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Between Presence and Pretence: Catching Social Media Trends

Between Presence and Pretence: Catching Social Media Trends

multiple-groups
It was always predicted amongst the tech world that brands like Facebook and Twitter would take off and they have rapidly become essential tools for recruiters. However, the success of these brands has spurred a variety of offshoots and we’re at an interesting phase in the development of social media where, along with the big players in the market, there are many smaller platforms all trying to grow their networks.

For recruiters, deciding which bandwagons to jump on and which to let go past isn’t easy and the key is to generate a balance between genuine social media presence, boosting your brand’s status, your networks and your SEO objectives; just giving the pretence of connectedness could, ultimately, be damaging to your marketing plans.

Picking New Networks

If you’re in technology, you should have heard of Pinterest, Manta and Google+. What about Yammer, Zooppa or Dubbler? There are a hundred lesser known networks which could be utilised to make new connections, but the question is deciding which ones to go for.

Obviously the projected size of the network you could access matters: it’s well known that connections on Google+ are far fewer than elsewhere. In itself, though, a small network isn’t a bad thing, it just needs to be more specifically targeted. Bright Network, for example, is teeming with talented graduates looking to make connections. Small, maybe, but undoubtedly useful.

Community Associations

Instagram is just for hipsters, right? Well, not quite; the connotations are, of course, false but it’s worth thinking about the type of network you’re signing your brand into. Most social media networks come with some sort of association that isn’t necessarily aligned with your objectives.

Instagram is massive, no doubt, but if there’s no direct need for clever photography or artistic imagery in your recruitment campaigns then leave it out. It’s a fantastic place to showcase true creativity but trying to make use of networks just for the sake of it could easily be construed as pretence.

Judging Quality and Quantity

Marketing initiatives have a finite lifespan and marketeers have finite efforts, so making sure your social media presence is high quality is far better than spreading your work thinly over many networks. The odd applicant might find your YouTube channel useful, but or most graduate recruiters developing quality connections through a few networks is the right formula.

Networking is about breadth and but given the slim demographic that most graduate recruiters are looking to tap into, a well maintained Facebook page, a selection of strong LinkedIn profiles and a professional Twitter feed will beat presence across hundreds of platforms.

What Do the Facebook Promotion Policy Updates Mean for Brands?

winLast week, Facebook updated its promotion policies for businesses, and every brand marketer should understand what the changes are and how those changes affect future Facebook marketing initiatives.

In a blog post, Facebook announced that promotions no longer have to be administered through apps. Instead, businesses can run contests and other promotions directly on their Facebook Pages. For example, a business could run a contest and people could enter by posting on the brand’s Facebook Page or commenting on or liking a post on the brand’s Facebook Page. They could also message the brand’s Page to enter the contest, and brands can use likes as a voting mechanism.

In addition to the removal of the requirement that brands had to use a promotions app, Facebook has also added a few restrictions to its promotions policy. Now, Pages cannot tag or ask people to tag themselves in posts, photos, or content they’re not actually in as part of a promotion.

Overall, the Facebook Promotion Policy updates open the doors for smaller brands with limited marketing budgets and resources to create contests and promotions on their Facebook Pages quickly, easily, and affordably. However, these types of promotions are a nice short-term addition to boost engagement for big brands but they’re not necessarily scalable. For example, a promotion launched through a post would drop down people’s timelines very quickly. Furthermore, if a large number of people responded, tracking entries and managing the promotion would become logistically challenging.

For big brands with large audiences, apps will remain the promotion tool of choice on Facebook. The ability to create custom promotions, collect entrant email addresses, monitor engagement, track performance, and extend the duration of the campaign beyond a single post make in-app promotions far more effective for brands that can afford them.

Bottom-line, the changes aren’t as impactful for big brands as they are for small business brands. The reason is simple, the new Facebook promotion policy updates won’t change the large-scale marketing efforts that big brands with deep pockets roll out on Facebook. However, the new Facebook promotion policy updates do offer another way for big and small brands to engage with consumers, and that is something no brand should ignore.

Image: Presentation Process via sxc

Tomorrows World: Best Practice for Corporate Apps

tomorrows-worldTomorrow’s World was the BBC’s flagship science programme for decades, and – as I remember it – always predicted an exciting future. One of the 1979 editions included a prototype for a cordless telephone… others included an item on the office of the future, and on the first home computer terminal.

