10. Overview
• Matured - blogging has now matured
as a phenomenon to cross all
consumer interest areas
• Extensive - vibrant communities can
be found collecting around vast
ranges of topics
• Culture - blogger outreach carries
with it different expectancies in
regards to form of communications
than traditional media
14. Opportunity
• ‘Link etiquette’ of the blogging world encourages quick viral
dissemination of well-targeted stories and engaging content
• SEO - this ‘link etiquette’ is also responsible for blogs faring extremely well
in search returns – ranking highly in Google
– As a result, blog posts can be extremely visible and influential
– Impacting consumer opinion
– Driving mainstream coverage
• Brand advocates - the highly focused nature of blogs – with bloggers
becoming passionate opinion formers on very specific topics – offers
distinct opportunity to encourage strong advocates of a product or service
16. Preparation
• It is vital to know who you’re pitching to. Specifically this includes:
Reading the site’s about page
Reading the last week or so of posts or news stories
If possible, finding a specific, concrete example and URL that
proves why the editor would be interested in writing about the
campaign?
If not a URL, the site should be very specific to your
client/campaign
17. Digging Deeper
It’s essential that you ask yourself…
Are you going after an active blogger or a fair-weather blogger?
• If your blogger is very active online, chances are he or she
has received a pitch before and will at least know the drill. If
not, he or she may still be a good target, but you may have to
explain the process a little more in-depth.
Is the blogger is interacting only in the blogging community or if
are they active elsewhere?
• Twitter? Facebook? Flickr? MySpace?
18. More Digging
How does the blogger interact online?
• Is he or she cynical or critical? Is he or she part of a
community that is characteristically anti-PR?
Search for terms…
Pitch
Public Relations
PR
Marketing
Flack
Your client or the client’s product
Client competitors
19. Blog Pitching - Ethics
Transparency
• Honesty of Relationship: You say who you're speaking for
• Honesty of Identity: You never obscure your identity
Specifics
• No monetary exchanges
• Commitment to represent blogger and client
• No dodgy dealings, bribery
• No pestering
• No anonymous posting or commenting
• No spamming
20. Step One: The Pre-pitch
What it does:
• Ensures that a blogger is
interested in hearing from PR
Why it’s important:
• One disgruntled blogger has
the power to tarnish the
reputation of the agency and
client with the click of a button
21. Step One: The Pre-pitch
Includes:
• Short introduction of who you are and what you do
• Opt-in clause of participation
• A hint of what might be in store
• Chance to be placed on a ‘Do Not Pitch’ list
Does not include:
• Press releases
• Hard sells
• Attachments
• Unsolicited advice or information
22. Step Two: Relationship Establishment
What it does:
• Ensures that the blogger
understands your objectives
and that you understand theirs
Why it’s important:
• Each blogger is different -
some want to review products,
some want Google juice, some
want advertising, some don’t
know what they want… This
gives us all a chance to start off
on the same page.
23. Step Three: The Pitch & Maintenance
What it does:
• Keeps an ongoing
conversation with the blogger
Why it’s important:
• The blogger will be much
more likely to take your other
pitches if they know you
24. Step Three: The Pitch & Maintenance
What it includes:
• Knowing what’s going on in
the blogger’s life
• Thinking before you pitch
• Short, to the point,
correspondence
• Follow-up
• Personality
26. Case study - Beck’s Canvas
Key Outputs
• Over 120 pieces of online coverage
achieved
• 40,148,733 unique users
• £257,000 equivalent online media
value
• ROI – 9:1
28. Case study – Hotel Chocolat
• Objective to build buzz and
excitement around new range of
Easter Eggs and Hampers
• Detailed discovery process to find
most influential UK Foodie
bloggers and chocoholics
• Priority list of 50 contacts finalised
• One-to-one communications
commenced with all 50
• Taste-tests of Hotel Chocolat
products offered for review
• Extremely positive response
• 100% follow through on product
sampling to editorial review
30. Overview
• Blogger events can be run in a very similar way to media events
• These can either be run in tandem with mainstream media events or
independently
• Successful blogger events tend to adopt very tailored methods of syncing
specific elements of an event to bloggers’ personal tastes
31. Opportunity
• With bloggers currently not invited
to a large number of events, they
offer a powerful means by which
to build strong relationships and
brand advocates
• Face-to-face time allows impact to
be made far beyond that possible
during normal email
communications
• Following blogger events,
bloggers frequently post detailed
and well-branded reviews and
