How to Leverage Social Media for Public Relations Success

1. How to Leverage Social
Media for Public Relations
Success

2. • Dr. Tom Seymour - SRT Communications, Inc.
• Heather Nasif - Great Plains Communications,
Blair Nebraska
• Ryan Huschka - Twincities.com / St. Paul
Pioneer Press
• Jenny Huschka - SPIRE Federal Credit Union
• Cassidy Kersten – SRT Communications, Inc

4.  It’s all media that includes a social component
◦ When you share a news story or post a press release
with share functionality
◦ When you post on facebook, twitter, etc.
◦ When you write an article that allows for comments or
comment on an article
◦ When you use a live chat function on a website or
leave a review on Yelp

5.  Nearly every website now has a social aspect
◦ Take advantage and make your content shareable

6. • 175 million Twitter users
• 500 million+ Facebook
users.
• 50% of users log on to
Facebook in any given day
• Average FB user has 130
friends.
• Social media is critical
in your marketing
plan!
Twitter:September2010;Facebook:March2011

7.  Reach New & Younger Audience
 Generate Direct Customer Relationships
 New Sales and Service Opportunities
◦ 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations
vs. 14% trust advertisements!
 Increase Customer Satisfaction
 Mobile is an extension of Social Media!
◦ 10.5% of all Social Media usage is on a mobile
device! use social media on their mobile devices!
http://www.jeffbullas.com/2010/08/05/latest-research-reveals-social-media-usage-up-43/

8. Where your customers are!

9.  Facebook
◦ More than 135 million users in US
◦ Avg. users spends 6 hours each month
◦ Fastest growing demographic is 55+
◦ Avg. user is a fan of 8.7 brands
 #1 reason to fan a brand is to receive promotions*
 # 2 reason to fan a brand is show brand support*
Information taken from 2010 Exact Target Facebook Report

10.  EdgeRank – refers to how likely your content is to
appear in a user’s “top news”
 Insights – The analytics collected about your fan
page – very important to crafting message
 North Social – A cost-effective suite of apps that
enhance your page across multiple media

11.  Twitter
◦ 150 million worldwide users
◦ Will show up in searches
◦ Easy way to syndicate content
◦ Main users are early adopters and opinion leaders
 Information spreads beyond twitter
◦ Can instantly view conversation about your
company

12.  Search Engine Optimization – Use your
keywords in your tweets
 Timing – Average half-life of a tweet is 4
minutes. It’s OK to share the same link several
times. (just vary content and wait several
hours)
 Clients – Programs like HootSuite, Seesmic
and Tweetdeck make managing twitter easy

13.  YouTube
◦ More than 2 billion views each day
◦ Syndicated to facebook, linked through twitter and
embedded in websites and blogs
◦ Easy to create and upload
◦ Very easy to share

14.  YouTube is owned by Google – Videos are great for
Search Engine Optimization
 Users expect videos to be authentic – Don’t worry
about content being “perfect”
 Easily embedded – Place into your facebook page,
blog, etc.

15.  Blogs
◦ Blogs are a great way to enhance your brand
◦ Tell your story
◦ Provide added value for your customers – answers
to frequently-asked-questions
◦ Push this content to all of your other social sites

16.  Host Sites – Many companies use outside sites
such as wordpress, blogger, posterous or tumblr
 Add share buttons – Everywhere
 Links – Make sure that links to and from your
website are easy to find
 Integrate – Place links to your other sites into
your blog

17.  LinkedIn
◦ Great for B2B outreach
◦ Can add products and services with full social
media support
◦ Let company’s find your services
◦ Position company as a thought leader

18.  Promote – You can add all of your Products
and Services to your company profile
 Take Control – Any employee with a
@yourdomain email address can edit the
page until you lock it down.
 Find content – Telecommunications section
of LinkedIn Today

19.  Google and Bing
◦ Search Engine Optimization – how do you rank?
◦ Google and Bing account for 95% of all search
traffic*
 Google Analytics (free) can report your company’s
search engine use percentages
◦ Social Search – Friends social actions affect
search rankings
Information taken from Mashable April, 2011 report

