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Unlike other social media platforms, LinkedIn is almost ex-clusively tailored to professional connections, which makes it an effective tool to protect and build your brand online. But are you making the most of it? Throughout the years, Linke-dIn has made enhancements that transform pro!les into powerful branding tools. One such enhancement has been the addition of analytics tools, which can provide meaningful data to help you protect or amplify your personal brand. And, what you learn from spending time with your personal analyt-ics often can be transferred to help you enhance the pro!le you manage on behalf of your company.

By using the free analytics tools available to “Basic” us-ers of LinkedIn, you can !nd out what drives views of your pro!le, where those viewers work and a lot about who they

are; all of which can lead to actions that will help you build your personal brand. Just as important, you can ap-ply that same analytics mindset to the brand page you manage on be-half of your company or organization. Outlined below are some ideas for how to maximize your per-sonal LinkedIn analytics, and how to apply what you learn to amplify your company’s brand.

WHAT DRIVES VIEWSTo me, this is the most interesting data to analyze, because it helps identify which actions in"uence my network the most. Go to your LinkedIn home page. Near the top, you’ll notice

June 22, 2015Issue 25

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Continued on page 4

Analytics Can Help Your LinkedIn Profile

Continued on page 5

* Recruitment: Once you have decided to work with external bloggers, you have to !nd them. You can do so through online hubs such as Traackr, which rates bloggers based on reach, relevance and resonance. Brand managers also can !nd bloggers by tapping into their networks of contacts. That’s how USANA Health Sciences, looking to boost awareness about its new weight management program, recruited TV per-sonality and sportscaster Jenn Brown. Not long after having a baby, Brown worked with USANA to post a blog chronicling her effort to lose weight. The !rst-person post provided con-

As PR executives are responsible for producing more brand-ed content, some are reaching out to external bloggers to help build inventories. Working with external bloggers is an entirely different process than having staffers blog in-house. Issues include recruitment, work structure, FTC regulations and compensation. Then there’s the question of trust. By employing external bloggers, PR pros essentially are putting their or their clients’ brands into the hands of outsiders. A related issue: Are these bloggers adding real value to the brand conversation? Taking these issues in order:

CONTENTSBlogging .........................1,4PR Measurement.............1,5Data Dive ..........................2Events Calendar .................2The Checklist .....................3Silobusters ........................7The Week in PR ..................8

4 Tips for Working With External Bloggers

MEASUREMENT BY LISA ZONE

CONTENT CREATION

DATA DIVE

2

Goals, Spending Help Find Best Social Site for Your Brand’s MessagePR managers and directors may think that a ro-bust social media strategy means having brand presence on every last social channel. Yet they may want to maximize their social strategy by being more selective.

“It’s important to understand the differenc-es between the platforms; what purposes they serve and the demographics of their user base,” said Erin Allsman, VP of public relations and so-cial media director at Brownstein Group (see chart below). Allsman spoke at PR News’ Digital PR Conference earlier this month in Miami.

For example, Facebook, the mother of all social networks with one billion-plus users, has evolved into a “pay-for-play” platform. Photo-sharing site Instagram is an inspirational vehi-

cle, where users are more likely to seek users/brands they already know, Allsman said. Twit-ter has evolved into a news service. “Budget-ing should always start by identifying the goals and objectives for a campaign, and then align-ing” them with the spending requirements and speci!c characteristics of the chosen social me-dia platform(s). “PR managers should anticipate that any Facebook campaign will require adver-tising spending, along with the resources to cre-ate content.”

(Facebook, Instagram and Twitter will take cen-ter stage at PR News’ Big 4 Conference, August 6 in San Francisco. Snapchat will be the fourth so-cial media network featured at the event. To reg-ister, please go to big4conference.com.)

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THE CHECKLIST

3

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Content discovery, a native ad unit recognized by the Interactive Advertising Bureau, occurs when an ad or paid content link is delivered via a “widget.” Steve Cody, CEO of Peppercomm, said even the best funded combinations of search discovery tools will fall "at “if the content itself is self-serving and intended to sell products and services.” Below are some other key tips.

Relevant Content Makes Discovering It Easier

3. FOLLOW THE RULES. Keep in mind that home pages, product pages and general naviga-tion pages are not acceptable con-tent. This means you can’t drive to a product page on a corporate site to promote a product launch. However, you could develop a microsite that includes editorial content about the new product.

