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Online PR Seminar

July 25th 2007

Today

• What is PR?• Why online PR?• Change:

– Media landscape– Audience reach– Control– Timing

• Integration• Lunch

• Assessing capabilities: – Client– Agency

• Tools and techniques

• PR & search• Reputation

management• A nice cup of tea

WHAT IS PR?

"Public Relations is a management function which tabulates public attitudes, defines the policies, procedures and interest of an organization followed by executing a program of action to earn public understanding and acceptance.” - Edward Burnays

"Public Relations is a set of management, supervisory, and technical functions that foster an organisation's ability to listen strategically to, appreciate, and respond to those persons whose mutually beneficial relationships with the organisation are necessary if it is to achieve its missions and values." - Robert L. Heath, Encyclopedia of Public Relations

“Public relations is about reputation - the result of what you do, what you say and what others say about you.

Public relations is the discipline which looks after reputation, with the aim of earning understanding and support and influencing opinion and behaviour. It is the planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between an organisation and its publics.” - CIPR

What Is PR?

WHAT IS PR? PART 2.0

PR in practice

“Public relations takes many forms in different organisations and comes under many titles, including public information, investor relations, public affairs, corporate communication, marketing or customer relations.

Number 26 (out of 95 theses): “Public Relations does not relate to the public. Companies are deeply afraid of their markets.” - Cluetrain Manifesto“To add to all the confusion, not all of these titles always relate

accurately to public relations, but all of them cover at least part of what public relations is. At its best, public relations not only tells an organisation's story to its publics, it also helps to shape the organisation and the way it works.

Through research, feedback communication and evaluation, the practitioner needs to find out the concerns and expectations of a company's publics and explain them to its management.” - CIPR

Why Online PR?

• Changing media landscape

• Changing audience reach

• Changing control

• Changing timing

BBCMegastar

Loaded

Financial Times

Economist

Guardian

Bloggers - Social Networking User Groups - Forums - Wikis - Photos Consumer-

Generated Content

Vogue

Daily Telegraph

Changing Media Landscape

• Media is becoming blogified:– Comments sections below each online

news story– Guardian, Times, Telegraph blogs– Changing media consumption patterns

• Declining newspaper consumption (15% in the last 15 years)

• Declining TV news consumption down 59% since 1973

– 7/7, Tsunami in Asia all saw citizens as journalists and broadcasters

Changing audience reach

• Individual addressability:– I know that half my advertising works, I just don’t

know which half - David Ogilvy• Search has assisted access to over 10 billion pages• Consumer as editor / programmer – unparalleled

personalisation, customers now build their own media:– RSS

– Podcasts

– Facebook applications

– Micro-media

Changing Control

• Consumers are becoming the media• People are engaged by stories but want to participate

in the conversation• Companies have to turn themselves inside out,

embrace transparency and brand consumer collaboration

• Marketers need to become systems analysts:– Construct stories from modular elements

– Channel energy: stonewalling and ducking are lethal

Changing Timing

• Weekly and monthly publications are left behind:– Wired is still a monthly magazine but also

publishes a plethora of content every day

• Daily publications now publish several times a day through different media:– The Times is one of the largest audio content

providers in the UK media

• The news cycle lasts longer – online news sources act like an echo chamber:– The most linked-to site by US blogs is the New

York Times online

© Waggener Edstrom Worldwide

Changing Media Landscape Timeline

Online / Offline Integration

• Why integrate?– Online is an extension of the real

world– Audiences don’t differentiate in their

consumption of media– Media outlets moving towards an

integrated online / offline approach– Multi-channel approach is more

credible

Corporate Communications

• Reputation and dialogue with peers and other stakeholders no longer needs to be conducted solely via the broadsheets

• Online content makes it easy to form an opinion on a company’s reputation

• Protests no longer need to happen at shareholder meetings to have an impact

• Media no longer has to carry a press pass• Whistleblowing is a lot easier• A fluid fast-moving environment requires a

flexible fast-moving response

Reputation Management

• The principles of reputation management and crisis comms have remained the same

