Digital Public Relations and Online Reputation Management

New Media Relations = Digital PR

By Celestine Achi

CEO/Chief Digital Marketing Strategist Cihan Group – www.cihangroup.net

Twitter: @cihangroup

The World is Changing

INTRODUCTION

Digital Media: Overview, Delineation, Evolution

Goals, Challenges, Myths & Trends

How it Works: Strategies and Tools

Online Reputation Management: Basics

Tips, Strategies and Tools

Your top 3 take-outs from today...

The World is Changing

The way we work

The way we shop

The way we think

The way we view the world

The way communicate

The way we get information

The way we share information

The way we interact

Communication as we know it today

Internet is for the technologically savvy

Dominated by web designers and developers

Websites are static

Numbers are still limited

Communication is one-way

Users are low

Contents are monotonous

Connection slow

Storage capacity limited

Web 1.0 Web 2.0

From static web pages To dialogue pages

Keeping up isn’t good enough anymore

Explosion in internet usage

More connection, more speed, more storage

Affordable and accessible

Anyone can build a site/blog

People actively participate

User generated content

Websites became dynamic

People can openly discuss and comment

People can share and make it viral

Communications became two-way

Who are the users?

Employees Activists

Managers Guild associations

Customers Communities

Investors Unions

Suppliers Opinion leaders

Retailers Experts

Distributors Media

Regulating bodies Public at large

Everyone is now a media outlet

Source: Ericcson

Ubiquitous Connectivity

Create

Consume

Publish

Interact

Transact

“50 billion connected devices: 2020.”

Everyone is a media outlet Same idea in 100 places has an amplifying effect

All thanks to the Internet

Social + Media Relations

More outlets

Better research

New relationship-building opportunities

Bypass (some) gatekeepers

If you're not quick, you're not relevant

Tech-Savvy Journalists 81% of journalists are on Twitter 75% of them using it for work 91% of journalists believe their reliance on social media has increased 33% of journalists use social media to find sources 80% of journalists believe their newsrooms encourage the use of social

media

As of May 2010. Needs to be updated 1.17 billion internet users worldwide 126+ Trillion the number of blogs 55+ million internet users (32.9%) 20+ million of Social networking users Swift changes being seen in newspaper readership habits Major circulation and ad revenue declines Newspapers testing new tactics (comments, popularity ranking, narrower pages) Five of the top 10 visited websites are social (source: Alexa) 48+ million broadband internet subscribers 110 million mobile subscribers (77%)

Source http://www.internetworldstats.com/africa.htm#id

How Digital is Nigeria

After 100 years, technology enabled new means of communication. Significant broadband penetration helped foster widespread growth of social media and made news an extremely volatile industry.

WHERE DOES ALL OF THIS LEAD TO AND WHY SHOULD PR CARE?

Today's Digital PR: 5 Key Trends

Today's Digital PR: 5 Key Trends In 2015, Social Media will move beyond growth to saturation. This means that digital public relations is changing quickly. Here's a quick look at what social media saturation and mobile growth mean for public relations this year.

Social Media becoming dominant form of online content

1. The social media category as a whole is on the cusp of becoming the dominant form of online content; it accounted for over 26.6% of Internet time in 2012. And this year it is expected to surpass portals as the most engaging online activity. Engagement is the key word there.

2. People are constantly connected and consuming media, which sounds daunting but it is great news for media creators. And now PR professionals are not solely pitching the media, but they too are media creators.

3. Think like PR People and Measure. Leverage the converged media: This means online media formats are converging. "P.O.E.M." (Paid, Owned, Earned Media) is now really the future. (Paid being advertising and sponsorships. Owned being content created by brands/corporations. And Earned being press placements and media partnership). Lucky for PR Professionals, the measurement tools for Owned and Earned are getting better and better. Just look at how much the Facebook Insights product has evolved since it launched.

The future of media strategy and pubic relations professionals can lead the strategy. They have the most experience in strategic communications, cross platform media and rapid response. The future is to think like PR people but measure using the P.O.E.M strategy.

Comscore’s recent social media study

Today's Digital PR: 5 Key Trends

4. Identify and Engage Influencers: These are early adopters with established owned and earned media. PR professionals need get on board with their peeps. Find the people who are most passionate about what you're doing. These are the new “influencers.”

5. An age-old complaint within the PR industry has been lack of budgets and small staffs. That's likely not going to change anytime soon. But there are new ways PR executives can make their small teams more powerful with fewer resources. First, embrace the machine. "Automation" is no longer a scary word – Let your content be findable, shareable, Finally, maximize the media hits you do get. Let it be shared everywhere.

Because, increasingly, if it didn't happen on the Internet, it didn't happen.