For example, engage a group of in"uencers to test the product in ad-vance and write a review, including pictures, that you can house on the microsite. Planning ahead will ensure you have editor-approved content ready to go.

1. SET OBJECTIVES. Ask: What do I want to accomplish? This could include driving traf!c to a brand-owned website, increasing brand awareness, or creating a lift in website conversions. Identifying what you want the content to do will make it much easier to tackle the next step.

2. IDENTIFY THE CONTENT YOU WANT TO PROMOTE. Pick content based on your objectives. If you want to increase traf!c to a branded recipe site, then test a few in-dividual recipes from the site. If brand awareness is the goal, consider driving to recent media placements.

4. UPLOAD YOUR CONTENT. Once you’ve identi!ed the right piece(s) of content, it’s time to upload the URL and an image, as well as craft a head-line. Consider testing multiple images and headlines across different content discovery platforms to see which com-bination drives the greatest engage-ment. Don’t use overt marketing or sales language. 5. SET YOUR TARGETING PARAMETERS. Each content discovery platform of-fers different targeting options based on demographics, geography and in-terests. Select targeting criteria that align with your objectives.

6. MEASURE PERFORMANCE AND OPTIMIZE. Track the impressions and clicks that each set of creative is driving and then optimize based on performance. Keep in mind that content discovery often proves to be a more effective tool for driving awareness than paid search, so PR professionals who run content discovery campaigns should compare their CPC and CPM results with those of recent paid search campaigns.

Source: Monica Bhandarkar is VP of social media and marketing at JSH&A. The above content is an excerpt from PR News’ Book of Content Marketing Strategies & Tactics. To order a copy, please go to prnewsonline.com/prpress

Picking the Right ContentOwned content such as posts or videos from a corporate blog, brand news- uroom, content hub or YouTube channel: A food company that manages a recipe site may consider using paid content discovery to increase the reach of a fan-favorite recipe during a relevant season or holiday.Earned content like media coverage and organic blog posts: u A positive prod-uct review from a leading online tech publication could be promoted via paid content discovery, targeting other readers with an af!nity for technology.Paid content like sponsored content on blogs or publisher sites: u A brand that partners with a blogger network may want to extend the reach of a few of the network’s highest quality blog posts via paid content discovery.

4

Continued from page 1

Flexibility Key in Working With Outside Bloggers

FULL DISCLOSUREWhat are the rules of the road for brands and organizations that recruit bloggers and other in"uencers to pro-duce content on their behalf? On its website the Federal Trade Commis-sion provides some of the key ques-tions: * Our company uses a network of bloggers and other social media influencers to pro-mote our products. We understand we’re responsible for monitoring our network.

What kind of monitoring program do we need? * Will we be liable if someone in our net-work says something false about our prod-uct or fails to make a disclosure?

The FTC has these recommendations for brand managers to follow when work-ing with external bloggers:

Explain to members of your lnetwork what they can (and can’t) say about products and services; for ex-

ample, a list of the health claims they can make for your products.

Instruct members of your network lon their responsibilities for disclosing their connections to you.

Follow up if you find question- lable practices among bloggers who are contributing to your PR and social media channels.

Source: Federal Trade Commission

tent for USANA’s independent business owners to share as they talked to potential customers about the RESET weight-management program, according to Tim Haran, director of social media at USANA.

“We seek [non-bloggers as well as external bloggers] who are health conscious...and can test our products,” Haran said, adding that Brown was paid an undisclosed sum for the blog post. “We want people who are really willing to talk about how our products affected them.”

*Payment/Work Structure: This is a key issue that PR execs need to mull when they recruit external bloggers. A lot depends on whether the bloggers are paid for individual posts or are compensated to contribute on a long-term basis. Some bloggers may work for the exposure alone; those with a sizeable audience may want $1,000 or more, per post.

Finn Partners recently recruited bloggers to participate in a Twitter Chat to raise awareness about a major player in the !nancial services sector. The bloggers were paid up to $200 to participate, according to Alexandra Kirsch, associ-ate VP at Finn. She would not name the client. Kirsch added that if brands and organizations want more “oomph” from external bloggers, they need to pay a premium.

