Mixing traditional and digital PRAn introduction to a new era of communications

By Adam VincenziniParatus Communications

7 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 more BlackBerries 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…

CRITERIA DESCRIPTION

TOPICALITY What is the relevance, today, of the story

PROMINENCE Is the story extraordinary

PROXIMITY Is it relevant to the area the media covers

CONSEQUENCE So “whatness”

CHANGE What’s not the same anymore, does that matter

ACTION Is something actually “happening” of interest

CONCRETENESS What is tangible about the story

PERSONALITY Is there a human face of interest

RARITY Is it bizarre, unusual

CONFLICT Does the story cause a change

…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…

…the £10m Tongue (Costa Coffee / Paratus, 2009).

Click box to play video

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

Digital cameras 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…

1997 2009

Today’s PR channels and tools hardly bare any

resemblance to those used in 1997.

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…

YouTube Link: http://bit.ly/SMrevSE

Click box to play video

…the Social Media Revolution (Socialnomics, 2009).

The Social Media platforms aka tools

Push v Pull…

The tools at your disposal have two primary uses:

1. Outwardly contributing

2. Inwardly receiving

The benefits of both are very even.

Let’s look at some of the tools / platforms that are used…

Social Networking

Blogging

Micro Blogging

RSS

Video Sharing

Photo Sharing

Podcasts

Forums

Chat Rooms

Widgets

Social Media Platforms

We’re going to look at three…

Social Networking

Blogging

Micro Blogging

Social Networking

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

• 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

Blogging

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

Micro Blogging

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 Month

Tailored Twitter Feed - Nearly 7,000 Followers

YouTube Channel

Facebook 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…

YouTube link: http://bit.ly/61tJKi

Click box to play video

…Aleksandr Orlov’s Top Nine Moments Of ‘09

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)

YouTube link: http://bit.ly/5B9uJn

…how much do you like your friends?

Click box to play video

Ikea Facebook Showroom (video case study)

Click box to play video

…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

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

Credits:

Information and imagry used 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.