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13th May, 2013

“You will never win fame and fortune unless you invent big ideas. It takes a big idea to attract the attention of consumers and get them to buy your product. Unless your advertising contains a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night.”  David Ogilvy

Traditionally, the marketing concept of a ‘big idea’ is intrinsically tied to TV advertising. A brand briefs an ad agency. Said ad agency creates a ‘big idea’ with associated TV/ad concepts and then, once this is all signed off, everyone else scrambles around to see how it can be executed elsewhere.

The result? A great TV ad spot. And then other implementations with differing levels of quality and success.

It’s easy to see how we got here. Advertising has always been at the heart of a brand’s marketing strategy. But the times are a-changin’.

So what does that mean for the big idea and the agencies that try to unearth it?

Is the concept of a big idea dead? Does it sit uncomfortably in an age where we are moving from push marketing to a more collaborative approach? Or is it more relevant than ever at a time where brands are spread so thin across different channels and platforms?

I think there’s still a place for the big idea. But I think we need to stop seeing it as the end of the creative process and just as the first step.

If you reframe the way we think about the big idea in this way then rather than thinking up a new TV advert, you start to think about a compelling brand story that you can then creatively execute in a whole host of different, creative ways.

The big idea in 2013 is:

  • More than TV.
  • BIG. It’s so big, it’s not tied to channels or platforms. It’s something that inspires makeable ideas but isn’t one in itself.
  • SMALL. In itself it doesn’t take up huge budgets but inspires campaigns and initiatives.
  • Agile and flexible – it needs to be malleable into different forms.
  • Built around stories and for storytelling.
  • Co-created – it comes from the audience.
  • About behavioural change, not campaigns, tactics or platforms.

 

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continue reading: Redefining the big idea...

18th April, 2013

Last week I announced that, after nearly six years, I was leaving EML Wildfire.

Last week, a new chapter started. As has been announced this morning in PR Week, I have joined global PR agency Ketchum as associate digital and social media director, working in the company’s London office.

Exciting times.

continue reading: Hello Ketchum...

12th April, 2013

Never say goodbye because goodbye means going away, and going away means forgetting - Peter Pan

Today is my last day at EML Wildfire.

When I was first interviewed by Debby (at what was then Wildfire PR) many years ago, I’d never worked in an agency, I’d never worked in PR and I was unsure as to where this would lead.

Debby and Lorraine took a gamble and I’m grateful for that. For me, it’s truly been life changing.

I needn’t have worried. Looking back now I can’t help but be thankful to my former self for taking that leap and making that move.

The last few years have been truly formative. I’ve worked with some brilliant people who have taught me so much. I’ve been challenged and have been given opportunities I would not have received elsewhere.

I’ve made friends – colleagues, clients, partners and other acquaintances – many that will be lifelong (you know who you are). And I’ve genuinely looked forward to going to work (nearly) every day.

It’s time to move on – and more about that in due course. But today is about remembering and being thankful for what has been.

For all this, and for so much more, I owe a great number of great people a great deal.

And that, I’ll never forget.

continue reading: Leaving but not forgetting...

4th January, 2013

It is now more than a month since I returned from Palestine. And I’ve been meaning to write a final post, but it has proved difficult.

How do you sum up such an experience?

In the first post I wrote when I arrived, I talked about the vivid contrasts that exist everywhere. For a visitor, making contrasts is an obvious and easy thing to do. It helps to give a clear sense of the uniqueness of this place.

Contrasts are easy to find too now I’m back. Today, I went for a run. I could move freely. There were no soldiers, no checkpoints and no hostile settlers.

For me, this freedom is a basic human right. Something we should all be able to count on.

Whatever your political, religious or ideological viewpoint, I challenge anyone to visit Palestine, experience this lack of freedom, and fail to feel immense solidarity with the Palestinian people.

There is no doubt that life for ordinary Palestinians is better than it was a few years ago during the Second Intifada. Better, but still not good enough.

What sort of a life is this?

When eight year olds have to walk past checkpoints and soldiers on the way to school? When farmers have their crops destroyed and their sheep poisoned? When a mother is locked in an Israeli jail for three days because she is distraught at her son’s wrongful arrest? When your house is a concrete prison? When you’ve been forced to live in a refugee camp for over half a century? When your town is surrounded by 30-foot walls? When you don’t have a passport and aren’t allowed to visit your family, 30 kilometres away?

Continue reading »

continue reading: Palestine: fighting against a resigned future...

8th October, 2012

The word algorithm is one that most PR professionals will be aware of. Google’s method for determining search rankings is as secret as it is alluring for those looking to gain more search prominence.

But there is another algorithm out there that is far less famous, but equally important. It’s called EdgeRank and it is what Facebook uses to determine the stories that show up in a user’s newsfeed.