posts
32. Case study - Smirnoff
• Popular London ‘Blogger Meet-
up’ event sponsored by Smirnoff
• Two Smirnoff ‘mixologists’ placed
at bar
• Profile book designed with
detailed background information
on all of the blogger invitees
• Special cocktail design for each
blogger: for example Fake
Plastic Noodles received a
cocktail infused with twisted
lemon skins for noodles
33. Case study - V-Jam
• ‘V-Jam’ social media day
created, with 60 frequent flyers,
airline staff and bloggers
participating
• Focus set of come up with
concepts on how social media
can improve the flying
experience
• Virgin Atlantic’s Vtravelled.com,
was developed as an output – an
online travel community where
people can organise and share
travel plans with friends and
family
35. Overview
• UK lead - over the past year Twitter has
grown hugely in the UK to overtake the
US in terms of take-up
• Extensive - the similarity to texts and the
brief, quick nature of posts have
resonated strongly with UK consumers,
now spanning many demographic groups
and interest areas
• Complements blogging - Twitter now
has found a place alongside blogging,
where it is used to share quick views and
opinions. Blogging instead is used for
more detailed descriptions and analysis
37. Opportunity
• Influential hubs - the culture of people on Twitter ‘following’ others that
they find interesting has created a number of very influential hubs
• ‘Twitter Elite’ now hold considerable sway, with their posts being seen by
thousands of people instantly
• Viral - the medium, like blogging, also lends itself extremely well to quick
dissemination of news. If a person following a Twitter user likes a post,
they can ‘ReTweet’ further increasing the audience base that the message
reaches
39. How does it work?
1. I update 3. I can
check
the
updates
that are
directed
at me
(@)
2. It shows
up in my 4. As I update, the more
news feed my name shows up and
and my I can expand my
followers’ followers
news feed
40. The Twitter Dashboard
• Following
• Followers
• Updates
• Twitter Tip
• @Replies
• Direct Messages
• Favourites
• Search
• Trends
41. Twitter, PR and Journalism
• Sense of
community
• Secret club
mentality
• Way to connect
• Inside information
42. Etiquette
Do not:
• Follow indiscriminately
• Pitch out in the open
• Use only for self-promotion
Do:
• Keep engaged daily
• Move outside your circle
• Follow people at a steady pace
44. Twitter Tools – things to know
• Hashtags
– A way to track and distinguish conversations by inserting # in front of a
pre-determined term
• RT (Retweet)
– Pass along a Tweet of someone else’s and give credit
“RT @mseasons Check out this site!”
• DM (Direct message)
– A private message to another Twitter user. Can only be sent if the user is
following you
• Long URLs
– Can be shortened using services like Tiny.cc to help avoid going over the
140 character limit.
• Pictures
– Use TwitPic.com to share photos easily on Twitter
• Username
– Can be changed at any time without losing your followers, replies or
account
45. Twitter Tools - Digsby
• Updates stream to your desktop
• You don’t ever have to miss an @
reply
• You can update your status, return
direct messages and reply to other
users
• You never have to visit Twitter.com
• It’s also possible to incorporate
your email, Facebook and IM
clients
46. Case study – Pizza Hut
• Pizza Hut has recently hired a
dedicated intern to run its Twitter
page
• Before recruiting the position, the
Twitter page had 3,000 followers
• Now has 17,000
• 13,000 following
• 574 updates
• High volume of interaction with
followers, discussing pizzas, meals
and offers
49. • Targeted ads – displays ads solely on users meeting the demographic
profile requested
• Partner campaigns - special pages are designed to hold communities
around specific topics
• Traditional PR activity - Facebook is a notoriously hard environment to
engage directly with consumer as a result of its closed nature (you have to
be friends with someone to see their full details)
• Facebook groups - the most accessible way to engage with communities
of people on Facebook– either by setting one up or through engagement
in groups already existing
50. Case study – Pizza Hut
• Official Pizza Hut fan page
incorporates a number of
different functions
• Links directly to Pizza Hut
booking system, allowing
fans to:
– Find a restaurant
– Book a table
• Prominent offers promotion
• ‘Events’ feature used to
promote offers to all fans
• 54,000 fans
53. • Drop in users - MySpace’s user base in
recent years has dropped significantly as
a result of the rise of Facebook and Bebo
• Music - the profile now of MySpace
users is now very music-focused
• Targeted ads - much like on Facebook,
targeted ads can be run on MySpace, set
to appear only on profile pages of users
that fit within a certain demographic
profile
• Open - MySpace is based on a far more
open environment than Facebook, and
therefore enables far more extensive
engagement
55. • What is it?
