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PR Strategy For Business: Blog Post Or News Release?

01/29/2013 By Jayme Soulati

The news release is NOT dead. There is no other way to formally announce company news that meets and adheres to traditional journalistic standards.

For those suggesting a news release no longer matters should take a look at whether they have hard news to share.

Start-ups, small-to-medium businesses (SMBs), and even established companies need to use a press release to issue news either online, via the wires, or sent as a pitch by media relations teams.

Blog Post Or News Release?

More companies are realizing the value of blogging. The blog, like the news release is owned media. You create the message, write the content and publish it, post it or distribute it via many channels.

But, here’s the $5 million chicken-or-egg question — which comes first?

Should a company write a blog post to launch news or should it write a news release to launch news?

A blog post seems like the easiest method to put news out there; albeit, the audience that sees the post is questionable (especially on a brand new blog with zero analytics).

If a company was to launch news of a new product, service or other innovation for the very first time via a blog, then that news is no longer fresh.

A blog is NOT the best place to announce major company news first unless a news release is included in that news strategy with strategic timing.

Here are the steps I recommend, and afterwards I share why:

1. To launch company news, draft a news release and blog post at the same time.

2. Get the content for each approved via the overall marketing and legal teams at the same time.

3. Set distribution of the news for both the blog and news release at about the same time. A blog post can be scheduled at any time of day.

4. The news release should hit the wires first, and the link to the news release should be included in the blog post just before clicking “publish.”

Rationale For This PR Strategy

If media get wind of a start-up’s news announcement and the company’s blog is the vehicle to share that news, then any attempt at issuing a news release, featuring the same content, and garnering attention is likely to fail.

When media relations practitioners pitch media, a blog post is not the vehicle of choice to inform media of news. It can complement; however, it is not an official vehicle.

Corporate blogs have a variety of authors and topics. To establish the company blog as the official word from the C-suite would take months of consistent writing with on-message topics. Media relations cannot be done via an occasional heavy-hitting blog post.

The news release must prevail first complemented by supporting vehicles with the content emphasized and packed with punch.

Thanks for reading Soulati-‘TUDE! Blog Post #400! Please subscribe, up and to the right, so you miss no more!

Please Say Thank You In Business

01/15/2013 By Jayme Soulati

Saying thanks is so simple. Why doesn’t it happen more often? Are brands and people too busy? Or, do they just plain old forget they asked for something?

As a public relations practitioner with a media relations core, my job was pitching media every day for eight hours straight in Chicago’s agencies. I don’t recall if I thanked the reporters for running my story back in the day; but I sure as heck do it now.

When someone works in earnest to reach a reporter and speak upwards of 3-4 times to get a story to run, there’s a bit of professional ‘raderie going on. A relationship gets launched, and someone is asking the other for a major consideration.

If that work is rewarded, it would seem obvious a “thank you” is in order. A simple email would suffice, right?

Last fall a very personable PR woman connected with me about her client’s book. She pitched me the story, sent me a book, and I delayed writing a post on it. With little time to read much around the holidays, I forced myself to dive in gladly as the book was worth the read.

A blog post ensued and another reference followed with tweets and likes, and posts throughout the interwebz. What was the result? The author said, “You’re too kind” on a Google+ post and the PR person is nowhere to be found; no acknowledgment.

I’m not a reporter; I’m a professional blogger with a large community. As a result of that blog post, I helped push sales of that book; probably 10 I can tap from my community alone. In this day of oodles of books and budding authors, I’d say 10 is decent.

I wrote awhile ago about thanking Twitter followers for RTs, something I did up until I joined 25 tribes on Triberr. I couldn’t take the hour a day it would take to thank folks, and that always makes me cringe. When you’re trying to build community, it’s so helpful to acknowledge those who give.

This isn’t a whine or rant.

This is a reminder to everyone in business that the words “thank you” are not overdone, unexpected or unwanted.

Please say thank you in business. It’s more than just common courtesy; it’s the stuff relationships are made of.

My Sincere Thanks

And, with that said, I owe deep gratitude to several business partners who assisted and continue to assist on my nightmare tech journeys:

Heather Solos, community manager with Feedblitz, has been a savior helping me rectify Feedblitz issues with my site. Did I bring those issues onto myself? Yep, most likely; that didn’t stop her from sorting through my issues and getting me up and running. Thank you, Heather.

Ginny Soskey, is a doll (she looks like one, too), with Shareaholic. I’m using Shareaholic sharing toolbar on this blog and site. I’ve tried many, and each has issues. I’m in love with this tool for bloggers, and the options and variety of sharing features is amazing. They’re getting bigger by the day, but that didn’t stop Ginny from helping me immediately when my share bar went awry. She was on it, learning how to troubleshoot while sending me screen shares and tips on what to fix over here. (Turns out it was Chrome cache; a problem as I had no idea we need to clean our cache on a consistent basis otherwise funky things happen.)

