About
Inspire me
Palestine
Home
18th September, 2012

Do you find yourself lying awake at night worrying about the sheer amount of information that exists on the web?

No? It seems as though you’re not alone.

A recent study from Northwestern University has countered standard thinking around the ‘threat’ of information overload.

Generally accepted wisdom dictates that, with more information being churned out every second on the web, staying on top of all that content is tough.

That’s why attempts to ‘help’ manage information, whether through search or Facebook EdgeRank are seen as not just a nice to have but a vital solution in the securing the future of the web.

But the study, which was lead by Eszter Hargittai, an associate professor of communication studies at Northwestern, interviewed 77 people from across the US and examined their approach to accessing information.

Give me more

It found that, rather than being overwhelmed by the amount of content available, respondents actually liked the fact they had more to consume.

What’s more, it appears we have adapted to the situation we find ourselves in, have developed better skills to help us cope and feel incredibly positive about being more informed:

“We found that the high volume of information available these days seems to make most people feel empowered and enthusiastic. People are able to get their news and information from a diverse set of sources and they seem to like having these options,” said Hargittai.

Other key findings were:

  • TV was still the main way respondents accessed information but online news was viewed more positively.
  • Respondents were almost entirely enthusiastic about new media.
  • Trivial social media updates and opinion pieces from overly political pundits were sources of frustration when looking for information.

So what does that tell those of us working in digital PR and other areas where content marketing is increasingly important?

1. Content consumers are increasingly savvy

Those that reported difficulties with information were those with less advanced ‘internet skills’.

That tells us that we need to worry less about whether people will find our content. Create great content and they will come.

2. Quality matters

Perhaps an obvious statement, but it is worth underlining this fact.

Quantity is no longer a solution. The days of spewing out low quality content to help push search rankings just won’t cut the mustard. This approach has probably never ‘tricked’ anyone into consuming your content apart from search engines anyway.

Don’t post for the sake of it, post because you have something to say.

3. Make content easy to digest

I’m fed up of reading long, turgid blog posts that are hard to read and say nothing.

If you want your content to be read online (and this is even more important when it comes to mobile) then you need to write in a way that works for your audience. Of course, this doesn’t just apply to blogs. The web gives us the opportunity to create engaging content in a multitude of different ways.

Before you put together your next 100 page whitepaper, think about whether there might be a better way to present that information.

4. You need to provide more content (in certain situations)

This study shows that rather than feeling overwhelmed, we feel empowered by having more information.

I’ve written before about how providing the right content at the right time can significantly assist your sales funnel – whether B2B or consumer. When making a buying decision we increasingly expect content to be provided to help us. If content isn’t provided by the vendor (and even if it is) we’ll just look elsewhere.

Work out what information your customers need to help them buy and give it to them.

picture credit / Originally posted on Econsultancy

continue reading: License to create? Information overload is no longer an issue...

17th September, 2012

Content marketing is the buzzword du jour for businesses these days. And, in many ways, the hype is entirely justified. Content should form a central part of most PR and marketing campaigns (some would say it always has) and, now more than ever, with the growth of social, digital and search, content marketing can contribute towards significant ROI for your PR campaigns.

Before everyone gets too excited, it is worth bearing in mind that content for content’s sake just won’t cut the mustard. Objectives, strategies and tactics all have to be aligned in the right way, from the start, to really succeed.

We recently published a new case study on the EML Wildfire site from one of our clients EPiServer, who achieved a 200% ROI on a recent PR campaign we ran. The campaign had content at it’s heart. With the aim of targeting UK marketers, we undertook research to find out how leading UK companies are using social media and online communities. The resulting whitepaper was downloaded 122 times with five deals closed as a result.

Here are six all-important steps that we believe are vital to ensuring your content marketing achieves ROI:

1. Tell a story

The most effective PR always tells a story. And content marketing is no different. For EPiServer, we were able to explain how and why current social media strategies aren’t working and what marketers need to do improve matters. Finding a story that will resonate with your target audience will ensure your content had the desired effect.

