Happy Friday! This week has been an exciting one, with the return of HBO’s “True Blood” and the U.S. advancing to the next round of the World Cup, even after a loss to Germany. With all these fun distractions you may have missed some of this week’s notable news in PR, social media and content marketing:
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I recently participated as a panelist in a webinar by BusinessWire for public relations professionals who pitch to journalists covering sports. I was asked to be a panelist because of my experience as a sports business analyst and reporter for outlets such as ESPN, Forbes, and Comcast Sports Southeast. However, I also brought something to the table the other journalists on the panel did not: I’m also a public relations professional.
Before the webinar, each panelist was asked to think of three things public relations professionals should know before pitching to journalists. I think all three of us on the panel immediately went to some version of advising people to only pitch us content relevant to our reporting and our platform. I would conservatively estimate 60 percent of the pitches I receive are on topics or story angles I would never cover for any of the outlets where I report.
A larger problem I discussed, however, is that I miss pitches that are perfect for my reporting because I simply can’t read every email I receive. That’s why it’s imperative to hook journalists from the subject line of your email.
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If you’ve ever worked with a public relations agency—or any consulting firm or professional services provider for that matter—you know that the outcomes can vary widely. There are many, many PR firms out there, and their level of expertise, experience and ability to consistently deliver results varies greatly.
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We made it to Friday! What a week. We enjoyed a quick trip to Atlanta to present to the Legal Marketing Association on media relations, put the final touches on two new blogs for two separate clients, publicized a corporate client’s acquisition, brainstormed names for a new company, wrote a variety of blog posts and press releases, and much more!
Here’s what happened in the world of marketing and public relations:
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As previously outlined, content marketing isn’t a fad. Times have changed for marketers and will continue to do so almost daily. Following the successes of startups like Pinterest and Twitter, today’s savvy (or just plain broke) marketers are turning to growth hacking instead of traditional marketing techniques.
Growth hacking is defined as using conventional and unconventional tactics to grow a user base startup-style. Some examples you may be familiar with include Twitter’s “Who to Follow” prompter and Dropbox’s rewarding more storage space to users who invited friends to use the platform.
But these tactics aren’t just for startups. They’re actually the new MO of marketing. And at the core, they’re all about knowing who your customers are, where they reside on the web and what motivates them.
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It’s one of the most overused sentences in the communications industry:
“Let’s do a press release!”
The press release is perhaps the best-known public relations tool. As a result, it tends to be the first option that comes to mind when a client or company wants to get the word out about their latest project or initiative. But there are a lot of other tools in the PR toolbox that may be more appropriate – and effective – depending upon your situation, your topic and your communications objectives.
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We’re excited to launch a new feature today on INKsights. That’s a Wrap is our Friday round up of some of the week’s most notable stories in marketing, public relations, social media, digital media and content marketing. Our goal is to keep you informed so you can more effectively market and communicate in today’s ever-changing digital world.
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Some people are blessed with the gift of gab. If you’re not one of those people who can walk into a room full of strangers and strike up a conversation, however, you need to master the art of the icebreaker. You can use some visual as an icebreaker – a company logo or perhaps a lapel pin – or you can put in a little time and research your way into an icebreaker.
Some icebreakers are visual. Lou Imbriano, President and CEO of TrinityOne, a marketing strategy and business advisory consultancy, has it easy when it comes to icebreakers: he has three Super Bowl rings from his time spent as chief marketing officer of the New England Patriots. They’re big, they easily draw people’s attention, and everyone wants to hold one. He doesn’t have to look for conversation, it finds him.
I lucked into my own visual icebreaker when I created a logo for my work as a sports business reporter and analyst. It was a real photograph taken of me for my book on Major League Baseball’s collective bargaining agreement that a friend with graphic design capabilities turned into my now signature logo.
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As website content writers and strategists, we’ve been involved in many projects that go like this: An information architecture (the organization or structure of the site) has already been developed, wireframes created, page layouts designed, colors chosen, photos taken and “lorem ipsum” (industry standard “dummy” text) placed throughout. And that’s when we get a call. Our assignment is to write the copy (the text on the page), which will be “flowed in” just before the site goes live.
While this is an incredibly common way to build websites, it’s not the most effective. As Jeffrey Zeldman, author of Designing with Web Standards, once said, “Design in the absence of content is not design, it’s decoration.” However Zeldman also said, “‘Content’ doesn’t mean ‘having all the copy.’ It means knowing what the site is about, what kinds of information it will present; it also means knowing something about the intended users and what they might want to be able to do on such a website.”
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Google’s social media and sharing platform, Google+, has been around for over two years now. My previous experience with the platform involved joining back in 2011, adding some circles and sitting back only to hear crickets. Since then, I’ve been guilty of putting Google+ on the back burner and going on about my business. Maybe this sounds like you, or maybe you’ve never even considered Google+ since Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter have you busy enough as it is. Either way, it’s time to give Google+ its props.
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