PR and marketing

Just like keeping your elbows off the dinner table and letting pregnant women sit down on the bus, the online world has its own etiquette.

These are especially important to know - and follow - if you are a business with an online presence, as offending potential customers and/or clients is certainly not the right way to go.

When online always keep in mind the following rules:

Interesting content: Whether on Facebook, Twitter or blogging make sure you aren’t just posting for the sake of uploading content. The content should always be interesting and add value to your business or the conversation.

Listen to your followers, don’t just talk. Always follow up and reply to people who have made an effort. Whether they have asked you a question through Twitter or made a particularly interesting comment on your blog, people like it when they know the person on the other side of the computer screen is paying attention and not just posting things for them to read. Social media is a two-way conversation, just like in the real world.

Be professional: You are a business and aren’t gossiping with your buddies down at the local watering-hole. Before posting or replying ask yourself `Would you say these things in real life to a client or customer?’ Because if you wouldn’t say it to their face, do not say it online where it is out there for the world to see. While it can be tempting to become over-friendly with followers online, think about your type of business and how casual you want to come across.

Never bad-mouth anyone or anything. Talking about another business or a customer/client in a negative way online will alienate people and it just looks petty. Like your parents told you, if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.

If you do happen to make a mistake online remember to be gracious and admit to it. Nobody likes a sore loser and sometimes a simple apology will suffice to get you back into the good books of whoever you offended.

Always keep in mind whatever you put online is there for the world to see.

So you want to start up a social media campaign for your business but don’t know where to start.

Have you ever thought of calling in the professionals? While it all may seem relatively easy with most kindergarten students showing their parents how to connect online, the world of social networking for businesses can be a confusing one.

There are many different types of social media from Facebook to Twitter to Foursquare and blogs. Knowing how to use each one, getting the best results and keeping up with your ROI can be a full-time job in itself. Not to mention keeping up to date with continual, interesting content that your target audience want to connect with.

Experienced social media PR companies will be able to do all the research for you and have you up and running in no time. You will have to accommodate for the cost but you will be able to clearly see what the campaign is doing to boost your business.

Using experts will also mean you will be keeping up to date with the latest in social media, so while your competitors are still playing around with last year’s fad, you’ll be looking to the future and wowing customers or clients with your forward-thinking.

Another point of difference is social media campaign companies will have experienced writers on staff who can utilise their skills for the different platforms from writing 140 character tweets to 1000 word technical blogs.

Social media campaigns aren’t just for big businesses either, all companies from one-man (or woman!) operations right up to international conglomerates can benefit from a well-thought out social media campaign.

Tips for working with an outsourced company:

Do your research before picking a company. Different companies work within different sectors, such as lifestyle and retail, and can be experts in different fields.

Set targets: Know what you want out of the social media campaign and set realistic targets. This can be a certain amount of followers on Twitter, comments on a blog or number of customers taking up an offer from a social media site.

Communicate with the company to make sure you are both on the same page. Social media is an ongoing, probably daily activity and you want to make sure you both have the same idea when it comes to the message and public persona you want to showcase.

Catriona Pollard comments on the issue of "Twitterjacking" and other social media issues:

Beware the Twitterjackers

The good news for most average Joes is that Twitter squatters are more likely to have big corporations and celebrities in their crosshairs.

''I think [squatting] is an issue for celebrities but I don't think it's an issue for general users of Twitter,'' Catriona Pollard, a Sydney social media specialist, said.

She advised general users to take care not to follow a Twitterjacked celebrity.

Twitter has introduced a verification system, which gives a blue tick to bona fide celebrity and corporate accounts. Julia Gillard has one. So does Shane Warne.

Surprisingly, model Megan Gale doesn't but her @MeganKGale account is the real deal.

''If they're a celebrity and they don't have a tick it's probably best not to follow them,'' Ms Pollard said. ''It only needs to be available to celebrities because the general public doesn't have masses of followers.''

To read the full article on SMH.com.au, click here.

Director of CP Communications, Catriona Pollard was interviewed by Lorna Brett from ConnectedWomen on the social media behaviour and etiquette.

Whether you tweet, like, follow or comment; social media is the space every businesswoman should be part of if she wants to establish and sustain mutually beneficial relationships with industry contacts and potential clients. Just like the real world, the digital world has its own codes of behaviour and etiquette – which are too often ignored to the detriment of the user, according to Social Media Women co-founder Catriona Pollard.

Pollard is one half of the team behind formal networking group Social Media Women, which encourages and assists women to participate more prominently in social media. Pollard, also the owner of Catriona Pollard Communications and a self-confessed Twitter and Facebook devotee who uses her iPhone, PC and laptop to stay constantly connected to her social media accounts, has seen her fair share of less than perfect behaviour online.

