081015 online pr

Online Public Relations

October 15, 2008

Trainer – Ged Carroll

Online Public Relations

October 15, 2008

Trainer – Ged Carroll

May 2008 - © e-Consultancy

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What we will cover today

• Online PR – definition

• Impact of Web 2.0 on PR – consumers, media and stakeholders

• How to develop an online PR strategy:

– Auditing and monitoring the online environment

– Tools, tactics, targets and teams

– Measurement

• Detailed review of the Online PR toolbox

• Online reputation management

Who On Earth Am I?

Or as my girlfriend sees me

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Introductions

• Who you are

• What do want to take away from our session

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Online Public Relations – why the big fuss?

• Broadcast PR? Will we call it online PR next year?• Specialists, web agencies sense a specialism• Importance of search marketing in marketing mix• Search and role it plays in online reputation• The rise and rise of social media and UGC

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Online Public Relations ownership

•Currently falls between digital marketing, SEO and PR for most orgs, why?• Technology and jargon• But PROs who don’t get it and do it will suffer•PRO senior level skills v junior ‘digital natives’•Lack of resources, support and training from CIPR/PRCA etc•Other digital marketing disciplines filling online PR skills chasm• They understand metrics and tools beyond online media coverage•Have ‘brand permission’ in the online space

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What is Online Public Relations?

“Communicating over the web and using new technology to effectively communicate with stakeholders” Source: CIPR website 2007

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And a bit extra from me....

The opportunity to:

LISTEN to your publics, in a way we could never have imagined

IDENTIFY influencers/issues related to your brand, organisation and industry

ENGAGE with multiple stakeholders in relevant and exciting ways

MEASURE outputs, outtakes and outcomes of your engagements

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There are 3 categories of Online PR

Monitor/Map/

ResearchDefensive Promotional

Transparency Honesty

Process Rapid response

Flexibility Integration

Underpinned by

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Your PR Toolbox…..

VNRCompetitions

Advertorials

Stunts

Surveys

Interviews

Press briefings

Conferences

Product launches

Events

Press trips

Photography

Radio interviews

Audio features

White papers

Newsletters

Brand publications

Internal communications

Stakeholder relations

Stunts

Guerrilla activity

Brand ambassador activity

Reputation Management

Press releases

Crisis Management

Media relations

Investor relations

TV interviews

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Has got even bigger…..

VNRCompetitions

Advertorials

Stunts

Surveys

Interviews

Press briefings

Conferences

Product launches

Events

Press trips

Photography

Radio interviews

Audio features

White papers

Newsletters

Brand publications

Internal communications

Stakeholder relations

Stunts

Guerrilla activity

Brand ambassador activity

Reputation Management

Press releases

Crisis Management

Media relations

Investor relations

Online media centres

Online media relations

TV interviews

Online monitoring

Stakeholder mapping

Social media releases

Search Engine Optimised Releases

Search Engine Optimised brand publications

Podcasts/Vodcasts

Social SearchSocial Tagging

Social Networking

Virtual World events

Social Networking events

Folksonomies

Online surveys

Blogger relations

Corporate/Brand blogsInternal blogs

WIKI’s

Crowdsourcing

Internet radio

RSS feeds

Widgets

Social network APIs

Webchats

Webcasts

SkypecastsTagged photography

Mashups

Dark blogs

Viral

Press release distribution

Forums/Boards/Comments

Social Bookmarking

Infographics

Microblogs

Online surveytorials

Online Reputation Management

P2P

It’s A World Of Change, Isn’t It?

Some things haven’t changed:

• The tenets of strategy are the same as they have been for the past 3,000 years

• Clients are still ultimately measured on the performance of their business

• We still communicate with people ultimately in mind to be influenced

• Channels and media may change but the need for good PR remains constant

• Its still about human relationships

Some things have changed

• It has never been cheaper or easier to produce content

• Clients can disintermediate the media and communicate directly with their audiences

• Audiences can easily communicate with each other on a large scale

• We have new media vehicles

• The news cycle lasts longer – online news sources act like an echo chamber

We have analogues for all this things based on past experiences because ultimately its how people chose to use them that we need to most understand

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A change in emphasis….

Traditional PR Online PR

• Core contacts and networks Larger networks changing rapidly

• Catch-all media materials Tailored materials

• Structured Conversational

• Media vehicles required Yes, but opportunity to DIY

• Pagination restrictions No pagination

• Key influencers= journalists, analysts etc Key influencers=???

•ROI difficult to measure ROI easier to measure

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…..means PR models need to adapt

Problem Solution

• Sheer volume of online info/noise Tools to help filter out what’s useful

• Wider range of media New coverage/monitoring models

• Influencers changing More effective audience/message auditing required

• Speed messages spread through networks Adaptable crisis teams/procedures

• Brand/corporate ‘attack’ ‘Early Warning’ systems and use of web 2.0 technology and tools

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Fundamentals of Online PR

1. Understand how networked audiences work

2. Map online environment to gain intelligence before planning begins

3. Flexible and tailored communications

4. Integrate with other marketing disciplines and other PR channels

5. Be meaningful – messages with intent and purpose, not spin

6. Measure and learn

7. Agree organisational ownership and chain of command – Internal PR teams, digital , external agencies/specialists, combination?