While her own nonpro!t “rarely has the funds to pay ex-ternal bloggers,” said Alexandra Paterson, national commu-nications lead, kids market/department of public and media relations for American Heart Association National Center, “‘paying to play’ is extremely common” in the not-for-pro!t world. Regarding “pay for play,” Paterson said it’s important to have “a candid conversation of costs up front so everyone is singing off the same hymn sheet.”

* Trust: This is a huge issue obviously. Will the blogger stay on message? Speak against your brand?

Paterson stressed the importance of trust in cultivating relationships with outside bloggers. Here’s how:

Get to know them as bloggers u . Understand that “they are in"uencers and they themselves are brands and have a reputation they want to uphold,” she said. Don’t sell u . “This isn’t just about your brand or your client,” Paterson said. “It’s about [the brand/your cli-

ent and the blogger] coming together to promote one cause or product.” Don’t compromise the bloggers u . “It’s their blog, their views, their voice,” Paterson said.

Finn’s Kirsch, referring to the Twitter Chat, said, “The only ground rules were that [the external bloggers] promoted their participation in the Chat on their own Twitter handles.” She added, “It’s not ethical to request more than that. You walk a tight line asking bloggers to have an opinion. The value was in their participation. Disclosure is also crucial in working with bloggers. All engagements must follow FTC regulations” (see sidebar below).

PR pros are urged to think through these and other issues before deciding to employ external bloggers. Should you de-cide it’s the right move, Haran offered the following tips:

1. Share and share alike. Get your bloggers on board re-garding how important it is that they share branded content with their audiences.

2. Map out the company’s objectives. Make sure blog-gers are patched into new products and services that are being offered so they are hitting on those key messages.

3. Be flexible. Unlike internal blogging, which should ad-here to an editorial schedule and deadlines, external bloggers need a fairly long leash; don’t hold them to hard deadlines.

One way to improve timeliness is to keep external blog-gers from getting bogged down in the corporate bureaucracy, “The blogger will have a more authentic, timely product when not everything has to get through several layers of approv-als,” said Jessica Nielsen, VP, communications at Lockheed Martin. Of course, that goes back to trust. Nielsen’s tip: “When selecting a blogger, you may opt to do some testing... by giving him or her a few test scenarios to apply the guide-lines you’ve given them.”

CONTACT: Tim Haran, tim.haran@us.usana.com; Alexandra Kirsch, alexandra.kirsch@finnpartners.com; Jessica Nielsen, jessica.nielsen@lmco.com; Alexandra Paterson, alexandra.pa-terson@heart.org

5

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PR News’ Digital PR Awards is the industry’s top honor in the PR and communications digital space, recognizing outstanding digital initiatives among corporations, agencies and nonprofi ts.

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DIGITAL PR AWARDS 2015

Meld the Personal With the Professional a section that says, “X people viewed you in the past day.” Click that link to access a data chart that looks similar to the one below. The !rst tab—Pro!le Views—provides insights into what drives views of your pro!le week-over-week to help you understand how speci!c actions can impact your activity, both positively and negatively.

You can also review activity for your highest-engagement weeks to determine what drives activity. When I did that, here’s what I found drove views:

Publishing a blog post: Using LinkedIn’s blog publishing platform, I simply repurposed my posts from my company’s blog, but you can also publish original content

Joining a group: LinkedIn will even make suggestions to help you !nd groups most relevant to you

Adding connections: Interestingly, adding fewer than !ve connections per week did not drive much activity for me, but adding seven-12 connections had a signi!cant impact on my views

Sharing status updates: Most notably in the form of sharing interesting articles I read or was quoted in.

With this in mind, I now have a better idea of how to keep my connections engaged, as well as how to leverage articles and blog posts as a way to build in"uence and thought lead-ership.

Brand application: Go to the “Analytics” tab on your com-pany pro!le. Spend some time with the “Updates” section, which will help you understand which content is driving the highest engagement by followers. Look for similarities among those high-engagement pieces and think about them when you share content.

WHERE THEY WORK Click on the second tab on the chart to see where the people who are viewing your pro!le work. Are they customers? Col-leagues? Competitors? This data will provide insight to help you understand what kind of content you should be sharing on your LinkedIn pro!le to keep your connections engaged.

