Strategic Public Relations

Brand's Annual Report Published via Instagram

"Story drives the form. Form does not drive the story."

A local journalist instilled this mantra in me recently. And it would appear this mantra is being applied to annual reports.

Over the last decade, annual reports have gone from dry as toast financial documents to become a brand's "secret weapon" (vs. bread and butter /rimshot). Take this example from Warby Parker -- which provides an interactive, behind the scenes look at "how it all goes down" at the popular online eyewear brand.

Rather than having the production, or typical annual report format, drive its creation, The Calgary Zoo chose Instagram to serve up its year in review and to help reinforce its story.

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 Now before you go out and start snapping pics of your existing annual report and posting them to Instagram, here's why it works for the zoo.

• Telling a Visual Story: The Zoo already had a very visual story to tell. Instagram helped amplify this fact. They didn't try and reverse engineer the annual report into square photos for Instagram.
• Creating Snack-Sized & Healthy Content: Each page became a destination for the Zoo...helping them reinforce important points and distribute the annual report more easily online. 
• Supporting a Broader Plan: This execution is part of a broader plan for the Zoo as it relates not only to it's marketing efforts, but also to it's annual report...and its role in these broader efforts.
• Reinforcing the Brand: The Zoo does a great job of using visuals to reinforce the experience visitors have at the Zoo as well as the broader platforms the Zoo supports, including protecting penguins for example. The point is, while there are many snack-sized messages, all of the pictures come together to support a common theme - the Calgary Zoo.

It is a great use of Instagram, a great idea for the Calgary Zoo and an important reminder to us that the restrictions of a platform can increase our creativity and not simply limit it.

Who Should Own Content Marketing In Your Organization?

Read enough industry opinion on content marketing, and you can start to determine each author’s professional background. If their point of view is focused on:

• Interactive: the author tends to be in digital marketing or may work with a digital agency;
• Creative: a traditional marketer might be chief storyteller, perhaps working with a creative agency;
• Editorial: the expert could come from public relations or might work with a PR agency;
• Media: someone with paid media background, who takes a media-neutral approach to building an audience or may be working with a digital agency.

Read Between the Lines
If I’d written this article just a few years ago, you could easily tell my roots are in public relations. By their name alone, my two personal blogs would confirm this assumption.

But over the last 10 years, my focus became more broadly focused in marketing. And in the last five years, I’ve witnessed content morph into a clear mix of editorial, design and development. My last four years at a media agency have further evolved my point of view.

Marketing’s True North
This experience has taught me that the focus should always be on the audience – regardless of your background. While this isn’t an epiphany or a deep thought, it’s critical to remind ourselves of this timeless rule. It tends to fade into the background when the marketing industry, inevitably, debates who in an organization should own a new practice area.

Content marketing can’t live anywhere in the building, but it does take a variety of stakeholders and skill sets to make it work. Regardless of where content marketing lives in your building, make sure the team has the skill sets needed for each phase of content marketing.

• Plan: The planning phase requires strategists with an a deep understanding of the brand and its audience as well as an appreciation of content and media.
• Publish: Publishing requires a mix of editorial, design and creative that taps technology to distribute and share the content as relevant.
• Promote: All content needs help being found. In addition to paid media expertise, analytics, search marketing and social media mindsets are required.
• Optimize: The key to sustainable success is constant, informed iteration of the entire process and the platform. A team capable of drawing insights from analytics and relevant search data is critical.

Story or Science?
Each member on a content marketing team, based on their background, will focus on the left- or right-brain aspects of content marketing. That’s understandable. The point is simply to make sure you’ve got the right mix of team skills and that the focus is, first and foremost, on the audience.

And if anyone asks who should own content marketing? The answer is: the audience.

Top Photo Apps Getting Instagram Engagement

Lately I've noticed my more heavily edited pics are getting more likes. To assume that more apps/edits equate to more attention is short-sighted. Format is no substitute for content, and likes aren't the best engagement metric.** But with that said, here are the apps I've used to create my five most-liked photos on Instagram.