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Changing behaviours - media and consumers

Fragmented media landscape

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From industrial media…

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To an age of networks

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The media landscape - UK consumer media consumption

Source: BMRB Internet Monitor

Share of media time% of media time for all internet users

7 6

27

25

34

47

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17

47TVRadioInternetNewspapersMagazines

8

16

48

5

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Weekdays

Saturdays Sundays

Base: All Internet users aged 15+

•37.2 million UK internet users•61% population•54.6% of UK households have broadband

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Social Networks

e.g. Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Bebo, Twitter, Jaiku

Internet Service Providers and Portals

AOL, MSN, Tiscali, Orange, Yahoo

News sites and Wires

e.g. Guardian Reuters, icWales, PA, PRNewswire

Search Engines

e.g. Ask, Google, Yahoo, MSN, Dogpile, Omgili, Technorati, Icerocket

Virtual Worlds

e.g World of Warcraft, Second Life, Habbo Hotel, Cyworld

User Generated Content (UGC)

Blogs, Video and Photo Sharing, Forums, Bulletin Boards, Newsgroups, Review and Rating sites, Wikis, Social Tagging sites, Hate sites, Q&A

Online Media

e.g. Magazine sites, Broadcast sites, Internet TV and radio, Trade publications

Other

Company sites, E-commerce, Aggregators, Affiliates, IM WAP, P2P

The many sub-groups of the Internet

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Web 2.0

• Catch-all term for the growth of a more democratic, networked web

• Technology easy to use, free or low cost - barriers to entry low

• Enables ANYONE to have a voice online

• Users create content, tag, share and collaborate with others

• It’s all about connections, linking with others and creating networks

• Defined best by the web sites that are ‘web 2.0’

http://flickr.com/photos/molgar/191694213/

http://flickr.com/

http://flickr.com/photos/12586576@N00/98838836/

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UK consumers - Social media and User Generated Content (UGC)

• 47% of UK web users belong to an online social network*

• 15.3 million Britons visited at least one social network in Aug 2007**

• 71% of 18-24s in social networks, 52% belong to more than one*

• 1 in 5 of the UK’s 16-24 year olds have their own blog**

• 86% of 16-19 year olds in social networks***

10 million unique visitors in the UK**

7 million unique users in the UK63% of Facebook users also have a MySpace page**

YouTube delivers more than 100 million video views every day with 65,000 new videos uploaded daily

11 million unique users in the UK**

Sources: * YouGov Mar 2007 ** Comscore Nov 07 *** Key Note Jan 08

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Social Technographics

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Networked individuals and ‘publics’

• Co-dependent

• Not linked by geography but opinions

• Diverse backgrounds

• Sharing/collaborating

• Sourcing and linking

•‘echo chamber’ for traditionalmedia

YouTube

MySpace

Facebook

Wikipedia

LinkedIn

Second life

Chinwag

VBMA

Gumtree

E-consultancy

Flickr

My Blog

Amazon

Ciao

Mumsnet

Badmothersclub

Social Media Club

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Media 2.0

• Changing timing – daily, weekly, monthly? More like hourly...• Declining national newspaper consumption matched by increase in online

national news consumption – 15-44 year olds 45% read online news daily V 38% reading national newspapers –source: Spectrum Consulting Feb 2007

• Declining TV news consumption down 59% since 1973• Telegraph: online page impressions affect print front page decisions• Digital channel integration - C4’s ‘Skins’ website, IPTV, Mobile, MySpace,

UGC

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Media 2.0

• ‘Blogified Media’ – FT, Guardian, Times, Telegraph, BBC, Sun etc

• Social news tags• Comments sections below stories and features

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Media 2.0

• Rich media content – video and audio• UGC commercial relationship with

readers, e.g. Metro MeView andScoopt.com

• Non-commercial UGC – e.g.BBC Your News, Your Pictures

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Media 2.0

• Collaborative blogs journalists and readers, e.g. Guardian’s Comment is free• Developing own niche social networks, e.g. FT Executive Membership Forum

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Journalists 2.0

• 98% of journalists go online daily• 92% for article research • 76% to find new sources, experts • 73% to find press releases • 51% use blogs regularly• 33% to uncover breaking news or scandal

• Often use search before online press officeor call

• Write headlines and articles optimised for search

• Create podcast materials, star in online TVe.g. TelegraphTV, The Argus

• Look to UGC for viewpoints, opinions andinteresting counter-spokespeople

(Statistic source: Middleberg/Ross Survey of the Media in the Wire World)

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News sites - reach

•One in 24 UK internet visits went to a news and media site. BBC accounted for 15.45% of these visits Source: Hitwise May 2007

• UK Guardian 19.7m unique users Source: ABCe Feb 2008

• 17.9m for Daily Mail (2.3m for paper) Source: ABCe Feb 2008

• 15m for Times Online Source: ABCe Feb 2008

• 13.3m for The Sun (<3 million for paper) Source: ABCe Feb 2008

• 12.4m for The Telegraph Source: ABCe Feb 2008

• 6.25m for FT.com Source: ABCe Feb 2008

•160 branded quality news sites in UK alone

• 50+ respected newswires

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Beyond the obvious news sites…..

Videojug.com – 2.3 million Tiscali.co.uk – 6.7 million

Sky.com – 19.9 million Thefirstpost.co.uk – 1.34 million

Source: abce.org.uk

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Beyond the obvious news sites…..

Wikipedia – 11.5 million (UK)

MSN – 26.7 million (UK)

Source: comScore Sept 2007

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Lazy online PR engagement

Tom Coates and the PRostitutes

Chris Anderson blocks unsolicited PR

“SSPR please stop spamming Bloggers”

http://www.last.fm/user/Trocabrahma/

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No online monitoring/engagement

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Personal online engagement

Not just your brand it’s your people

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Social media casualties – Kryptonite

• 1992 – Watchdog reports ‘Kryptonite D-lock pickable using a Bic biro’ – sales remain stable and grow over time

• 2004 – video posted on the web of this trick

• 340,000 views within 1 week and 1.8 million blog readers

•Kryptonite response to the video:

“The current Kryptonite locks based on a tubular cylinder design continue to present

an effective deterrent to theft. The world just got tougher and so did our locks.”