• The media landscape has become more complex

• Online is both a source of criticism and a platform to disintermediate a hostile media

Marketing Communications Strategies

• Customers and consumers use online as a valued source of information

• Consumers don’t differentiate between offline and online media consumption

• Tighter targeting is available by going on online

• It has never been cheaper to distribute branded content direct to your target audience

• Peer communications (such as blogs and social networks) are as influential as the word-of-mouth role of real-world friends

Strategies for Integration

• Re-examine your PR objectives to allow for direct-to-audience results

• Redefine measurement to match the objectives:– Content and responses:

• Number• Tone-of-voice• Backlinks / blogroll appearance

– Page traffic statistics– Traffic:

• Source• Unique users• Stickiness

• Think about how you can integrate across brand touch points• Augment and extend activities and engagement:

– Repurpose content– Real & virtual events– Facilitate communities (shared interests, common experience etc)

Exercise: Integration

• You are working to promote a computer console and the associated games by redefining the gaming sector aimed at young (and young-at-heart) males

• Offline marketing campaigns including:– Consumer and specialist gaming PR– Advertising:

• Print• Television with ‘break-in’ adverts

– Experiential:• Sega roadshows• Nightclub tour

– Direct mail

• Tone of voice: irreverent, fun, innuendo, adult humour• Tag lines

– To be this good takes AGES, to be this good takes SEGA– The more you play with it, the harder it gets

• Spokesperson: Sega Pirate

Tasks• Three teams, 15-minutes, nominate a presenter• What kind of online PR techniques could you use and how would you

integrate with existing PR and marketing activities?

Assessing Online PR Capability of an Agency

• Did their thinking embrace offline and online thinking?

• Was it silo-ed?• What kind of media does the team

consume?• Does their thinking go beyond media

relations?• How good are they at lateral thinking?• How good are they at partnering with

third parties?• How much of a presence did the

individual team members have on the web?

Assess Online PR-ability of a Client

• Is the company will to be open and transparent?

• Do they have a unique viewpoint / offering?• How much need is there for trust in the brand

before purchase?• How much brand loyalty do customers have?• How involved is the purchasing process?• How dependent is the company on third

parties?• How high a profile does the company have?• How much does the company trust its

employees?• How much reactive reputation management

work is required?

Levels of Online PR Engagement

• Monitoring: no engagement but active listening to what is being said about the organisation and its peers – any related issues

• Low-level engagement: as Monitoring plus response-led online presence

• High-level engagement: as low level engagement, but proactive approach, integration with other marketing and customer services activities

Tools & Techniques for Online PR

• Online news sources & RSS:– Mainstream media– Personal blogs and sites

• Business blogs

• Podcasts and video

• Virtual worlds

• Social networks

Online News Sources & RSS

• Mainstream media:– Modify existing PR approach to match the new media that the

organisation is using – Expect more fluid deadlines– Do offer exclusives– Only think about stories in an appropriate media

• Personal bloggers:– Engage10-20 carefully picked blogs– Read these blogs– Plan ahead: establish relationships by commenting on their

blogs and linking to them– Don’t pitch them– Remember this isn’t likely to be their full-time job– Be inclusive– Make allowances on etiquette

Personal Blogs & Sites

• You already probably have staff who blog:– Empower them by putting together a set

of blogging guidelines:• Covers in simple language the obligations they

have under their contract of employment• Good etiquette• Conveyed in a tone-of-voice that fits with the

company

– See if you have any product or industry mavens

– Think about whether you want to provide them with a blogging platform

Business Blogs

• Don’t start a blog without a commitment to maintaining it

• Do have an understanding of the target audience and how they interact online

• Think about the tone of voice

Podcasts & Video

• Tends to be one-way rather than two-way communications

• Dynamic delivery

• Audio is portable and flexible to consume

• Video requires captive attention – need to be respectful of the audiences time

• Content needs to be: original, interesting, humourous

• Two’s company – have a sidekick

• Succinct

Curtis

Audio blogs

Q&A interviews

Executive speeches

Panel discussionsStorytelling

Self-guided product tour

Online learning

Virtual Worlds

• Virtual worlds, like all communities, have rules

• Activities within the community need to respect the rules

• Pick a community that your brand will fit in with and work with in the long term