2. Have something concrete to reference

With the EPiServer example, we commissioned some research to base the content on. It’s always a good idea to have something to act as a hook, especially if you want to encourage the media to consider covering it. On the flipside, if you are doing some research, make sure you create content to support it – it’ll go a lot further.

3. Use different content to tell your story

Whitepapers or reports are great examples of content that really add value for your audience, especially for B2B campaigns. But there are plenty of other pieces of content that would work just as well in addition or instead. For example, you could create an infographic or a video to go alongside your whitepaper. Different content will work better for specific communication channels and different audiences, so choose wisely. There is a significant SEO benefit here too. Google is increasingly favouring multi-media content, so you might be able to give your rankings a timely boost.

4. Use all your communication channels

When you are ready to launch your content campaign, use every possible channel at your disposal. Using the traditional media and your owned social media channels is an obvious first step but why not add your latest piece of content to your company email signatures? Alternatively, you could create a banner for your website or run some targeted advertising. A multi-channel approach will ensure you reach as many people as possible. And, as with the previous point, the more your content is shared across different channels, the more SEO bonus points you’ll get from the search engines.

5. Build relationships

By this point, hopefully you’ll have lots of people engaging with and sharing the content you have created. It’s important to see this as the first step in your relationship with these people. To do this, you need to create some ‘sticky channels‘. For example, encourage them to sign up to your email newsletter or follow you on Twitter. You could even consider putting your premium content behind a data capture form or a Facebook fangate – just make sure you use this as an opportunity to send them more relevant content in the future.

6. Measure effectiveness

If all goes well, then hopefully you’ll want to run further content campaigns in the future. And, if you’ve set up a measurement framework for your campaign then you’ll be able to see what worked best first time round and make better decisions next time as a result, tweaking your strategy and tactics as you go. For example, you can use web analytics to see where the traffic to your campaign landing page came from. You could even use unique URLs.

When it comes to great content, we’re passionate about using this approach for our clients. But we eat our own dog food too – check out our latest report looking at how consumers are influenced to make technology buying decisions.

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

continue reading: Content marketing: 6 steps to make your content go further...

14th September, 2012

Google is such a dominant force in the world, surely there isn’t anything that keeps the behemoth up at night?

Well, what about this… You know all that content that sits out there on the web? What happens when the same person writes for more than one site? How do you (as Google) track all that information and attribute it to the same author?

Introducing authorship markup

It’s a problem. And it’s a problem that Google has been working on for some time. The nifty solution it has created is called authorship markup.

You’ve probably already seen the results of Google authorship markup. Anytime you do a search and you see an author’s avatar come up next to a search listing, that’s a result of authorship markup. And it is becoming increasingly common.

It’s all about SEO

The reason that more publishers and authors are flocking to this new way of sorting content is partly the kudos of seeing your picture in Google searches (and, in all seriousness, it makes your listing stand out even if it isn’t the highest result) but, more likely, because of the SEO benefits.

As you will see below, authorship markup basically links your content to your Google+ profile page. If you’ve followed out recent posts you’ll know that Google is always giving more SEO weighting to ‘social signals’ (e.g. content that is being talked about and shared on social channels) and, in particular, to brands using Google+. So it’s easy to see why Google will look favourably on sites and blogs that incorporate authorship markup.

Become an authority in Google’s eyes

The other important point here is that, from an individual standpoint, if you are writing lots of content around the web on a specific subject and you are linking all this content together through authorship markup, then Google will start to view you as an authority on that subject. Some of that authority will then brush off on the sites that you write for.

So, if that all sounds good and you are eager to get going, the next question you’ll be asking is how you get Google authorship markup working. The good news is that it is a whole lot easier than it used to be. The bad news is that it’s still a little bit fiddly. Here is a quick overview, but this post is a great source of more detailed instructions if needed.

Step one: Pimp your profile

First, you need to create a Google+ profile if you haven’t got one already. Make sure you use your full name (it needs to be the same name you will be referred to on the content you write) and have a clear picture/avatar.