•Only succeeded in creating a challenge to bloggers to prove them wrong

•350 news sites/programmes mention issue including NY Times and CNN

• Video cited in a law suit

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Social media casualties – Kryptonite

• $10 million recall• $25 million

revenue loss

• Retail channel and consumer relationships damaged

• Difficult to see beyond theoriginal bad news in SearchEngines

Source: Fortune 2005

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Getting it right…

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PRagmatism

• Embrace and understand the environment

• Understand the audience and how influence works online

• Understand how traditional media is changing

• Knowledge share – workgroups, trend spotters etc

• Get over the ‘technology’ hurdle - use the tools personally to discover PR uses and how to make your job easier

• It will take time

• You may make mistakes on the way

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Long tail PR thinking

Traditional Media

Online Media

Nationals

Trades

Media websites

Niche sites

Citizen sitesBlogs

Head

Tail

Reach

Reach

ingm

illion

s

Reach

ing B

illio

ns

Source: Immediate Future, June 2006

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Summary from this section

•Online PR = planned and sustained effort to develop, establish and maintain two-way communication between an organisation and the publics using the internet and it’s tools

• 3 Categories - Monitoring/research - Defensive - Promotional PR

• More than media relations online – search=reputation management engines

• Adapting to understand and meet larger, customer centric, networked audiences

• Journalists, the media and our media consumption has changed forever

• Complex relationship between UGC and traditional media

• Traditional online news media represents only part of the online media landscape

• Monitoring and engaging with wider online media will have positive effect

• Crisis can develop rapidly online and start/develop through multiple online channels

• Embrace the digital world – ‘technology’ is a PR enabler

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Online PR working towards a strategy

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Planning

Monitor the onlineenvironment- Set up tools to research and map web, UGC, search engines,social media, forums etc- ID key commentators and influencers and their Connections- How to report findings?

Plan how you will communicate- What are your objectives- How you will achieve coverage/engagement- How to monitor it effectively- How to measure it effectively- What will success look like?-Ensure PR and Marketing plans/objectives dovetail- Review as a part of anintegrated strategy- Audience motivations?

Tacticsand tools- Review best tools and tactics to suit your objectives- What is your social currency?- Who are your conversationalists?- Integrate with marketing/PR plans

Teams and collateral- Consider who implementationteam/agency should be- Crisis management plans- Create guides and protocols

Evaluate- What metrics will

you use?- Map and share learnings

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Reminder of 3 categories of online PR……

Monitor/Map/

ResearchDefensive Promotional

Transparency Honesty

Process Rapid response

Flexibility Integration

Underpinned by

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Online PR tools and tactics - Monitoring

“By listening, marketing will re-learn how to talk” Cluetrain Manifesto



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Online PR tools and tactics - Mapping

Why?

• ID core stakeholders and influencers outside of traditional media/contact lists

• ID where conversations happening and WOM networks of influence on the web and offline

• ID existing/emerging conversations and trends relevant to your organisation, brand, industry, key staff etc

• ID which traditional media online rank highly in SEO terms

• Market research, message auditing, pre-crisis and strategic planning, leaks

• To help plan proactive PR and social media strategy

• Traditional PR databases/tools (e.g. Mediadisk, Editors, Vocus) fall short

• Beyond journalists - ‘Normal’ people can be influencers

• ‘Reputation Insurance’ – Masterfoods

• Mapping techniques can be used for finding and tracking proactive coverage

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How?

• Reputation monitoring software suppliers, specialists and agencies

• Free tools plus your own internal data (e.g. Web analytics)

• No one solution best – until Google develops ‘Trends’

• None fully automated – human analysis/filtering required – an evolving industry

Can be costly, so vital to plan:

- What information is most useful

- Presenting to strategy planners – visual models, Wikis, databases etc

- How to share and maintain information across teams and external agencies

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Step 1 - ID primary keywords Organisation, brands, spokespeople, initiatives, affiliate organisations, known brand detractors, ‘competitors’

How?Brainstorm internally and use clients’ internal departmental data and external agency data

Keyword tools Google - https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/Subscription - Wordtracker.com, keyworddiscovery.com, nichebot.com

Web analyticsYour analytics should show your referring key-words and phrases

Analyse web log filesPPC Campaigns

Online research toolsHitwise, Comscore and NNR

https://adwords.google.com/select/

https://adwords.google.com/select/

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Online PR tools and tactics – Mapping

2 mins to brainstorm some of your own keywords and phrases

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Online PR tools and tactics – Mapping - run keywords through..

Search engines• Search engines – Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask etc• Check inbound links to your sites via Google: Link:www.yourdomain.com • And Yahoo: Linkdomain:yourdomain.com•http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com

Make sense of what you find• SE organic and PPC results for each keyword• Google page rank• Review source and establish their link community and who they influence• Establish whether target for PR, link, partnership or monitoring • Issue cluster• Contact details

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Source: Networksense Mapping - icrossing

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Source: Onalytica

Name InfluenceNHS 29.51 WHO 21.51 Department of Health 18.22 The European Union 15.07 FSA 12.44 British Medical Journal 10.65 The Scotish Executive 10.05 BBC 9.77 NICE 9.42 NIH 7.63 The National Obesity Forum 7.30 BHF 7.21 DFES 6.62 Health Protection Agency 6.23 NAO 6.02 OFCOM 5.94 British Medical Association 5.53 Audit Commission 5.42 OFSTED 5.14 Sport England 4.80 Jamie Oliver 4.74 British Nutrition Foundation 4.62 Guardian 4.13 Dept for CMS 4.02 University of Oxford 4.00 The Home Office 3.91 10 Downing Street 3.82 Diabetes UK 3.78 The Food Commission 3.75 International Obesity Task Force 3.71

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Source: Magpie - Brandwatch

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Source: Michelle Goodall

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Blog search engines• Technorati• Blogpulse• Google blog search

www.bloginfluence.net – useful tool for simple influencer ranking

Make sense of what you find• Blogpulse profile - http://blogpulse.com/profile • Google page ranking• SE organic ranking against keywords• Who links to them or cites blog posts – especially traditional media• Technorati authority and ranking• RSS subscribers• Debate analysis – topics and brand/org share of voice• Sentiment analysis – positive, negative, neutral• Potential target for PR, link, partnership or monitoring target• Issues cluster

