I have had many a debate about the value of PR inside business, outside business, for community, against community, with publics, at publics and it would seem that opinions are becoming less and less divided as to whether PR/Communication/Media etc is less a luxury and becoming a necessity for prevalence and success. Today I managed to wangle my way out of work to attend one of the new “Mastermind” sessions (http://bit.ly/HXiY1X) being offered by one organisation clearing the decks for PR agencies and consultancies globally, Professional Public Relations (http://www.ppr.com.au/). I will diverse from professional lingo for a moment to say that these guys are the real monty. I first came into the presence of PPR GM in Adelaide, Dena Vassallo when she presented at the UniSA Public Relations Presentation Evening for internship graduates of my degree. One of the graduates had been fortunate, and impressive, enough to gain herself a position with the company. Since that time, I have discovered that a good friend Tom Williamson-met through the magic of twitter-is now working there as a Senior Social Media Consultant as well!
For a start, that paragraph right there ought to inform
anyone thinking of getting “into PR” that STEP
ONE is learn how to be proactive.
When you see an event that you are able to attend, attend it. If you know of a
free professional development session, put off coffee with the girls and get in
there (free PD is invaluable). If you know a party, opening, workshop, seminar
that people important for you to know will be going to is coming up, try to be
there. Be as strategic with yourself as you are with the way you communicate.
The session was about how to boost your business through
social media, which brought people from all kinds of industry to the table. The
seminars are delivered to only small groups which is great opportunity to learn
something in a concentrated way and communicate with leaders of communication
in different sectors. We began by hearing Tom’s story of working with The
Highway Hotel where he found social media fame which has led to him taking his
place amongst the PR greats. We began by discussing what social media is to
each of us and our businesses.
Social media
and its challenges included:
- Humanising business and brands
- Fleshing out branding strategies and giving voices to brands
- Providing connection points for publics that can generate likelihood to buy
- Opportunities for more direct communication in recruitment, crisis and query
- A communication platform requiring substantial time investment and sometimes financial
Some of the
key points and tidbits of advice given in the session were:
- Having personal accounts recognisable behind a business account can develop strong trust bonds with consumers/publics.
- There are so many tools that make posting and evaluation easier (see below) look into these
- Social media is seen as off-the-cuff but planning can make it far easier. Plot out your posting on a Conversation Calendar (http://soloprpro.com/how-to-build-a-conversation-calendar-for-social-media/)
- Develop quick documents for your business about tone, content and voice of social media accounts. Preparing your company for what personality it will have will be important to consistency and retaining trust parameters in publics.
- Keep regular eyes on accounts purporting to be you or one of your departments. Beat the negative feed-backers by registering for other handles (ie business_pr, businesspr, businesscorp, businessofficial, businessCEO, businessfail).
- Work out your time and content specific demographics. If your product/service is encompassing, then you will need to post differently at 3pm than you do at 11pm.
- SO IMPORTANT: know the difference between ‘then’ and ‘than’, use ‘lol’ and ‘2bh’ sparingly. Keep track of how many twitter accounts you have because reducing credibility of one because you made a grammar mistake or posted the right thing on the wrong account is not a good look.
- Don’t feel pressured, these things should be fun to be involved in. Give yourself 3 months to see if it’s worth keeping. It’s good to be part of the conversation online, but then you do actually have to be motivated to be part of the conversation. Keep in mind though that just because you’re not in there representing your business doesn't mean no-one is!
These are all easy things to
implement into the way you go about social media to make it work best for
you/your client/your business. By quantifying the viability of your posts,
measuring engagement levels and making the job enjoyable and rewarding, social
media will be blast and a breeze.
To wrap up, here’s a few bits and
sites you might want to take a look out to flesh out your social media
strategy:
Hoot Suite (a dashboard to manage
your social media input. I almost cried when I saw it)
Tweet Deck (a way to monitor and
track your twitter involvement better. Definitely tears)
Edge Rank (a tool to check your
exposure in facebook and calculate where/how you’re dropping)
Google Analytics (monitor how your
website is hitting)
Crowd Booster (another social media
dashboard rolling your impact into one easy dash)
Buffer (tweet scheduling. Very useful
for us busy people)
PR is swiftly becoming a sphere where
those involved have to be the most competitive and cut throat. Everyone wants
that celebrity gig or corporate communications position. And if you want to be
a real player you must stay abreast of pretty much everything. And the fact is
that with things kicking on so quickly in the PR discipline/profession/sector,
PD is not only expensive, but becomes out-dated within a year. Staying atop the
game nearly demands you are already working within an agency when you have all
day to look into things and generate reports, read blogs. For us little
baby-PRs who are still trying to just network, it’s not enough. Seek out
sessions like this constantly (or blogs like mine that give you scoop), find
the people in the know, keep consistent. bg2yx and best of luck!
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