The next step is to go and edit your profile page and, in the ‘Contributor to’ section add all the blogs and/or sites where you publish content.

Then you are ready to go with one or more of the following options to link your content to your profile page:

Option 1: if you have an email address on the domain where your content lives

If you have an email address that matches the domain where your content will exist (e.g. dannyw@emlwildfire.com for the site www.emlwildfire.com) then you can simply fill in your details on this form that Google has kindly provided.

You’ll need to then verify your email address. (If this solves things for you, then skip to the end, you can ignore the next two options!)

Option 2: add a link to each piece of content

If you don’t have an email address, then the other solution is to take your Google+ profile URL (e.g. mine is https://plus.google.com/115157031632707026932) and create a hyperlink in any piece of content you write that links back to this profile page. For example, at the end of your post, you might want to include a ““.

The important thing to include here (and this does involve a tiny bit of HTML) is a rel=”author” tag in your hyperlink. So your link should look something like this:

<a rel=”author” href=”PUT YOUR GOOGLE+ LINK HERE”>keep up to date with me on Google+</a>

In the example I gave above, my HTML link would look like this:

<a rel=”author” href=”https://plus.google.com/115157031632707026932″>keep up to date with me on Google+</a>

Option 3: link to a profile page

Now, while the second option is relatively simple, it’s not always possible to link directly to your Google+ profile and/or this method can get tricky for multi-author websites or blogs (like the EML Wildfire blog). So there is another option and that is to link to a profile page that then itself includes a link back to your Google+ page.

So, to use this post you are reading now as an example, if you click on my name at the top of the post, you’ll be taken through to my profile page on the EML Wildfire website. All you have to do is remember to include a rel=”me” tag on this hyperlink to tell Google that you are linking through to the author’s profile page. This is relatively easy to set up on multi-author blogs or sites.

Then, on the profile page itself, you just need to ensure there is a link back to your Google+ profile with the rel=”author” tag as referenced in option 2 above.

And that is all there is to it!

Of course, if this all sounds a little bit scary then I’m sure your web team/agency will be more than happy to set it all up for you.

And, if you want to know whether you (or they) have set it up correctly, then Google has created a clever little tool that allows you to enter the URL of a page or post that you have written and it will tell you whether any author tags are included and who they refer to.

Originally posted on the EML Wildfire tech PR blog

continue reading: What is authorship markup, why is it important and how do I get it on my blog?...

13th September, 2012

In 2010, Apple live streamed two keynote events.

Many felt (and hoped) this would signal a change in the company’s approach to live coverage of its infamous product launches.

But no, when the iPad 2 was launched in March 2011, the option had disappeared.

Don’t give ‘em what they want

I’ve often been frustrated by the lack of a live stream. Some have suggested the live stream was pulled because of concerns over the appearance of an increasingly ill Steve Jobs. But I think the absence of a live stream for Apple keynotes is part of a master PR plan that helps the company create buzz (if anymore were needed) around these events.

Creating buzz is something that Apple excels at. Whether it is leaking certain details ahead of time or even taking the Apple website down in advance of a new announcement, everything is geared to getting as much buzz as possible.

And it works. Even when the product announced is disappointing, the sheer amount of media coverage that Apple achieves – good and bad – will ensure there are queues stretching out from Apple stores on launch day.

The lack of a live stream is just another part of this media savvy jigsaw puzzle. As a tech PR, I know better than most the importance of third party validation. Forcing us all to pop over to Engadget and Gizmodo to see their euphoria surrounding the latest shiny revelation is a lot more effective in building positivity around products.

Keep ‘em hungry

The lack of live stream action is also another example of the power that Apple likes to wield over the media. By ensuring the only people that can publish real-time updates are those that are physically in the room, Apple can add or remove journalists it does or doesn’t favour. Bash the company and your access to keynotes (read: eyeballs) is massively impacted.

Secrecy is important for Apple. It creates intrigue and mystique. Of course products still matter and it is because of the revolutionary nature of its products that Apple fanboys ever appeared in the first place. But, from a PR standpoint, Apple perfectly stage manages the whole process to ensure as much noise as possible is achieved.