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Alerts

• Set up Google alerts - http://www.google.com/alerts

• Yahoo news alerts - http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/alerts/

Make sense of what you find• Review and define source • See relevant section – blogs, social networks and forums, video and photo UGC etc

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Social networks and Forums

• Many high ranking sites ID’d when keywords run through search engines but consider niche, local sites and verticals, e.g. Food – foodtube.net, localfoodweb.co.uk/forum.asp, www.seriouseats.com/

• Use social network engines to find them – e.g.. http://findasocialnetwork.com

• Ning.com – largest of DIY social networks for niche groups

• Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Bebo etc

Make sense of what you find• Review source and establish influencer ranking• Potential target for PR engagement or monitoring target• Who links to them or cites conversations – especially traditional media• Debate analysis – topics, brand/org share of voice• Sentiment analysis – positive, negative, neutral• Issues cluster

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Video and photo UGC

• Complement high ranking sites ID’d when keywords run through search engines

• Flickr.com, Zoomr.com

• Youtube, Metacafe, Revver, MySpace video, Google videos, Yahoo videos

•Odeo.com, podcastalley.com, http://audio.search.yahoo.com

Make sense of what you find• Review source and establish influencer ranking• Potential target for PR, link, partnership or monitoring target• Debate analysis – topics, brand/org share of voice• Sentiment analysis – positive, negative, neutral• Issue cluster

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Social tagging and bookmarking sites

• delicious.com, ma.gnolia.com, digg.com etc

Make sense of what you find• Review tagging individual and establish influencer ranking and network• Potential target for PR, network, partnership or monitoring target• Debate analysis – brand/org share of voice• Sentiment analysis – positive, negative, neutral• Issue cluster

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Microblogs - Twitter

• If you have an account set up you can track for keywords

• IM or phone updates – Track ‘keyword’

• www.tweetscan.com, search.twitter.com, http://twist.flaptor.com/

Make sense of what you find• Review source and establish influencer ranking and network• Potential target for PR, network, partnership or monitoring target• Debate analysis – brand/org share of voice• Sentiment analysis – positive, negative, neutral• Issue cluster

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Fancy creating your own? Or use existing Pipe http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/search?q=online+reputation&x=0&y=0

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A word about ‘influence’

• You need time to analyse each source and to develop a methodology to determine ‘Popularity v Influence’

•Popular stakeholders of an issue influence many. But those they influence may not themselves be influential, e.g.. Jamie Oliver – Kid obesity

• Influential stakeholders impact those who matter, directly and/or indirectly

• Reputation monitoring specialistsprovide much more than assumptions andsimple measurements (e.g.S.E position, Technorati links etc) and provide correctweighting to individual voices Source: Onalytica

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Ranking influencers

Analytical

– Search engine placement

– Inbound links

– Technorati ‘authority’

– Comments

– Visitors/impressions

– Mainstream media coverage

Subjective

– Influence network

– Likely to be referenced and quoted

– Who are they?– Staff– Investor– Analyst– Shareholder– Journalist– Competitor– Academic– Anonymous– Opinion Former

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• Some reputation management specialists and software providers to consider talking to if you wish to outsource:

•Onalytica

• Market Sentinel

•Attentio

•Brandwatch

• Radian 6

•NeilsenBuzzmetrics

•icrossing

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Summary of this section

• Mapping is not just about developing a larger media list

• Helps ID online communities and sites that matter

• Helps develop understanding of inter-relationship between you and customers, stakeholders, influencers, partners, influencers and opinion leaders

• Aids crisis communications strategy

• Helps with message auditing

• To help plan proactive PR and social media strategy

• Use free tools or consider online reputation monitoring specialists

• Choose method of presenting influencer ranking data

• Use useful and meaningful information – data for data’s sake

• Use mapping techniques to monitor proactive coverage

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Plan how you will communicate- What are your objectives- How you will achieve coverage/engagement- How to monitor it effectively- How to measure it effectively- What will success look like?-Ensure PR and Marketing plans/objectives dovetail- Review as a part of anintegrated strategy

Tacticsand tools- Review best tools and tactics to suit your objectives- What is your social currency?- Who are your conversationalists?- Integrate with marketing/PR plans


Evaluate- What metrics will you use?- Map and share learnings

Online PR tools and tactics - Promotional

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Overview Measurements and evaluation

• Clear objectives – what do you wish to measure and what will be useful

• Evolving web analytics area, especially buzz and sentiment analysis

• Some examples of tangible online PR measurements:

• OTS, page impressions, unique users etc – online media or blog coverage

• Article comments, blog citations, diggs, Tweets, links from social networks or number of other social tags

• Referral URL visits to etail/campaign site from OPR– then track OPR impact on sales

• Campaign microsite visits, page impressions, visit times etc – effect of offline PR too!

• Podcast downloads, video views, webchat partcipants, social network friends/contacts

• Conversation tracking – sentiment analysis

• Organic SE positioning – in-links, positioning against campaign keywords etc

• Speak to your/your clients web analytics team to see what can be measured

• Only track useful metrics - test and learn

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Online PR tools and tactics – Promotional

• You may already be using some of these tools - use your PR skills to amplify effectiveness

• Much more than just building online press offices and online media relations…....

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Online media and investor centres

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Online media and investor centres

Essential part of online communications and great for SEO

• Plan to develop an online media centre? Establish PR objectives with developers

• Argument for transparent information for consumers and journalists – no log-in

• Essentials:

•Accessible and easy to navigate

• Search function for images, text and video – ability to tag all media content when adding for Universal Search

• Searchable archives

• RSS

• Social bookmarking

• Search Engine Optimised releases and media content

• Social media releases

http://blogit.webitpr.com/?ReleaseID=6499

http://www.edelman.com/news/storycrafter/EdelmanNews.aspx?hid=171

http://blogit.webitpr.com/?ReleaseID=6499

http://www.edelman.com/news/storycrafter/EdelmanNews.aspx?hid=171

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Online media relations and press release distribution

• Huge amount of effort for personal contact with national, regional, trade and media sites (as well as offline media!)

