A wonderful resource for businesses looking to garner publicity while on a budget is Help A Reporter Out (HARO). HARO is a free PR newsletter that is sent out three times daily with journalist queries looking for expert sources in various industries.
HARO was created in 2008 by Peter Shankman, a Public Relations Expert and Entrepreneur. Shankman thought of the idea when journalists asked him regularly if he knew of any sources for an upcoming story.
To date, HARO brings nearly 30,000 reporters and bloggers, over 100,000 news sources and thousands of small businesses together to tell their stories, promote their brands and sell their products and services.
Once you subscribe to the newsletter, it is easy to scan the table of contents to see if there is anything relevant to your business or industry. If there is a request for an expert that applies to you, be sure to pitch on topic.
Answer promptly and include the query in the subject line with HARO listed. There are Five Rules of HARO that Shankman points out to always follow.
Other tips? Keep your pitch short and sweet. Offer contact information and links to more details if necessary, but no attachments. PR Web wrote How to Pitch HARO Successfully and it is chock full of tips from PR experts.
We have shared tips on pitching, building a media list, and follow up which are all elements, when done correctly, of a successful PR campaign. Hopefully Help A Reporter Out can enhance your PR campaign and help your business reach the right journalists at the right moment.
Last week, I spoke at the M2Moms conference in Chicago; I spoke to a wide range of brand managers and PR people who are sincerely interested in working with bloggers to get the word out about the products and brands they promote. Over and over, they asked how to find the best bloggers. The short answer, of course, is to do your research — there is no one-size-fits-all directory of Great Bloggers.
There are a variety of Best Of lists available; Babble Media’s Top 50 Twitter Moms is a perfect example of a really useful list. Their list covers a variety of categories (Most Controversial, Most Helpful, Funniest) and points to some of the most prolific mom tweeters on the web. If you’re planning a Twitter-heavy campaign, this list would be a good place to start. A simple Google search for “best mom blogs” turns up multiple lists — all of which are a good jumping off place for tracking down that perfect blogger. (You can substitute any term for “mom” — food blogger, craft blogger, dad blogger — depending on what exactly you’re looking for.)
Once you’ve found a list, take the time to actually read the blogs. This seems like such a simple directive, but it’s one that many PR people and brand managers often skip. Rather than pitching your brand or product to everyone on a list because they are on the list, pitch only those bloggers to whom your pitch will be relevant. There are lots of terrific mom blogs out there, but not all of those moms have babies; indiscriminately pitching a campaign for baby products to every mom on a particular list is a good way to convince bloggers you have no idea who they are — and, even worse, that you don’t really care.
Reading the blogs you’re planning to pitch is also important because you want to be sure the blogger’s voice and tone are a good match for your brand or product. Look for bloggers whose online persona is a good fit for whatever you are pitching. Look also for bloggers who are already writing about brands and products similar to yours; a blogger who writes frequently about the environment, for example, would be a terrific match for an ecologically safe cleaning product, but a poor match for an SUV campaign.
How can you measure a blogger’s influence? A quick way is to look at his or her Twitter profile. A blogger with a huge number of followers may very well be heavily influential on Twitter, but be wary of making a hiring decision solely on that number. A blogger who follows 200 people but is followed by 2,000 may very well be more influential than a blogger who has 25,000 followers but follows an equal number of people. In other words, a blogger who is speaking to a loyal group, even if they are on the smaller side, may do more for your brand than a blogger who is not genuinely engaging with his or her followers.
A decade ago, the idea of a green industry seemed like a pipe dream. Environmentalism was still an “outsider” idea, and the smart money was on more (big, irresponsible) business as usual.
But in our post-9/11, post-Hurricane Katrina, post-An Inconvenient Truth society, something changed. Suddenly, people were concerned about the environment, and about energy, and about the impact their daily actions might have on the planet’s future.