Introduction to Digital PR

Today's Digital PR: 5 Key Trends

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PR offline or on is about building awareness, credibility and goodwill.

It’s about building a presence and gaining the understanding and support of your stakeholders.

PR has always been about creating a favorable operating climate for a company or organization.

Digital PR is no different. It’s about building that presence online and developing strong relationships with all the players in your social graph. The techniques include SEO, content development, social media, online newsrooms, websites, blogs and online media

coverage.

INTRODUCTION!

Digital public relations is a powerful tool that will enhance your corporate communications further, faster, wider, cheaper and more interactive, something that would otherwise be impossible to do in the traditional public relations.

Finally, Digital PR is the ability to… Spread positive and promotional messaging

Control negative and damaging messaging

2013 Digital PR SkIlls

2014 PR Skills

Visual Storytelling: Images, infographics, video scripting, shooting and editing.

Monitoring: Listening to the right conversations

Analysing content: So much more than we used to do with media content, this encompasses analysing the online conversations for tone, sentiment, share of voice and opportunities

Measurement: Gone are the days of fuzzy PR stats. Digital PR measures every click and every outcome. You need to know how to use Google Analytics, social reporting tools and how to set up dashboards.

Get your team familiar with the tools that allow you to effectively produce and distribute excellent PR content GOALS FOR PR

Goals for PR Increase Exposure

Educate Audiences

Improve Positioning

Increase Mind Share

Increase Sales

Obtain Members

Raise Awareness for Mission

Source: Shonali Burke – From WTF to KPI: Measuring the Value of PR

THE ROLE FOR DIGITAL PR

The Role of Digital PR Native advertising is based on storytelling. Who better to tell brand stories than the PR people? We know how to tell stories well. Now we need to learn how to:

Present stories digitally Tell them in 140 characters Add the right visual assets Distribute them online to best

effect Track outcomes

Just as the lines between journalists and bloggers are blurring, so are the lines between advertising marketing and PR. PR is not only about earned media anymore. Learn to master owned media and paid media too.

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Challenges What happens on the Internet

stays on the Internet – good or bad

It makes your client vulnerable The landscape is changing

everyday Creativity and Out of the Box

thinking is a pre-requisite News spreads like a forest fire

and if not controlled properly, it can kill your brand

Here a crisis can lead to the end of your career, if not handled properly

STRATEGY TO ADOPT FOR CHALLENGES

Strategy

Content

Connection

Interaction

Integration

Tools

Requirements

Creating pages on social networks will get you fans/followers

Creating a group will get you members

Unlike offline PR, online PR does not require a strategy, it is all about sharing stuff online

Like offline PR, online PR cannot be really measured

Busting Myths

TDIGITAL PR TOOLS

AND HOW DOES IT WORK?

IS THERE A TOOLBOX FOR IT?

YES THERE ARE 5 TOOLS

Press Releases(SEO & SEM Optimized)

Media pitches

Social Networking Profiles

Expert Groups, Blogs and Forums

Contributed Articles/Thought Leadership articles

Research Reports

Webinars

Digital Assets ( SEO optimized Videos, Podcasts, Presentations, Photographs)

Search & Social media monitoring (Reputation management)

Digital PR Tool Box

Master SEO Basics - Keyword optimization is the key here.

There has to be constant News content that is ripe for optimization.

Optimizing the content can help the content

rank well in the search engines.

1. SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

Engaging influencers and customers to perpetuate a positive brand image.

Identify & empower the brand ambassadors.

Proactive content optimization helps dispel negative image and accentuate what’s positive.

2. SOCIAL MEDIA

Optimizing digital assets with relevant keywords.

Either promoting or submitting to

vertical search engines that can provide

additional exposure to media.

3. DIGITAL ASSETS

Well-optimized and linked blog posts can

rank well in the search engines.

Blogger relations is often more successful

when the company being pitched has its own blog to point to.

4. BLOGGING

Why Blogger Relations?

• 89% of journalists research story ideas on blogs

• Social media and blogs dominate Nigerians' time online (23%)

• Social media grew 122% year-over-year

Is blogs a threat to journalism?

Social: mine new ideas, keep tabs on competitors, identify brand ambassadors and address any negative press quickly and directly.

Search: news optimization efforts and provide insight into search

traffic effectiveness.

5. SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

Social Amplifies Media Coverage

OWN YOUT OWN STORY

• Social media release

• Add social sharing to the launch timeline: – Facebook and Twitter “drip” campaigns

– Identify when & how news can be shared online

– Provide sample posts

– Internal communication is critical

• Coordinate with high-profile supporters

• Update closed/secret Facebook groups

• Monitor online conversations on FB, Twitter, Quora, blogs, etc. Respond as appropriate.