– Photo storage and photo
sharing community
• How does it work?
– Users upload photos, tag
them and/or submit them to
groups
• Importance of tagging
– Allows search functionality
– SEO visibility through
Google and Google Image
56. • DIY - an open social network platform
that allows you to easily create your own
social network
• Flexibility - this can be designed to
focus upon any topic imaginable
• Numbers - currently over 1 million
individual networks have been created
on Ning – by companies and individuals
alike
• Functionality - Ning easily incorporates
all of the features commonly available
today on social networks – including
multimedia content, and easy sharing of
opinion and views
57. Opportunity
• Control- Ning offers
complete control over who
can join a social network and
what they can do when they
are part of it
• Moderation - constraints can
thus be placed on the age of
participants
• Targeted - opportunity to
create niche networks that
are designed to complement
other marketing initiatives
58. Social bookmarking
• Distribution - A powerful way
for stories to disseminate
online
• Tags - Users ‘tag’ stories they
find interesting
• Easy access - The URL for
the story is saved on the web,
for easy future finding (online
bookmarking)
59. Social bookmarking
• Online influence - Very
popular with news hungry
web geeks
• Community - People
follow friends ‘feeds’, and
are kept up-to-date with
stories they find
interesting
• Comments – People
comment and share views
on stories
• Traffic – can be a major
source of traffic to
websites online
60. Social bookmarking
• User-generated news
website
• No editor
• Ranking of stories
decided by community
• A central group of a
1000 or so users
command great
influence
• Major traffic driver online
• SEO boost
62. Overview
• Well-established - forum communities were the first form of
social media to take-off on the web
• Community - completely driven by community posts
• ‘Forum Master’ - oversees content moderation
• Threads - are either initiated by the Forum Master or by the user
community
• Consumer research – very popular with consumers when
researching complex topics or making purchasing decisions
• Opinion-formers –most forums provide information on the
activity of its users:
– Number of posts
– Number of threads
63.
64.
65. Opportunity & constraints
• Seeding – in the not too distant past,
forums were a popular medium for viral
marketers
• Legal constrictions – changes in
European law two years ago, however,
severely curtailed this activity, making it
illegal to act under false pretence when
marketing online
• Forum thread sponsorship – The main
opportunity for active forum engagement
is by contacting a Forum Webmaster to
organise a sponsored thread
67. Overview
• Podcasts are very much a social media equivalent to radio
– Blogs:journalism
– Podcasts:radio
• RSS technology utilised to download straight to your iPod
– Lead to podcasts being consumer on the go at times
convenient to the listener
• Podcasts can now be found covering all interest areas and
industry sectors
68.
