Because PR and social media are so intertwined, whether you’re an entrepreneur doing your own PR, or you are a PR professional – you need more technical skills than ever before.
In fact, according to Information Week, more companies are “hiring marketing staffers who have focused tech skills.”
It won’t be long until this trend carries over to the PR field.
Video has always been the medium of choice for maximum engagement with the audience. And now that it has become cheaper and easier to create videos, there’s no reason we shouldn’t be using more of it for PR.
Video isn’t just for businesses that want to reach out to young consumers, either. Even if you’re in the B2B space, video could prove to be a highly effective way of enhancing your marketing and PR efforts.
Two of the findings of a Forbes study, “Video in the C-Suite: Executives Embrace the Non-Text Web,” are:
Ready to use more video for your PR? Below are some tips and thoughts.
For those who are just getting started with video, it can be hard to think of what specific content can be translated into a video format. Here are some examples:
Executive Interviews
Similar to putting sound bites or quotes in a press release, videotape your company’s top executives answering questions with your key messages. If you have celebrity endorsers or spokespersons, capture them in video, too.
Product Demos
Some products are better demonstrated on video than described in text or depicted in a photo. It’s the next best thing to putting the product in the hands of a prospect. Create videos of your product in use, demonstrating its many features and benefits. Or you can create an introductory video like this from one of our clients, Quickmobile, that communicates to your target audience in a fun way what you do:
Special Events
If you have live events, always document them in video. Pick out the highlights of the event.
Man-on-the-street Interviews
Interview people participating at events, employees (about what they enjoy most about their jobs, for example), and other “ordinary” people.
How-to Videos
Show how to carry out various tasks related to your product, such as alternative applications, setup or installation, troubleshooting, care and maintenance. You can also respond to FAQs with a video.
Testimonials.
Feedback from actual customers and clients are more powerful in video than other formats, because video reveals so much more about the person. Try to get video testimonials from your customers, but also be on the lookout on YouTube and other video sharing sites for videos uploaded without your involvement.
Customer Case Studies
These are more detailed than a testimonial. Create a video focusing on a specific customer to show what problems they have solved with your product. If you can capture “before” and “after” video, that would be even more powerful.
Video Contest
Need an idea for a cool and potentially viral online activity? Try a video contest. Whatever you do, make sure the videos are relevant to your product or business. Have participants upload their vids on YouTube and you’ll get exposure for years to come.
Video Collaboration
YouTube celebs have done this (here’s an example). They ask their audiences to create and upload their videos, which are then edited together into one final video product. You need to have very clear instructions so the resulting video will be of good quality.
Animation
If you have tables and graphs, transform them into animated graphics. These can be used within video presentations, or left “bare” and shared for others to use in their own productions.
Now that you have video content, what exactly do you do with them to get more exposure and PR?
1. Your News Release
The most obvious PR use of video is adding it to your press release. Sites such as PRWeb allow you to embed or link to a video to help tell your story. Here’s an example of how we used video in the Quickmobile press release.
2. B-roll
Raw footages edited together can be useful to broadcasters as B-roll or supplemental footage for their reports. Make sure your B-roll has establishing shots of events and locations, interviews, event highlights and other newsworthy footage.
3. Video Sharing Sites
Upload your videos to YouTube, Vimeo and other video sharing sites. YouTube videos rank highly in Google and other search engines, which means you can attract plenty of targeted traffic. These sites also allow your video to be shared and embedded in other websites, increasing your exposure even more. Plus there’s always the possibility of your video getting picked up by TV networks.
4. Social Networking
Share your video on your Facebook, LinkedIn and other social networking accounts. Did you know videos can be pinned on Pinterest too?
5. Company Website
Embed videos on your website. Encourage visitors to share them and embed them in their own sites.
When it comes to using video for PR, are you a newbie or a maven? How have you been using video and what can you do to get more PR impact from it?
Share your thoughts below. Or post them on our Facebook page. You can also message me on Twitter.
The social media world is abuzz with its latest darling, Pinterest.
You yourself may have been “pinning” like crazy. Or at the very least, seen your friends’ pins on Facebook.
Even though Pinterest is still by invitation only, its membership has been growing faster than Google Plus or Facebook. As of this writing, it has over 10 million users.
Every time a new potential tool comes up, PR folks wonder, “Should I be using it, too?”
PR in Your Pajamas’ answer:
“It depends.”
Pinterest can be an effective way to get your products out there to the market, get market intelligence, and engage a community of customers or potential customers.
Successful PR on Pinterest depends on a host of factors, which is what we’ll talk about in this post.
What is Pinterest anyway?
Pinterest describes itself simply as “an online board.” Its tagline is, “Organize and share things you love.”
It’s a website where users can pin photos and videos on virtual pinboards. It’s “visual bookmarking,” in other words.
