Category: Public Relations (page 14 of 17)

15 March 2009 / 0 Comments

Conversations start with something interesting to say delivered in an interesting way – Part 2

I posted a few weeks back about how organisations must engage stakeholders in dialogue, and how this conversation starts by not just having something interesting to say, but delivering it in an interesting way.

After all, whilst marketers consider the 30 second ad to be on its last legs because it tries to wallop all and sundry, you can take longer to get your point over if you're talking to those whose interest is already sparked and who want to find out more.

My last post featured a video and an animation, and I promised to come back with some more formats for starting a conversation in an interesting way. For topical reasons I have another animation for your interest, but the main feature in this post is a call-to-action-microsite. Read more

26 February 2009 / 0 Comments

Dear PR Week, it's not about Twitter per se

In an unstunningly simple article in PR Week today ("Twitter has suddenly exploded") we learn amongst other things that Edelman has 17 twittering staff and Racepoint 8, whilst Drew Benvie has twittered 3779 times.

I'd write here things like "AWESOME" and "WOW, HOW ENLIGHTENING", but I understand sarcasm is the lowest form of wit so I'll refrain.

What's with all the numbers? Why on Earth are they the story? But before I explain myself, I will just dwell on the numbers for a minute.

...I don't know a Racepoint consultant who isn't on Twitter, and there's a lot more of us than eight people! How can Porter Novelli global digital director Mat Morrison feel so confident in his data? He should have at least added the caveat that one can only determine when a Twitter user is a consultant from a specific PR consultancy should the individual chose to promote the fact in their personal profile. Read more

23 February 2009 / 0 Comments

Conversations start with something interesting to say delivered in an interesting way

To recap, this is where marketing communications has got to...

Interruption marketing (stop right there for 30 seconds while I hit you with this message even if this message is totally irrelevant to you) is dead.

Your brand and reputation is defined by everyone's experiences with your organisation and their compulsion to share those experiences with others.

You simply have no choice, you have to converse. Dialogue is where it's at. If you're into monologue, then it really is the same thing as staying at home and still thinking you'll get the girl.

So I thought I'd focus here on how to present your conversation starter rather than the content per se.

Multimedia engagement is one of the most compelling and interesting ways to start a conversation about something interesting. Just think what's grabbed your attention online recently. The 30-second TV ad may be as relevant today as monetary policy, but the 300-second roll on the Web is perfect for the niche audience out there with whom you really want to engage and who really wants to know more about what you've got.

So what kind of multimedia are we talking? How can we spark the conversation by communicating the really interesting thing we have to say in an interesting way? There's no formula (that I know of!), but here's a couple of my favourites to stimulate your "PR 2.0" synapses, one film and one animation. I'll follow up this post some time soon with my favourite interactive-game-with-a-point-to-make and call-to-action-social-microsite. Read more

13 February 2009 / 0 Comments

Influence Scorecard update

Thanks

Whilst the volume of responses to the Influence Scorecard has been amazing and very encouraging, for a topic so closely related to the Social Web, I've been astonished at the number of responses by email rather than, well, more socially!

Nevertheless, I'm far from ungrateful of course. Indeed, "Thank you". And I'd like to take time here to shout out specifically to the following social web analytics specialists for their support, and then I've added some reciprocal blog links...

Nielsen Online, TNS Cymfony, J.D. Power Umbria, Clarabridge, Influencer50, Techrigy, Brandwatch, dna13, VMSInfo, Radian6, Integrasco, BuzzLogic, MotiveQuest, RepuMetrix, Andiamo, CIC, Attentio, Scout Labs.

Questions

Where you've come back with questions, they have been about two aspects in general... definitions and events. Read more

11 February 2009 / 0 Comments

Does Facebook Matter? Find out in the second edition of Marketing To The Social Web

Larry Weber releases the 2nd edition of Marketing to the Social Web today. After the first edition sold out, the publisher (Wiley) asked my chairman to update the book for a second run.

