Leverage the Power of Pull How to Make Your Brand More Digitally Discoverable

PRSA International ConferenceNovember 8, 2009

Gary Goldhammer, SVP Digital Strategy, Edelman DigitalJay Krall, Global Product Manager, Cision

‘The social media stuff for us is probably the most important thing we do today from a marketing standpoint…it’s not just about blogging or wikis or RSS or any of that stuff, it’s about how do you use listening and coalescing conversations that are going on to kind of inform everything you’re doing.

So whether product design or product innovation, whether it’s customer service and support, how do you use social media to power the fundamentals of the business? That’s what we’re focused on. For us, it changes everything.’

Andy Lark, Dell, VP of Global Marketing & Communications

Social Media Drives Awareness and Sales

Source: Altimeter Group 2009

Financial performance correlates with engagement

Companies that are both deeply and widely

engaged in social media surpass their peers in

terms of both revenue and profit performance

More touch points (channels) can present a

ripple effect, inducing viral marketing, boosting

brand recognition and driving sales volume.

Highest performing brands are in seven

channels or more

Companies with the highest levels of social

media activity on average increased

revenues by 18%

Companies with the least active saw sales

drop 6%

Budgets are Reflecting this Shift

Search is King

90% of all web traffic goes through search

News aggregation is 63% of all searches

Be Found…

…Or Get Lost

http://flickr.com/photos/3shaq-elmzaj/2149402705/

What Is Your Digital Discoverability?

The Power of PullPublishing Content In Social Media Bolsters Your Search Visibility

In an age where Google and Facebook dominate, it's important that we turn our attention toward digital discoverability.

This requires we create relevant content that people will "pull" through search engines and social networks.

If you aren’t in the space – blogs and other types of content channels or communities, your brand may be either invisible or driven by someone else.

SPECIFIC TOPICS IN SPECIFIC FORMATSEnsure visibility and manage reputation in rising vertical searches

ENGAGE DYNAMICALLY WITH YOUR AUDIENCES BASED ON THEIR DIGITAL SOCIAL LIFEIdentify where your brand’s target audiences are going, where they are finding info on topics relevant to your program objectives

SUCCESS METRICSShare of search, share of voice, and share of involvement

Digital Embassy StrategyMultiple Channels, Multiple Formats

BRAND

So

cial

N

etw

ork

s

Blo

gs

Media Sites

Vid

eo S

ites

Ph

oto

Sit

es

Search

E

ng

ines

Podcasts

Aff

init

y S

ites

Social News

Sharing

SEO Benefits of Sharing

loves social content

Don’t think of Digg and Delicious pages discussing your brand as competing with content on your site: they boost your search rankings!

Submit your blog posts, videos and more to social news sharing sites as part of a larger mix of interesting content

Friend people who share your interestsso they can push your content too

A Framework for Distribution

WHAT: Evaluate the content for “socialability”

WHO: Determine the appropriate audiences for the specific content. Determine who owns the content (partners) and distribution rights

HOW: Determine how best to prepare the content for distribution: tags, labels and socialization

WHERE: Identify the appropriate distribution sites and/or channels

Labeling and Micro-blogging Optimization Strategy

Tell the complete story in the headline. The headline has to make sense before people click, otherwise they won’t

Keep it short. Not only does the headline need to fit within Twitter’s character limits, but also leave room for the @name of anyone who re-tweets it

Use the keywords in titles. This ensures the content is easily “crawled” by search engines

400%Growth in visits to the Twitter search

engine in the last six months

Micro-blog Ready Headlines

Example

“Brita Climate Ride 2008 NYC-DC http://tinyurl.com/12356”

If a person doesn’t know what the Climate Ride is, they won’t click through to that link because it doesn’t tell them what they’ll get

Instead, we would label the video in a way that the micro-blog post would read:

“Eco friendly bicycle ride from NYC-DC calling for global warming legislation - Brita Climate Ride 2008

http://tinyurl.com/1234”

This label (title of the video):

• Is less than 140 characters long

• Tells the story for someone who’s not familiar with the Climate Ride

• Uses key terms for SEO: Eco friendly, Global warming

Top Ten and SEO

“I’ve got blogs whose target

audience is 100 people –

the right 100 people.”

Chris Anderson, The Long Tail

Measuring success:Social Metrics

Social Metrics That Matter

Inbound links: the currency of

the Web

Blog comments

Total posts: does volume matter?

Citations on social news sharing sites

Track your results, document your

progress, look for patterns

Traditional/Passive Web Metrics That Matter

Unique Visitors per Month

E-mail Subscribers

RSS Subscribers

Time Spent

Unique Monthly Sessions

Present content in each region in ways that encourage the community’s favored mode of participation

Source: Cision analysis of Forrester Research Consumer Technographics Data 2009*UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Netherlands and Sweden**Japan, South Korea and Metro China

Studying Social Web Habits Across Continents

Identifying communities across borders

E-commerce agency Imano used Facebook and other sites to attract students

from around the world to learn obtain certifications for Sun Microsystems’ Solaris

operating system. They identified three target groups:

IT Students and Junior IT staff in developing countries with an established IT

workforce. (Brazil, Russia, India & China)

IT Students and IT staff in the UK.

Non-IT students based in the UK and developing countries.

Harnessing the Power of Pull

Determine your goals

Find your target community

Create, share

and aggregate content

Leverage the Power of Pull How to Make Your Brand More Digitally Discoverable

PRSA International ConferenceNovember 8, 2009

Gary Goldhammer, SVP Digital Strategy, Edelman DigitalJay Krall, Global Product Manager, Cision