By hovering over the “other companies” section of the !rst chart (“Where your viewers work”) I noted several of my client companies were in the mix, as were some new busi-

ness prospects. This suggests an opportunity to share best practice or industry trend information with those important stakeholders more passively and allow them to discover the information on their own time, in their own way.

Brand application: In the “Analytics” tab on your corpo-rate page, scroll down to “follower demographics.” This will help you understand the experience and seniority level of most of your visitors, allowing you to better tailor content to reach them.

WHO IS VIEWING YOU?To take it a step further, study the data in the last tab of the chart, which provided detail into who looked at my pro!le. While the data itself is anonymous, it still can allow you to build personas around the type of people who are viewing you—both by title and industry. This means you can continue adjusting the type of content you share on your page, or ad-just the type of groups you might join to ensure you’re maxi-mizing your impact on the site.

Brand application: In the “Analytics” tab on your corpo-rate page, look at “follower trends,” including how you com-pare against peer or competitor organizations. If you !nd your peers are outperforming you, reference LinkedIn’s “grow your fan base” tips to help you build your presence.

LinkedIn analytics can answer a lot of other questions: How you rank as compared to your connections, who among your connections yields the most in"uence (so you can study and learn from them) and when your published posts garner the most traction. The point is that there is perhaps no better place than LinkedIn to cultivate your personal professional brand, and to use similar analytics tools to boost your com-pany’s LinkedIn presence.

(This post is the second in a series about using data and analytics to improve your social media brand. See PR News, April 27, 2015, for the article on Twitter analytics.)

CONTACT: Lisa Zone is customer communications practice leader at Cleveland-based Dix & Eaton. She can be reached at lzone@dix-eaton.com

Continued from page 1

6

BY BILL MCINTYREON TOPIC

It’s an occupational hazard for many companies: If the legal squad and the communications crew are unable to find a way to be responsive during a crisis, you’ll be left at the starting line while negative messaging runs free, the opportunity to protect your reputation gets lost, and your inabil-ity to respond weakens.

Taken together, this will raise suspi-cion among employees, customers and shareholders that your company is not worth supporting because it is unwilling (or unable) to help itself.

How do you overcome this? We cannot practice during a real crisis be-cause the stakes are too high. Read-ing about how to manage a reputation helps with the theory of working to-gether in a crisis, but lacks the prac-tical road test needed to expose the strengths and weaknesses of your cri-sis plan and processes.

The keys to improving the relation-ship between legal and PR are:

Establish a crisis team u with hier-archy, structure and membership from management, communica-tions, legal, HR, operations, IT, gov-ernment relations and customer relations.Identify responsibilities and roles u : Who makes the decision to com-ment publicly? Who has veto pow-er? What conditions must be met to make a ‘go, no-go’ decision?Run scenarios and challenge each ucrisis-team member to identify the ‘must !x’ gaps versus the ‘nice to have’ !xes stemming from each of the scenarios.

CAN WE ALL JUST GET ALONG?I recently took part in an industry panel discussion focusing on corpo-rate reputation management during a crisis. It was the first of dozens of such panels that I’ve participated in where the audience was nearly bereft of PR pros.

The crowd consisted of in-house cor-porate regulatory attorneys, company

A Crisis Team Can Save Your Brand

If the legal squad and the communications

crew cannot !nd a way to be responsive during a crisis, you’ll be left at the starting line while the negative messaging runs free.

general counsels, private sector attor-neys and very few communications pro-fessionals. I was thrilled.

This was a unique opportunity for me to show how to balance the equally important priorities of legal and com-munications teams, in real time, for ef-fective reputation management during a crisis (and not).

In every crisis I have managed, the com-munications leadership routinely was frustrated by the legal department’s reliance on legalese, or jargon used by attorneys that can alienate the very audiences you want to serve. Just as often, however, the legal team cringed at PR pros’ badgering it to dump the legalese and “speak like a normal person.” That friction can make a bad situation worse.

NO INFIGHTINGLisa Powers, executive VP, public af-fairs & communications for the Per-sonal Care Products Council, agreed with my assessment. “During a crisis, facts get obscured by perceptions and legalese gets tuned out,” she said.

John Richter, a partner with the international law !rm King & Spald-ing LLP, provides this tip: “You have to avoid premature statements that could create confusion or have liability implications. You need to be accurate, consistent, and timely—in that order.”

