Mixing Digital And Traditional PR - An introduction

Mixing traditional and digital PRAn introduction to a new era of communicationsBy Adam VincenziniParatus Communications7 December 2009

Outline
Who’s presenting this and what is it about
Why new media / technology is important
A top line look at it’s impact on PR
What is PR
The evolution of PR
What is social media
What are the social media platforms
Who’s using social media and how
Case study
Tips and hints
Summary

Who’s presenting this?

My background…
10 years of PR / Communications experience in both Australia and the UK
Worked in both in agency and in-house environments, including managing PR for the Australia Cricket Team
Primarily a consumer expert, especially in the retail and sport sectors
Increasingly mixing traditional and digital PR
Studied PR at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia
Currently a consultant at Paratus Communications in London

Some of my tools…
…I have a Blog, I Tweet, I use Facebook, I’m on LinkedIn
(and a bunch of other things which we’ll get to later).

Today’s presentation…
…is about making sense of new media / technology and PR.

Why new media / technology is important
(especially for people about to enter the workforce)

Of the 6.1 billion people in the world, 3.1 billion of those are in work

Fortune 500 companies receive about 2,000 CVs a day

77% of the US workforce have Facebook account, and 26% speak a second language

There are moreBlackBerries and iPhones in the world than there are people in the UK

In 2007, 1 in 3 hires were made online in the US

The impact on PR

New media / technology, same job?
This is the crux of this whole presentation.
The goal posts may have shifted by the remit for PR remains the same.
Before we can explore this, we need to understand what PR really is…

What is PR…really??

PR simply involves…
…getting the right message, to the right people, in the right place at the right time.

We get our ‘messages’ across by creating news…
…based on the following criteria. If you are able to tick most of these boxes, you probably have a story on your hands.
The Paratus News Filter

Let’s bring that to life with a video case study…
Click box to play video
…the £10m Tongue (Costa Coffee / Paratus, 2009).
YouTube link: http://bit.ly/CC10mt

Here’s the standard study as well…

Evolution of PR: The Past

Let’s take a quick trip down memory lane…
When I did my first PR internship in 1997, this was how the world looked:
The only way media received information from PRs was by fax and ‘snail’ mail
Digitalcameras didn’t exist and getting a photo to the media often meant developing it yourself
Radio was the only media that could deliver news anywhere near ‘real time’
Hotmail had just been launched and was one of only a handful of free email services. Take note of the original logo!

Evolution of PR: The Present

The new PR world order…
Today’s PR channels and tools hardly bare any resemblance to those used in 1997.
1997
2009
The present is characterised by immediacy, interactivity and variety.

The game changer…
It’s hard to pinpoint one particular moment that spurred this change.
But, there is now doubt which has been the most impactful development: the explosion of Social Media.
Let’s take a look at what has been called the biggest movement since the industrial revolution…

What is Social Media?

It’s a fundamental shift from traditional PR / marketing methods

Instead of ‘speaking at’ your audience(s)
You’re ‘speaking with’ them

Paving the way for increased ‘engagement’ and ‘participation’ with you (and your brand)

It’s about having conversations, engaging and connecting online
(And hopefully translating that into ‘offline’ engagement)

How different are things? Let’s take a look…
…the Social Media Revolution (Socialnomics, 2009).
YouTube Link: http://bit.ly/SMrevSE

The Social Media platforms aka tools

Push v Pull…
The tools at your disposal have two primary uses:
Outwardly contributing
Inwardly receiving
The benefits of both are very even.
Let’s look at some of the tools / platforms that are used…

Social Networking
Video Sharing
Chat Rooms
Social Media Platforms
Blogging
Widgets
Micro Blogging
Podcasts
Photo Sharing
RSS
Forums

We’re going to look at three…
Social Networking
Blogging
Micro Blogging

Social Networking

Social Networking
Facebook just passed the 350 million user plateau
It has been home to some of the best Social Media campaigns of recent times (examples follow)
Fan pages are a great way to promote a business / brand / person
News is often created via ‘happenings’ on Facebook

Blogging

Blogging
Great example of communication being about dialogue as opposed to monologue
Powerful way of establishing yourself as a thought leader in your industry
Allows you to share news and views directly with your community
RSS and email allows subscribers to receive information as it goes live

MicroBlogging

Micro Blogging
Twitter is a powerful networking tool that allows you to engage with influencers and share information in real time
It can be used to let people know when you have new content on your Blog
It’s being increasingly used to ‘break’ news
It is also being used by brands to create news i.e. leading department store gave its staff Twitter enabled phones to answer customer queries this summer

How is the industry using social media?