Digital PR checklist

Digital PR = Engage, Involve, Collaborate

DIGITAL PR CHECKLIST Decide on what is the objective of your Digital media

campaign. Is it creating awareness or lead generation?

Depending on your objective, select the digital channels that would be relevant to achieving your goals

Understand what motivates people to follow brands on these channels, your campaigns for each of these channels should be customized to meet the needs of your target audience. The reason why people follow a brand on LinkedIn is different from why they follow on Facebook

Be creative in your approach and plan on sustaining the momentum

DIGITAL PR CHECKLIST Decide on what kind of collaterals you will need Create your Content Strategy Use your social networks to follow your target

media, to understand what they like to write about, what story angles intrigue them and how best can you pitch to them

In addition to your traditional mediums like emails, use social networks like twitter to pitch to your target media

Social networks are great for building relationships. Focus on the relationship and not on marketing to an individual, rest will follow

Online media is about give and take and not just for telling your side of the story always

What’s Your Content Strategy?

Don’t Leave Content To

Chance. Develop a Content

Repository System

WHAT IS DIGITAL PR WITHOUT ORM

ONLINE REPUTATION MANAGEMENT

People are going to talk about your business, whether that conversation is positive or negative can come down to how involved you are in those conversations.

Online reputation is quickly becoming as important, if not more so, than real world reputation since the internet makes a lasting impression and creates an on-going record for people to view over and over again.

If a business fails to cultivate a positive online image they are likely to suffer from it. Cultivating digital conversations requires proactive involvement and unique digital public relations skills with a unique optimization understanding not familiar to most traditional PR experts.

Do You Know What People Are Saying

About Your Business Online?

Online reputation management (or monitoring) is the

practice of monitoring the Internet reputation of a

person, brand or business, with the goal of suppressing

negative mentions entirely, or pushing them lower on

search engine results pages to decrease their visibility.

Wikipedia Definition

ONLINE REPUTATION MANAGEMENT: DEFINITION

Online reputation management: What are you already doing?

Your Prospects Are Online Your Competitors Are Online Your Customers Are Online

… That Includes Your UNHAPPY Customers

IDENTITY VS IMAGE

WHY IS ORM IMPORTANT TO THE DIGITAL PR PROFESSIONAL?

WHAT ARE PEOPLE SAYING ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS

NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF ORM

LISTENING: AN INTEGRAL PART OF DIGITAL PR

Bad Customer Experience

Unresolved Customer Issues

Bad Reputation

HOW TO MAINTAIN YOUR ORM

NEGATIVE ORM

MAINTAIN YOUR REPUTATION

Manage Your Digital Footprint Be PROACTIVE instead of REACTIVE Monitor Online Conversations About

Your Business Respond and Interact with Consumers

Online Create and Distribute POSITIVE

Content Regularly Understanding the mechanisms

through which content and search define your organisation’s reputation

Designing monitoring systems to deliver intelligence about your reputation in social media

Influencing what Google says about you including the science of SEO

Creating engaging Web content designed to catch the attention of Google, including online news releases

Design a content strategy for your organisation Give adequate provision of timely and helpful information

Online reputation management basics: Can reputation really be managed?

Crisis response using social media 1. Scramble your Rapid Response Crisis Communications team, and alert senior management to the crisis that is unfolding 2. Go public as soon as possible by making your crisis blog live and visible with latest information, updates and instructions; promote with Google Ads 3. keep information true, helpful and brief, explain how you are resolving the situation, respond to legitimate questions honestly - this is not the time for spin. 4. Be Responsive and Responsible 5. Update staff on the situation, and on any changes to traditional and online communications during the crisis 6. Reach out to key online contacts (bloggers, journalists, page/forum moderators)by email and text with a personal message and a latest update, pointing them to your crisis blog 7. Pay particular attention to monitoring your reputational health (e.g. NPS) post-crisis

WHAT WORKS

What works 1... Expectation-beating experiences:

Reputation Management = Experience Management “80% of variation in reputation is accounted for by the degree experience beats expectations”- (Weber Shandwick Research 2009) 2...Managing visibility Google loves Social Media 3... Real-time information service (crises) WHAT TO MONITOR

Reputation management basics:

website popup / online survey online sentiment monitoring software reach of mentions (Net sentiment (positive - negative mentions) Google Alerts What to Monitor Organisation name Online Conversations Trademarks Key personnel Sector issues Key competitors / partners

SUMMARY

GOOGLE

Set up an alert

• I set up a notification system with Google Alert to notify you of postings related to your name.

Mobile: 08037197175. Email: celestine@cihangroup.net