1) Camera+  |  Every single picture above was run through Camera+. I use it on nearly every picture I take and Creamy Whip? Zip Dip! relies soley on Camera+. The HDR filter helps light, the sun rising and setting in particular, to really pop.

2) Slow Shutter Cam  |  Slow shutter and stop action apps are amazing niche apps. Initially, I took more with my stop action app, MogoFoto. But spend an evening at a festival or an amusement park and you'll see why Slow Shutter Cam turned Tilt-a-Hurl into my most liked picture.

3) Marble Cam  |  "Sharks with frickin' laser beams..." was taken with MarbleCam, an intersting novelty app that focuses on the center of your image in a whole new way.

4) Picfx  |  Picfx has a lot of fans. One reason is because it can distress photos, creating a whole new look. One Way is a great example of this.

5) Rays  |  Pictures with light sources in them are perfect for the Rays app, which will enhance them. It turned Cloud Porn with Inception Vibe into one of my favorites and one of my most-liked photos.

Bonus Tool  |  Statigram: Statigram makes Instagram pics easier to access, including your own photos. It serves up stats like the image above, and gives you access to several contests and other tools. This article on its various features is worth checking out if you're looking for an easier way to navigate Instagram.

Again, these results are based on content as much as format. So your experience with the above apps may vary. Now that Facebook's purchase of Instagram is final, I'm hoping posts like this one don't become humorous artifacts from " a time before Instagram was folded in to Facebook."

**Defining engagement is a lot like defining influence. The definition varies from person to person. And while I can see how likes are considered engagement, likes are passive enough that I don't think it's the strongest, standalone example of engagement. And unless you're goal is to raise awareness, likes are more of a progress metric compared to a data point measuring overall success.

Strategic Public Relations' Book Giveaway

UPDATE: BOOM! All books are gone. 

UPDATE: With just one book left in the stack, this has been a lot of fun. I assumed readers claiming the books would be scattered geographically. But it's been even more global than I anticipated.

Yes, I will be covering postage to Sweden, Turkey, Italy, the UK, Austrailia, Canada, Iowa, Georgia, Ohio (5), Washington, DC (2) and New York (2).

UPDATE: Only seven books are left. I'll be emailing the other books' new owners shortly. I've highlighted the last seven in yellow and struckthrough the others that are no longer available. Thanks.

After spending Labor Day Weekend purging, I have some books to give away. Some are older than others. But, as you'll see in the list above, they cover social media, public relations, branding, marketing and business topics. All of them are still relevant to one degree or another. If I did a blog post/book report, the list has a link to it. 

In the past, I've passed books along to others. And I've had books sent my way as well. So I felt it best to offer them up to readers instead of recycling or trying to get a few pennies back for them via Half Priced Books. 

Free Books? I'm in. What's Next?
If you want a book, just walk through the form below.

Progressive Insurance PR Crisis & Twitter

The image above makes me assume that, while Progressive Insurance may have a social media policy in place, it does not have a crisis plan. Or at least not a crisis plan that considers social media -- Twitter most obviously. 

With nearly a dozen people designated as Progressive Insurance Twitter representatives, there is a single tweet to deal with a controversy first detailed in this post from comedian, Matt Fisher. A controversy that pulls up more than 5,000 hits on Google News as of this post's writing.

Twitter About Face
The image above reflects an updated account. A picture of Progessive's ad spokes-character, Flo, has been replaced by the anonymous logo. And 16 "robo-tweets" attempting to address the controversy have been removed.

The  robo-tweets in question were a single tweet, posted repeatedly by the social media app Twitlonger. This repetition has come under scrutiny and it also has been deleted and replaced with a single, unemotional statement. All of these actions, along with 11 head shots of Progressive's Twitter Team members, simply reinforces the perception that Progressive Insurance does not really care about this issue or, as a result, it's policyholders.

