Previously, I explored the intersection of social media and PR and explained why it is so important communications professionals leverage digital channels. In that post I touched on the following key points:
- Authenticity/personality – the world and web crave it
- It scales – popular brands just get more popular
- Long-term storytelling – build a permission asset
- Leverage – digital PR is your social proofing
- Intersection with SEO – links are by-product
- PR has changed – pull is now more effective
Next I’d like to explore a brief outline of how you can effectively use social media to accomplish your PR objectives. I’ll run through 3 key steps as a primer, however I challenge you to consider a unique entry point for your own brand. The social web is as flexible as you want it to be, and there is no single “right answer”. The following are learnings for how you could potentially approach a social media PR strategy.
1. Go platform agnostic
Social media is more than just Twitter
Everyone is buzzing about Twitter and it is without question the network du jour among PR and marketing professionals. And while we’re fond of Twitter as well, (follow us @TopRank) social media is far more than just Twitter. If Twitter is the extent of your participation you’re missing out with a myopic approach. Besides, you don’t get analytics with Twitter, no (direct) SEO benefit, and ultimately, you don’t control the network. To truly be effective at using social media for PR, treat Twitter as a feeder to something larger – as one piece to a much larger and elegant puzzle. Read the rest
Traditional advertising and social media marketing need to exist together. Your advertising efforts in newspaper ads, tv and radio commercials are drivers to the website or a landing page. Business cards are holders of information about to your blog and social media profiles. Creating a print ad or a tv commercial that does not mention your website or even a follow us on … is not making full use of the media placement. Radio is a bit more difficult as you want them to remember the website or phone number and not crash trying to write it all down or give them too much information that they lose interest.
As we eagerly watch how, if at all, social media impacts consumer buying and/or influence to purchase during the upcoming holiday season, there is opportunity to integrate traditional advertising with your social media efforts.
5 Tips for Integrating Traditional Advertising & Social Media Read the rest
Customer service, something we as business people and also consumers encounter every day. From grabbing our first cup of coffee at our favorite store to our first phone call of the day, we take part in the consumer experience as well as have an impact on our on customers experience. While not every customer will be signing our praise there are so mistakes to avoid to enrich the consumer experience and create loyal customers.
15 Customer Service Mistakes to Avoid
1. Inattentiveness. Talking to other employees, talking on the phone or even texting when customers are waiting. If you are talking about something that is directly related to the customer is necessary. Think about checking out at the counter and being completely ignored throughout the entire process.
2. Automated Call Answering. In larger companies this keeps costs down as well as directs the caller to the proper department. Where this goes sour is when there are multiple levels of automation, no interaction with a human or when zero is pressed and the call is disconnected.
Read the rest
Flickr, the photo sharing site that has grown from uploading photos to share with friends and family to the ability to tag photos and now has unveiled The App Garden. Scott Gilbertson’s article Discover Cool Photo Apps With Flickr’s New ‘App Garden’ clearly and precisely discusses the App Garden and it is functionality. With these changes comes opportunity to improve your local rankings by simply posting photos and tagging them.
Read the rest
Online retail websites face a unique set of obstacles when it comes to improving sales through better search engine visibility. Repetitive product descriptions, a lack of content and frequent churn of products can all be hurdles to overcome. But with these specific tips for retail search engine optimization, online retailers can turn those challenges into opportunities and maximize their organic search traffic.
1. Add fresh content to the website. Many online retail websites focus on selling products rather than informing and providing value to customers, and hence severely lack content. It’s a good idea to include pages on a retail site that are purely content-based. Not only will informative, optimized content improve search rankings, it can help retailers sell more products by engaging customers.
Try these ideas for adding fresh content to an online retail site:
- Add customer success stories and case studies to the website.
- Create a blog to provide relevant industry news, tips and product offerings.
- Incorporate a resource section on the site with relevant white papers and other content.
2. Eliminate repetitive copy. Another issue online retailers face is that many of their products are significantly similar, with only slight variations. As such, product descriptions tend to use very similar copy. And if other retailers sell the same products, their descriptions are likely similar as well.
Read the rest