Adrianne Mayshar of HubSpot is a gem. She’s been riding herd as lead cowboy (isn’t that word like actor…you don’t need to say cowgirl?) through a serious set of integration issues I’m having and continue to have. I appreciate her customer service and that of senior support tech Victoria.

Scott Quillin, of New England Multimedia, has given undying and relentless support and encouragement as well as ears, eyes and dedication to my tech needs. Not only has he designed this site for me, he has become my IT liaison to help free me from the confines of tech nasty. I cannot say enough good about this man and his client service; astonishing.

I thank them; I thank my readers and this community. I thank you. I appreciate deeply.

Analysis of Brand’s Twitter Usage Sheds Light On Social Business

01/08/2013 By Jayme Soulati

Credit: Social Business Today, 2011

Inspiration for this post came directly from Socialized!, the book by Mark Fidelman on what it takes to be a social business. Not 25 pages into the book, a section entitled “People Are More Loyal to Socially Engaged Businesses,” prompted this ponderance (yep, a word coin) about how well-known brands engage on Twitter.

I’m going to pick on Harry and David, the 80-year-old grower of Oregon pears that has become one of the seasonal faves for online shopping during holidays. I recently thanked them for their wonderful customer service, so I’m a promoter of their brand after being somewhat of a detractor recently.

In this section in Fidelman’s book in which he references a study by Constant Contact and research firm Chadwick Martin Bailey of 1491 consumers 18+ about brand engagement and loyalty on Twitter, he shared:

“60 percent of brand followers are more likely to recommend a brand to a friend after following the brand on Twitter.
50 percent of brand followers are more likely to buy from that brand.
79 percent of those surveyed follow fewer than 10 brands, and a whopping 75 percent of Twitter users don’t follow brands at all. “

Fidelman’s interpretation of this data goes like this:

“Depending on how you interpret the data, that can mean either opportunity or difficulty: opportunity in the form of a rich open field of Twitter users who want to engage with your brand or difficulty if most Twitter users don’t want to hear from brands.”

Think about that a minute; I’ll wait.

Harry And David Twitter Stream

After writing a positive blog post about the brand Harry and David and then reading this section of Fidelman’s book, Socialized!, I decided to take a look at the Harry and David Twitter stream to see if that business was functioning as a social business, a social media business, or merely monitoring and being reactionary on Twitter.

Here’s what I found:

From December 17, 2012 to January 7, 2013, there were 47 tweets in the Harry and David Twitter stream.
Of those, 24 tweets were oriented to responses for negative customer experience.
12 of the tweets were positive comments to customers’ experiences.
6 tweets were neutral about customer experience.
5 tweets were actual outbound content relating to product, shipping, holiday deals.

Let’s do a bit of analysis about the Harry and David tweet stream relating to interpretation about being a social business or a socially engaged company:

With the volume of shipments flowing out of the Harry and David distribution centers during the holidays flying to all corners of the U.S. there are bound to be customer service and delivery snafus.

Of the 24 tweets oriented to negative customer service experience, some of the issues were about tardy delivery, frozen fruit, lack of sender identity. Why would consumers use Twitter to report and/or complain about these issues? The Twitter team can’t do anything about that but ask for an email notification so the issue can be routed to the appropriate department.

A tally of only 47 tweets doesn’t indicate that much traffic during this prime time period of holiday deliveries. What that means is the Twitter team (probably also managing Facebook), didn’t have to always be reactionary. The team could’ve scheduled tweets to post during all hours of the day and evening across time zones to share news about deliveries, products, best sellers, donations to charities, storm interference with deliveries, etc.

The stream had few company-generated posts oriented to marketing and sales messages or brand amplification. This was a lost opportunity for the social media team to really boost its presence on Twitter with more than just “sorry you had a negative experience.”

After reading and counting so many “sorry/negative” tweets to make this analysis, I waffled on whether the company had a poor holiday season OR this was par for the course and the company was happy with the 2012 holiday season. I wouldn’t know that, but hopefully the marketing director does.

Tips on Using Twitter For Business

Remember that all content posted on Twitter stays in the stream. Anyone can read posts from past time periods. Mix up the content so it doesn’t sound the same!
There should be approved corporate messages about the company, its products/services, its team, its events, hours of operation, etc. that are scheduled throughout the day on Twitter. These filler posts help keep the brand fresh.
Analyze your company’s usage of Twitter; is it reactionary? Are you using Twitter to respond only to negative customer queries/comments? If so, ensure you mix up the content postings to balance the net promoter scores.
When you’re an online retailer, like Harry and David, with food products, tweet all day long about your favorites and best sellers. Moose Tracks have got to be a best seller next to the pears! Share something about that alongside the good news about mouth-watering sweet pears, for example.
If the social media team is tired and working to maintain the pace during holidays, be sure and switch out some people with a fresher perspective. The tweet stream needs to maintain a liveliness that keeps people’s attention.

Brands have a huge opportunity to make a difference on Twitter. Keep it fresh, post content about the company, respond to customers, and engage new customers, too.