Beyond bookmarking, however, Pinterest is a social network. You can follow other Pinterest users, “like” other people’s pins, comment on pins, and repin another person’s pin onto your own board.
People use Pinterest in different ways:
In short, Pinterest users use it to collect and discover photos and videos.
Discovery can happen through the people you follow. You can also browse pins by category, thus finding boards even by those you don’t follow.
Tell your story visually
As you may have surmised by now, Pinterest is all about visuals. If your core marketing and PR message can be told effectively through visuals, then Pinterest is an excellent medium.
Get exposure and referral traffic
PR Newswire recently added a Pin It button on the press releases they host. When a PR giant does this, you know they’re on to something. PR Newswire reported that referral traffic from Pinterest has exceeded combined traffic from LinkedIn, Google Plus, and YouTube.
Pins are highly shareable. Using the Pinterest bookmarket for web browsers, members can pin instantly without logging into their Pinterest accounts. The Like and Repin buttons make it easy to share pins, so you can imagine the potential for pins to reach a wide audience.
Finally, thanks to the ability to post pins on Twitter and Facebook, as well as embed them on a website, the potential for a pin to go viral is high.
Spread customer stories
When customers publish pictures about your product, or create a video review, Pinterest gives you yet another way to spread that customer story.
Create virtual special events
If you want to generate buzz online, Pinterest gives you several options. You could host a contest, for example.
Of course, make sure to pin photos and videos from your live events.
If you’re now convinced that Pinterest would make a good additional to your social media PR toolbox, heed the following tips:
Make your website images pinnable
Give visitors permission to pin the images on your website (assuming you own the rights to those photos). As I’m writing this, only videos from YouTube and Vimeo are pinnable, so use one of those video sites if you want your videos on Pinterest.
Add a Pin It button
Make it easy peasy for website visitors to pin your image. Add a Pin It button.
Create compelling visuals
If you don’t have visuals, what will your visitors pin? Publish photos, infographics, videos, charts and graphs.
Use relevant images
Make sure the images and videos you do provide are relevant to your product, service or business.
Get social
Don’t open a Pinterest account only to pin your own stuff! Follow others on Pinterest, repin, like, and comment on other people’s pins. Don’t forget to share their pins through your other social networks. They’re likely to return the good deed.
Remember your keyword strategy
Search engines crawl Pinterest content, so don’t forget your keyword strategy when pinning. Use target keywords when naming your boards and writing pin descriptions and comments. But, as always, don’t go overboard with this! Use target keywords where appropriate and natural.
So should you use Pinterest for PR or not?
It depends.
If you:
… have a core message that can be told visually
… have visual and video resources, or are willing to develop them
… have the staff time and energy available to interact in an additional social network
… then go for it!
Otherwise, don’t freak out. Keep doing what’s working. If some of your social media PR efforts are not paying off as you expected, then you can try replacing it with Pinterest and see what results you get.
You can also try it on a small scale by focusing on a particular product or event. If you find that Pinterest brings you a targeted, highly motivated (to buy) audience, then you’ve found a valuable new PR tool.
Got questions? Stories to share about how you’ve used Pinterest? Our comment board is open below. I’m also on Twitter and Facebook, if you prefer those platforms.
These days, no PR campaign is complete without a blogger outreach. Bloggers reach targeted audiences and enjoy much more credibility than paid ads. They also tend to have loyal readers who are willing to follow their recommendations. It pays to get on the good side of bloggers.
But for many PR folks, interacting with bloggers is new ground. Bloggers come in all shapes and sizes. Some do it for profit, other for passion. Still others for both. One approach may be welcomed by one blogger, but found offensive by another.
We don’t have any formulas to offer, just a reminder that bloggers are people. They appreciate sincere pitches from companies and PR professionals who offer them something relevant and useful to their audience. And, remember, even bloggers can’t resist a good story.
Get better results from your blogger outreach by following the tips below.
Merriam-Webster defines “reputation” as:
“overall quality or character as seen or judged by people in general”
Nowadays that reputation is increasingly informed by what people see online. Use of the yellow pages is going down. Google is way up. People ask for opinions on Twitter before they would pick up the phone to get their best friend’s opinion.
So while you used to invest resources to make sure your business cards, stationery and signage reflected your image and good reputation, now you must use turn your attention to your online reputation as well. Little things online speak loud and clear about the quality and character of your business.
Below are 5 little-known factors that affect your online reputation:
It’s good to learn from other people’s mistakes — so we don’t end up making them ourselves! In today’s guest post, Rachel Hyun Kim writes about 2012′s worst social media failures, and what we can learn from them. Take notes!