• The most important thing is to think about engagement rather than generating coverage

Social Networks

• Think about your target group:– Their motivations– Their location– Where they are in their life– Be respectful of their personal space– Think about how you can add value– How do you engage beyond becoming a

friend

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Exercise

• A semi-state organisation that provides advice to entrepreneurs is looking for new ways to engage audiences

• What are the top five factors that you would consider?

• What kind of tactics would you consider?

• 3 teams: two are agencies who will present their ideas; one team is the judge

Maximise the Reach of Press Releases

• Brevity• Hyperlinks• Supporting content• RSS feeds (think about the

licence on the feeds)• Facilitate bookmarking and

‘curated’ web services:– Distribution

– Newswires (vertical and general)

– Company blog inbound links

Using PR to Achieve Search Traffic

Stakeholders (human & machine)

• Search as the gateway to the web

• A reputation engine• Stakeholders:

– General public– Shareholders– Peers– Prospective clients– Prospective employees– Regulators– Pressure groups and NGOs

How Algorithmic Search Works

1. Content acquisition– Visits webpage, reads it, and

crawls links to other pages up to 4 layers deep within the website

– Consumes RSS feeds that highlight new content and links

– Crawls a site map (sitemap.xml)– Directories (DMOZ, Yahoo!

Directory)

2. Index web pages– Everything the spider finds is

saved in the search engine’s index

3. Algorithmic categorisation: sorts through the Index and returns results based on mathematical calculations – Spam scoring– Relevance– freshness– Topological relationship to other

sites – Appropriate for vertical search?

Searching the Long Tail

Google, Live.com, Yahoo! and Ask algorithmic search

Social Search

Bookmarking Services

Q&A services

Trusted web

Local searchMaps

Yellow PagesMobile searchComparison

shopping

Mainstream Esoteric

Vertical search(Google Scholar, Krugle, Scirus etc)

Recommendations(Last.fm, Yahoo! Music)

The Trouble with Search• Tyranny of the minority: only a very small amount of people

(those who maintain websites) have a vote in what sites are important

• Google has a stranglehold over online reputation and is more dominant in Europe than US. Only Asia still has everything to play for

• There is a lot of spam content out there in addition to competitor noise - you may have your clients content stolen and reused on an automated site

• Search still struggles with context: Randy the name, randy the British English word, randy: a mistyped version of brandy the liquor. All very different

• If you’re not first, you’re last: consumers seldom look beyond the first five search results – Search Engine Journal

• Anywhere between 7 and 10 per cent of clicks due to SEM-funded adverts are fraudulent

TRANSACTIONAL

Specialists

SEM/SEO

•Traditional direct-response online marketing work•Direct response•Highly measurable•Very quantitative•Specialist field

•Content: relevance, freshness and quality•Provision for trusted web services• (digg, del.icio.us)•SEO for corporate and product •websites through collection of inlinks

BRAND

Content creation /BookmarkingSEO

REPUTATION

Trusted advisor

SEMContent creation

SEO

•Purchase ad spots to drive consumers to company site to communicate clients’ side of the story•Create content to flush ‘bad coverage’ off the first search page•SEO to maintain position

PR Agency

PR AND SEARCHThree Scenarios for Search and PR

Transactional

Meat and drink of online marketers. PR doesn’t work that well in direct response role:

•Work with a partner

•Cost of online customer acquisition in PR is uncertain

•Looks to measure PR impact on traffic flow – traffic impact by PR may be counterintuitive

•Be cognisant of efforts in this area, particularly keyword usage

•Work with SEOs to provide press releases that they may need

If PR is being used for online direct response get memorable marketing URIs and lower client expectations

Brand Communications

• PR in the driving seat as content experts. Be cognisant of the impact of your campaign on search and leverage it!