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

continue reading: Why does Apple avoid keynote live streams? A PR masterstroke....

16th August, 2012

Much of the thinking that I’ve been doing around agile PR recently has stemmed from Google. So I’ve really enjoyed exploring a new little campaign created by Google entitled Agile Creativity.

There’s a great campaign site, an article in Think Quarterly and even a Google Hangout. It’s been put together by Google in association with leading US advertising agencies and, although the focus is on adland, many of the principles/tips would apply equally well to an agile PR setup. For example:

  • Increase collaboration
  • Embrace T-shaped talent
  • The minimum viable brief
  • Use real-time insights to constantly iterate
  • Beta testing with clients
  • Hackathon mode
  • Campaign prototyping

continue reading: Google’s take on agile PR...

7th August, 2012

Google famously forces its employees to spend a proportion of their working week on new projects that are not part of their day-to-day job descriptions.

Back in 2005, Eric Schmidt explained more about this process and introduced us to Google’s 70/20/10 programme. This is a simple theory which should aid innovation. According to it, everyone should spend:

  • 70% of your time on the core business
  • 20% on related projects
  • 10% on unrelated new business

Does this explain Google’s success when it comes to product innovation? Schmidt seems to think so:

“The test that I apply–and we do this every day, 70/20/10–is to ask how a feature will extend the core, the adjacent, or the innovative stuff to fulfill our mission. That’s the sort of drug that we all take, and it works really quite well. So it may very well be that what you said is correct, and it may not matter very much.”

Innovative fizzy drinks?

In a similar way, when Coca Cola revealed its new 2020 marketing strategy last year, the 70/20/10 rule was front and centre as marketing head Jonathan Mildenhall explains:

“To help guide this strategic intent we have developed an investment strategy for media and content spend. We call the model “the 70/20/10 investment principle”…The first segment relates to 70% of our communications spend. This goes on low risk, “bread and butter” content. It pays the rent… Next, we have the 20% of our content where we innovate based on what we know works well… Last, we have the high risk content that falls into our 10% segment. This involves brand new ideas. These may one day become part of our 20% or even 70% segments. Equally, these ideas may well fail outright.”

Now this really starts to get interesting.

Not only does it convey an approach to innovation that is intriguing in itself (e.g. if all you ever do is focus on the bread and butter stuff, then you will never innovate), it also hints at the agile PR approach that I blogged about recently.

As Mildenhall states, if you accept that your 10% might fail then it takes the pressure off and allows you to try new things that are more radical.

The 70/20/10 PR agency

How could this apply to PR agencies (or other agencies or even in-house PR activities)?

If we apply the same approach to PR campaigns then what would that look like? The majority (70%) of activity would be tried and tested tactics that are proven to work. An additional 20% would focus on innovating within the confines of the 70%. But, lastly, you would have the final 10% of a campaign where you try something totally new and are ready to fail.

Innovation is hard, but if you don’t put time aside for it, then it will never have a chance.

continue reading: Bringing 70/20/10 innovation to PR agencies...

31st July, 2012

Last week, Apple released the latest version of Mountain Lion. I was in two minds about whether to buy it. So I hopped onto Google, did a bit of research, read some reviews and asked my followers on Twitter. On the basis of this five or ten minutes of investigation, I took the plunge and purchased.

Does this process sound familiar?

We recently released new consumer research that looks at the different ways UK consumers are influenced before they make a technology purchase.

Just think back to the last time you invested in a new TV, mobile or laptop. What steps did you take? Chances are you didn’t just pop into PC World and grab the first piece of shiny tech on offer.

Chances are you talked to friends, searched the web and read reviews. If our research is correct, you probably did all this and a lot more. Friends and family play an important role, cited by 52% of those polled. However, there appears to be increasing significance of user-generated content, with 51% saying they trust user and consumer reviews 44% flock to expert reviews. Social media features too, but did not have as much of an impact as you might expect.

