Public Relations & Social Media Insight

Think of web television as a nuclear family. It all started with TV — the traditional type. Along came the web, which, in many ways, was TV’s polar opposite: interactive, responsive, progressive. As much as TV was about tradition, the web was all about change.

From this unlikely pairing came little programs that, when viewed together, make up an episodic web series, or webisode. Webisodes share some of the attributes of each of their media parents; yet they also bring a whole new generation of brand storytelling opportunities to life. It’s this pedigreed combination of the web and television that some big brands are experimenting with as a way to provide distinctive and uniquely engaging content to consumers. As one of the most engaging forms of branded content, the episodic web series has a lot of appeal.

For example, just like a TV miniseries or a series of books, a good web TV series can help forge an ongoing relationship with target consumers: Once viewers have been drawn in by the entertainment value of a webisode, they’re likely to stick around to see what happens next — and to visit related YouTube channels, Facebook pages, or other touch points that are part of your branded environment. They’ll get to know your brand a little better. They may even start to like it more than they realized....

Most businesses need employee participation to create quality content. Two methods to leverage the content marketing potential of employees....

In order for most businesses to create a lot of high quality content, employee participation is necessary. I’ve said many times, no marketing department is big enough to produce all the content it needs. Additionally, consider that in most businesses the marketing team is not comprised of domain experts.

Here’s what Forrester Research says on this topic: “Today’s B2B buyer will find three pieces of content about a vendor for every one piece that marketing can publish or sales can deliver. They are finding this content in an ever-expanding number and variety of channels.” The way I see it, there are two primary methods to harness employee involvement in a social business. One involves a carrot and one involves a stick....

Video is powerful because it shows there are people behind your business, which is important for building a strong brand that people can relate to. But how can you integrate it into your content marketing strategy effectively?

Know Your Audience

Before you can put together a video that will be relevant to your audience, you need to know precisely who that audience is. It’s important not to try to appeal to everyone – instead, figure out your archetypal customer. Two tools to help you do this are Sally Hogshead's 7 triggers of fascination and a simple guide to creating a customer persona. This’ll smooth out the rest of the process, because it’s much easier to figure out what to say to one person than to 1000....

Not that long ago we started distinguishing between owned, earned and paid media but how real was that? Media evolutions that scare me....

If you’re looking for tips and tricks regarding the evolutions in brand journalism and the usage of content marketing (oops, I used the term) in branding and PR, don’t read this. If you want an opinion (mine, that is) on the dangers of some content and media evolutions, read on. I have a good friend who’s quite cynical, even more than I am. He sees marketing as lying and making people pay too much for products. I can’t even blame him.

As a former journalist and publisher but at the same time a marketer, I’m in a constant state of duality regarding the role of both journalism/media on one hand and marketing on the other. And in this “digital and social age” it’s getting worse. If you know part of the role of a publisher (read on) you’ll understand that duality. Also look at the number of journalists becoming “content marketers”. Are there still journalists in fact?

I never read a story about a “content marketer” becoming a journalist. Especially phenomena such as brand journalism (for later blog posts) and converged media confuse me in an ‘ethical’ way. Marketing is business. Brands are business. Media is business. Brand journalism is business. If media converge, do we still have credible media? Each time I preach people-centric and human marketing, I hope you keep that in mind. We are not doing business for a greater moral cause (although we can, more than ever)....

When you’re a brand looking to use social media to raise awareness of your products and services, boost website traffic footfall and drive sales, where do you turn? Which social network is right for you?

Largely, it depends on your goals. What are you trying to achieve? While a broad presence across two or more social platforms usually pays dividends for businesses, if resources are limited and time is strained, finding the best social channel for your needs is the most sensible way forward, based on audience size, relevant demographic and target profile.

Check the infographic for a very useful overview of the top social media platforms for brands....

If you build links like an actual human being then you're building links like a badass. You're making friends and your links are bulletproof. It's hard work. It will take time, energy, and brainpower to increase your rankings and traffic. SEO has changed. We can't rely on spam and automation to boost traffic and search rankings anymore. A few years ago, link builders never gave that kind of stuff a second thought – it's just how things worked.

The industry is different now, but the good news is that you can still be a badass link builder in the post-Penguin era. The better news is that you only need one tool to build the best links in the world: your brain. We need to think like human beings because we affect other human beings with our work. The age of robots has ended. Keeping that in mind, you can build some killer links that hold up to algorithm changes and make the Internet a better place – you just have to be smart about it. Being a badass link builder requires hard work and even harder thinking, but you already have the tools to succeed....

A couple of months ago without notice, all of the social media sharing counters on my primary website had reverted to zero. Just like that, thousands of shares that had accumulated over a period of nearly seven years had vanished.

Why is this significant? Social sharing is what is known as “social proof.” It’s evidence that your site is active and worthy of the attention of new buyers that happen to be passing through. Not knowing if this action was recoverable, I settled into the realization that I may have to simply move on and start fresh. While the problem was resolved, the incident got me thinking about what I would do if my entire online presence vanished – what then?

So, here is that plan. It has lessons for businesses that are new to social media, as well as for the rest of us that can (and should) do more of what needs to be done to ensure the online relevance of our businesses in a digital world that is now driven by the customer....

Learn why P&G adopting digital is a battle that's going nowhere...

...When I wrote about their layoffs last year, I cautioned P&G (because they were obviously reading my blog article) that:

- Digital media is not free

- Not all advertising is inherently bad

- Not all digital advertising is inherently effective.

Apparently, the words of warning did not resonate. This week, Business Insider reported that CEO Bob McDonald actually ended up cutting 6,250 jobs as part of his cost-savings program -- so my 1,600 figure last year fell short of reality -- and that part of that program included "using more social media like Facebook and Google, which deliver 'free' ad impressions."... 

It ain’t easy being a startup. Without a massive marketing budget, smaller companies often find themselves relying on the media to get the word out. While this is no easy task for even the biggest and most polished companies, for shoestring operations, it can be absolutely daunting—especially if none of the founders have any experience dealing with the press. Fortunately, if there’s one thing I’ve learned from my years as both a technology journalist and a startup founder, it’s that most common PR mistakes are pretty easy to prevent. So whether you’re able to hire a a PR pro—or have to DIY the job—here are 10 of the most common PR mistakes that all startups should seek to avoid....