• Use SEO media materials to maximise reach and visibility to ‘tail’

Traditional Media

Online Media

Nationals

Trades

Media websites

Niche sites Citizen sites

Blogs

Head

Tail

Reach

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SEO press releases/media materials

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SEO Press Releases/media materials

•Writing and distributing media materials to achieve high SEO rankings for core search terms

• ID primary keywords/phrases relevant to release content and add:

• In the release headline

• Once in the sub-header (if applicable)

• In the first paragraph – n.b. keyword density in body text<10%

• Also use in alt tag of associated images

• At least once in the meta description tag

• Once on the URL of the page

• Embed links to optimised and relevant content pages on your website

• Add release to online media centre, put on posting sites – does not replace ‘sell in’

• Must be well written …read and judged by people not just search engine spiders!

• Measure and track response and feedback into process

• Old materials can be re-optimised

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SEO PR keyword tools

Tools to help you consider optimised keywords and phrases for press materials

•http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/ - Overture – free

•https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordSandbox - Google - free

http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/

http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordSandbox

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•Most obvious element of online PR - rarely executed well

• PROs ‘tick the online media box’ or use wires and posting sites

• Perception online coverage less valuable

• Reality - reach is huge!

• Negative as well as positive coverage stays online for a long time - affects SEO

• Measurable – e.g. unique users/view, referral clickthroughs, blog citations, SEO position, outcomes from traffic generated by referral URL

• Get it right, measure it and watch client perceptions change rapidly

• You will have ID’d key targets through monitoring process

• Share learnings between teams

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Press release distribution

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Online media relations and press release distribution

Posting sites and wires

• Pressbox – www.pressbox.co.uk - free

• PRWeb – www.prweb.com -

• PR Newswire – www.prnewswire.com

• Internetwire – www.internetwire.com

• Businesswire – www.businesswire.com

• Sourcewire – www.sourcewire.com

• Webit – www.webitpr.com

All provide different services and benefits and differ in costs – request trial

Shameless plug! e-consultancy – member press release distribution service can be used if your release topic is about digital channels, online marketing etc

http://www.pressbox.co.uk/

http://www.prweb.com/

http://www.prnewswire.com/

http://www.internetwire.com/

http://www.businesswire.com/

http://www.sourcewire.com/

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Blogs – best practice blogging in the UK

Corporate/Brand blogs

Source: Nixon McInneshttp://living.morethan.com/

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Search engines love blogs!

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Corporate/brand blogs

Opportunities Threats1. 2-way relationship with customers

2. De-comodifies corporate

3. Internal culture and external perception of openness and thought leadership

4. Independent brand endorsement and helps to ID brand ambassadors

5. Valuable product/service feedback

6. Complements SEO and online marketing (e.g. affiliate, eRM, ATL sponsorships)

7. ROIs - better connected/informed staff, stakeholder and public perception shifts

1. Defamatory material published

2. Copyright and trademark infringement risks

3. Share price can be affected - e.g. MSN

4. Risk of allegations of sexual, racial harassment from ‘jokes’

5. Risk of unwitting confidentiality breaches/formation of contracts

6. Sterile, over sanitised and delayed communications

7. Can’t commit to regular blogging

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Corporate blog tips

• 3 things that blog readers demand – compelling content, freshness and interactivity

• Have a keyword strategy and optimise content whenever possible

• Develop simple policy guidelines for staff and ‘conversationalists’

• Get the tone right and expect it to develop over time

• Post regularly

• Designate editors

• Be authentic and honest – your thoughts about ghosting?

• Allow comments – it’s a blog!

• Link liberally and engage with the blogosphere

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Corporate/brand blog guidelines

• Must view as part of a wider marketing strategy involving other disciplines and departments

•Integrate with relevant parties - coherent strategy and objectives set by all

•Opportunity to improve level of conversation not control

• Marketing/PR not always best people to blog on corporate blogs

• Monitoring activity establishes influential bloggers to link to/work with

•Ensure rapid crisis response policy/team in place to handle negative feedback

• Technology investment low – time investment high

• Set expectations and guidelines for staff and publics

• Agree evaluation metrics - Not a direct sales agent - ROI not viewed by CTR

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It’s not just corporate/brand blogs

• Personal/professional

• Internal blogs

• Cultural/political

• Collaborative

• Moblogs/Vlogs

• Microblogs – e.g. Twitter

• Podcast blogs

• Commercial blogs

• Media blogs

• Social media blogs

• Hate blogs

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Conversationalists and Social Currency

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Identifying your conversationalists

•Spokespeople? Celebs? Online PR demands conversationalists• Prepared for dialogue• Can come from many areas of the business, not just marketing/PR/comms• Might be fans or advocates or characters

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Identifying your social currency and social objects

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Identify your social currency or social objects

• An essential element of a conversation from a brand perspective• Value that you can bring to conversations• Conversational devices• What do you have of genuine interest and value to others?• How can I be useful?• What are you prepared to put into public domain?• What are you happy to get feedback about?• Social objects can include

– Theories– Genuinelyinnovative products or services– Industry research – future-gazing or genuine thought leadership– Data– CSR initiatives– Technology– Laws, political, cultural issues– Meaningful partnerships (orgs, brands, celebrity, charity)

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Social currency/objects - The Blue Monster

Blog: http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/003388.html

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Social currency/objects - The Blue Monster

1,252 friends of the Blue Monster

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Levels of conversation and engagement

• How far you can engage and what do you feel comfortable with?• Are your brands and conversationalists willing to engage in very public forums?•Is your organisations culture suitable?• Each social medium offers different engagement opportunities and community rules• Small steps, test, learn and share

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It’s not just about blogging...

http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board

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Blog relations

Toshiba project: 1000heads

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Blog relations

• You have conducted your online audit and ID’d key influential blogs

• Read and listen – tonality, attitude to brands and orgs etc

• Develop a conversation and participate

• Declare your interest – false IDs, fake aliases and fake messages don’t work!