In the aftermath of this green awakening, people needed a way to ask questions, share suggestions, pitch policy reforms and raise environmental concerns. Thus, from blogs to YouTube to Facebook to Twitter, social media became the hub for a wide array of environmental discussions — and today their collective conversation is louder than it’s ever been.
Blogs: The Spark for Green Journalism
Before the mainstream news media embraced the green movement, impassioned individuals were using blogs to bring attention to the environmental issues they were personally concerned about. These grassroots movements flowered, and today some of the most trusted (and highly-trafficked) sources for green news are blogs like Grist, Sustainablog and TreeHugger. In turn, larger news organizations like the New York Times and the Huffington Post now have blog channels dedicated to green content, further validating the environment as a mainstream subject.
Green News Travels Fast
A simple search of Twitter hashtags like #sustainable, #green and #EcoMonday reveal that hundreds of green conversations take place on Twitter every day. Equally impressive is how often brands and corporations enter those conversations to share related tips (and to promote their related products and services). This real-time information exchange helps brands monitor topics of interest to their customers, but it also means that breaking news like the BP gulf oil spill quickly becomes common knowledge (and stays in the public eye for months), making it harder for companies to manage the spin.
Common Bonds Create Communities
As young mothers become increasingly aware of the ingredients they’re introducing into their children’s lives, “green mommies” have become a swiftly-growing subset of the “mommy blogger” community, championing a renewed emphasis on natural and organic foods, fibers and cleaning products (like those made by our client, Ecover).
This same unifying “green” thread can be found in other eco-responsible communities, including designers, chefs, fashionistas and anyone seeking a little lifestyle improvement. This provides consumers with universal access to information, support and resources, and it provides ecological brands with unified audiences to poll, connect with, learn from and sell to.
Greenpeace vs. Nestle: When Facebook Becomes a Battlefield
Sometimes, brands who use social media for sales and marketing find themselves trapped in a PR conundrum because they forget a basic online truth: they don’t control the conversations that happen on their channels. For example, when Greenpeace activists hijacked the conversation on Nestle’s Facebook page, Nestle was slow to respond (and clumsy when they did), which caused the company to seem both evasive and dismissive. News of their snafu spread like wildfire, causing Nestle a lengthy and time-consuming PR headache — and, ultimately, led to Nestle agreeing to meet Greenpeace’s demands.
It’s hard to imagine that kind of outcome occurring a decade ago, before social media provided the green industry with a collective voice. And it’s fascinating to wonder where such a hyper-connected green future might lead both a green-obsessed world and the ecological companies that serve their needs.
The phrase “you’re doing it wrong” has long been the cause of many social media arguments. When one of the basic principles of social marketing is to “just be yourself,” how can you be wrong at being yourself?
While the merits of that question can be debated endlessly, we here at Creative Concepts do know one thing for sure: whatever “wrong” happens to be, it sure feels good to know we’re doing something right!
Sometimes, validation comes from metrics. Social media can be unpredictable, so when the numbers prove that our theories (and campaigns) are bearing fruit for our clients, we feel good because they feel good.
Other times, validation comes directly from the clients themselves. We’ve been working with some of our clients for more than 5 years, which means our methods are working for them. And every time we sign a new client, or expand our responsibilities with an existing client, we know that we’re all moving confidently forward in a positive — and profitable — direction.
And then there’s the validation from our peers. For example, when we read Mashable’s recent list of 10 Tips for Posting on Your Brand’s Facebook Page, we digitally high-fived ourselves because we already do each of these things for our clients. (See for yourself on their Facebookpages.)
Client love, new work and metric boosts are what keep us active and engaged, but there’s still nothing like reading a major advice column and realizing we’re already ahead of the curve. (And we haven’t even had our coffee yet!)
Wondering what else we know? Follow us onFacebook andTwitter!
If you think writing novels (or blog posts) is hard, try tweeting for a living.
In most forms of communication, the audience invites you to spin your story and enchant them over time. Even a 30 second TV commercial gives you half a minute to make your pitch.
