With the shifting media landscape during this crisis, it’s important for your entire team to have clear guidelines on how to share messages online.
Here are some tips and considerations that can prevent sticky situations later on:
1. Create a code of conduct for your page.
2. Have a clear outline of what to post. Determine a clear outline of what can and cannot be posted before you begin, such as images below a certain quality or color, or if you can post graphics and where to source them from.
3. Engage followers with dialogue.
4. Respond to everything, as much as you can. Show your consumers there’s someone on the other side of the screen reading and engaging with them by responding to their comments, especially if they’re expressing frustrations about finding it difficult to reach you through your other lines of communication.
5. Move conversations off the feed into the messages.
6. Invest in social media monitoring. Social media monitoring platforms provide insight into conversations taking place regarding your brand, giving you the opportunity to see consumer opinions.
Yes, there will be a post-Covid19 time!
And we should be prepared in the Digital PR.
– Stop scheduling social media content, or do so a few days in advance only.
– Consider content strategy on a day-by-day basis to work better as this moment is fluid. We don’t know what is going to happen or what the next day may bring. While we can and should plan for what we think will happen and the content we assume people may want, reality is that things will continue to change instantly.
– It’s not the time to go dark on social media or freeze ad spending. Instead, consider how to be meaningful and memorable to retain, grow and expand followers and customers tomorrow.
– Expect parts of the country to open and relax restrictions at different rates. For communicators, this means thinking and acting hyper locally when it comes to digital advertising and promotion.
– People are relying on digital tools and platforms to communicate and stay connected. Creativity, relevance and messaging are more critical at this moment. Those who fail to change will be left behind.
Regardless of the type of brand, reacting and preparing for a coronavirus outbreak should follow the rules of a typical public relations crisis.
Here some do’s:
– Let the medical authorities do their thing;
Don’t try to explain how surgical masks work, or determine how healthy one must be in order to fulfill his duties as employee or customer. Stick to the basics, and let your users know you are thinking about their well being.
– Over-communicate;
People want information. Even if it’s information about receiving information. Staying radio silent fuels rumors and doubts.
– Easy navigation;
If you are looking to distribute information, make it easy for people to find. The best place to put urgent policy news is on the homepage of your website. Use bold colors.
– Embrace the consumer;
What needs to be communicated is that the decisions were made in the consumers’ best interests.
– Don’t lie;
Savvy consumers can see right through any sort of forced positivity. Calming messages are a nice thought, but ultimately people just want to know the facts and how they can best protect themselves.
The last Super Bowl in US has brought a very interesting premiere. FOX TV the broadcaster of the match has optimized the screen for the mobile users to take photos of the match for sharing in the social media. Nice move! This can be used in other situations in order to have visibility as a brand.
– Use public feeds to increase reach
Use public feeds to build brand awareness and promote discovery with broad audiences.
Don’t rely on organic social alone—lean on social advertising and influencer marketing to increase your reach.
– Offer value in private channels
People go to private channels to escape noisy and impersonal public feeds.
Have a clear purpose for engaging one-to-one on private channels, and ensure you’re adding value in every conversation.
– Automate the easy stuff
Use a blend of automation and human connection to build deep relationships on private channels.
Bots are best for addressing the most common customer queries, but real people still need to handle the more nuanced and complex conversations.
– Deliver on your corporate promises
People are quick to call out organizations that run purpose-driven marketing without taking concrete action.
– Focus on advocacy, not algorithms
Find the time to source content and make it easy for employees to share it across social media.
A new campaign or client can excite you.
Regardless, you need to perform well, generate media coverage and the many other things PR pros do. But what do you do if there’s zero direction, content or potential stories?
Start asking some questions.
1. Have you hired staff recently?
People naturally are interested in who works where.
2. Have you won contracts recently?
Readers in some publications want to know what businesses and suppliers work with one another.
3. Are you planning to launch any services?
This indicates there must be a clear gap in the market to be filled.
4. What are your expansion and growth plans?
Local media love these kinds of stories. A good angle to pursue is whether or not this means new jobs will come to town.
5. Do you have any interesting data to share?
Find out if staff has sales data or reports they can share. Data journalism is becoming a more popular.
6. Do you have staff willing to put their name forward for PR efforts?
Ask whether there are specialists willing to go on the circuit. Make diversity an imperative in your choice of spokespeople and subject matter experts.
While some communicators have the benefit of focusing solely on social, the majority of us must take a mar-comm approach for our organizations, merging public relations with social media management.
I must clear up the lack of understanding as to how the media works—everyone seems to be winging it. A basic understanding of journalists’ priorities would serve our professional communities and help educate the newest entrants of this industry.
A simple approach to improving press releases and pitches is the following: be SMART.
S: Strategic Stories that are well planned and developed.
M: Meaningful to the recipient (not your boss!).
A: Accurate (in facts and newsworthiness), distributed to media lists that are…
R: Relevant.
T: Targeted.
Email and social media have provided a zillion corners to cut. As a mental exercise, avoid leaning on your digital laurels for once and pretend that you are going to call someone—interrupting their day—and have 10 seconds to make your pitch. That was in the old times, but still a good memento to think.
The firehose propaganda is a technique in which a large number of messages are broadcast rapidly, repetitively, and continuously over multiple channels (such as news and social media) without regard for truth or consistency.
We are not speaking about propaganda in digital PR or in marketing and certainly not about lies and fake info. However, we can use the concept in order to initiate a stormy campaign if we need to be visible in a very short time.
Here are some rules in order to succeed and…to be deontological valid:
1. Keep active and collaborate as much as you can with various channels and online outlets.
2. Be sure you have a unitary message, but adapt it to the channel.
3. Make a nice landing page for the campaign that can be reach once the message is read.
4. Wrap the message in catchy, amazing (BUT TRUE) facts. (Eg. The first biped hominid was not in Africa. It was Europe!)
This tactic must be used carefully and should be very well supervised. I recommend a campaign on maximum 10 day.
A mix of traditional PR and online tactics, digital PR can be a hugely valuable part of a marketer’s strategy.
A. Clear Goals
One of the primary difference between digital PR and traditional PR is that digital tends to be much easier to measure.
In digital PR, we can monitor effectiveness through:
1. Links
2. Link Positioning
3. Traffic
B. Have Credibility
1. Have something to prove your credibility in the topic.
2. Have a spokesperson on the topic
3. Have a reason to talk on that topic
C. Think Like a Journalist
Typically, the further removed the topic from the business’ core products/services, the less sales-y it sounds.
Be Creative, Be Inspired, Be Better
A good practice is for digital PR teams to share elements of interesting campaigns they see in the press. Similarly, teams should keep a record of what inspires them.
Search engine optimization is a term to describe what people do to help a website rank on search engines like Google.
Let’s see few important measurements you must watch for SEO.