• Soft sell

• Supplement with promotional tactics

• Use experts and enthusiasts

• Provide creative and relevant ‘blog fodder’ or ‘social currency’ e.g. Love to lead

• Don’t be afraid of losing some message control

• Use monitoring tools to track - where relevant respond with hard information

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Pitching to bloggers

• Many non-commercial and passionate about their subject

• Do your homework about them and ID who their main influencers are

• Most will reference and echo traditional media sources or A-list bloggers

• They have an ego and realise the commercial value of relationship with you

• Call/email – don’t just send release/link or spam comment their blog

• Show you have read their blog - praise without being too sycophantic

• Explain why idea/person ties into current news item or trend

• Explain why topic of interest

• Ensure that any commercial relationship with them is transparent

•Quality blogs not quantity

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UK blogs only?

Blog relations

One vacuum cleaner = 2,363 comments, over 1,000 backlinks to blog and Dyson

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SEO and improved sentiment ratings

Source: Onalytica

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Group chat tools – webcasts and webchats

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Group chat tools – webcasts and webchats

• Maximise editorial value and create ‘noise’:

• Pre chat blogger relations

• Pre chat competitions

• Prize for best pre-chat question submitted

• Limit numbers in chat

• Post chat transcripts on hosting sites and campaign site for SEO and content

• Signed merchandise competitions/meet the author on the day etc

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Social networks

•We’ve come a long way since Friends Reunited launched in 1999

• 200+ sites focused on building and verifying networks of people (MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, Profileheaven, last.fm, Linkedin, Twitter, Flickr etc)

• Rapid evolution - popular/unpopular networks change on regular basis

• An evolution of forums, users:

– Create a profile

– Seek and invite others to join their network and seek other networks to join

– Develop and distribute content (text, photos, video, music, blog comment etc), tag and share, blog and comment

– Share their creativity with the world and play a role in the creativity of others

• 50% of all UK brands have plans to use social media proactively for PR in 2008

• Full PR engagement required – conversations/dialogues – brand reputation and crisis and issues management

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Social networks

High level involvementBuild your own – e.g Authorsplace, Lolasland, Gurgle, SagazoneCreate Facebook ‘Pages’ or Bebo, MySpace profiles, e.g.Terry Pratchett

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Social networks - tips

• Similar to blogs, ‘friends’ demand useful content, interactivity and kudos

• Time intensive - develop editorial team and simple policy guidelines for staff and ‘conversationalists’

• Each network has different tools and audience – What works for Bebo-ers might not for Facebook-ers

• Provide regular challenges

• Rank and reward creativity and talent

• Amplify content the network creates

• Set project timelines and communicate this to ‘fans’

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Crowdsourcing

111

Crowdsourcing

• Open call to ‘public’ to solve a problem and collaborate to help achieve a goal

• Final solution is usually agreed by the participating crowd

• Rewards to crowd might be financial but often kudos or intellectual satisfaction

• Coversourcing not a purists version of Crowdsourcing – see Crowdspirit.com

• Many potential applications for PR

• Time intensive, lack of message control, multi-territory legal and IP restrictions are issues

• Can leverage offline media coverage and cultivate influential brand ambassadors

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Forums, newsgroups, bulletin boards, comments on media articles

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Forums, newsgroups, bulletin boards etc

• Depending on brand between 40% - 85% of UK user comment on forums, bulletin boards etc

• But, a definite shift towards blogs and other forms of social media

• Monitor environment, identify and learn from comments

• Same rules as blog relations

• Do not recommend a ‘covert’ approach or seeding comments

• But, opportunity to respond to negative comments and improve level of conversation

• In majority of cases, forums self-regulate but occasionally you may need to post…

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Social bookmarking

115

Social bookmarking

•Bookmark favourite sites, pages and content

• Add metadata (tags) to make them searchable and retrievable

• Make them public, private or viewable by a network that you choose – ‘social’

• UK news media use disseminate articles and for SEO – e.g. Telegraph

• Open to abuse by SEO spammers

• Opportunities for PR:

• Influencer mapping

• Trends and zeitgeist research

• Resources to support story/theme for journalists/bloggers

• SEO

• Good for collaborative bookmarking for project teams

• Personal network building

• Private network hosting links to your online coverage

• Add to campaign sites, blogs, media centres etc

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Social news

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Social news

• Communities allowing users to submit articles, videos and images, e.g. Digg, Reddit, Mixx, Sphinn, Slashdot, Newsvine, Fark

• Users determine visibility of articles based on combination of voting and editorial control

• UK news media use to disseminate articles and for SEO

• Open to abuse by SEO spammers – community will bite back!

• Ensure that you understand how each site works and become a useful member before using it for your own PR

• Opportunities for PR:

• Influencer mapping

• Trends and zeitgeist research

• Resources to support story/theme for journalists/bloggers

• SEO and increased exposure of positive coverage, new campaigns, podcast s etc

• Personal network building

•How to use Digg - http://www.e-consultancy.com/news-blog/364895/a-webmaster-s-guide-to-digg.html

•Good overview - http://www.doshdosh.com/beginners-guide-to-social-news-sites/

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Podcasts, video and online VNR

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Podcasts, video and online VNR

• Easy and cost effective to make and host compelling podcasts and video

• News media like rich media to support a story and have embraced the ‘new VNRs’

• Blogs and social network users happy to link to good, relevant content

• Must be strategic about driving consumers to it and measuring impact

• Mapping will have established host sites, influencers, blogs etc to contact

•Opportunities for PR:

• Create blog and social network fodder or content for debate/mashups/viral

• Use celebrity broadcast time to create exclusive video and audio content

• Audio/visual media releases – brings story to life

• Enhance content in online media centre – remember to tag

• Brand or campaign channels in Youtube, MySpace etc

• UGC campaign sites – e.g. What would you like to change?