The Facebook newsfeed is the key to success for Facebook marketing. It’s the place where every single Facebook user spends most of their time.

Yes, that’s right, Facebook users will hardly ever visit your Facebook page, they consume your posts through their newsfeed.

Tough time getting through?

Another very important point to note, and one that many marketers still fail to realise, is that the vast majority of posts never actually make it into someone’s timeline.

Conservative estimates suggest that only 16% of your fans, on average, will actually receive any particular post you send them.

So how do you increase that percentage? The answer is simple: improve your EdgeRank.

Introducing EdgeRank

Facebook understands there is a massive problem with information overload on the platform. It knows that we make a lot of connections on Facebook – some of them we really care about, others less so. It therefore makes sense that we would want to receive updates from those friends (and brands) that we really care about rather than long-lost school friends we haven’t seen in years or brands we ‘liked’ in order to get a freebie or enter a competition.

EdgeRank attempts to solve that problem and it does it in quite a sophisticated way.

Every single ‘update’ that you might see in your newsfeed on Facebook is called an ‘edge’ (hence EdgeRank). An edge could be a status update, a song you listen to on Spotify or a picture upload.

Much in the same way that Google wants to help you find the information you care about, EdgeRank helps Facebook show you the edges that matter most to you.

There are three elements that make up EdgeRank – affinity, weight and decay.

It’s worth looking at each of these in more detail.

Affinity

This element attempts to work out how much you care about the person or brand that is sending you an edge. You’ve probably noticed how, if you snoop on someone’s profile, you’ll probably get more of their updates in your newsfeed over the next few days or weeks.

But you don’t just have to visit a Page to affect affinity. Simply liking a post, leaving a comment or sharing an update can raise affinity levels.

That’s why, for a brand, getting a like or a share isn’t just good for engagement, it’s vital in ensuring more of your posts will get through to that fan in future. It’s a vote of support.

The great thing about affinity (if you can get it) is that it’s self-fulfilling. The more affinity you get, the more of your posts will appear to in future and the more interaction (and therefore affinity) you’ll be able to achieve.

Weight

This is all about the types of edges that appear in your newsfeed. Facebook understands that a picture will generally have more interest to you than a Spotify update. Therefore it assigns different weightings to different pieces of content. There’s no definitive list here, but it is fair to assume that links, photos and videos have more EdgeRank than other pieces of content.

As with all algorithms, there is no one size that fits all. Some users will show more interest in photos and therefore Facebook will show them more photos in their newsfeed. So just putting videos in every post won’t necessarily be successful. Having a regular stream of these three pieces of content is the best advice for success here.

Decay

This is all about timeliness. In simple terms, something that is more recent is more likely to show up in someone’s newsfeed.

Content, content, content

What is perhaps most interesting about all of this is that, while big flashy campaigns might do a good job of increasing the number of fans you have, it’s only the ongoing community management stuff that will actually work when it comes to increasing EdgeRank.

Good quality content on a regular basis is the only way to tick the box when it comes to affinity, weight and decay. And it’s only by ticking these boxes that your future updates will be seen.

None of this is rocket silence, but how many brands are really paying attention to it?

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continue reading: Facebook EdgeRank – what is it and why is it important for PR?...

4th October, 2012

Last Tuesday, I chaired an event for the PRCA looking at the relationship between PR and SEO. If there is one key theme that came out of the conference, it was that Google’s recent updates (think Panda and Penguin) bring SEO very much into the domain of what you might term ‘traditional PR’ activities.

For the last week or so, the digital marketing community has been buzzing about a new ranking factor, called AuthorRank. Google is expected to roll AuthorRank out very soon and, for me, it once again shows how the boundaries between traditional PR, digital PR and SEO are blurring.

Last year, Google launched its authorship programme. You’ll have come across this in the Google searches you do on a daily basis – where pictures of the author of a particular article appear next to the listing. Ever since this launch, there has been speculation in the digital marketing community that soon, Google would start to use authorship as a determining factor for rankings.

Last week, writing on SEO community site SEOMoz, Mike Arnesen gave the strongest indication yet that this time is nearly upon us. The idea of an AuthorRank makes a lot of sense and, for Google, is part of a much larger, long-term strategy.

Put simply, AuthorRank is how Google will take the authority of an author into account when determining search engine rankings.

Why authors?

Traditionally, Google has looked at the web as a series of websites and webpages and there’s always going to be a place for that.

Google uses a ranking algorithm called PageRank to give different webpages an authority ranking. But what this fails to take into consideration is that, increasingly (in part due to the rise of social media), when you are looking for ‘authority’ around a particular subject area, it’s often the individual content creator that has the authority rather than or in addition to the website, publisher or brand.

