Social Media Just Changed Again! Did Your Marketing Strategy?

Just the other morning I was reminded (as if I needed any reminding!) that social media evolves more quickly than I can type in my username and password.

On that day, Jay York and Brittany Vaill, two of EMSI’s social media strategists, were discussing changes in the works for Instagram and what the implications might be for us and our clients.

As I listened to them discuss – and at times bemoan – what was happening with Instagram, it hit me that the details of this particular change weren’t nearly as crucial as the fact that a change was happening at all. (Jay smilingly said, “Marsha, get used to it!”)

But, why is this important? Because each change in how social media platforms operate affects how well or how poorly individuals and businesses use them in their marketing and personal branding efforts.

By now, nearly everybody agrees that social media is a key ingredient to any marketing plan, but aimlessly tweeting and liking things doesn’t get the job done.

If you’re serious about social media as a marketing tool – and you should be – it’s essential to have a professional involved who would track trends and adapt your marketing strategy to the newest features available – like when Instagram switches things up on you.

We’ve even reached the point where colleges and technical schools recognize that social media is a necessary ingredient for public relations and marketing, and have added social media courses and degree programs to their curriculum.

Let’s take one example. The Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising offers both two-year and four-year social media degrees, and the school’s description of its program perfectly sums up why you need a professional.

The institute’s website says students “learn how to identify, engage, and communicate with their target markets and online communities, build and maintain consumer loyalty, and develop techniques to maximize growth.”

Exactly! The person who handles your social media needs to have a combination of social media knowledge AND marketing savvy. They need to monitor the changing social media landscape and understand how to take advantage of those sometimes bewildering changes.

Look at some examples of what’s been happening recently in social media:

• Instagram. This is the platform that raised the eyebrows of Jay and Brittany, and got me thinking about this whole topic. In a nutshell, Instagram is changing the way posts are displayed. In the past, users saw posts in chronological order. Now the order will be based on the likelihood you’ll be interested in the content, your relationship with whoever is posting, and the timeliness of the post. How that will affect marketing efforts may not be clear immediately, but Jay and Brittany suspect it could mean you will have to pay for ads if you want to ensure your targeted audience sees your posts. The marketing community will now spend countless hours analyzing this change and inventing ways to ensure their clients remain relevant – an all too familiar necessity in their field of work.

• Facebook. If you have a video message to get out, Facebook now offers a live video-streaming feature. Once again, the full potential might not be clear just yet, but this could be an excellent added component to marketing efforts.

• Twitter. This is the social media site that forced everyone to come up with short, snappy messages because of its 140-character limit for tweets. But Twitter reportedly is increasing the character count, which could change the entire culture of Twitter.

Those are just a few examples from three of the more common social media platforms. As I noted earlier, the specifics of the changes aren’t nearly as important as the fact that change is happening and your success will depend heavily on whether or not you’re keeping up.

As little as a year or two ago, it may have been acceptable to have a less experienced person – like a college intern or family member – run your social media. But, with the importance of social media today as part of a marketing strategy, to win at it you need to send in a professional!

Keeping you posted!

Marsha

P.S. If you need professional help with your social media efforts, give us a call at 727-443-7115 ext. 215 or simply click here to get started with your Free Media Analysis!

 

If They Can Attract The National Media Spotlight, So Can You!

One of my favorite moments each day comes during our morning meeting at EMSI when my team shares some of the success stories we’ve had landing our clients appearances in print, on TV and on radio, or building their brand on social media.

And recently, we’ve had some really great “hits” for our clients. One will be appearing on “The Dr. Oz Show” and two others were featured on “Daytime,” the nationally syndicated lifestyle talk show. Clients also were quoted or featured in such top-tier publications as USA Today and Essence magazine, just to give you a couple of more examples.

I share this not so much to brag (although I can’t help but be proud of these accomplishments), but because I think there’s a lesson in here for those who don’t believe the media would be interested in them.

