PR Media Production

Session 3: Understanding the Audience & The Importance of Storytelling

Why social media?

• You can reach your buyers directly• Considerably lower expense• Ability to craft customized message

for different audience

Keep in mind

• Let the world know about your expertise

• Develop information your buyers want to consume

Buyer personas

In order to appeal to customers, we have to understand their needs.

Buyer persona: a representative of a type of buyer that you have identified as having a specific interest in your organization or product or having a market problem that your product or service solves.

Profiling buyer persona

• What are their goals and aspirations?• What are their problems?• What media do they rely on for answers

to problems?• Where do we find them?• How can we reach them?• What phrases do they use?• What sort of images and multimedia

appeal to them?

What it does...

• Enable us to truly empathize• Step our of our role as someone who

wants to promote a product• See through the buyer’s eyes

Let’s do some profiling!

Think about:

• Habits• Reading• Hangout places• Eating place• Free time activities• Interests / hobbies• Attitudes toward certain issues

The law of the party

Everyone has a story to tell

WHAT’S YOURS?

Stories bring your company to life

• Story, real story, creates emotional connection with people.

• PR is about building that connection, even more powerful one, to your customers, prospects, clients, and the world.

Andrew weiss

“People love hearing stories. It goes back to primitive tribal times when we used to sit around the campfire. With social media, consumers are in full control the whole time. If you’re not captivating, you can lose them at anytime.”

If you have one story to tell...

WHAT WOULD IT BE?

How to get the stories?

• How did your company get started?• How did you survive the toughest of times?• Who are some key customers you’ve had?• What kinds of funny or interesting things have

happened involving customers or staff over the years?

• What employees’ lives have been changed as a result of working for you?

• What charitable organizations has your company or its staff supported?

About stories

• They humanize brands and make them talkable, online and offline

• They can be told with text but are often best told through pictures and videos.

• They can be told by customers, employees, or management – they just need to be authentic.

How you started

No matter how large it is now, when it started, it was just the founder(s) with a dream and a plan.

• Connect through real, humble stories• Keep people from seeing the company as

a faceless giant.

What you do for your customers• Less about you, more about your

customers– Emotional experiences– Benefits – Growth– Meaningful relationships– Inspiring experiences

• Whatever your company does or sells, it solves people’s problems

The key staff

• Bring out the faces behind your company’s success– Senior management team– Aspiring staff– Staff who juggles works– Staff who always smiles no matter what

• Pictures say a thousand words (and videos even more!)

What if I still don’t have any story?

• E.g. highly regulated industry (financial or pharmaceutical)

• Highly sensitive & confidential industry (national research, security)

Talk about your activities & partnerships that are core to the customer experience.

Case study: jp morgan chase

Chase community giving

Harness the power of inspiration• There’s nothing new about the power

of inspiration except the channel.• Social media just allows those stories

to spread faster and farther than ever before.

Building word of mouth

• Have a “WOW” factor in your product first–WOW good(s)–WOW service

• Find the customers you inspire the most and give them the tools to share– Not the largest subset of your

customers, but the most passionate– People sharing stories will inspire others

Building word of mouth

• Recognition inspires stories– Fan of the week–Mom of the month– Baby featured in magazine every month

• Prizes can inspire stories too!• Emotions get your customers to

share their stories

Amazon customer service

Coin a chance

Telling stories offline

• Company profiles• Brochures• Booklets• Newsletters

Reading Assignments

• Brand Performances in Social Media (Singh & Sonnenberg, 2012)

• Managing Brands in the Social Media Environment (Genzler, et. al, 2013)