Here we are in that future, and yes, we have mobile phones and ‘home computers’. (No robots in my office yet though).

And the rate of change seems to be accelerating. Not only do we have mobile phones, we are increasingly using them to do what ‘home computers’ were designed for – and more. We didn’t have access to the internet on our phones in the 1970’s, you know… but now almost 40% of time spent online is spent using a mobile device and 17% of global web traffic comes from mobile devices.

Naturally, this has – or should have – an effect on your digital strategy. Given the prevalence of the personal computer over the last few years, corporate comms professionals have naturally been using the corporate website, together with email and other outreach options. But given the rate of change, in particular that towards mobile, what approach should you take now?

Communicate Magazine will be hosting an afternoon conference – Best Practice: Corporate Apps – to discuss just this. There’s a great line-up of speakers discussing case studies, thoughts on strategy, and views on the future, together with the chance to network, and a debate.

It will be on October 10, in the Barbican Centre, London. Do come if you can (find out more). It should be both interesting and useful; I’m particularly looking forward to the session on The New Best Practice. Naturally, there’s a hashtag – #BPCA13 – so if you really can’t make it, you can follow online.

I bet the tweetstream around the Tomorrow’s World episodes would have been interesting…

Filling the House: Guaranteeing Good Event Attendance

crowd students at recruitment event
It’s tough to walk through any university campus without spotting at least some flyer, poster or even a live event demonstrating how competitive the graduate job market is at the moment. Though this isn’t ideal for the student population, it’s great news for companies; selecting top talent is obviously much easier if you’ve got a large pool to choose from and there’s definitely a self-perpetuating atmosphere of stiff competition surrounding the big recruiters.

However, until the recruitment process actually starts, the stories are little more than hearsay for students. Gauging how tough getting that job really is only starts to happen when students start to attend recruitment events and to really get a feel for the market. So, if you want to generate a competitive buzz around your business, your events need to be filled to the brim with top students…

Use Every Channel to Advertise

Even in our electronic world, the effect of a cleverly designed poster is still massive, but it’s easily forgotten. You need to back up what’s already been seem with emails, bulletins and your own social media. The Facebook event is quite possibly the most powerful reminder out there and will trigger wavering attendees into action.

Do be careful not to over-advertise, however; it’s a fine line between making your event publicised and becoming a nuisance. Constantly driving for attendees via University bulletins or through societies could also seem like you’re struggling to make the numbers.

Go Exclusive

Though most events do have some limitations on numbers, presentations, dinners and lectures are usually a case of the more; the merrier. However, a free-for-all approach won’t necessarily guarantee you good numbers; an exclusive system can work much better.

Limiting your event to ticket holders only is a good way of ensuring numbers are high. You don’t even need to operate a formal, paper ticket system. A guest list which requires an online-sign in needs little more than an iPad on the night, but remember it’s worth keeping some guest spaces available.

Exploiting Word-of-Mouth

It’s an old marketeers cliche that the ‘word-of-mouth’ is still the best tool out there, but it’s wrong to assume people will talk by themselves; give them something to shout about! Encouraging guests to bring along talented friends or incentivising Facebook attendees to invite others is a good start if it’s backed up with a good reward!

Finally, it’s worth remembering your best bet for guaranteeing good attendance is to hold a top-quality, innovative event. No amount of marketing can beat organising something that people really want to attend!

Online Newsroom Essentials: Press Releases

shape-upEver remember handing out a bulging folder packed with all your company’s details, press releases, and bios, called a ‘press kit’? Well the good news is, no-one has to lug around those heavy folders any more.

The Digital Switchover

Since the digital age is upon us, press kits as we know them have changed immensely, moving into an online format now known as a ‘newsroom’. The beauty of this new format is that, not only can you file as much as you want in there and it will never get any heavier, but you can also keep it organised and updated with the click of a mouse, and it is the most efficient and simple way for press to get as much info as they need on your company.

It sounds like a dream come true for both PR and companies alike; however it hasn’t quite gone as planned. Without the physical boundaries you would assume the online newsrooms would be overflowing with useful content, but instead many companies are still neglecting to maintain their newsrooms, leaving them sparse and far from the resource they should be.

How does your newsroom shape up?

The following article is the second in a series which aims to highlight areas in which a newsroom should be optimised in order for it to be useful and interesting to your journalist contacts, with some examples of excellent newsroom best practices from some of the world’s largest corporate websites to demonstrate how online newsrooms should function.