“I always suggest people treat Twitter in the same manner they would a conversation in real life. You’ve got to treat people as you’d like to be treated, whether you’re online or offline,” she told www.connectedwomen.net.au.

Pollard said its best women approach Twitter after having given thought to their strategy, and suggests they only tweet and retweet interesting posts relevant to their overall business message.

Read the full article here.

We are now full swing in to the lead up to a federal election. A few weeks ago I was interviewed on ABC Radio about if it was too late for Julia Gillard to start tweeting. The answer was absolutely not.

She only joined Twitter on 4 July, and has only tweeted 21 times, but has the enviable number of 25,524 followers. After announcing the election she tweeted: “The election will be on 21 August. With your support I will move Australia forward.”

If used effectively, social media can make a significant difference to this election. Just look at US President Obama – social media won him the election by using it for communication, raising financial support and getting volunteers.

Like Obama, Gillard is using Facebook. Soon after announcing the election she filmed a short video which was placed on her Facebook page, on the Labor Party website, and YouTube. She reinforced her message of “Together, let’s move Australia forward”.

The internet has changed the way candidates communicate with their electorate.

A study on the recent British general election found social media helped political parties organise volunteers more efficiently, with party officials reporting three times more face-to-face contacts through tools such as virtual phone banks and online social networks.

With Twitter now mainstream will we see a ‘Twitter electorate’? Which could be described as the thousands of people on twitter that are technologically and democratically engaged that are not scared to state their opinion. Or will it be won as it usually is by TV ads, letterbox drops and smear campaigns on mainstream media.

I asked my Twitter followers if they thought social media would impact this election. Within minutes I had a mixed response. @AngelineDawson said “Hugely so. Gillard is taking a page out of Obama's book”, @BLKMGK01 said “Depends on how much American-like we are”, @martinwalsh said “It would if the OZ political parties had a strategy! Social Networking is not Social Media Marketing & hope not a strategy!”, and @nickhealy “Tweets will weigh in heavily to building opinion I think. Will be interesting to see how politicians manage it”.

I guess we are about to find out!

Pitching to a TV show

We were speaking to one of the producers of A Current Affair recently and asked them what they specifically look for in a pitch, because an idea that works brilliantly for print may never get picked up by TV and may leave you scratching your head as to why?

Here is some great advice on pitching to TV producers that might just get your business or client in the spotlight.

Images, images, images
Regardless of if it’s the evening news, a morning show or a current affairs program, if you want your story to get on TV you need to put some thought into the visuals. There is no point offering a media release on your great new product or survey results if there are no images to go with them.

Keep it topical
If you’re aiming at news programs obviously a strong news angle will be required. Even if you’re pitching to a morning show or current affair program you will have the best success if you link your pitch to something topical.

Case studies and interviews
Real people add real interest. Rather than offering dry information or statistics, try to provide interesting case studies with people who are happy to be interviewed and suggest some related visuals to go with these interviews. For the Macquarie University's Women, Management & Work Conference, we pitched in Telstra's Andrea Grant to The Circle because she had such an interesting story to tell.

To read the full article go to our blog Public Relations Sydney.

Using Twitter for business: Engaging your customers online
People are often sceptical when we explain engaging in Twitter can really benefit their business. Creating a Twitter account for your business opens up opportunities for communication and attracts new customers for businesses – when managed correctly. 

Create a personality
If your tweets come across as marketing ploys or if they are really promotional, followers will see straight through you. If you display an honest and interesting personality, followers will recognise that there is a real person behind your tweets.

To create a Twitter personality for your business:

Hold two-way communication
A common mistake people often make when starting out on Twitter is to broadcast messages rather than watching conversations people are having and joining in where possible.

When people follow you, follow them back and engage with them. You can tweet questions or interesting ideas that encourages a response from your followers.

Don’t use your logo as your profile picture
People find it harder to relate to a company when they use their logo as their profile photo. You can show the ‘human-side’ of your business by featuring actual staff photos on your Twitter account’s profile picture.

Devise a strategy that aligns with your communications plan
Factor the following into your Twitter strategy:

Tweeting
Messages do not all need to be specific to your company, followers will respect your business more if you tweet about news and events within your specific industry.

Read the full article on our blog Public Relations Sydney.