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WIKIs

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WIKIs

• Web tool for collaborative writing (Wiki Wiki = Hawaiian for ‘fast’)

• Enables group to edit content and track changes – discussions around content

• Most popular uses:

• Encyclopaedias, e.g. Wikipedia

• Project communication/intranets and documentation

• Opportunities for PR

•Create or update organisation/brand/author/event entries – no spin!

• Research and engage in collaboration process

• Sponsor or create Wiki communities or provide resources for Wikipedia’s Literature Wikiproject

• PR material writing/collaboration/approvals

• Lobbying – e.g. Measurementcamp

• Warning! “Wikipedia does not exist to parrot corporate propaganda” prepare for anti-corporate discourse and editing

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Viral

• PR? “Creating entertaining or informative messages designed to be passed along in an exponential fashion, often electronically or by email” Word of Mouth Marketing Association

• Video, games, quizzes, images, ‘donation’ emails, audio, APIs etc

• Generates buzz, awareness and credibility

• Can generate positive WOM

• No pagination issues

• Often simplest ideas are most successful

• 3 elements:

• Creating the viral material

• Seeding – blogs, forums, email lists, brand opt-in data, ATL placement, networked viral sites, social media etc

• Measurement

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Viral

• Many factors to consider:

• Audience (demographics, psychographics, geography, available technology)

• Tonality

• Brand credibility – can you talk to an audience in this way

• Viral motivators – humour, self interest, sex, topicality, extreme behaviour, charity

• Simplicity – best are often the simplest ideas

• Highly commercial channel – few getting it right

• Social media creating own viral effect

• A PR tool?

• Cost effective

• Never guaranteed

• Message at the mercy of the recipient

• Influence v impact

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Virtual world and online events

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Virtual world online events

• 3D worlds offering glimpse of the future of the Internet

• 60 Million people globally living as avatars in virtual worlds

• UK most popular is Second life.com, There.com making ground

• Successful brands understand the rules:

•Take time to understand the environment and its users

• Enhance the environment

• Leave a positive legacy and give consumers a role to play

• Window of opportunity for offline coverage - what you do and how you do it in the virtual world is much more important

• Virtual worlds have their own media and journalists (e.g. Second Life Herald)

• Opportunity to invite real and virtual media to participate in events- time investment training journalists, crisis mapping etc

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Virtual world online events

• Plan to ensure opportunities for coverage achieved pre, during and post-event:

• SEO PR, Social media releases and blogger/media relations

• MySpace or other social network supporting page

• Webchat with ‘the talent’ and post webchat transcript

• Post-event podcast and videos

• Post event virtual focus groups, surveys

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Events

• Don’t just have to take place in Second life

• Consider practical use of web 2.0 tools to support on and offline events, e.g.:

• Blog relations and social networking WOM influencer campaigns to generate footfall to real world event (e.g. Sprite Urban Games)

• Live blog from events (e.g. blogging4business)

• Videos and podcasts before and after event to extend impact of programme (e.g. Sprite Urban Games)

• Microblogging at events - Twitter, Jaiku etc

• Tagged event photo galleries on Flickr

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Competitions

129


Competitions

• Branded coverage on third party sites in return for prize with a perceived value

• Can be promotional (arranged by the site’s commercial staff) or editorial (arranged by editorial team)

• Opportunity during monitoring phase to ask whether sites take editorial competitions and establish:

• Minimum prize value

• Length of competition

• Length of copy and number of brand mentions

• Live link offered to campaign or org. web sites

• Product/brand/company photography and/or logo can be used

• What measurement statistics will be provided

• How prize fulfilment works

• What prize terms and conditions required

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Advertorials/Surveytorials

• Commercial and editorial teams generally involved in set up

• Advertorials work very well in an online environment, especially when links, full ROI measurement, opt-in user data, or agreed user reach required

• Important to establish objectives at outset with site

• Copy written and layout suggested by PR - will be amended to suit site ‘house style’ – a hybrid of commercial and editorial copy with agreed levels of brand control

• Examples of advertorial content include:

• Branded surveys/polls with incentive to link out from hosting site (e.g. http://uk.tickle.com/test/traveller/p1.html)

• Editorial where a greater emphasis on message control required and subject matter very commercial, e.g. new brand variant launched

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Infographics

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Infographics

• Interactive visual applications or web pages

• Add visual support to a campaign, e.g. BBC’s British History Timeline

• Powerful tools which can tell complex stories

• Excellent ‘social objects’ and offline media materials

• Can create viral effect with consumers

• Ensure you publish URL in media materials and link to SEO and relevant pages on supporting web site

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Exercise

Using the monitoring/promotional tools that we have reviewed split into 2 groups –

Agree between you a PR brief and develop an Online PR promotional campaign

Consider evaluation and measurements and issues management

.

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Summary from this session

• Effective online PR planning critical – involvement of multi-disciplines, departments ensures objectives achieved and all opportunities identified

• Promotional online PR - ownership an issue (reluctance/fear from some PRs!)

• Many promotional PR tools – cross marketing disciplines but PR can enhance campaigns and help when things go wrong

• Web 2.0 facilitating conversational marketing opportunities and providing exciting and engaging marketing tools

• Identify conversationalists

• Identify social objects and currency

• Brands must fully understand environments and user behaviour in each channel – the pub analogy

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Managing your reputation online


138

No single correct method of online reputation management

• Each organisation and brand is different – culture, people, values etc

• Each has different set of external stakeholders and influencers

• Every issue has it’s own DNA

• Every territory has it’s own legal structure

• Purpose is to help you develop your own framework to ID issues, influencers and create your own approach

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Identifying your conversationalists and reputation team

Why?• Reactive and proactive social media and online engagement• Crisis management• Internal and external stakeholders not just staff• Need to include agencies - Search, PR, DM etc

How? •Your reputation audit will have ID’d staff using UGC/social media and key external advocates, partners etc• Internal audit to ID your best conversationalists?