As a final thought, companies are not social businesses yet; many have just now begun to feel comfortable engaging and building communities on a variety of channels. What’s next is to really look internally to see that all departments are playing together inside instead of functioning in traditional silos.

What Is A Social Business?

01/07/2013 By Jayme Soulati

Engaging on social media channels with customers and prospects does not a social business make. Being a social business requires this for starters, and more. Becoming social inside and out by engaging stakeholders at all levels takes consistent effort and clarity from the C-suite to the sales organization and elsewhere.

To really understand how to evolve into a social business from a social media engagement position, I recommend a book authored by Mark Fidelman called Socialized! How The Most Successful Businesses Harness The Power of Social.

I’ve only read word for word through page 40 and became too excited not to share this book for small-to-medium enterprises as well as larger corporations. Its teachings are for all types of business and that includes not-for-profits and academia, as well.

In the first several chapters of the book, my pages are marked up and dog-eared. Mark interviews the experts and authors who’ve already paved the way with tomes on each phase of the social media revolution, and he dots his writings with fodder from executive interviews and his professional experiences with Forbes as the Socialized and Mobilized columnist.

Essentially, what Mark is trying to instill among corporate executives is that social media is the here and now; it’s not going away, and it has forever altered the business landscape of yore. Executives not on board need to be…yesterday.

There are still so many companies grappling with social media, and as Mark puts it so well, “Companies that are ignoring (social media) communities will soon find their customers moving to better neighborhoods.”

Indeed!

Who Needs To Read Socialized! ?

Anyone trying to convince a client that social media adoption has to occur, needs to read this book.
Anyone in a marketing department having issues earning consensus throughout the organization about a social media deployment strategy, needs to read this book.
Anyone who is a social media blogger who wants the most recent research at the tip of the finger to reference in blog fodder or in thought pieces, needs to read this book.

So What Is A Social Business?

Everyone has their own definition for their own organization; however, Mark provides a simple explanation – “businesses that have learned the philosophy and strategy of using social technologies to create more adaptive businesses.”

A benefit of being a social business, according to Mark, “provides real-time dynamic feedback from employees, customers and partners… with collaboration and social technologies that make it easy to capture, store, and share organizational intelligence.”

So many businesses today are content having a marketing team with a social media guru leading the charge. Perhaps it’s one or two people who tweet and post Facebook content or maybe it’s an external agency working on social media strategy with one person internally.

That is not what a social business is all about. Mark is clear in his writings about the necessity to have a solid team of seven various experts who manage a different aspect of social media, mobile and intelligence with an internal or external perspective.

The book dives into critical discussion about business culture, developing an internal digital village for employees, engaging externally, provides a strategic social playbook, identifies the social employee, and discusses ROI indepth.

As I continue to read every word in this book, because it is that good, I’ll be writing posts about what I’m pondering. Run and get your copy, and then we can have a healthy discussion below. The really cool news is that Mark Fidelman is everywhere. He’s accessible on Google+, Twitter, Forbes, LinkedIn, and gosh, maybe Pinterest?

How Do You Listen?

12/05/2012 By Jayme Soulati

Conversation by Patrick Bohnen (Photo credit: Kraemer Family Library)

Those without hearing impairment can hear, but are they listening? Ear buds allow the outside world to be ignored and an entire new world of escape to tune in.

When you speak with someone face to face, you can tell if they’re listening or distracted. It’s pretty easy, and then when the phone vibrates in the pocket, that instant intake of breath and dart of the eyes take focus from a conversation and onto a device. Onlookers can see the internal question posed by brain waves — who’s calling, emailing, texting, pinging?

How do you listen?

Can you hear a conversation on the phone and tune in without multi-tasking? Do you focus entirely on the caller and give him or her undivided attention? How do you listen to your kids’ stories from school — the drama among BFFs or the playground battles that are so critical to the kidlets?

Listening to clients means you can provide better services and deliverables and work product. Listening to conversation means you can create blog fodder like this (inspired by a phone conversation). Listening intently means you listen with purpose, and what that breeds is respect.

Next time you’re having a meeting or gathering with anyone and you’re face to face, please give that person your undivided attention. They deserve that courtesy and you deserve to be respected.

Listening is the product of communication. We’re creating a society of non-communicators especially amongst millennials and teenagers. Parents are to blame, and today’s youth are this nation’s business future.

When you listen, do this:

1. Shake hands to get the tactile going. If you’re not IRL, then ask a question about the caller’s well being to personalize.

2. Look people in the eye when speaking.

3. Keep all hands on deck and out of pockets or purses; that iPhone is not going to sprout legs and run away.

4. Hear what people are saying by tuning in.

5. Respond in kind and with meaning; and I mean FOR REAL.

6. Erase all invasive thoughts from that moment and focus.

7. End with a smile and a thank you.

What think? Resonate?

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This isn’t a whine or rant.

My Sincere Thanks

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