Unfortunately, the PR-legal dynam-ic usually leads to in!ghting, a condi-tion that is antithetical to what you need during a crisis.

To improve this state of affairs you need to establish a chain of com-mand, where both legal and commu-nications report to the same senior executive.

Building a stable communications and cooperation bridge between legal and PR is your best chance to balance the equally important priorities of both teams. It’s also a fundamental require-ment for effective reputation manage-ment in a crisis.

CONTACT: Bill McIntyre is managing director, Ketchum PR, Washington D.C. He can be reached at bill.mcintyre@ketchum.com

Here’s what PR pros can do to create a better balance between legal and PR:

Monitor the media coverage u about your industry and build a list of potential crises. Conduct an analysis on the crises that have hit competing companies. You also can talk to senior managers about their worst-case scenarios.

With that list completed, identify uan internal crisis team (that in-cludes legal and communications leadership) to conduct a mock cri-sis response exercise. The exercise will create draft materials to have on hand for potential crises, highlight the gaps in your plan and process-es and allow you to balance expec-tations and streamline procedures.

Send your general counsel and uyour communications director to reputation-management training sessions. The cost is worth hav-ing legal and PR understand each other’s needs.

7

Toshiba Uses Strategic Meetings to Integrate and Boost Communications

the process?” DeBar said.

She has taken other pains to improve PR integration through-out the company, such as posting “Best of Clips” on the company’s intranet “so people feel connected to our communi-cations,” she said. DeBar also makes the media clips available to the compa-ny’s sales reps to spur ideas for gaining new revenue.

“Anecdotally, the business units are much more aligned with our key mes-sages and our communications is much more consistent,” she said.

CONTACT: Charlene DeBar, cedebar@TAMS.com

When Toshiba America Medical Sys-tems was set to roll out a national ad-vertising and marketing campaign late last year, Charlene DeBar, manager of corporate communications, thought it was an opportune moment for change.

Previously, the departments within marketing communications—PR, adver-tising, collaterals and the Web—would have separate meetings. The medical diagnostic company’s messaging suf-fered as a result. Integration of Toshi-ba’s content and information “was dis-jointed,” DeBar admitted.

That changed when the ad cam-paign—featuring a “voice box” that communicates a customer’s needs—made its debut last October. DeBar used the campaign as a springboard to implement processes to bring the com-

pany’s various disciplines together and improve internal and external communi-cations. These efforts include:

Input meetings for new campaigns u : When Toshiba introduces a product or of-fering all the communication disciplines meet together to discuss messaging ar-chitecture and make sure managers are coordinated.

Regular biweekly meetings u : Each business unit meets with marketing communications biweekly to get a bet-ter sense of the PR and communica-tions work underway and how depart-ments might contribute to it.

The meetings have sparked better engagement among the various busi-ness units. “If one group has a great video, how can we maximize that around all areas of the company, with PR driving

SILOBUSTERS

CHARLENE DEBAR

What has helped you rise to the uposition you hold today? The news has always fascinated me. So I think having an intellectual curiosity and just devouring news [has helped me to get where I am]. My area of ex-pertise is media relations and media generally. I’ve always been very curi-ous about how people consume news, not whether they read it online or in a magazine, but what stories are being told and what angles particular out-lets are taking.

When did your interest in news be- ugin? I grew up in a [San Antonio, Texas] household that always had the news on, CNN, NBC Nightly News and our dinner conversations revolved around what was going on in the world. I start-ed my career in Washington, D.C., han-dling media relations for a public policy think tank. I thought it was so much fun to call reporters and see what would

Make Sure Your Message Has a Goalinterest them about whatever study we were doing. So I thought working at a PR agency would allow me to try to make news full time. Later I realized it’s a balance of keeping your clients out of the news as much as trying to get them in the news.

What have been the guiding prin- uciples in your career? You need to be a very good listener and goal oriented, you have to think about what the goal of your message is, what’s the ultimate goal of your storytelling.

Who influenced you? u My grandfa-ther was a big in"uence on me being interested in the news. In the industry my mentor is Ken Luce, founder of the LDWW Group. Besides ingraining in me being goal-oriented and strategic, a lot of what I learned about people manage-ment and team building I learned from him, I like to call it The Ken Luce School

of People Man-agement.