• Submit microsites and blogs to search engines and directories

• Specify microsites to:

– have a sitemap.xml format site description

– Be no more than four layers deep

– Have HTML version as well as flash since web crawlers read plain text

– Include good descriptors around video and audio files for better indexing

• Make it easy to index content on trusted websites (magnolia, delicious)

• Encourage in-links to content with easy to use bookmarks

• Consider using the SHIFT-style social media release template wherever possible

• Consider a limited amount of SEM to promote a microsite or promotion

Looking Forward

• Move from pure algorithmic to ‘trusted web’ and folksonomy augmented search:

• Influence context through making content easy to bookmark

• Tag content carefully• Rally enthusiast groups and communities to bookmark

materials• Development of quality relevant regularly refreshed

content: whitepapers, blogs, photo streams, podcasts• Drive cross company guidelines on writing search engine

friendly copy• Stay current with emerging search technologies

(Powerset, Mahalo etc)

Reputation Management

• What is being said about you?– Google

• SERP• PageRank

– Google alerts:• Ongoing monitoring

– Technorati:• RSS-fed buzz with authority meter

– Yahoo! Site Explorer:• Inbound links

Reputation Management

Crisis handling and reputation management has become more complicated online:

•Initial reaction: work out key words / hijack existing online marketing ads and direct to reaction statement or company blog

•Ensure that any response is regularly updated and is written with key words in mind (ensuring fresh, relevant quality content for a higher ranking)

Aftermath:

•Use brand communications type tactics and selective online ad purchases to drive adverse coverage down in the search index

•Continue to monitor to ensure that the coverage doesn’t resurface following a Google Dance (alteration in a search algorithm)

Finding Online Influencers

• Ask peers, colleagues and particularly sales staff

• Look at influencers cited in the mainstream media

• Look at backlinks into existing web properties and competitor sites

• Technorati, Ice Rocket• Google blog search• Look at their authority• ‘Found’ influencers’ blogrolls• A number of companies will provide their own

methodology of finding the online influencers

Getting Favourable Coverage

• Values:– Honest– Open – Transparent– Available

• Have great content• Provide a provocative standpoint• Real news or a great story• Narrowcast rather than broadcast

Dealing with Unfavourable Coverage

• Acknowledge salient points within the coverage

• Offer to engage the author in person• Provide data points and external

references for any rebuttal• Plan ahead to push unfavourable

content down off the first 100 results on the SERPs and keep it off

IP Issues

• Give online users the opportunity to use your IP where relevant in a legitimate manner

• Image resource library and licence • Outline what ‘fair use’ means• Be clear in plain language what your

trademarks are• Be polite and unthreatening in your

communications with offenders• If you are still struggling with compliance go

direct to the ISP or platform owner• Don’t put anything in writing that you

wouldn’t want to see published

O’Reilly Publishing & Web 2.0

• CMP Media with the knowledge and approval of O’Reilly Media legaled NFP IT@Cork

• Hue and cry break outs in the blogosphere over the course of 3 days

• O’Reilly Media step in and pick up the phone to Tom Rafferty and agree that Rafferty can use the web 2.0 descriptor

Bibliography / Useful Links

• The Cluetrain Manifesto• Collected papers and essays by danah boyd• Guidelines on social media by CIPR• 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

• Yodel Anecdotal blog by Yahoo! Inc• The Thought Kitchen blog by Nau• Daily Thoughts by Innocent Drinks• SHIFT Communications social media release template• Official Google Blog• Micropersuasion by Steve Rubel• Fastlane blog by GM