but remember that your overallapproach needs to be built aroundhow your audience prefers to receiveinformation and to communicate.Newswires and online distributionservices: Tim Gibbon, director atmedia consultancy Elemental, pointsout that online distribution servicessuch as www.sourcewire.com andwww.prweb.com can extend the reachof press releases to search engines,news sites, RSS and news readers.While writing press releases tends stillto remain in the PR department’sdomain, it’s important to know what isbeing said. “RSS readers are incrediblyhelpful to monitor not only targetingonline media sites, but alsocompetitor’s sites and relevant blogs,”he says.Video and photosharing sites:Video can bring dry B2B topics to life,so YouTube – the second biggestsearch engine after Google – can bevery useful for B2B brands.Photosharing sites like Flickr can alsobe used for marketing purposes, andsites like SlideShare enable you toupload powerpoint presentations forpublic consumption. The only limit isyour own creativity. Measurement and monitoringtools: Free and paid-for social mediamonitoring tools, such as TweetDeck,Seesmic Desktop, HootSuite, Radian6and SM2 can make your life easier.However, a word of warning fromFranklin Rae’s Turnbull, “I’ve neverfound a tool that is as effective as thehuman brain in feeding backqualitative analysis.”Information portals: Every companyshould have an entry on Wikipedia.Such sites represent basic buildingblocks for online PR.

Your website: This might be the firstplace a potential customer looks. Doesit accurately reflect your brand’spersonality? If you have a news section,is it active? Websites can be incrediblypowerful marketing tools. Your search strategy: Every companyshould pay attention to its SEO strategy,or it’s like having a shop down analleyway that nobody can find. Butpositioning your brand at the top of thesearch results is only half the battle.Your approach to SEO must also linkback to creative and relevant content. Online publications: The onlinecomments sections of trade journalscan be a great way of getting yourcompany’s voice heard. Understand theonline presence of the offlinepublications that you target. Blogs and forums: Bloggers maychoose to evangelise about yourproducts and services, and their claimscan carry more weight than what youmight say yourself. Know who theinfluencers are, and what type ofcontent is driving them. Blogs can be aconvenient vehicle for your ownthought leadership material too. Social networks: Many experts agreethat LinkedIn is currently the numberone community for B2B purposes, butthere are numerous others that can beleveraged effectively. Twitter can beused in a number of ways: to offerexpertise or market special offers, andas a customer service tool. “Socialmedia sites link in heavy volumes soperform really well in search too,”notes Graham Lee, chief executive ofSocial Media Library.Email marketing: More traditionallywithin the marketing department’sremit, email is also likely to form acentral part of your online PR strategy –

www.b2bmarketing.net/social-media MARCH 2011 B2B MARKETING MAGAZINE 33

KNOWLEDGE BANK SOCIAL MEDIA

32 B2B MARKETING MAGAZINE MARCH 2011 www.b2bmarketing.net/social-media

KNOWLEDGE BANK SOCIAL MEDIA

Have I got newsfor youB2B marketers need to know how to manage brand reputation online,with or without the use of social media platforms or PR agencies. Lucy Fisher reveals six golden rules of online PR

what you want to say to them and whatyou want them to do. Don’t target thewhole of the worldwide web if yourpotential customers only congregate on ahandful of sites.

2. Listen carefullyBefore you dive in and start tweetingabout your latest product offers, take thetime to respond to what is going on in thedigital arena already. There are almostcertainly going to be communities inexistence on the web that are relevant toyour business and that you can getinvolved in.

“It’s amazing how many B2B brandshaven’t monitored where they are beingtalked about,” adds Dorney. Bear in mind,too, that online audiences will preferbeing communicated with, rather thanmarketed to, especially on social mediaplatforms like LinkedIn and Facebook.

3. Scrutinise your capabilitiesWork out whether you have the necessaryresources to implement a robust onlinePR strategy inhouse. If you are managinga global brand, you may need to employan agency. If you want a fresh perspectiveon creativity a third-party can help. Butdon’t bite off more than you can chew.

“Too many brands have grand ideasthat they can’t follow through,” warnsDan Sands, head of digital services at BiteCommunications. “Don’t build channels ifyou can’t properly manage or engagewith them. Unused Twitter or Facebookaccounts can be worse than none at all.”