Journalist view
Harry Wallop, Consumer Editor, Daily Telegraph:
“Pull: I get news from huge no of specialist sites, w/o need to trawl web.
Push: my stories get seen by 'test' audience w/ immediate feedback.”

PRs
I use social media, and Twitter in particular to:
Spread information / news
Grow networks / relationships
Communicate with media
Monitor sentiment
Obtain feedback
Share information
Bolster campaigns
If used well, social media is the PR person’s version of a microwave – something you quickly can’t live without.

Media Case study
Who am I?- I'm the 3rd most popular UK paper on Twitter (only the Guardian and FT have more followers)- My web traffic was up nearly 30% in the last 6 months- I have a Facebook page so popular that I had to create my own social network site
I am The 104-yr old Plymouth Herald and I am the future of regional media.

Case study (cont)
How is the Plymouth Herald reaching reaching more people than ever before:ThisIsPlymouth.co.uk - 225,000 Unique Visitors Per MonthTailored Twitter Feed - Nearly 7,000 FollowersYouTube ChannelFacebook Page 5,000 Friends (the limit)iHerald - the bespoke social network
The full list of channels from the Plymouth Herald can be found on the main website.
Not to mention the reach of the actual paper.

Case studies

Compare the market / meerkat…
…Aleksandr Orlov’s Top Nine Moments Of ‘09
YouTube link: http://bit.ly/61tJKi

Compare the market / meerkat…
Great example of an ‘integrated’ campaign, with a big focus on social media
Aleksandr has over 320,000 fans on Facebook
He has more than 100,000 followers on Twitter
These elements have helped making achieve ‘traditional’ media coverage for the brand easier as the public have developed a thirst for him i.e. they like ‘him’

Burger King Whopper Sacrifice (video case study)
…how much do you like your friends?
YouTube link: http://bit.ly/5B9uJn

Ikea Facebook Showroom (video case study)
…an overview of an incredibly clever campaign.
YouTube link: http://bit.ly/6cUPlI

Tips and hints

10 things I’ve learnt about Social Media
Take your time - the hardest one for me as I'm so incredibly impatient, but like anything new, absorb as much as you can and then gently enter the fray when you're more confident in what you're saying / doing
Be you - so simple, but there's no point in adopting a 'persona' that isn't you - I'm interested in what people are saying / sharing, not how they do it or how they'd like to be 'positioned' - and showcase your personality, robots are boring, 'real' people are great
Learn from mistakes - yep, I've done some stuff online in the last 6 months which makes me shudder, but I'm (trying) not to repeat those mistakes
Keep (and absorb) good stuff - so many helpful / useful bits of information are shared everyday, but are forgotten just as quickly - Twitter's 'favourites' button is great for this - go back and read them over again when you have more time
Be disciplined with your time management - it's so easy to spend hours digging and digging because their is no 'bottom' - allocate your time (if you can) and use a client like Hootsuite to schedule your tweets during the day

10 things I’ve learnt about Social Media (cont)
Talk back - its a conversation medium so respond to people who make an effort to talk to you, or at least acknowledge them when you can
Get out there - the best things I've learnt have been over a coffee or a drink with people who know more than me - convert the social introduction made online into a social relationship
Help where you can - I think social media is bringing about a renaissance in 'sharing' - and its great - if you can help someone with a query / question, do just that...it'll help build relationships and your reputation
Pick some areas to 'own' - I remember being told as a kid 'don't just say something for the sake of it' - I think the same applies here, talk about things that you have knowledge about but try and make it about 'value' not 'volume‘
Write yourself some guidelines / a strategy - 'failing to plan is planning to fail' - same goes here, give yourself a bit of structure and it'll focus your energy in the right places

Summary

Social media and new technology in the area of PR probably hasn’t even scratched the surface of where it’s likely to be in a few years.
It needs to be part of a modern PRs toolkit, and is just as important as any other tool we have.
Embrace it and enjoy sharing.

Connecting / Credits
Credits:
Information and imagryused in this presentation was made possible via a number of sources, including:
Gemma Went (Red Cube Marketing), LitmanLive.co.uk, sxc.hu, Socialnomics, VCCP and others.
Thanks for sharing.
Stay connected to via:
Blog 1: thecommscorner.blogspot.com
Blog 2: paratuscommunications.blogspot.com
Twitter: Twitter.com/AdamVincezini
LinkedIn: uk.linkedin.com/in/AdamVincenzini
Web: paratuscommunications.com
Email: adam@paratuscommunications.com

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Mixing Digital And Traditional PR - An introduction

by Adam Vincenzini

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