A site like Techcrunch has authority in the tech start up space because of the individual writers it has. AuthorRank is an attempt by Google to recognise this and give specific authors their own ranking which will in turn influence the overall ranking of a website.

What is the best way to know if a piece of content is trustworthy? If it is written by someone that has authority in a certain area.

How does this work in practice?

If you want a clear idea of just how fundamental Google+ could be and how much importance Google is placing on it, then look no further than AuthorRank.

When you see someone’s mugshot appear next to a search engine ranking, that is because they have linked their Google+ account to the piece of content they have created – no matter where it is on the web. You can find out more on how to do this (it’s not as scary as it might sound) here.

This is an example of how the impact of Google+ exists far beyond just the platform itself. It extends throughout the internet, giving Google valuable information about an individual and their footprint across the web. Google can then start building up a picture of that person’s influence in specific areas.

Influence you say? Does this have anything to do with PR?

Yes it does! Ok, so there is a bit of technical know-how required (though Google is trying to make things easier and easier). But the idea of building influence for a specific person around a certain subject area is a concept PRs will be incredibly familiar with. It’s called thought leadership and we do it every single day.

Yet again, the types of behaviour that Google is now starting to reward with ranking boosts – content, authority, social sharing – are all things PRs do daily. With a little bit of technical knowledge, PR can have a massive impact on your search rankings.

How does Google define authority?

It’s unclear at the moment exactly the factors Google will use to create AuthorRank and – as with all things Google – we will never know the exact make-up of the algorithm. But, over at SEOMoz, Mike Arnesen has compiled a list of the most likely candidates:

  • The average PageRank of an author’s content
  • The average number of +1s and Google+ shares the author’s content receives
  • The number of Google+ circles an author is in
  • Reciprocal connections to other high AuthorRank authors
  • The number and authority of sites an author’s content has been published to
  • The engagement level of an author’s native Google+ content (i.e., posts to Google+)
  • The level of on-site engagement for an author’s content (i.e., comments and author’s responses to comments)
  • Outside authority indicators (e.g., the presence of a Wikipedia page)
  • YouTube subscribers and/or engagement on authored videos (speculation: multiple-attribution author markup for YouTube videos coming soon)
  • Any number of importance/authority metrics on social networks that Google deems trustworthy enough (Twitter, Quora, LinkedIn, SlideShare, etc.)
  • Real world authority indicators like published works on Google Books or Google Scholar

What are the next steps?

AuthorRank doesn’t seem to be influencing searches yet, but it could be just around the corner. So here are some steps you should take to benefit:

  1. Set up your author profile on Google+ 
  2. Link it to any content you have around the web (here’s our quick, handy guide)
  3. Create great content – it sounds obvious, but if you aren’t creating lots of content already, you need to start. It’s all about quantity AND quality. Gone are the days when you could whack anything up and Google would give you credit. Now it’s all about great content that people want to read and share (did I mention how PR was increasingly important for SEO?)
  4. Use Google+ – a quick look at the list of factors above shows how important Google+ is becoming. So post regularly, circle influential people in your industry, +1, comment, check-in, make sure your profile is complete and that you have a good photo

continue reading: Google AuthorRank and why it’s huge for PR...

29th September, 2012

Check out my new blog.

It’s not everyday you can write a blog post title like that. But it’s true. I’m off to the West Bank for a month.

From mid-October, I’m volunteering for a charity called Music Harvest that runs a cultural exchange programme in the city of Nablus and surrounding area.

Why? Life takes crazy turns now and again – some good, some bad. It’s been a tough year and this seemed like a little bit of craziness too good to turn down. I’ll be travelling around the region, meeting lots of people and even learning some Arabic. In return, I’ll be running music workshops for adults and children.

I count myself incredibly lucky to be able to take this time off and am unbelievably grateful to EML Wildfire.

I love working in PR and I love living in London. But this is an opportunity to experience something totally unique. Something a million miles away from my day-to-day, from the world where I’ve lived most of my life. It’s a cliché, but it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity and I plan to grab it.

This is the first and last entry that I’ll cross-post. I’ve set up another blog where you can read about everything that happens.

I’d particularly like to hear from anyone familiar with this part of the world. It’s an area I find myself disappointingly ignorant about the more I discover. So please point me in the direction of books, articles, films, music, art…

To be continued.

continue reading: I’m off to the West Bank...

24th September, 2012

There has been a debate raging for years (and this has even intensified in recent weeks) about the role that SEO and PR can/should play together.

As chair of the PRCA’s Digital Group it’s something I’m acutely aware of and I’m therefore delighted that the PRCA is addressing this at its latest Gateway conference tomorrow in London.