Newsroom Essential: Press Releases

Unlike the days of the physical press kit when you needed to be wary of how much paper you were using and had the physical boundaries of the folder, you don’t need to be stringent when it comes to the press releases. Yes, you should still be conscious that you aren’t letting the best and most attractive releases get hidden under less relevant ones, but you don’t need to limit yourself to only putting out only the most important news.

Offering up a range of press releases about what your company has been involved in and any changes you have made might not always make headlines, but it still gives press contacts background information on your company’s development. There may come a time when a major advance happens within your business that has been the result of many smaller changes, and the press releases give a backlog of information on the smaller events leading to the main finale.

So to enable journalists to look at both new and old press releases at their own leisure, archives within categories (if applicable) are a great way to keep the older news out of the spotlight but make it easily searchable and accessible when needed. As most journalists will most likely be looking to your press releases for information on recent events, then do keep up to date press releases in a more prominent position, but make it clear there is the option to view older ones if they wish.

coca-cola-press-releases-sCoca-Cola are a fine example of an excellent system for finding press releases, whether it be by particular keywords and topics, or by date, they make it really easy for you to pinpoint what you need and even offer you some inspiration in the form of their ‘top news’ category.

Don’t get bogged down in the ‘traditional’ press release format either. Online press releases both require and allow you to be a little more creative. Offering both HTML and printer friendly versions of press releases online is a must, but there is also the option to get more creative with the format. Social media releases are a popular alternative to the traditional press release, and can include images, videos, links and more, meaning they are fast growing in popularity among media communities.

Like this article? Read the first article in this series, Online Newsroom Essentials: Media Contacts and keep an eye out for the next article in the series on including media coverage.

Online Newsroom Essentials: Media Contacts

newsGone are the days when actual physical folders called ‘press kits’ were handed to journalists by PR people, jammed full of a company’s recent press releases, bios for management teams, fact sheets, case studies, and other press related information on the company.

Instead, press kits have been streamlined and digitised, much to the pleasure of all in the news industry, making them easily accessible, searchable, environmentally friendly and comparatively lightweight.

From Page to Webpage

The modern day press kit is now referred to as the ‘online newsroom’, typically found in the press section of any corporate website. Despite the new preferred format, online newsrooms often do not match up to the traditional press kit in terms of optimisation. They don’t often have much more information than a measly list of press release PDFs and the odd links to news coverage.

When the digitisation of press kits should really have given much more room to expand the information offered without the physical size and weight boundaries of paper and folders, it would seem in reality the online newsroom only led to corporate press kits becoming somewhat lazy and incomplete.

How does your newsroom shape up?

The following article is the first in a series, which aims to highlight all the areas in which a newsroom should be optimised in order for it to be useful and interesting to your journalist contacts, with some examples of excellent newsrooms from some of the world’s largest corporate websites, to demonstrate how online newsrooms should function.  

Newsroom Essential: Media Contact Details

Unlike when physical press kits were literally handed to journalists by the PR or media contact for a company, when a journalist enters a company’s online newsroom, they most likely have no idea who the contact is regarding media enquiries. They may find everything they need from the press releases, fact sheets, company articles, etc that the online newsroom contains, but in the majority of cases a press contact will need to be dealt with in order to arrange interviews, gain statements, or be sought out for future reference.

tullow-oil-media-contactsYou don’t need to list your whole PR team’s names and details, just the person who you want to deal directly with all media enquiries; typically the Head of Media Relations or someone in a similar job role. And be sure to offer different ways to contact them, including phone, email, and even social media and Skype. Be sure to keep this up to date, as it often occurs that a person leaves and the company doesn’t get round to changing their details in the newsroom for months, sometimes even years!

One company that stood out for me as having a good press contacts page was Tullow Oil Plc. They didn’t include any social media profiles, but they did include just the one main media contact and his name, telephone and fax numbers, and an email address for him.

Unfortunately, even large corporations can get it wrong on such simple things. As a journalist, I would like to be able to go straight to the contact details of the person I need to contact for media enquiries, whereas often large companies offer only a switchboard number, which I must then call and speak to 2 or 3 people before finding the person I am after. In other cases, companies often think that is helpful to give details of every PR and media team member, meaning I have to work out for myself who the correct contact is.

Journalists are on tight deadlines for stories and so having the information available quickly and easily makes their jobs much easier.