedging your bets and more.

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“The 5 biggest social media mistakes to avoid” authored by Karissa Giuliano explores social media mistakes made by brands. This CNBC article offers helpful insight for not only brands, but also for any avid social media user.

Exploring the Convergence of PR, Journalism and Marketing

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Photo courtesy of Tech Cocktail

Photo courtesy of Tech Cocktail

PR practitioners used to have it easy! Remember the good ‘ol days when it was all about our media relationships and campaigns were linear, like this?

  • Step 1: Work with client on strategy; get content.
  • Step 2: Pitch content to media; get placement.

Ok, that’s simplifying things quite a bit, but you know what we mean.

Now, though, the entire landscape has changed with the explosion of the Internet, which has removed virtually all barriers to publication. Suddenly we’re responsible not only for the message, but also the mode and the medium, which follows more of a vicious cycle:

  • Step 1: Coordinate with client on strategy.
  • Step 2: Create actual content, which could be anything from case studies and white papers to blogs, eBooks, guides and all kinds of other collateral.
  • Step 3: Publish content, which runs the gamut from media placements, company blog posts, contributed articles, events and more.
  • Step 4: Promote content via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram, etc.
  • Step 5: Interact with community on various platforms, reacting, responding and re-adjusting your course, as needed.
  • Step 6: Start from the beginning and do it all over again!

Software Advice‘s article on The B2B Marketing Mentor does a great job of explaining the creation and importance of this new kind of role that merges marketing, PR and journalism functions.

In an nutshell, since we now play a larger part in the production of content (journalism), we’re no longer simply pitching and promoting it (PR), but are challenged to leverage it as a strategic tool for lead generation and brand awareness (marketing).

The only problem is that, well, everyone else is doing the same thing, which means it’s pretty noisy out there as we all compete for the time and attention of our audiences.

That’s where the shift to “inbound” comes in; it’s an offshoot of content marketing that focuses on aligning content with customer interest so that they are “pulled” toward your company, rather than the old-school spray-and-pray methods.

We’ve embraced this, both in theory and in action, with our clients. In fact, we recently attending the Inbound Marketing Summit in San Francisco and the Inbound Marketing Conference in Boston where we talked about how it’s not about being the loudest; it’s about having the right content for the right audience at the right time.

Put simply, the only way we can guarantee our clients are in the media nowadays it to help them become  the media. Content has become their new currency when attracting, engaging, converting and retaining customers.

Savvy PR professionals are embracing their status as content custodians. But the most successful ones will recognize the beauty in marketing’s ability to measure return and directly tie to their clients’ bottom line.

Brilliant Example Of Engagement Reminds Us All To Keep Pushing The Envelope

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bodyformTo say that the lines between PR, media and marketing are blurred is putting it mildly. What was once about facilitating and gatekeeping has now become a creative free-for-all as more brands step into the role of content makers to try to strike a chord with their respective audiences.

As an agency, we’re constantly thinking about best practices among the complimentary disciplines, along with how we can leverage a combination of them most effectively for our clients.

One of the more recent discussions was around engagement on social media. While we’re all familiar with it from a personal perspective, it’s still an area that can be a challenge from a business standpoint.

Even though there’s a general understanding among brands that social media is a marketing tool that can help them reach out to their customers, it can be difficult to convince them to loosen the reins and fully harness their network’s power to unlock the true potential.

Bodyform 1But rather than brainstorming something like a list of the “10 tips for better social media engagement,” we simply wanted to show an example of the magic in action in this video from UK maxipad maker Bodyform, made late last year. The company created it in response to a man’s tongue-in-cheek “rant” on their Facebook wall, claiming that he’s been lied to about the “happy periods” depicted in their ads over the years.

What might make some brand managers bury their heads in the sand to avoid addressing, Bodyform embraced as an opportunity to get a conversation, ahem, flowing in its community.

“We found Richard’s post very amusing and wanted to continue the positive dialogue around periods that this generated,” said Yulia Kretova, brand controller for Bodyform, in a statement. “…Breaking down the taboo around Bodyform and periods has always been a challenge, and I hope that we have started to address this.”
The result? Well, not only did it delight fans and followers, but the video went viral, and we’re still talking about it months later as a hilarious – and effective – example of engagement at its best.

While the saying “no publicity is bad publicity” will always be up for debate, there’s no denying that any kind of feedback – even negative – can be a major opportunity in social media to convert its loudest naysayers into its most fervent fans. And that’s something none of us should overlook – period.