69. Opportunity
• Opportunity exists to pitch in
stories and content just as
with radio
– Interviews
– Guest speaker slots
• As it is still a relatively new
medium, podcast producers
do not receive as many
approaches from PRs –
leading to increased
opportunity
71. Overview
• Engagement - video offers
tremendous opportunity to
engage audience groups online
• Media thirst – traditional media
sites are constantly trying to
compete with the BBC’s
extensive libraries of content
• PR opportunity – creates
opportunity for high-profile story
placement
• Creative extension –
opportunity to add further depth
to a story
72. Video-sharing
• Large and varied – more than
just YouTube. Sites such as
Dailymotion, Videojug,
Metacafe, Blinkx and many
others also have large
communities
• Easy sharing – ‘embedded
players’ are now offered by all
video-sharing sites making it
easy to pass content to
journalists
• Viral spread – it is also very
easy for consumers to share
video content – meaning videos
can spread very quickly online
(e.g. recent London fire)
73. Communities
• Social networks – more than just
video posting
• Shared interests – people connect
to other users who like similar
content, or post videos they like
• Channels – YouTube channels
create audience bases that are
informed when new content is
uploaded
• Comments – people post comments
and views on videos. Star ratings are
a powerful determination of ranking
in YouTube and whether it achieves
the all-important feature on the front-
page
74. Video production
• Affordable quality – the explosion of video consumption online
has brought with it a reduction in the expectancy of video quality
and resolution
• Script writer – finding a good script writer is a very valuable
exercise. Substantially reduces expensive to and fro
• Production – hiring a video producers is extremely important –
more often that not they will manage the whole project, including
editing
• Budget – costs can be in the hundreds, depending on the scope
of work
• Length – it is best if videos do not shoot past 1 minute in length
online – further reducing production costs
75. Video seeding
• Audience reach – do use other video-sharing
sites in addition to YouTube. You can easily find
extensive lists of them online
• Relevance – particularly ensure your video is
posted on sites with relevant focus and audience
bases
• Web tools – there are a number of tools that can
be used to post a video simultaneously to many
video-sharing sites at once – massively reducing
admin time (e.g. http://heyspread.com/)
• Monitoring – such sites also enable easy
reporting of total views and comment activity
across the video-sharing sites used
76. SEO
• SEO – when posting videos on video-
sharing sites, you have complete
control over the copy and content that
runs alongside the video
• Keywords – by researching
appropriate keywords, it is possible to
ensure the video ranks well in
relevant search engine returns
• URL links – use of relevant URLs
and ‘anchor text’ ensures that popular
videos provide an SEO boost to your
website
• Traffic – Popular sites such as
YouTube can be key drivers of traffic
online
77. Moderation
• Hugely active sites such as YouTube so attract a
large number of ‘spammers’ – people posting
inappropriate links and content in comments to
capture people’s attention
• Popular videos can also attract abusive comment
as a means to scandalise and shock
• When it is your own video post, it is possible to
control the following:
– Removal of inappropriate comments
– Complete removal of ability to comment
83. Case study – Ramada Encore
Key Outputs
• 12 pieces of national online
coverage
• 78 actively generated pieces
of coverage across
influential blog titles
• Stimulated over 20 million
impressions
85. Case study – Virgin Mobile
Key Outputs
• 105 pieces of online coverage
• Over 20 million impressions
• Over 95% of placements mentioned
Virgin Mobile
• Over 89% of placements linked to or
embedded the 30 Peas video
• Over 87% linked to
virginmobilepeople.com/30p
87. Overview
• Interactive web tools that can be
‘embedded’ on websites and
downloaded to desktops
• Engagement – great means by which
to actively engage consumers
• Rich information – powerful way to
display rich and varied information
• Content – work for all means of
different content, from video to games
• Stand-out – as this is still a a largely
unexplored area by the PR industry
generally, substantial opportunity exists
to catch online influencers’ attention
89. Case study – Burger King
• Facebook application developed
by Burger King
• Designed to target Facebook’s
primary user base – 18-24 year
olds
• Clever play on Facebook ‘friends’
network, whereby you can win a
Whopper if you delete 10 friends
• ‘So successful, Facebook had to
shut it down’
95. Creative development
• At the core of social media strategy is
traditional PR
– Must be new
– Must be sufficiently interesting for someone
to want to take their own personal time to talk
about it
– Relevance is highly important
• Simplicity is vital
– Online influencers are extremely time poor
– Key messaging must come through instantly
• Attention-grabbing works
– Humour
– Innovation
– Risqué (great example is Diesel 30 year
anniversary campaign)
96. Story development
• Get to the core of the story
– Describe it in one sentence
• Build associations from this base
• Relevance is key
• Focus first on this before considering appropriate social media
platforms
– Platforms should fall naturally from creative concept
• Think BIG
– Creative implementation online is far, far cheaper that offline
– There are some very competitively priced development suppliers out there
97. Use the full palette
• Never before have so many tools
been available, so easily, to PRs
• Bring the story to life as much as
possible
• The further you go the stronger
the message, the reach, the
impact
• Video is enormously powerful
98. Two-way
• The key feature that
differentiates social media
from traditional media is its
facility for two-way dialogue
• This brings with it a number
of important advantages:
– More powerful engagement
• Improved recall
– Active involvement
– Participative for both parties
• Make this principle core to
a social media campaign
99. Competition mechanics
• Incentivise people to
participate
• Make prizes relevant to
resonate
• Competitions have long
been a core strand of
consumer PR campaigns
– Social media offers far more
flexible, creative mechanics
• You have to think why
would some get involved?