Sharing's Exponentially Powerful Ability to Distribute a Message
By posting his story on Tumblr, it's already been reblogged on Tumblr more than 11,000 times since being posted on Monday...two days ago. But an article from Daily Dot speaks to even more distribution of this news via social sharing.

"And the flames jumped to the other social media platforms, too. Progressive’s Facebook page has been bombarded with links to the aforementioned Tumblr post. But perhaps the single biggest display of backlash has occurred on Twitter. Mr. Fisher’s story caught the attention of several users with a sizeable Twitter following."

A tweet from actor Wil Wheaton had the potential to reach many of his more than 2 million followers. But more telling is the fact that "Wheaton’s tweet was retweeted 2,624 times."

The Daily Dot also points to a tweet from comedian Patton Oswalt that has been retweeted 6,471 times." And he's all but dedicated his twitter stream to slamming Progressive. And "according to Topsy, a social media search engine, Progressive was mentioned 64,255 times" in the 24 hours preceding The Daily Dot's article.

Progressive's New Approach?
I'm not part of Progressive's PR team, legal team or a member of its Twitter Team. So there are a quadrillion facts I don't bring to the following ideas. And anyone else discussing this crisis should also acknowledge the same.

But with the aforementioned distance from the issue, I'd suggest Progressive spend some money around paid media across Twitter and Facebook to start telling their story. And that story had best be more than a statement from Progressive's legal-bot. It's one small point in a littany of things Progressive is probably immersed in as we speak. Or at least it should be. 

As far as integrating social media into a crisis plan, any plan not acknowledging social media is arguably rendered ineffective. In fact, I've been wanting to address how social media impacts a crisis plan for some time now. To oversimplify my take on the matter, I'll simply say that crisis plans need to build structure wherein a defined approach is established that allows teams to quickly assess and react according to the unique circumstances a crisis will bring. It's not as simple as having a phone tree and dark site in place. OK, it never was that simple. More to come on this topic.

 

 

 

Pinterest: 10 Tips for PR People

>> Carlo Pandian approached me with a ready-made guest post. But his pitch was so good that I pitched him on writing about Pinterest instead. PR's ability to drive consumers through the purchase funnel tends to focus on awareness. I like some of his Pinterest tips for PR people as they include tips for generating more than awareness -- while adhering to Pinterest's much-appreciated no direct sales rules.

Don't Forget: The tips below assume YOUR audience is on Pinterest and the tactic of pinning supports broader strategies in your plan.<<



The idea behind Pinterest is to create attractive pin boards on your profile based on your interests, or your products and services if you’re a business. Once you have created your pin boards all you need to do is ‘pin’ relevant images to the right boards and try to raise a following.

Direct Sales Aren’t Allowed
There are strict guidelines you will need to follow. In the terms and conditions it does state that you are not able to use the site for direct sales, but there are plenty of other uses that can lead to more sales.

First and foremost you must receive an invitation to open an account. A quick shout out on Twitter should be enough for someone to lend you a hand if you need it. Check within your own circles first though, with over 10 million users it’s likely you already know someone who can invite you. Failing that you can request an invite directly from Pinterest.

Here 10 tips on how to get on-board and start making use of this popular platform.

1.      Create product specific boards and show images of your goods.  If you offer a service you can still use the images from your blog posts or web pages.  Each image links back to the page you pinned it from, which is why it’s very useful for adding links to your website and bringing in new traffic.  Create new boards for your ranges to keep things organised.

2.      Think outside the box when it comes to marketing.  You cannot directly sell anything but you could use the site to pin special offer coupons, QR codes on your images or attractive images of entire collections to excite the viewer.

3.      Try to cross promote all of your social sites with Pinterest.  Link up your website, Twitter account and Facebook when you create your profile and send your pinned images over to your various sites.  Add your profile pictures and cover photos from Facebook onto a pin board, send pinned pictures directly to your Twitter account and encourage users of all social networks to visit all of your sites individually.