Upcoming events
Here are some events coming up that we thought you might be interested in:

media140 Oz Politics
media140 #OzPolitics is a one day Canberra conference planned to explore the way the real time web is transforming politics in an election year. Speakers include individuals involved in party politics, the Canberra Press Gallery, the Blogosphere, public relations, academia and lobby groups.
29 July 2010

Women, Management and Work Conference
At this conference leading women speakers will discuss equal opportunity in the workplace and strategies to achieve higher levels of women in leadership roles throughout Australia. It will encourage and inspire women to succeed in the workforce.
29 - 30 July 2010

What's Your Business Really Worth?
This is the third of four Let’s Talk Business Seminars run by the City of Sydney. At this seminar the Director of Hayes Knight, Greg Hayes and Author of the Sensis Business Index 2010, Christena Singh will speak about what you can do to maximize the worth of your business.
3 August 2010

Public Relations & Corporate Communications Conference 2010
At this conference people involved in business communications can learn how to create a narrative for their organisation, how to pitch stories for all mediums, how to understand and manage a crisis, how to engage in the political process, and about the new trends in digital PR and the power of online social networks. 
10 - 11 August 2010

Public Affairs Convention 
The Walkley Foundation for Journalism will bring together journalists, communicators, and social media gurus as part of a large industry media event. The focus is on public affairs with speakers exploring the importance of organisational story-telling as a powerful way to capture attention, engage an audience, and motivate people to act.
12 August 2010

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Last Thursday I arrived in the office on a massive sugar high. I had spent the morning sampling handmade chocolates. Hard work, but someone has to do it!
 
I was invited by Myriam from Mytinerary's to join her and other friends on her brand-new chocolate tour, showcasing some of Sydney's most talented chocolate artisans. In addition to traditional PR she very smartly did this experiential marketing activity. And who doesn’t want to experience chocolate!
 
The group that attended are all on Twitter and combined we have 57,313 followers. Throughout the morning we tweeted about the chocolates, the tour, and the artisans, using the hashtag #choctour so people could easily follow the tweets.
 
Our tweets were being retweeted throughout the morning so our experience was shared beyond our followers. Everyone on the tour took a camera with them and most have blogs so they will post their experiences with photos.
 
Not only do the chocolate artisans get increased customers from the tour, in this case they were also promoted on Twitter. (It was interesting to note they are all using twitter as well.) What a clever way of promoting Myriam’s new chocolate tours – and we were all happy to share (and tweet) the fantastic experience.
 
Featured in SMH.com.au – I was featured in an article Speak up! Why you should speak at events on Enterprise in SMH.com.au. Take a read.

I hope you enjoy reading this newsletter.

Key Strategies for Online Retail Success

Our office has new artwork – lovely fabric covered frames. When I was making them I looked at my local fabric shops but couldn’t find fabrics I liked. So what did I do? Googled “fabrics”. I ended up buying them from a shop in Brisbane which shipped them down in a few days. 

Retailers need to think bigger than their local area - they have an opportunity to find customers all over the world.

At Permission’s recent Online Retailing: Get Set for Success breakfast seminar, Director, Jeremy Glass, offered five key strategies for Online Retail Success.

1. Understand your customers and tell them what they want to hear.
Watch how your customers interact with your website, learn what they want and give it to them. This will involve research and responding to what you observe with preferences that suit the customer.

2. Increase Customer Lifetime Value by valuable lifetime relationships.
Be aware that customers’ needs change over time and the way you communicate with them and the information you provide them with must change with them.

3. Engage customers with your brand in a timely, relevant and motivating manner.
Remember that stronger relevance equals better value in the eye of the customer and therefore this makes a sale easier to close. If a customer is pleasantly surprised with your relevant and timely message they will be impressed and more likely to buy.

4. Employ behavioural targeting to increase opportunities for engagement and sale.
Again the focus is on watching and learning from your customer’s shopping and browsing behaviour then turning that into an engagement opportunity.

5. Develop a social media and networking program.
Although direct sales are not always evident through building up a social media strategy, social interaction is definitely impacting Online Retail. Just as IRL (in real life) social influence has a strong impact on purchase decisions and brand identity online. Harness the advocates who are already engaging with your brand and are your loyal customers, especially those who already choose to be active in social media.

The three R's of Twitter - why Twitter is so good for business
Last week one of our team, Bron, was lucky enough to attent a fabulous two course lunch at MUMU Grill to join a group to discuss why Twitter is so good for business.

Leading the discussion was one of Australia’s most successful online foodies, Rebecca Varidel (or @frombecca) and MUMU Grill head chef and owner, Craig Macindoe (@chefmumu).

@frombecca shared with us, her three Twitter R’s - her reasons why those of you who are not on Twitter should create a Twitter account for your business.

1. Reputation – Twitter is an excellent way for others to get to know what you do, learn about your skills and your expertise in a completely unobtrusive way. By tweeting useful information you can help others learn and this will help position you and your business as an expert.

2. Revenue – Twitter can be used to help build revenue, but you have to remember it is not to be used as a tool for direct marketing. The real revenue raising comes from building relationships with people who would not have otherwise been aware of your business.

3. Research – Twitter can be used to help you research your target market. It can be used to research how people really feel about something. You can type in a keyword and search what people are saying, or you can tweet a question out to your followers asking their thoughts and get a few suggestions.