101. Language & tone
• ‘PR speak’ just does not work
– Avoid exaggeration – people can spot it, and do not need to put up with it
– Is it really ‘the world’s leading’?
• Be human
– Chatty, simple language works best
– Avoid jargon at all costs
• Be friendly
– Relationships can be formed very quickly online
• Be open
– People are largely very understanding. If issues arise be up-front and open
and maintain dialogue
• Transparency
– Always state your intention
– Always state who you are representing
102. Mechanicals
• Make it easy to share
– URL links
– Social media ‘share’
buttons
• Be mindful of people’s
inboxes
– Make full use of online
tools and sharing sites to
distribute content
– YouSendIt
104. Overview
• Extend – online PR can work very well as a means to ‘amplify’ or
add further depth to a planned PR/marketing/advertising
campaign
• Advertising – ‘amplification’ is very much a buzz term in the ad
world. Represents a means by which to take the core ad
message out to a wider audience base
• Media fragmentation – the fragmentation of consumer media
has made it impossible for advertising to reach as large groups
of people as before
• Word-of-mouth – at its core lies the ability to stimulate word-of-
mouth and viral spread of key marketing messages
• Social media – the two-way, personal nature of the medium
perfectly complements the prime objective of any advertising
initiative
105. Implementation
• Core messaging –
creative scope is focused
upon taking campaign
messaging and applying
them to the online medium
• Interaction & depth – tools
such as video and widgets
enable softer elements to
be added to a campaign –
increasing levels of
engagement
• Assets – content produced
to-date as part of the
campaign can prove
extremely valuable
106. Implementation - timeline
• Anticipation – one core
focus for amplification
strategy is building
momentum ahead of a
campaign launch
– Early glimpses of assets
– Smaller campaigns to support
major push
• Extension – an additional
focus commonly is then
extending interest and
intrigue past the main
launch dates
– Interactive elements
– Competitions
107. Opportunity
• Extend current client PR campaigns – opportunity to pitch in
amplification projects onto current client campaigns
• Extend other client marketing initiatives – opportunity to
begin further supporting other agency initiatives
• Slot in aside current retained PR agencies – opportunity to
get to the client table without a full re-pitch. A foot in the door
• Partnerships – scope to partner with advertising and media
agencies
111. Case study – Compare the Market
• Dedicated micro-site hosts
multitude of digital assets
linked to the mainstream
advertising campaign
• Video clips include full TV ads,
together with special features
only available online
• Varied range of downloads
available, from music tracks,
audio speeches, movies to
wallpaper art
• Directs traffic very neatly to
camparethemarket.com,
driving 100% in visits
• Cost per acquisition reduced
by 73%
112. Case study – Compare the Market
• 550,000 fans chose to interact
on the Facebook fan page
• Badge of pride selected by
large majority of fans,
uploaded on individual profile
pages
• Large number of image
uploads of customised pictures
of fictional character Mr. Orlov,
and starting petitions to get
cuddly toys made
• Large number of comments
and ‘likes’ visible on Mr. Orlov’s
status updates
113. Case study – Compare the Market
• Over 25,000 followers
• Following over 27,000
• Almost 2,000 updates
• Quirky status updates and
comedy news creates a
stand-out theme that has
proved popular
• Lots of direct interaction with
followers
115. Case study – Creme Egg
• Online campaign to support TV ad
campaign
• Target audience of 16-24 year olds
• DM packs utilised to target people
who participated in previous year’s
campaign, directing traffic to
following:
– Microsite
• Game
• Video content
• Blog
– Bebo
– Facebook
– YouTube Channel
• All interactive elements, designed to
encourage engagement with ad
concept and collateral
116. Case study – Creme Egg
• 10% increase in number of
unique visitors YOY
• 41% increase in average
dwell time YOY
• Double the number of
average visits per user YOY
• 54% of visitor played ‘The
Great Eggscape’ game
119. Online monitoring
• Many options – there are now a large
number of monitoring services on offer
• Consultancy – value for clients is in the
consultancy offered in addition to raw stats:
– Flagging crises before flaring
– Prioritisation of articles for reaction
– Insight to inform PR planning and campaign
creative
120. Managing comments