Consider this: Our clients come to us from all walks of life. They are corporate executives, book authors, financial planners, educators, scientists, doctors, attorneys and nutritionists, just to name a few.

They are experts in their fields, and possibly known within certain circles, but they are not household names. In other words, they are men and women just like you – with the exception that they are being quoted and interviewed by the nation’s top media.

So how do we land them these great opportunities to promote and build their brands? One way is that we follow the news, keeping up to date on the latest trends or issues facing the nation and the world. That way we can let journalists or talk show hosts know that we have a client who can speak with authority on the hot topic of the day.

I’ve often said that EMSI serves two clients: those who pay us to get them publicity and the media, for whom we provide valuable content and subject-matter experts like you. It’s always a great feeling when we can make them both happy.

Let me share a few more highlights from the hundreds of placements we’ve secured in the last month for clients like yourself who have hired us to help them build their personal or corporate brand:

• National and local TV appearances. The outstanding television exposure for our clients this past month went beyond “Dr. Oz” and “Daytime.” We also landed appearances nationally on Al Jazeera and Newsmax TV. What’s more, we booked clients on local network affiliate TV shows in top markets such as Tampa, Nashville, West Palm Beach and Washington, DC.

• Print, both traditional and online. In addition to USA Today and Time magazine, our clients have made recent appearances in Money magazine, the Los Angeles Times, Essence, AARP Bulletin, the Houston Chronicle, Investor’s Business Daily, New York Daily News, New York Post and TheStreet.com.

• Social media. One client we manage social media for is a premium lozenge brand. On this client’s behalf, we’ve been able to get considerable response and interaction with high-status Broadway performers, as well as complete productions that are currently showing on Broadway. This priceless coverage and social equity gave the brand an opening to grow its market base beyond niche performers to tap into the amateur market as well as vocalists who aren’t aware of the brand’s usefulness with Broadway performers.

• Talk radio interviews. Our clients continue to make engaging guests for talk-radio hosts. These past four weeks we booked interviews on more than 100 talk-radio shows, including national shows, cable shows and top-rated shows in cities around the country. That means lots of listeners are hearing what our clients have to say.

Let me just add that another key ingredient to publicity success is this: The clients who enjoy the best PR campaigns are those who are most willing to accommodate the media’s needs.

They drop what they are doing to get on the phone with a reporter who’s on a deadline. They write articles for publications that request them. They show a willingness to discuss topics within their expertise, even when the particular topic doesn’t exactly fit the focus of their PR campaign.

With our help, these clients were able to grab the attention of the media spotlight.

You can, too!

Marsha

P.S. If you want professional assistance in attracting the media spotlight, give us a call at 727-443-7115 ext. 215 or click here to get started with your Free Media Analysis.

Make Your Passion Part Of Your Personal Branding Effort

Recently, I was chatting with a new client, and hearing his remarkable story reminded me of how we often separate our professional branding efforts from our true passions.

And that may not be the best way to go.

This particular client spent much of his career working with a famous athlete.

That might be interesting on its own merits, but what he learned about himself along the way is that he had knowledge and experience he could share with young people to inspire them and affect their lives in a positive way.

Now he’s focused on that. I think what he discovered is true for many of us. We have careers we work at every day – and with any luck we are passionate about those careers – but we also have passions outside work that help shape who we are.

Maybe it’s helping disadvantaged young people. Maybe it’s volunteering with an animal-rescue group. Maybe it’s traveling on mission trips.

Sometimes we don’t get to focus on those passions as much as we would like. As another client notes, we tend to put the things we consider really important on the back burner while we get caught up in day-to-day living.

Or, as John Lennon wrote in one of his songs, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”

But I don’t think it has to be that way. Both your profession and your passion can be part of your everyday living and part of your brand. The two aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive, even though we often separate them.