But on Twitter, you only have milliseconds to capture someone’s attention as they scroll through a nonstop litany of links, promotions, inside jokes and regurgitated news stories, desperately in search of something interesting. If you’re not immediately captivating on Twitter, your boring tweets will be buried under an avalanche of similarly blah messaging in the blink of an eye.
So how do you manage to stay interesting on Twitter, day after day?
Here are 11 tips that we at Creative Concepts have developed internally on behalf of our clients to help them stay competitive in Twitter’s attention market:
Every tweet is a headline. For centuries, newspaper editors have been writing great headlines to draw attention to dense blocks of text that might otherwise go overlooked. Imagine that every tweet you send is going on the front page of The New York Times, and that you’re single-handedly responsible for increasing the paper’s circulation. (No pressure, right?)
Be useful. “Interesting” is always a matter of perspective, but “useful” actually provides a service. You may not be dazzled by the prose of a tweet, but if you want (or need) to know what it’s pitching, you’re far more likely to click.
Be direct. Addressing someone with the @ symbol in front of their Twitter handle ensures that they’ll see what you have to say. (Now, just don’t be spammy…)
Be brief. The shorter your tweet is, the easier it is for others to add their own commentary as they retweet you — and people love adding their own two cents to your discussion.
Solve a problem. We search Twitter to find out what kinds of problems our clients’ customers (and potential customers) may be having, and then we help our clients offer their customers solutions via links to products, blog posts, or just good old-fashioned advice.
Remove doubt. People like to know what works. By sharing the positive reviews and accolades that others have tweeted about your products and services, you’re letting potential customers know that your existing customers would recommend you — because they just did.
Say thank-you. When you see kudos about your brand, thank that person directly. They’ll appreciate knowing that their kind words helped make someone else’s day.
Become an information resource. What are the hot topics in your brand’s industry right now? What is everyone talking about? What is no one talking about? By sharing information about those topics great and small, your brand becomes your customers’ curator for a larger conversation about the field or the industry itself.
Be funny. Humor travels fast on Twitter, and while everyone’s sense of humor is different, a brand that can laugh at itself is a brand that others are more likely to take seriously.
Be positive. Twitter is occasionally a traffic jam of complaints and customer service debacles. Be the upside that cuts through the clutter and you’ll stand out simply for taking the high road.
Be yourself. What you say is important, but so is how you say it. No one stops to read a brochure, but they’ll linger to overhear a private conversation. Deliver your messages honestly and authentically — and in your own voice — and you’re less likely to be confused for an easily-ignored marketing robot.
Want to stay ahead of the attention curve? Follow us onFacebook andTwitter!
If anyone can publish a blog, create a video or launch a meme, you’d think that Twitter, Facebook and YouTube would be the empires of the new, with the latest self-made stars forever in control of the cultural conversation.
And you’d be wrong.
A recent report from HP Labs confirms the exact opposite: the most popular sources of information on Twitter are actually traditional news media outlets like CNN, ESPN and (egad, a newspaper?) The New York Times.
Why? Because people like to share information that impacts wide audiences, and because traditional media still has information-gathering resources and robust distribution platforms that “new” media can’t live without.
In other words, no matter how easy social media makes it to talk to others, people still need something to talk about.
Is that “something” your business?
It could be, if your brand is worth the buzz. But even topical companies need more than just a social media hook to catch and hold an audience’s attention.
A tweet is gone in an instant. A Facebook update crawls off the page and out of sight. A YouTube video might be shared for weeks, months or years as new viewers continue to find it… but what’s driving them to it in the first place?
Periodic fame is always the cumulative result of widespread general awareness — and that includes mainstream publicity. Is your company poised to take long-term advantage of short-term PR success?
Ask yourself:
Is your social media team working hand-in-hand with your traditional PR and marketing teams? (Or, even better, are they fully integrated?)
Do you share your brand’s mainstream media mentions with your social media audiences?
Are you trumpeting your online successes in offline media? (Don’t forget: newspapers and magazines still write about the Internet.)