• Commenting is a necessary element of the two-way nature of
social media
• Once you start the dialogue, it is important to remain involved
– Reply to comments
– Engage in conversation
• However, the more impersonal nature of online communications
can cause people to sometimes be more offensive
– Keep a watchful eye for inappropriate comment or spam
• If this occurs on your uploaded content or site, this can be
mitigated with removal as necessary
– Ensure this is an appropriate action
• YouTube allows comments to be disabled
121. Managing comments - prioritisation
• The proliferation of sites and
commentators can be mind
boggling and very difficult to
manage
• Priority is key
• Not all sites similar sway
• Some comment at best will only
require a watchful eye to check
if it spreads further
– In such circumstances, engaging is
a waste of resources and may only
fuel the fire
123. SEO PR
• Google is very much the window through
which people access everything online
• Online PR and social media outreach
directly impact:
1. Brand website rankings
2. Journalist and consumer endorsement
rankings
• Online PR and social media outreach can
also be utilised to minimise the impact of
damaging articles ranking highly
– Hotel Chocolat example
124. Implementation - keywords
• Keywords – keyword phrases
are selected that are most
important to the client for driving
relevant traffic to their website
• Input – first check if client has
list of priority keywords. Their
online marketing department will
definitely have focus areas
• Keyword generation –
otherwise, there are numerous
free, or paid-for, keyword
generator tools
• Focus – build focused list of up
to five keywords to focus upon
125. Implementation - drafting
• Careful drafting – PR collateral is
fused subtly with keyword phrases
• Extend use – opportunity to
extend use of press releases and
other collateral already being
produced for a client
• Focused content – otherwise,
focused collateral can be created
around keyword areas
• Anchor links – appropriate URL
links to the client site are placed
behind keywords
• Link choice – work with online
marketing department to select
most appropriate URLs
126. Implementation - syndication
• Syndication wires – PR collateral is
posted on SEO PR wires (PRWeb,
Source Wire, Real Wire)
• Mechanical costs – Each post costs
around £100 (varies across wires)
• Targeted – collateral is syndicated
across sites relevant to the content and
keywords
• Link creation – each syndicated piece
of coverage contains keywords and
URL links to clients site
127. Online PR support
• Dual benefit – more traditional online PR activity also has a
direct impact on search
• Top web real estate – achieving coverage on high ranking
sites, such as BBC Online & Guardian Online, which includes
URL links, creates substantial SEO boosts for a client
• PR-dependent – PR is the only mechanism by which to
achieve this
• Relevant content – PR-generated articles linking to a client
are likely to include relevant keyword phrases, further
increasing effects
129. Social media metrics
• Unique user statistics in social
media are impossible to
acquire across the board
• A blogger will have to
provide information
personally
• Therefore, does not support
overall campaign
measurement
• Different social media
platforms require different
metrics
130. Social media metrics
• Blogs
• Number of actively generated posts
• Number of virally generated posts
• Tone of posts
• Key messages
• BlogScore
• Number of comments
• URL links
• ‘Anchor text’
131. Social media metrics
• Twitter
• Number of actively generated Tweets
• Number of Retweets
• Tone of posts
• Key messages
• TwitterScore
• URL links
132. Social media metrics
• Forums
• ForumScore
• Tone
• Key messaging
• Podcasts
• Number of listeners
• Tone
• Key messaging
133. Social media metrics
• Video
• Number of views
• Stars
• Favourites
• Comments
– Tone
• Social networks
• Members/ friends
• Level of active
engagement
– Comments
– Uploads
134. Search engine impact
• Ranking of actively generated
posts in search returns
• Assess ranking of negative
articles in search returns
• Pre and post activity keyword
search returns analysed
• Work with SEO agency/online
marketing department
• Online PR/social media campaigning
will not be the only influence on
search returns
• Note the Google PageRank of
coverage generated
135. Traffic
Utilise web analytics to track the
following:
1. Site visits encouraged as a
direct result of online PR
activity
2. Uplift in traffic levels
3. Conversion of traffic to
sales (or other important
marketing metrics, for
example sign-up)