4.      Add the 'Follow me on Pinterest' button to your website next to your other social media buttons so people can follow you with one easy click. 

5.      The ‘Pin It’ button is another essential addition to your website specifically your product pages and your blog.

6.      Conduct market research by reaching out to users and asking for their opinions. Show ideas in the making, products which are being developed and see what the reaction is.

7.      It’s possible to add video content onto Pinterest so if you create your own video marketing remember to add these onto the relevant boards. Remember there is no direct selling, so consider the contents before pinning.

8.      If you have stories or news about your company across the Internet add it to your ‘In the News’ board.

9.      Ask your employees to all create their own pin board on the company profile.  Let their personality show, yet ensure they are aware of the rules first.

10.  As with all social networking you mustn’t be selfish.  Repin, share and comment on the pins and boards of others in order to raise an interest in you.

Related Articles 
Pinterest Best Practices
15 Ways to Use Pinterest for PR 
The 10 Commandmants of Pinterest for Business

Pinterest - The Social Media Darling Of 2012: Infographic by Infographiclabs

 Author
Carlo Pandian is a freelance writer based in London and blogs for Media Recruitment on public relations, marketing and careers. When he’s not online or cycling around town, you can’t get him out of the kitchen for his love of food.

Context + Relevance = An Important Equation

Aside from a low-grade entertainment value, animated gifs seem bent on little more than triggering seizures and furthering memes. One of the only times I've used them in a post was about a month ago. The motion can distract from the point you're trying to make.

When I saw an animated gif on Instagram, I wanted to post it because it was a good use of the usually abused technology. But the factoids in it focus on Facebook's purchase of Instagram. The topic's been covered and I didn't have anything to add to the discussion.

End Factoid Abuse
Regardless of the content, without context and relevance, my post would have been dancing baloney . The following video is a fun examination of how these factoid storms, without context or direct relevance, just leaves you all wet. It's a factoid mockumentary. It's...it's...well, just watch it.

Rolling Thunder 2.0
Back when 2.0 was dot com, startups were trying to flip their company instead of build it. Startups would issue a steady flow of news releases -- whether or not they had news. We called this rolling thunder. Today we all love a diet of eMarketer factoids, made even tastier with Twitter's 140-character menu, infographic eye candy and a culture where sharing content is more popular than creating it.

"Mr. Dugan, your glass house is ready..."
I'm as guilty of this habit as anyone else. Stats comparing  AOL, Facebook and Draw Something's path to reach 1 million users are not only impressive, they have parallel structure! But they're out of context and don't take into account that Draw Something and Facebook benefitted from the path AOL initially carved out for them, not to mention years of technological evolution.

When we look at any research, our first question should always be: sample? From there, anytime we're trying to make a point or we're putting together anything from a tweet to a powerpoint deck, let's take a deep breath and also ask: context?

Presentation Trap #234: The (Slow, Boring) Build

A payoff slide kills the boring build, letting you assert first, support later.

There are more than 100 ways to deliver "death by PowerPoint." One death blow I've wrestled with lately is narrative flow.

We tend to build a case for assertions before making them. It's even built into the standard "problem, solution, results" case study. But building up to an assertion risks losing the audience before you can make your point.

The Payoff Slide
Depending on the presentation, I start out with a "payoff" slide in my deck -- not unlike the payoff sentence that kicks off this post. It's my main assertion -- a 140-character elevator speech that can be tweeted by the audience. And I spend the rest of the presentation proving out the assertion. Here's an example on the second slide.

As I've said before, you still need to tell a story that your audience wants to tell after your presentation. So you still need to end on a high note. But if you save it all until the end? You lose the audience before you get there.