In a recent ebook, Google calls this moment ZMOT or Zero Moment of Truth. It’s the time before making a purchase that you spend researching and investigating:

“It’s a new decision-making moment that takes place a hundred million times a day on mobile phones, laptops and wired devices of all kinds. It’s a moment where marketing happens, where information happens, and where consumers make choices that affect the success and failure of nearly every brand in the world.”

For PR professionals this is a consumer trend that needs to be carefully assessed. Our report also found that only 12% cited brand loyalty as an influence on their buying habits. Loyalty goes out the window if a close friend tells you that XYZ brand sucks.

And, if that is not enough, the really scary thing is that you could invest significant budget trying to get someone to commit to buying a new product, only for them to then research and then potentially buy from one of your competitors.

So what can brands do to succeed in this world of the savvy consumer?

1. Understand your buyer – where do they go to get information? What sources do they trust? We found, for example, that different age demographics were influenced in different ways.
2. Be helpful – don’t make information hard to find. Realise that research is very important for the modern consumer. You might even want to think about spec sheets that make comparisons with the competition.
3. Don’t ignore traditional media – expert reviews were still an important source of information.
Reward and encourage advocates and evangelists – time and time again our research revealed the importance of word of mouth when making purchasing decisions. It will come as no shock to learn that we trust our friends and family. So an evangelist won’t just be a committed customer for life (in fact, with brand loyalty at an all time low, they definitely won’t be!), they will become a very powerful, unpaid salesperson for your brand.
4. Don’t ignore search – it’s no coincidence that Google wrote ZMOT. Search lies at the heart of much of this. Check now to see how your brand comes over when you go to Google and type in *your product area* plus the word ‘review’.
5. Content is key – related to the last point, content and the distribution of content is more important than ever; on your site, on social channels, on media or blogger websites and even offline.

Originally published at http://wallblog.co.uk/2012/07/26/the-rise-of-the-savvy-consumer/#ixzz22EZqCPpT

continue reading: The rise of the savvy consumer...

19th July, 2012

“Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee” – Muhammad Ali

Yesterday I went to a Facebook Marketing conference organised by Chinwag and Our Social Times. It was really good (and I don’t say that about conferences very often). There was plenty of food for thought and I may well share more on here in due course.

Flexible innovation

But one idea, from a talk by Maurice Wheeler from Doco, really stood out. Using some Black Swan reasoning (I’m a big fan, another post for another day), he put over the simple thesis that in a fast-paced digital and social world, where techniques and tactics can change from one day to the next, ‘big campaign’ thinking just doesn’t cut the mustard anymore.

The days when you would plan a big marketing or PR campaign for months and be pretty certain of the results, he suggests, are over.

Instead we need to be constantly innovating and trying new things to succeed. Quickly can the things that don’t work, do more of what does and have a more flexible approach to planning, strategy and execution.

I think there’s a lot to commend this way of working. It’s similar to the agile approach in IT development and is very aligned to the way embryonic startups work. It also slips nicely into a burgeoning trend of agile marketing that has been rearing its head more and more in the last few months.

Agile PR

Recently I’ve been thinking and experimenting with how this could work from a PR standpoint.

For this agile approach to work, you need to pay even more attention to processes, objectives and, of course, measurement. That’s going to be challenging for some agencies  but I think it’s really only the tip of the iceberg. An agile approach should go a step further – improved transparency, openness and a real committment to everyone ‘pushing in the same direction’ – both agency AND client.

So what could an agile PR agency approach embody?

  • Project teams that include client members
  • Project management tools visible by agency and client
  • Open brainstorming / idea generation receptors – e.g. we are using Facebook Groups with one client to do just this
  • Sharing ‘rough’ work or drafts
  • Focus on continuous brainstorming and trial and error
  • Rigorous measurement processes, reviewed weekly
  • Scrums involving people from across the agency and different client departments
  • Sprints – agressive deadlines to deliver bitesize parts of a programme or project
  • Daily stand-up meetings – every team meets daily (at least) to review yesterday and plan today
  • Streamline processes – ditch long meetings, action reports
  • Use technology to help pull together and outline ideas/activity/actions

Thoughts?

picture credit

continue reading: Agile PR: let’s move away from big campaigns and constantly innovate...