Does your media contact list include reporters from all branches of journalism?
Do your print ads include icons and URLs where interested customers can find you on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc.?
Remember: whether it’s physical or digital, all ink is good ink, as long as it gets people talking about you.
Nothing makes a brand (or that brand’s agency) happier than seeing how much their customers love their products and services. And when that love is shared in public via social media, so much the better — especially because that love is so often eclipsed by the increasingly public habit of complaining about bad customer service.
By now, we’re all used to seeing our friends rant about their latest perceived “retail fail” on Twitter and Facebook. And the proactive approach that companies like Zappos and Comcast have taken to address these complaints publicly has created an expectation among casual customers that every complaint is valid and deserving of a swift response.
In our opinion, this is entirely understandable. Social media is all about now, and when someone’s upset, they’re justified in expecting a quick remedy from companies who claim to care. In fact, we at Creative Concepts advocate proactive customer service among all of our social media clients, and we strive to help them create and employ practices that will turn those potential negatives into ultimate positives once a customer’s concerns have been alleviated.
But that very practice is what makes seeing unabashed (and unprompted) exhibitions of brand love from our client’s customers that much more rewarding.
Last week, a customer at the Ouidad salon enjoyed her hair care experience so much, she live-tweeted her experience throughout the day, including passing along tips from her stylist. Needless to say, this made Ouidad’s day — and ours, since we were watching right alongside! ( In fact, it reminded us of a similarly enjoyable moment we observed last year, when a New York blogger shared her Ouidad hair model experience via Twitter and blog format.)
And here’s a helpful Twitter tip: if you really love a brand, make sure your tweets about them DON’T start with the @ symbol. Why? Because of the way Twitter categorizes conversations:
Tweets that begin with @Ouidad, for example, will only be seen by three kinds of people: Ouidad, the sender of the tweetm and anyone who’s following both the sender and Ouidad. (That’s probably a small cross-section of people who might see the tweet.)
Tweets that include @Ouidad but which start with any character other than the @ symbol will still be seen by Ouidad, but they’ll also be seen by everybody who follows the sender.
Therefore, if you REALLY want someone to know about your awesome brand experience, make sure your tweets aren’t addressed solely to the brand. That will give your praise the widest possible audience, and put an even bigger smile on the face of the employees who’ll be elated to see just how much you really love what they do.
We know social media adoption is on the rise among many demographics, increasingly used by people who want to commune with others as part of a group. Broadband and mobile data access is steadily climbing. Technology, accessibility, and a group mindset readily influence our culture; has brand image ever been more important? These 3 tips can help you come out on top.
1) Develop a crisis communications plan. Yes, this is PR-101. And yet surprisingly few companies prepare for possible disaster scenarios.
Social media participation requires advance planning by brands. Tactical execution means internal teams need to adhere to a policy drafted in accordance with a business’s culture, brand personality and tolerance to risk. These two steps can help shape online image perception in ways a brand can directly nurture and influence.
But power over image doesn’t rest solely within an organization. A few instances of poor retail experience, apathetic customer service or mis-packed shipments may start a perfect online storm. Your carefully built brand image could come under fire. Then what? Response is always better than simple reaction.
Imagine the worst that could happen and plan out well-considered responses which can be deployed in the right channels in a timely (not reactionary) mode.
2) Gather consistent feedback from customers and defectors. Sometimes without intending to, businesses can have their heads in the sand. Market research can surface a wealth of user feedback to serve multiple end goals. Use it to gain insight which could influence employee training, product merchandising, customer communications and more. Learn how your brand is perceived by the very people who buy – and no longer buy – your product.
Think of research as a proactive measure while the crisis plan can equip you for a situational response.
3) Listen to what’s being shared online. While you may be good at replying to @yourbrand mentions on Twitter or wall posts by Facebook fans, that’s only part of the story. Lots has been written about how to use free or low-cost tools that can help you cast a wider net. What you discover presents opportunities to learn from fans and detractors alike.