With a foreword by Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia, the second edition includes new chapters on Facebook (entitled “Does Facebook Matter?”... he believes it does and moreover will surpass Google), measurement and marketing to mobile social media.

6 February 2009 / 2 Comments

Enhancing Organisational Performance Management with the Influence Scorecard

Influence%20Scorecard

Last week I posted about hosting a meeting on the Influence Scorecard. The post was testing the water to determine the level of interest such an event might generate, and I was answered by dozens of emails, direct twitters, comments and even some direct editing of the post itself, as I'd hoped! (MarCom Professional allows an author to permit others to edit a post, wiki-style.)

I even received tentative enquiries about sponsorship, so it looks like we are on to something here...

Moreover, the interest was split almost 50:50 between Europe and North America, and it was spread fairly evenly amongst each of the required participant groups.

What is clear from all the queries and interest is that we now need to put some meat on the bones. Here are a few top line thoughts on 'influence', 'scorecard' and what we hope to achieve. Your thoughts are welcome.

Influence

Organisations want to influence the opinion and behaviour of their stakeholders. They do this via the various marketing and communications disciplines and approaches - PR, advertising, branding, community building, conversational marketing, direct marketing, events, product placement, public affairs, sponsorship etc..

Of course, stakeholders also influence each other and some will want to influence an organisation - how ready an organisation is for this dialogue is another matter.

Scorecard

The 'scorecard' is inspired by the Balanced Scorecard, one of the most widely adopted organisational performance management methodologies (generally known as "business performance management" or just plain BPM). According to the Balanced Scorecard Institute: Read more

2 February 2009 / 0 Comments

Visualising your world of influence with Skyrails

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Marketing communications operates within an increasingly complex multi-stakeholder web of influences, and the way many of us can or will be able to devine how influence goes around and comes around, how reputations get built up and eroded, is to look at it pictorially.

My best attempt to date at explaining this in non-mathematical language is in my post "Can you see it? Making influence visible." Check it out. More widely, my post "Influence... it's a numbers game", lists all my posts related to this topic. Read more

8 January 2009 / 2 Comments

Communication when you don't have anything to flog

What a lovely thing to see at the start of the New Year, particularly this one! A photo of a loved tabby cat under the word "Found" rather than "Lost".

cat%20found%20poster%20tree

And a thank you message to neighbours for the help they may have given in recovering said cat... I knew immediately that I'd take a picture of it and write a blog post.

Why?

Why did the cat's owner feel compelled to go back to her PC, bring up the "Lost" file, edit to "Found", print it, go outside and staple it to the tree? On the face of it, he or she obviously really loves that cat and might not have had anything else to do with her time... but that's being cynical. Oddly enough, I now feel more compelled to check my garden and outbuildings next time someone posts up a "Lost" poster because I've been thanked in advance. I know someone really cares.

It has also made me think about what our company and clients could say to our public, our neighbours, with this unusual case study in mind... with altruistic intent or more simply for 'feelgood'.

How about you and yours?

4 December 2008 / 0 Comments

The social Web and agenda setting: a presentation to today's European Agenda Setting Conference, Zurich

I'm presenting in one hour to the European Agenda Setting Conference on the impact of the social Web. Great presentations this morning from Roland Schatz, President Media Tenor, David W Moore, author of The Opinion Makers, and Ramu Damudaran, Director Civil Society at the United Nations.

Here's my deck if you're interested:

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: socialweb socialmedia)

2 December 2008 / 4 Comments

Influence… it's a numbers game

Andrew Smith tickled my fractal with his post yesterday "Where are the PR Numerati?" (and here on MarCom Professional). Why? Because he's right and I'm numerate and I'm in PR. His post was prompted by the August 2008 book "The Numerati" by senior Business Week writer Stephen Baker.

Public relations had been boiled down to a very simple process by the end of the 1990s. Journalists write the papers and magazines the public reads. The PRs know the journalists. The clients retain the PR professionals.

That simple world is no more. I don't mean that traditional media relations no longer exists, only that it is now just a sub-set of a far more complex map of exerting influence. The best PR professionals will: Read more