Payoff To Stop Walk Out
Losing an audience is literal these days as presentation attendees are more serious than ever about investing their time. An extreme example is South by Southwest Interactive. I've seen SXSWi speakers flame out as people leave during the presentation -- in droves. It's not polite. But it's based on the content they're getting (or not getting) from a presentation. And it reinforces the need to capture and keep the audience's attention.

This guy is boring uploaded by Narisa 

Marketing, Hoarders & Throw-Aways

For one reason or another, I always seem to uncover items that are being kept around even though they no longer hold value. Items become obsolete -- from this diskette I hung onto for years at my last job to time-sensitive marketing materials that have an expired date or use the old brand identity.

But we hoard these items because of nostalgia perhaps or, more likely, because time or money was invested in them. Whether it's a well-intended “just in case” security measure or otherwise, it's usually overlooked or generally accepted.

Loaded Down with Ideas
Hoarding happens with more than just objects. Marketing practices, and internal processes, are sometimes clung to because “that’s how it’s always been done.” It can be understandable due to the success these intangible assets have achieved in the past.

We’ve all been guilty of hoarding at one time or another. Practices or processes don’t take up extra space. But without changing or reevaluating them, they can slow down organizations, impact productivity and over time they can lead to obsolescence.

Stay Close to the Shiny New
I’m not suggesting we change for change’s sake. I’m also not suggesting we flock to the shiny new. But as our industry is in a constant state of iteration, I am suggesting a balance. Even the longest-held practices or processes should not be off limits when considering what’s working, what’s not, what can improve and what needs to be thrown away.

Sound the Bell on Pavlovian Marketing

A professional association in the online industry sent me a white paper -- via postal mail. It’s a printed piece (thick stock with an even thicker cover stock). And it has two small visuals in the entire 12-page document.

What was the white paper about? I’m not sure because every time I tried to read it, I fell asleep.

To be clear, I don’t begrudge anyone from creating, and mailing, a printed piece. There are a lot of good reasons to create a print experience. And even in a world teeming with tablets and e-readers, a print execution can help content stand out – in a good way.

Reflex Marketing
My issue is with Pavlovian Marketing. This is when we use the same old ways to talk about the new --  regardless of how ill-fitting thesee ways might appear – because that’s how it’s always been done.

There are planning rules and guidelines worth their weight in gold (audience/goals/measureable objectives/strategy and tatics). Keep them. They’re valuable. And sometimes there’s a need to leverage new rules for new tools (social media as engagement vs. broadcast).

Pavlovian Purgatory
Pavlovian Marketing is somewhere in between these two extremes. As if on command marketers spit out the same tactics. In this case, a rather academic looking white paper.

Wikipedia claims a white paper "is an authoritative report or guide that helps solve a problem" or make a decision. "In commercial use, the term has also come to refer to documents used by businesses as a marketing or sales tool."

But does the above definiition mean a white paper has to look like the business equivalent of a college research paper? PSFK publishes white papers I'd like to print out and hang on my walls as much as I want to read it.

Far too often, marketers let formats serve as rules instead of guidelines. Take the news release. (No, please, take it. >rim shot<) The start up Square used Instagram to publish a dead simple news release -- with actual news in it.

There are a myriad of ways to reach the same goal. I’m not suggesting everything can be snack-sized into a bumper sticker, tweet, infographic, top ten five list or a 60- 30-second video. I am suggesting that we need to practice what we preach as communicators.

White Noise Paper
As far as the white paper that inspired this post, let me ask you this. If you’re audience is, by default, online and you’re trying to impress this audience with your point of view on the inner-workings of a niche in the online industry, would you use printed materials to accomplish this goal?

A wise then-client once said he knew a colleague with more than 17 years of experience. The only problem was it was a single year -- repeated 17 times. Tune out the din of the marketing bell that sounds clearly as pile after pile of examples bury you (online and offline) ultimately suffering you into a fossil. Take a deep breathe and make sure you're next work is your best work....not simply a rehash of your last work.

Cross-posted to the Bad Pitch blog.