There are also benefits to keeping theseskills inhouse, especially when weconsider that managing companyreputation online is not campaign-specific. It is a long term goal. What’smore, as a business you know yourproducts best and have a passion forthem. There is also value in your staffhaving relationships with key onlineinfluencers and in employing someone tomaintain consistency of approach.

Fortunately, there’s at least one bigdraw to investing in online PR and toensuring you understand it and cancontribute to it – if not manage it – as aB2B marketer. Like most forms of digitalmarketing, it has been widely touted asmore accountable than traditional offlinePR activity, which arguably relies oncrude measurements such as advertisingvalue equivalent (AVE).

ith marketers jumpingon the social mediabandwagon in theirdroves, it can be easyto dive in, unthinking,and forget what thepoint of it all is.

There’s no point in getting involvedpurely for the sake of it or becauseeveryone else is. Taking the time to put inplace an integrated, overarching onlinePR strategy can formalise your approachand help to tie all of your digitalcommunications together.

People are spending more time onlineso it pays to ensure your digital footprintis as good as it can be. First andforemost, it must be consistent, whetherit includes your website and a basic emailstrategy, or a regular presence onLinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and othersocial media sites, online publications and forums.

‘But all that is a PR’s job,’ you mightsay. Not so. As the Internet continues toblur the boundaries betweencommunications channels, and audiencesmove fluidly from one platform to thenext, B2B marketers need to understandat least the basics of online PR.

PR meets marketingAlongside TV or radio, your PRcolleagues will no longer beconcentrating all their efforts on thebroadsheets or relevant trade publications– they’ll be getting involved in what weretraditionally your areas too – emailmarketing, search, viral marketing, etc.Who does what varies, with something ofa turf war having broken out between PRand marketing. Marketing opportunitiesare there for the taking, but key tosuccess is effective collaboration.

“Everybody needs to be workingtowards the same objectives,” says LeighTurnbull, director of operations at PRagency Franklin Rae, “So it’s vital to havea good understanding of the principles.”

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TIM GIBBONDIRECTORELEMENTAL

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Online PR toolkit

Six golden rules of online PRBefore you get totally overwhelmed in theins and outs of online PR, trying tointerpret a mass of data includingnumbers of fans and recommendations,page views and dwell time, here are sixkey steps to implementing an effectiveonline PR strategy.

1. Define your objectivesClarify exactly what it is that you want toachieve; everything else should then fallinto place more easily.

“Think about what success will actuallylook like after six to 12 months,” advisesSam Dorney, director of public relationsat marketing agency IAS B2B. Businessbrands frequently appeal to nicheaudiences so thorough research reallypays off. Identify where your audience is,

4. Engage with your audienceEnsure the content you produce isappropriate for the channels you aretargeting. And remember the fact that youwork for a B2B brand does not mean thatany collateral that you produce for onlinePR purposes needs to be dry or ‘worthy’.This is something that Adrian Brady, CEOat PR agency Eulogy feels strongly about.“Just because you’re appealing to anaudience of business travellers, you don’thave to be staid and serious and talkabout trouser presses,” he says.

5. Measure impactMonitoring tools that are designed to helpanalyse company reputation onlinecontinue to proliferate. Some of these arefree, and for many organisations thesewill be sufficient. Google Analytics andGoogle Alerts, for example, are a reallygood start if you want to benchmarkperceptions and what people are sayingabout your brand. There are also benefitsto products with added sophistication –the paid-for social media monitoring toolssuch as Radian6.

Whether or not you choose to part withany of your marketing budget is likely todepend on how extensive your online PRefforts are.

6. Reassess and renewUpdate your online PR strategy regularly.Nothing stays the same for long in thedigital arena. As Matt McKay, chair of theChartered Institute of PR’s marketingcommunications group and head of publicrelations at publisher BioMed Central,points out, “You can’t keep doing thesame thing forever. One advantage ofonline methods is that they allow you toadapt your approach.”

The PR space has been transformedalready, but in 10 years it will no doubtlook very different. We’re by no means atthe final destination yet, and the longeryou wait to get involved, the furtherbehind you will be.

“RSS readers areincredibly helpful tomonitor not only targetonline media sites butalso competitor’s sitesand relevant blogs”