I’ll be chairing the half day session and there’s a host of A-list speakers from Edelman, Unibet, Text 100, PH Creative and Inkling.

It promises to be a fascinating morning and there are still a few tickets left so I’d encourage you to grab them if you are able to make it and/or follow the hashtag #prcagateway

continue reading: SEO and PR: the future? #prcagateway...

20th September, 2012

A few months ago, I gave a presentation at a PRCA breakfast seminar focusing on social media analytics. The slides from the presentation are embedded below.

The central theme running through the talk was how to effectively put together a social media PR analytics programme that would accurately and meaningfully measure success and results.

In my mind, there are five very important steps to ensuring you have a social media PR analytics strategy that is effective. The five steps are as follows:

1. What does success look like?

It might seem obvious, but how many agencies and businesses fail to really think about the reasons for embarking on a social media campaign in the first place. The only way to properly analyse is to ensure you know what you hope this activity will achieve in the first place.

There are many different reasons for investing in social media and there will likely be different benefits. But knowing the ones that really matter to your company is vital.

2. Establish KPIs

Once you know what determines success, you can begin to think about the key performance indicators (KPIs) that will give you clues as to whether your objectives are being reached.

Again, it is clear to see how the importance of the first step is again underlined here. When it comes to KPIs, less is most definitely more.

One of the biggest benefits of digital PR is also one of its biggest weaknesses; we have so much data at our disposal, understanding the data that is important to a specific campaign can be hard.

It is clearly tempting to measure everything but that is a recipe for disaster (or at least very long nights). Take each objective and identify the KPI that will give indications of results.

3. Select your tools

One of the biggest mistakes of any analytics programme is to select tools first: “we have purchased Radian6, therefore we’re going to measure XYZ.”

Actually, again, the opposite is the best approach. You need to identify what data you need first (to measure your KPIs and your business objectives) before you begin to search for the tools that will accurately let you capture that data.

4. Turn analysis into action

Analysis for the sake of analysis will not get you very far. If KPIs aren’t delivering results, you need to identify why this is and put in place changes in your strategy to see if that has an effect.

If analysis doesn’t lead to action, there is no point doing it in the first place. Another great advantage of social media and digital PR campaigns is that, because data can be collected in real-time, it is also possible to make changes to strategy in real-time too. Don’t leave it to the end of the campaign to measure, measure all the way through.

5. Rinse, wash, repeat

Building on this last point, an analysis programme never ends. Constant analysis and constant tweaking of a campaign will ensure that final goals are reached.

Nothing should be set in stone. KPIs and even objectives can change depending on the results of your analysis. It’s a cyclical process that allows you to measure and improve on an ongoing basis.

Social media analytics in black and white

View more PowerPoint from Danny Whatmough /  Originally posted on the EML Wildfire tech PR blog

continue reading: 5 steps to measuring social media PR campaigns...

19th September, 2012

Why do some companies make it so hard for you to do business with them?

I thinking about broadband or mobile phone providers that make you jump over hurdles to switch provider. Gyms that tie you into long contracts. Or websites that make you fill in a form before giving you access to their price list.

There’s one reason, of course: they want to sell more stuff. Historically, this approach has been one that brands have used. Stamp out competition, tie people into long contracts and they will literally be forced to give you their hard earned cash.

Sell, sell, sell

Consumers have never liked this approach and, now, they can voice their dislike in a highly vocal way.

Technology levels the playing field and, when it comes to brand affinity, simple awareness is not enough. Having a product or service pushed down your throat is also no longer a winning strategy.

The ‘hard sell’ is seen for what it is; desperation. That’s why savvy companies are starting to move from  ’always selling’ to ‘always helping’.

With the diminshing effetiveness of push marketing and a move towards positive brand engagement, ‘being helpful’ might sound trite but it can be incredibly powerful.

When it comes to being helpful, content marketing really comes into its own. Especially when we consider the B2B sales process. Here, buyers are making decisions about where to invest. Now, more than ever, we are unlikely to make a quick purchase without fully investigating all the options.

Help, help, help

Rather than pulling the wool over the eyes of prospects, it’s much more powerful to help them in their decision making quest.

Give them product comparison tables, answer their questions, supply them with whitepapers and other collateral that can help them justify their purchase to senior stakeholders.

And create communities where they can discuss needs with other customers and prospects.

If you have a great product or service, don’t go with the hard sell, but help your audience discover this greatness for themselves. The emotional bond will be far greater too.

Making life difficult, whether through a clock and dagger approach or with a website where it’s impossible to send an enquiry without filling out War and Peace, just won’t work.

Don’t make it difficult, make it simple. Stop selling, start helping.

picture credit / Originally posted on the EML Wildfire tech PR blog

continue reading: Why clever companies stop selling and start helping...