Social media is a constantly evolving process, with no formula set for a perfect campaign. While cheap, far-reaching, and sharable, social media is not without its potential downfalls. Unfortunately, many individuals and companies are learning this the hard way. Take a tip from the following failures, and make sure that your company learns from the mistakes of the following examples:
Social media has become the new arena for PR. And the characteristics of social media, which continue to evolve as users shape it, are changing the way we are doing PR. Expect the PR landscape to shift and change quickly. If you don’t keep up, you’ll get lost.
Social media is changing the way we connect with journalists, as well as our prospects and customers. It’s placing new demands on companies and PR professionals — demands that require new skills and expertise. In some ways, PR is getting easier because of social media. But in other ways, it’s also becoming unfamiliar, strange, and even scary.
In this post, I’d like to point you towards several key ways our PR work will change this year, as we harness social media for PR.
By now there is no doubting the power of Facebook. With over 800 million users and over 50% of those users logging onto Facebook on any given day, it is absolutely necessary for you to have a presence on this social network if you own a business. A Facebook Fan Page is, to simply put it, your business’ website in Facebook form.
There are tons of ways to customize your page to fit your needs (there is a Facebook App for nearly everything), contain all your business information, and target your ideal customer.
Of course, the real challenge will be in trying to get even just 1% of those 800 million possible customers to come across your Facebook page and “Like” you. Once they’ve liked you, you will have a better chance of gaining their interest in your business as your updates will regularly show up on their newsfeed, you’ll be able to message them when you launch new products, engage with them better, and so forth. Read More→
Marketing yourself or your organization online can be tricky. There are so many technologies, tools and platforms available, and so many different people with often times contradictory advice on which areas to focus on and what strategies and tactics you should apply. However, through all this noise, one of the most time-tested and dependable strategies for bringing in more traffic and leads to your website is this: blog regularly.
Some business leaders might balk at such a seemingly mundane idea. After all, didn’t blogs start out as places for moody teenagers to write about their newest crush or favorite band, à la LiveJournal circa 2003? Indeed they did, but much like Twitter, blogs have grown beyond their initial hobbyist beginnings to become a serious marketing tool. Let’s look at their application specifically when it comes to search engine optimization and attracting online traffic.
Why does blogging work?
Now, technically speaking, a blog is nothing more than a series of web pages arranged in a chronological order. Each blog post has its own unique URL or web page address. Internet search engines like Google and Bing spend their days crawling the Internet and indexing all the URLs that they can find. Therefore, each URL on your website is a chance to be indexed by the search engines and to be found by people searching online. So, say one company has a website with about 10 pages: Our Services, About Us, and so on and so on. Their competitor also has a website with about 10 regular website pages as well, but they also have a blog that they update bi-weekly. Since each blog post is technically its own web page with its own unique URL, after one year the second company actually has 114 indexable pages on their website. That means the first company only has 10 chances to be ranked and found on internet searches, but the second company has 114 chances to be found – over 10 times more than the first company!
So where’s the proof?
A great example of the power of blogging comes from my friend Ken Schroeppel, an urban planner in Denver. Ken runs a blog on Denver urban land planning and urban construction projects called Denver Infill. He started it a few years ago as a personal hobby and began posting on it regularly. What he originally thought would be just a fun personal project, however, suddenly exploded into the Denver public scene — his blog now gets 30,000 visitors per month. His blog has won him several awards such as the Downtown Denver Partnership award, the Denver Mayor’s Design award, and two Westword Best of Denver awards. Because of his blog, he is also quoted in the Denver Post and other media outlets. He says strangers will even stop him on the street and say “Hey, you’re the Denver Infill guy, right?” What a great example of the power of blogging.
However, your blog will only be a success if you’re intentional about your subject matter. If you want to be found by people searching for Denver urban land planning, like my friend Ken, then write about Denver urban land planning. If you want to be found by people searching for Denver marketing, then write about Denver marketing. Don’t get on your professional website and write about what you had for lunch (nobody cares), and don’t get on and complain and moan about your ex-boyfriend or girlfriend (like the teenage Livejournal crowd).
Here’s what you do:
This will take some discipline, but then again, what in life doesn’t? Stick with it long enough, and you’re going to start seeing some great results.
Chris Strom runs a Denver marketing company, helping companies who are struggling to build their business online. He regularly writes about web technologies, inbound marketing and other topics on his company blog.
Today we have a guest post by Mickie Kennedy of eReleases.com. Mickie writes about the difference between a traditional press release and an SEO press release, so read on!
While a regular press release can net results for your business for a short burst of time, an SEO press release has the potential to unleash the power of the Internet to your advantage. If you want to get your company’s website to the first page of search engines like Google, an SEO press release is just one tool in your arsenal.
So is there a big difference between traditional and SEO press releases? Sure, the aims are different, but other than that, aren’t they identical? Let’s take a look.
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