Let’s recap ways you can protect your image online:
Plan for crisis. Be prepared with the most well-thought response, deployable in real time.
Maintain a constant feedback loop. Filter the insights gained from customers back into your operations for continual improvement.
Pay attention to what’s being said online. Build bridges with detractors and strengthen ties with fans.
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the very first Ken doll, Mattel — the creators of Barbie, Ken and their vast plastic empire — launched a social media campaign to help Ken woo Barbie back. If you didn’t know, the iconic couple broke up a few years back — presumably to see other plastic people — but Mattel decided today was the right time to reunite the star-crossed lovers.
Normally, this would be a good thing… if the campaign was producing content worth discussing, or if it were actually taking the public’s opinion seriously.
But, since a happy ending was most likely in the works all along, any pretense of “letting the public vote” on the ultimate outcome strikes us as a sham for at least three reasons:
Do you seriously think Mattel would spend millions of dollars just to announce that Barbie and Ken weren’t reuniting on Valentine’s Day — especially after they broke up on Valentine’s Day in 2004?
The web is alive with trolls, and the likelihood that those digital misanthropes would hijack the voting process to ensure that Barbie and Ken would remain apart is quite high.
Millions of people already saw Barbie and Ken come together on the big screen in Toy Story 3. Creating an alternate, highly-commercialized “reunion” seems far less real — and less satisfying — than their Pixar rendezvous.
But maybe the largest problem of all with a social media campaign like this is…
Who cares?
Children and optimists will always vote for love. Cold-hearted cynics will always vote against it. And since cold-hearted cynics aren’t Barbie’s target audience, this entire campaign can be seen partly as “preaching to the choir” and partly as a public service reminder: “Hey, we’re still here.”
Ultimately, the entire campaign was really just a stunt meant to direct attention toward Ken’s 50th anniversary, in which the nearly 2 million Barbie fans on Facebook were used as leverage to catapult Ken into the mainstream news. However, with Compete.com only registering 12,000 unique visitors to the barbieandken.com website in January, its traffic would need a sharp jump in February to match likely expectations.
But now, according to the results of the annual Edelman Trust Barometer, trust in “people like us” is plummeting while trust in experts is on the rise. Steve Rubel has a well-reasoned theory about why that might be happening, and he predicts a cyclical boom in the prominence of thought leaders and subject matter experts.
If people are once again in search of facts, figures and fountains of wisdom, what does that mean for your business?
Are You In the Business of Trust?
You don’t have to make a living in finance, health or politics to be a member of the trust economy. Companies of all sizes, and in all industries, live and die as customers’ perceptions of business ethics and reliability shift.
In short, if your company…
builds its brand image around claims of effectiveness
is in competition for customer loyalty
engages in philanthropy
relies on donations
solves a problem
… then you’re in the trust business. And once you’ve established trust among your customers, that trust is always worth promoting — and defending.
When a 2010 UK report baselessly accused our client Ecover of “greenwashing,” the burden of proof was shifted to Ecover. After all, the report had been issued by an “expert” in the ecological field and published in The Guardian. The problem was, the report was wrong, and Ecover wouldn’t let that kind of misrepresentation stand.
Ecover knew that their customers trusted them as experts in a crowded and competitive market, and they defended their reputation with 30 years’ worth of documented expertise.
Could your company do the same?
Do you have documented proof that verifies your claims and statements?
Do you make it easy for people to find the information they need?
Are your subject matter experts engaging the public?
Are your ethics and values visibly on display?
In this hyper-connected world, trust will continue to rise and fall as the public reacts to varying levels of white noise in their lives. But, in the end, everyone relies on information to make daily decisions they can feel good about.
Are you providing your customers with the information they need?
A wonderful resource for businesses looking to garner publicity while on a budget is Help A Reporter Out (HARO). HARO is a free PR newsletter that is sent out three times daily with journalist queries looking for expert sources in various industries.