Let me offer a few things to consider and maybe you’ll be inspired to put both your profession and your passion to work to help build your personal brand:

• Recognize you don’t have to wait. You can integrate your passion into your brand building right now. Let me give you an example of how simply it can work. I was speaking at an event once where I was preceded by a financial professional who discussed her philanthropic work. She clearly saw her professional career and her philanthropic efforts as distinct parts of her identity, with one having nothing to do with the other. After her speech, I suggested that her philanthropic work would be interesting to the local press and at the same time, elevate her and her company in the eyes of the community and in the eyes of her clients and prospective clients.

• Share that passion widely. Just like that financial professional, you might not recognize it, but this other dimension of you is worth letting people know about – although you may have to overcome your modesty. Don’t be shy about making use of social media to share what you’re doing and letting the press know. Let your clients know, too. You may be surprised at their interest in helping with your cause. This isn’t about bragging. This is about an aspect of your life and personality that is a legitimate part of who you are.

• Be authentic. Let me add this slight caveat. You should be passionate about something because you truly are passionate about it, not because it provides PR potential. Let the PR flow from your passion and not vice versa.

When people learn more about you on this personal level, they are more likely to be attracted to you and want to do business with you. And the great thing is you accomplish that simply by revealing the true and more complex “you” to the world at large.

That’s genuine passion!

Marsha

P.S. If you need professional help promoting both your profession and your passion, give us a call at 727-443-7115 ext. 215 or click here to get started with your Free Media Analysis.

 

 

Put Your Story (And The Media) To Work In Building Your Brand

You may or may not consider yourself a great storyteller, but if you’re trying to promote a brand – whether it’s your personal brand or a company brand – let me assure you that you have a story to tell.

Maybe that story is how your product solves a cleaning problem in the kitchen. Maybe it’s how you overcame hardship in life to achieve great success. Maybe it’s how your education and years of experience can help others plan for retirement, save money on taxes or open a business.

It all comes down to the story being a part of your branding message and the foundation your company was built on.

If you can touch on just the right story elements – and do so in an engaging way – your brand can get the attention you’re seeking.

Of course, it does get a little more complicated than that because there are different ways to tell your story. Each medium available to you – TV, print, radio, social media – has its own strengths and represents a different opportunity.

• Television. TV is all about the visual, so if you land a TV interview you need to understand the role appearance plays in shaping your brand, from what you choose to wear to how you handle yourself in front of the camera. In fact, appearance comes into play in promoting your brand with or without TV! The look of your website or how your product is presented on store shelves gives hints to potential customers about your level of professionalism. Yes, rightly or wrongly, people do judge a book by its cover. Otherwise, publishers wouldn’t put so many graphic artists to work trying to create all those head-turning images!

• Radio. How you come across verbally also can have an impact. With radio, you make your brand’s case without the aid of any visual elements. You can’t refer radio listeners to a chart that expands on your message or let a PowerPoint presentation do your talking for you. It’s you and your voice, without any bells and whistles. This is about making the case for your brand in a back-and-forth conversation with a talk show host. You may need to be quick on your feet because a host’s questions and comments might veer off from your message. That’s your cue to – subtly – get things back on track.

• Print. With print – whether it’s traditional or online – you have the opportunity to share the expertise that your brand is built on. The print media is always looking for valuable information for their readers. If you can offer your expertise and give practical tips or advice that readers can make use of in their daily lives, you will at the same time be developing your brand’s image. This holds true whether you want to promote your personal brand or your business brand.

• Social media. Platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest are all about interacting, which is wonderful because another element of promoting your personal brand is putting your people skills into action. Social media provides an excellent opportunity to communicate with customers or potential customers. They often use social media to express their opinions about businesses and products, perhaps yours included. You need to be involved in those conversations because social media users want you to respond to their concerns and answer their questions promptly. A bonus is that in the process you might learn something new about your customers’ wants and needs, which could help improve how you do business.

You can – and should – take advantage of any and all of these media to grow your business and promote your brand, making the best use of each to put the spotlight on your professionalism, your customer service and your expertise.

Whether you’re on camera, on the radio, in print or exchanging tweets on Twitter, it all comes down to developing brand image in the most powerful way.