4th July, 2012

From the fast-paced debate in the opening seconds to the passionate speech delivered by Jeff Daniels soon after, it’s clear what we’re going to get from The Newsroom, Aaron Sorkin’s latest TV series.

This is Sorkin doing what Sorkin does best; taking a subject close to his heart and presenting an idealistic vista of what it could or should be. All the while he delivers this vision with his unique brand of fast-paced, reference-laden dialogue.

There are many who don’t like Sorkin and they won’t like the Newsroom. I’m not one of them and I loved the first episode.

Ever since the West Wing, I’ve been a big Sorkin fan and have lapped up most of what he has delivered. I even liked his last attempt – Studio 60 – a series that had a lot to commend it but that ultimately failed to hit home with viewers with its introspective focus on the inner workings of a TV show. On the surface it might seem that Sorkin is a glutton for punishment in returning to this subject, but The Newsroom is different.

While it clearly has many similarities with Studio 60, it will resonate with audiences far beyond the media industry. It speaks in much broader language and the underlying themes are far more universal. And perhaps because of this it feels in places (in the first episode at least) like vintage West Wing Sorkin. From the very West-Wing-esque title sequence to the first ‘walk-and-talk’, it’s comfortable territory.

The acting is slick too. The relationship between Alison Pill’s cute but feisty Maggie and John Gallagher’s Jim (aka Sam Seaborn) is perhaps the most intriguing and some of their set pieces show clear chemistry. Jeff Daniels too is brilliantly cryptic, vulnerable and emotional all at the same time as Will. I thought Emily Mortimer was strong in the first episode but became worryingly screechy and maniacal in the second. Hopefully this will be addressed.

It will take time to see if this ensemble cast can ever approach the summit of that reached by the former residents of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but there’s no doubt the tone Sorkin is trying to set is similar.

This isn’t dumb TV for dumb people

At one point Sam Waterstone declares “I’m too old to be governed by fear of dumb people”. At another MacKenzie uses the word ‘quixotic’ in a raging debate with Daniels. This one word is a perfect summary of the show and of Sorkin dramas in general. In an interview with NPR last week he admitted as much: “Everybody, at some point in this series, says the word quixotic. The theme of Don Quixote goes all the way through the series.”

With The Newsroom, Sorkin is making a clear point about the state of journalism and the dumbing down of television. Sure, it’s idealistic. It’s liberal. And it’s unrealistic. But we all have longings for escapism TV and I’d take this above all of the other crap out there.

continue reading: The Newsroom – it might be quixotic, but I like it...

3rd July, 2012

I’ve been thinking a lot about Enterprise Social Networks recently, and so should you if the figures about the potential size of the market over the next few years are to be believed ($6.4bn by 2016).

The news that Yammer has been acquired by Microsoft for $1.2bn therefore shouldn’t come as any surprise. Sure, it is a big sum, but I think this is a smart move by Microsoft. Whether the same can be said for Yammer is another question. Can Microsoft harness the power of ESNing? Time will tell and it is a subject for another post.

That’s because, long before the deal went through, I was thinking about the potential of a Twitter/Yammer tie up. It might seem strange at first but bear with me.

Is the idea of one unified profile to join work and personal social networking that ridiculous?

As a big user of Twitter and working for a company that uses Yammer, I often find myself dithering between whether to post on Twitter or Yammer or both. Sure, sometimes posts are clearly more appropriate or relevant for public or private-work but surely there would be some benefit in having a unified experience for both?

Clearly Yammer and Twitter won’t happen. But there are plenty of other options out there should Twitter consider this a wise move and, given its ‘finding a business model’ difficulties, maybe getting enterprises on board (and paying) through ESN, especially given the sums mentioned above, isn’t such a bad idea?

continue reading: Twitter + Yammer? What could have been…...