20.  Search is Social -
◦ Social Media and Search Engine Optimization go
hand-in-hand
◦ The more content you develop across the web, the
more chances you have to be ranked
◦ The more your content is shared, the more valuable
it looks to search engines

21. Know Your Roles!

22.  Customer Communications
 Engagement Tool
 Listening Tool
 Media Relations
 Brand Management

23.  Google Alerts – Allows you to capture any
conversation about your company or other
keywords online
 Provide places for customers to give feedback
◦ Twitter – create a unique hashtag for product
launches or other promotions
◦ Offer review or discussions tab on Facebook
◦ Review Sites – see what customers think about your
business (yelp, Google places)

24.  You must understand your current efforts!
◦ What are you currently doing in Social Media?
 Create a baseline for your social media efforts
and benchmarks!
 What accounts does your business have?
 Are they the appropriate type?
◦ Facebook Fan Pages NOT PERSONAL PROFILES
◦ Twitter Accounts
◦ LinkedIn Profiles
◦ Foursquare / Locations Pages

25.  Join conversations
◦ #hashtags allow users to have a conversation over
twitter
◦ Review blogs that relate to your industry – Alltop.com
◦ Hootsuite, Tweetdeck, Seesmic all allow for easy
monitoring of social sites
 Ask questions
◦ Customer love feeling valued

26.  Make your press releases easy to find and
share
 Syndicate press releases through your own
channels
 Take advantage of wire services with share
features
◦ Businesswire, PR Wire, PR Log

27.  The Social Media Press Room
◦ Have share buttons for all press releases
◦ Add your press releases as individual web pages
rather than PDF’s for greater searchability
◦ Include links to any images, videos or other
collateral
◦ Have shareable versions of all company fact sheets,
logos, and bios.

28.  Social Media has no gatekeeper
 Produce content that shows your brand’s
personality
 Ex: New Ford Focus Campaign

29.  What are people saying
about you online?
◦ Do you know?
 Develop a strategy to overcome bad reviews on
social media and engage those with positive
feedback!
 A few bad reviews can turn people away from
your business!
◦ Customers can broadcast their sales and service
experiences quickly and easily.
◦ Who is monitoring what is being said publicly about your
brand everyday?

30.  Focus Your Message & Strategy

31.  How much time can you devote?
 Who will “own” the social media channels?
 What are your goals?
 Where are your customers?

32.  Content is key to your social strategy
◦ Give customers a reason to return to your social
channels
◦ Review what type of content is popular
 What’s the difference?
 Type: photo, link, video
 Content: community focused, product driven
 Timing: early morning vs. afternoon

33.  Content Calendars
◦ Easy as an excel spreadsheet or email calendar
 Determine how often you want to update each
channel
 Facebook: 1-2 times a day
 Twitter: 3-4 times a day
 Blog: 2-3 times a week
 YouTube: 1 time every two weeks

34.  Determine what you want to talk about
◦ Divide content into topics
 Promotions
 Community focused
 Value added – additional info customers are
seeking
◦ Will you need images, video, links?
 Posts with these items are shareable on facebook

35.  Ideas for content
◦ Photos from events
◦ Video of employees talking about company
 Especially C-suite
◦ New campaigns
◦ Interesting links relating to your products and services
◦ Questions
Get every department involved in the
brainstorming process!

36.  Develop a social media policy for your sites:

37.  Does This Help Us Make Money?

38.  Social Media Goals
◦ Facebook Fans, Twitter Followers, etc
 Engagement
◦ Twitter Retweets
◦ Facebook Comments and Likes
◦ Referral Traffic to websites
 Revenue = Results
◦ New customers
◦ Sales tied to Social Media

39. Medium How to use it for sales
Facebook Create awareness
Scoutmob, Groupon (costs money) Drive foot traffic or couponing in
local areas
Twitter Lead generation through
following, direct messages on
promotions, create awareness
LinkedIn Drive inquiries through discussion
posts, event posts, and article
posts
YouTube Drive awareness and higher search
rankings
http://mashable.com/

40.  Maintain Monthly Counts of Facebook Fans
and Twitter Followers of your competition.
 What are they doing well?
 How can you do it better?
 Identify competitor growth on a monthly basis!
◦ What are they doing to grow their audiences?
Set a goal to become the local market
leader!