So, what’s your story?

Marsha

P.S. If you want professional help promoting your brand through print, radio, TV or social media, give us a call at 727-443-7115 ext. 215 or click here to get your Free Media Analysis.

Whether it’s business or personal, it’s never too soon to revisit your 2016 goals.

As the owner of a 25-year-old PR and marketing agency, I like to encourage business owners — and individuals, for that matter — to start their New Year by setting goals for the coming 12 months.

I know for myself, there have been times when I didn’t set goals or have a marketing strategy defined. Instead I meandered through the year, depending on good fortune rather than good planning. Click here to read more.

How To Harness The Power of Digital Print Coverage

On occasion I still work with clients who need a little convincing – OK, in some instances a lot of convincing – about the strong PR value of articles that appear online, as opposed to appearing in traditional print.

And just as I’m puzzling over how to explain it one more time, along comes a situation that makes my case for me.

Here’s what happened: Essence Magazine just wrote a flattering piece about a product we submitted on behalf of a client. And, they were as overjoyed as we were at this valuable exposure.

While the positive coverage was an excellent “hit” for the client on its own merits, the online exposure from the magazines’ own social media promotion added a multiplier effect. The product enjoyed an extraordinary boost by being disseminated to the magazine’s hundreds of thousands of followers.

Essence directed their readers right to the article about the product through Twitter – and not just once, but multiple times over several days. You know, just in case they happened to miss it the first time. Or the second time. Or the third time. Or…

This editorial coverage cultivates brand equity that money can’t buy.

While traditional print has many of its own virtues, it’s hard to argue with the extra advantages that come with digital print. For one thing, it has staying power. It’s not unusual on the Internet to come across still-relevant articles that are one year, five years or 10 years old.

And, of course, one of the greatest benefits is the ease with which an article can be shared, just the way Essence shared the article about our client’s product.

That’s why I can’t stress too much the importance of those online placements. So let’s assume for a moment you or your company just landed a mention in the online version of a print publication. What can you do to make the most of the opportunity?

For answers to that, I turned to Jay York and Brittany Vaill, two of our social media strategists. This is what they had to say:

• Don’t miss the posting. You can’t get the maximum use of your print appearance if you’re unaware it’s even been posted on the publication’s website and shared through social media. There are a few options for tracking this so you don’t miss it when the article appears online. A simple Internet search might turn up something, but you also can use Google Alerts, which will email you anytime something about you or your company appears on the Internet. Also, check your social media regularly because the publication might have tagged you when it shared the article.

• Interact on social media. You’ll want to be part of any social media conversation that gets started as a result of the article being shared. If the publication tweeted a link to the article, then respond to the tweet and re-tweet it. Or if it’s a Facebook post, share it on your Facebook page. Also, be sure to reply to people commenting on the thread, thanking them for compliments and answering questions.

• Website links and blog links. Be sure to link to the article on your website and also on your blog. After all, you want to get all the mileage out of it you can. Jay suggests this additional tip: You can create a blog post and embed the tweet within it. Then use that blog as a reference for an email that you send to your client base. One of your goals should be to direct as much traffic to the article as possible. That’s because the more people who read it, the more it climbs in terms of search rankings. And that means yet even more people might come across it.

• Revisit the great moment a few weeks from now. When the initial hubbub about the article dies down, you can re-ignite it a month or so later. You’ve probably seen your friends make use of “Throwback Thursday” to post their high school photos or the baby picture of a child who’s now 21. You can do the same with the article, linking to it all over again, perhaps with a quick comment such as, “I still can’t believe all the positive responses I’ve gotten over the last month because of this.”

Remember, editorial coverage in traditional publications is extremely powerful in its own right. But the viral potential of digital press is gargantuan thanks to the unapologetically social nature of social media.

All because people like to share.

Marsha

P.S. If you want help landing print coverage and leveraging that coverage with the aid of professional social media public relations, give us a call at 727-443-7115 ext. 215 or click here to get your Free Media Analysis.