What’s uyour hiring philosophy and advice to aspiring PR pros? I never hire anyone who doesn’t write a thank-you note. A lot of PR is about follow-through and follow-up. Read. You have to know what’s going on in the news and how different news outlets are telling stories. Get work experience, put in your time and take internships. You’re not credible without experience.

[Anne Tramer was honored during PR News’ Top Women in PR luncheon earlier this year.]

CONTACT: Anne Tramer, atramer@omni-hotels.com

HOW I GOT HERE

ANNE TRAMER

8

THE WEEK IN PR

Toyota’s PR Chief Arrested1. : Toyota Motor Corp. has a major crisis on its hands, with a twist. The Japanese auto-maker was in crisis mode late last week after CCO Julie Hamp (picture, above left), an American and the company’s !rst senior female executive, was arrested on suspicion of illegally bringing pain killers into Japan. Hamp was appointed just two months ago. The company is standing by Hamp. “To me, executives and staff who are my direct reports are like my children,” said Toyota President Akio Toyoda at a news conference. “It’s the responsibility of a parent to protect his children and, if a child causes problems, it’s also a par-ent’s responsibility to apologize.” He also expressed regret that the company had not provided enough support for an em-ployee who was not Japanese and had come to live in Japan. Japanese media reports, citing police investigators, said 57 addictive Oxycodone pills were found in a small parcel labeled “necklaces” that was sent from the U.S. and addressed to Hamp in Japan, per Reuters.

A New Lease for the News Re-2. lease? PR pros push out news re-leases and hope their contents will translate to the top and/or bottom lines. That seldom happens, as it’s dif-!cult to measure the effectiveness of press release distributions. But help is on the way, thanks to Business Wire. The wire service last week introduced “Market Impact Report,” an Investor Re-lations tool that gauges the in"uence of a news release on a company’s stock price. Communications metrics within the report enable PR pros to determine whether the disclosure of a corporate action helped move the market.

Media Cup Runneth Over3. : It’s man-na from heaven for PR pros cranking out all that content: A new report by ZenithOp-timedia shows people will spend an aver-age of 492 minutes daily consuming me-dia this year, up 1.4 percent from 2014. The growth is being driven by (surprise) the furious rise in Internet use, which will increase 11.8 percent, ZenithOptimedia said. The report tracks the amount of time spent reading newspapers and magazines, watching television, listening to radio, visit-ing cinemas, using the Web and viewing outdoor advertising while out of the home. It reaf!rms the insatiable appetite con-sumers have for media. The challenge for PR pros is gaining better insight about the kinds of media audiences want, and then making informed choices about where to place their content investments.

And Yet Another Message from Twit-4. ter: The microblogging service said last week it is removing the 140-character limit on direct messages, starting next month. Different from tweets, direct messages on Twitter are a sort of email sent between followers. This is good news for PR pros as it gives them more wiggle room when reaching out to media and other in"uenc-ers via Twitter about their campaigns and branding activities. Character count or not, it’s still advantageous to be concise with your message.

Treasury Department Channels the 5. Social Sphere: It may not change the over-all perception of the federal government, but should go a long way toward getting people more engaged with it: The Treasury Department’s announcement late last week that by 2020 the $10 bill will feature a yet-to-be-named (and notable) woman.

“We’re going to spend a lot of time this summer listening to people,” said Jack Lew, Treasury Secretary, in a statement that invited the American public to send suggestions. It’s unclear what happens to Alexander Hamilton, the !rst U.S. Treasury secretary, who has graced the $10 bill since its inception. Contests, of course, are an increasingly popular way for brands and organizations to grow their social channels’ audiences, and the Feds appear to be stealing a page from that playbook. Lew will make a decision by year’s end. The Treasury Department’s PR team now has an opportunity to harness something seldom af!liated with the Feds: fun.

PR Movers6. : Cohn & Wolfe named David Herrick president of the U.S. re-gion. He will oversee and drive busi-ness across all Cohn & Wolfe of!ces in the U.S., including operational and strategic oversight. Prior to joining Cohn & Wolfe, Herrick (pictured above) was COO at MWW...FleishmanHillard said last week that veteran journalist Fran Carpentier has joined the New York media relations practice as a se-nior VP and media strategist. Formerly a senior editor at Parade.com, Carpen-tier will work with the agency’s global healthcare practice, among other ar-eas of the business.