– Are they marketing/communications/PR staff/agencies – Senior management– Do they come from other parts of the business, e.g.. field sales, customer service, web development etc?

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Typical reputation management roles

• Contextual strike teams• Information holders• Defenders• Conversationalists• Expert commentators• ‘Technical’ specialists • Campaign based teams• Legal specialists

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Have a Master reputation plan and draw the battle lines

• What do you want to influence

• When will you respond

• How will you cultivate authenticity

• What information is currency

• How will you personalise conversations

• When will you involve legal personnel

Draft procedures and protocols

142

Each team member should be sure of their role and responsibility

• How they will receive information• How far they can engage • What information they can share• With whom • Through which media • Information timings – embargos• Exclusivity of information• Internal approvals process• Who they report to – chain of command and who is ultimately responsible and will support them if required• How quickly they are expected to react• What time and resource they need to provide• Period that they are expected to provide support for – 48 hours or ongoing?• What is in it for them • Acceptable tone• Measurements and success criteria

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Strategies for managing unfavourable comments and opinions

• Is it true?

• If so, put criticism in context

•Is it on influential site – assess and rank site

• Who is the detractor – are they influential

• Are others commenting

• Is it affecting search ranking

• Assess seriousness of attack – this is where you should get legal advice

• Defamation - “Any disparaging statement made by one person about another, which is communicated or published may well be a defamatory statement and can give rise to an action for either libel or slander in English law.”

•Slander – “when a defamatory statement has been made orally without justification. If the statement was made in a permanent form, for example, recording words onto tape, it would not be slander but libel. Libellous statements are those that are recorded with some degree of permanence. This would include statements made by email or on on-line bulletin boards.”.

Sourced quotes: www.out-law.com

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• Different laws for US and other territories and legal action can be expensive,

• Libel easier to prove and UK precedents exist - e.g. Schillings - BA forum

• Consider message, conversationalist and channels that will be used

• Review procedures/protocols and mobilise the team members

• Accept some of the views, but don’t hide/overreact

• Keep all email, phone and meeting records relating to issue

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• Act quickly – the truth will out but ensure others don’t tell your story

• Involve lawyers as safeguard –mentioning this can get instant results

• Get the facts straight

• Consider message, conversationalist and channels that will be used

• Review procedures/protocols and mobilise the team members

• Humour and self deprecation can help

• Be candid and declare your interest

• Be brief, to the point and transparent

• Don’t be heavy-handed, emotional, impolite or incorrect

• Consider using combination offline media and PPC, e.g. Google Adwords

• Keep all email, phone and meeting records relating to issue

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Cillit Bang manages the damage

• Barry Scott (fictional marketing character for Cillit Bang) posts on blog – plasticbag.org

• Comments on sensitive issue

• Huge offence caused to blogger – he blogs about it

• Spreads like wildfire

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5 days later

“We are writing to you in response to the Barry Scott posting on 30th September 2005. We’re all aware that Barry Scott, the advertising character is a marketing creation and we have been responsible for raising his awareness.

The posting on 30th September was unplanned and an error of judgement and we unequivocally apologise for this. We recognise that it was inappropriate in context. The Barry Scott character has appeared in a number of spoof websites and weblogs, created by people unconnected to the Reckitt Benckiser brand.

The weblog posting on your site was not endorsed by Reckitt Benckiser or any of the advertising agencies that are mentioned and was a one off error from which lessons have been learnt.

We are sorry for any offence it has unwittingly caused. We would like to have an opportunity to apologise personally, if you would like to speak to us please do let us know the best way to reach you. Yours sincerely, The Cillit Bang team”

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Situation diffused

“The e-mail contains what appears to be a fairly honourable and sincere apology for the whole Barry Scott comments-as-marketing fiasco that I wrote about on Friday.

“And although I still have significant reservations about the idea of fictional marketing characters leaving messages and commenting on other people's sites, I've decided to take them at their word, accept the apology and leave it at that.”

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Summary of this section

• Managing reputations central to your business success but you can’t work miracles if corporate issues exist that won’t or can’t be solved

• Understand your weaknesses and strengths – internally and external audits

• Plan for the worst

• Assume everything will make its way onto the web

• Create early warning systems using free tools or outsource to specialists

• Create manageable framework to make sense of conversations out there relating to your brand, organisation, industry etc

• Search engines will hold positive and negative comment for a long time

• Create effective proactive brand communications through online PR tactics, optimised content, link and community building etc

•ID your conversationalists and reputation team – define roles clearly

•Draft procedures and guidelines for all staff and reputation teams

Online Inspiration & Useful Links• The Cluetrain Manifesto• Wikinomics website which is based on and extends the book of the

same name by Don Tapscott and Anthony D Williams• Collected papers and essays by danahboyd• Notre Dame University: Fifteen-minutes of fame: The Dynamics of

Information Access on The Web (May 13, 2005) by Z. Dezso, E Almaas, A Lukacs, B Racz, I Szakadat and A Barabasi

• OECD whitepaper on user-generated content• Digital Natives Programme by Berkman Center for Internet & Society at

Harvard Law School• Some suggested blogs and online sources to read sorted by subject

area• How to read RSS feeds in Outlook:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA011750001033.aspx

• Pane-style readers: http://www.pageflakes.comhttp://www.netvibes.com/

• Online readers: http://www.bloglines.com/http://www.newsgator.com/

• A regularly-updated RSS reader resource: http://blogspace.com/rss/readers

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Q&As

Thank you

October 2008

Trainer – Ged Carroll07714123625

Thank you

October 2008

Trainer – Ged Carroll07714123625

081015 online pr

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