@chefmumu said that Twitter is like being at a massive cocktail party and you choose which conversations to be part of. Some people are loud and talk nonstop, some are quieter and some are there to listen. Whichever type of tweeter you are remember to enjoy yourself!

To read more insights from the session at MUMU go to our blog Public Relations Sydney. 

Upcoming events
Here are some events coming up that we thought you might be interested in:

Getting Results from Crowdsourcing
Crowdsourcing is the name used to describe how companies access resources from large groups of people, often around the planet. There are many platforms and approaches to tap the power of the crowd, including services marketplaces, competition sites, idea platforms and even crowdfunding. This event which will provide practical insights on how to get fantastic results from crowdsourcing for your business.
31 May 2010

Join the Direct Mail Revolution
Contrary to popular perception, direct mail marketing has made significant resurgence through recent years, and today continues to deliver outstanding results. This event will focus on key skills necessary to execute a successful direct marketing campaign that will dramatically increase your response rates.
1 June 2010

Breakfast Connect 
Paul Borrud, head of Facebook Australasia, will be presenting how to learn to use Facebook for business through engagement, referrals, apps and ads. He will also discuss Facebook’s new social plug-ins and privacy.
3 June 2010

Web3.0 and the Future of Social Media
A number of figures from prominent social media organisations including Youtube, Live Journal and Facebook will lead discussions on the future of social media. Speakers will explore the profound effect Web 3.0 has had on information, analysis and insight. They will also investigate the impact Web 3.0 has had on marketing and the opportunities it now offers the field.
3 – 4 June 2010

Women, Management and Work Conference
Macquarie University’s Women, Management and Work Conference, will canvas solutions to increasing the number of women elected to parliament, appointed to boards and senior management positions and achieving salary equity. Leading women speakers will be discussing equal opportunity in the workplace and strategies to achieve higher levels of women in leadership roles.
29-30 July 2010

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The 2009 Digital Readiness Report is a survey conducted by ipressroom.com with support by the US PR association PRSA has found that public relations leads in social networking.

While marketing is responsible for email marketing and natural search engine optimization at most organisations, PR leads in social networking, micro-blogging, blogging, podcasting, social bookmarking and even web content management.

Insight:  Social media is more important than updating web content
There are very high levels of adoption in online communications, demonstrating that new media and social media are now a core part of the web-based communications mix. They have become integral to organisational communications. Social networking adoption out ranks natural search engine optimisation, with 70% utilizing them compared to 66% for SEO and social media is prioritized and utilized more than  managing the company’s  website content (70% vs 50%)

Insight: Ease of Use Drives Adoption
Not surprisingly, micro-blogging has grown slightly bigger than blogging, 62% versus 59%, demonstrating  that lowering the barrier to entry — the “140-character news cycle” as Shel Holtz puts it — drives social media adoption by making it easier for people to participate.

Insight: Small to medium-sized enterprises lead the way in social networking and Twitter
Small to medium-sized enterprises are significantly ahead of larger organisations when it comes to adopting Twitter (64% versus 47%) and social networking (74% adoption versus 38%) but not in blogging which is now squarely in the large organisation’s repertoire. But larger organizations are managing the content on their web sites more actively than small to medium-sized enterprises.

Insight: Public Relations is leading the social media revolution inside organizations of all types and sizes
• PR leads marketing in the management of all social media communications channels. Marketing leads PR in managing only email marketing and SEO.
• In 51% of organisations, PR lead digital communications compared to 40.5% where marketing leads
• PR is responsible for blogging at 49% of all organisations. Marketing is responsible for blogging at  22% of all organisations. PR is responsible for social networking at 48% of all organizations. Marketing is responsible for social networking at 27% of all organizations.
• PR is responsible for micro-blogging at 52% of all organisations. Marketing is responsible for microbloggingat 22% of all organizations.

Insight: When searching for prospective candidates, knowledge of social media is almost as important as traditional media relations skills
• Among those responsible for hiring PR and marketing employees, 82% of respondents said mainstream media relations expertise was either important or very important. But over 80% said knowledge of social networks is either important or very important. Nearly 77% said knowledge of blogging, podcasting and RSS is either important or very important. And almost 72% said an understanding of micro-blogging services like Twitter are either important or very important.
• Other new media communications skills that hiring decision makers found important or very important are search engine optimization (62%), email outreach (56%), web content management (52%) and social bookmarking (51%).
• Hiring decision makers recognize the importance of social media in organizational communications. To meet the needs of internal and external communications today’s organizations, public relations or marketing job seekers need to develop a comprehensive portfolio of digital communications skills.
• 18% of hiring decision makers have no interest at all in traditional public relations skills, signalling a shift from a mainstream media relations-focused approach.