41. Let’s look at real world
examples

43.  Case Study: Great Plains Communications
◦ Awareness Campaign
◦ Brand Management
◦ Search Engine Optimization
◦ Listening Tool

44.  Situation
◦ No social media presence until September 2010
 Goals
◦ Wanted to increase search engine rankings –
differentiate from similarly named company
◦ Provide customers with additional tools to engage with
company
◦ Increase channels customers have for finding
information

45.  Solution
◦ Integrated set of branded channels including
 Facebook
 GPC-Blog
 Twitter
 YouTube
 LinkedIn

46.  Facebook
◦ 200 fans with an average of 10,000 post
views/month
◦ Helps drive traffic back to blog and website
 Top referring site to GPC-Blog
◦ Provides area for customer engagement
◦ Ads drove 27% of traffic for recent HD launch with a
price tag of $65

47.  YouTube
◦ 2,500 views
◦ FAQ’s received strong feedback
◦ Used for Video Contest
 No video formatting issues
 Videos received 3,000 views independent of channel
views (within 6 weeks period)

48.  Blog
◦ GPC-FLASH – with frog icon
◦ Provides mix of product news,
community spotlights, helpful tips and tricks
◦ Includes FAQ tutorial videos
◦ Used as informational site for customers and
employees

49.  LinkedIn
◦ Products and Services added
◦ Encouraged employees to be active on related
LinkedIn groups
◦ Had “photo day” to increase employees with full
profiles

50.  Results
◦ Top place page rankings for brand on Google and
Bing
◦ Facebook has 200 fans and counting
◦ CRC now uses blog as consistent learning tool and
refer customers to social sites
◦ Blog has been syndicated internationally

54.  What do I do now?

55.  If you don’t have a personal Twitter, Facebook or
FourSquare account – create one now!
◦ Unless you are a social media user it will be difficult to
see the opportunities.
 Follow other sources on Facebook and Twitter.
◦ Study how they are interacting with their readers.
 Blogs – either related to your business or not
 National Manufacturer Websites
 Manufacturers like Ford are getting very involved in Social
Media!

56.  Sound like a lot of work?
◦ Getting started is the hardest step.
◦ It will quickly become part of your core strategy.
 Look for a Social Media partner that can grow
audience and manage content.
 Two primary options for moving forward:
◦ Hire an expert internally.
◦ Source social media from a firm specializing in
engagement.

57.  Social Media requires daily involvement!
 Empower appropriate staff members to manage
accounts.
◦ Teamwork makes it easier.
 Establish Content Guidelines.
◦ We have a sample set of Social Media guidelines to
provide you with a starting point.
◦ Do what you feel is right for your market and audience.
• Customers want a conversation that adds value.
◦ Conversation
◦ Responsiveness
◦ Answer questions and be a resource to your social media
audience.

58.  Facebook Fan Box on Website
◦ Allows for readers to “Like” your inventory!
 Allow sharing of content on Social Networks
from inventory pages.
 Promote using integrated assets: Advertising /
In-Store / Web / Email / POS /Etc. should all
work together.
 Online contests are successful audience drivers!
◦ Play by Facebook’s rules or risk being banned!

59.  It’s all the social web
 Determine your goals before you start your
social campaign
 Create content calendars for all channels
 Use the content you create across as many
channels as possible
 MEASURE RESULTS!

60.  www.cotweet.com – view employee tweets and
manage multiple corporate Twitter accounts
 www.faceinfected.com – Extract dubious links,
messages, and Wall posts from Facebook
 Tweetwax.com – Clear and Organize messages
 uPotect.it – Use this beta plug-in to post
protected status updates and comments on
Facebook

61. Combine + Conquer or Risk Losing to Those Who Do
Blogs + Blogging
Comment Marketing
News/Media/PR
SEO
Social Networks
Word of Mouth
Q+A Sites
Forums
Online Video
Podcasting
Webinars
Research/White Papers
Infographics
Social Bookmarking
INBOUND MARKETING!
(Find Your Audience Organically on the Web)
Direct/Referring Links
Type-In Traffic
Email
Document Sharing

62. Google + 7 Years to Develop

63. THE ADVENT OF
MOBILE Devices and
Social Media