ROAM Communications

  • Services
  • Team
  • Portfolio
  • Resources
    • Blog
  • Contact
  • PRIVACY
  • Services
  • Team
  • Portfolio
  • Resources
    • Blog
  • Contact
  • PRIVACY

What We Think

The Biggest Obstacles For PR Pros In 2017

1/24/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
Every new year comes with new opportunities and new challenges. 

We asked some of our colleagues in the PR industry: "What are the biggest obstacles PR professionals face in the coming year?" Here are some of their responses.
"With so much swirl in D.C., it may take a couple of months for other industries like technlogy or travel to get back to the share-of-voice that they're accustomed to, or they'll have to fight harder and get creative to maintain or grow it. It may be a good time to experiment with different, more targeted approaches like exclusive or feature placements that don't rely on the echo-chamber effect that could be dampened in the coming year for all but the most prominent players."
​
-- Jeannie Entin, Founder, FlipTurn Communications
"For one, probably the same that it's been for a while: demonstrating the real value of PR. 

"The other obstacle goes back to the Trump presidency. Obviously, Trump's win caused a lot of businesses and analysts to rethink how connected they are to "middle America" or the general population. PR pros, in turn, will also need to really consider their communications strategies and messages on behalf of their clients. What we thought we knew about America no longer applies."

​-- Alysha Light, Founder, FlightPR
"Contributed content written by your clients to position them as experts in their industry, is a hot trend and will continue to be a very important part of your PR strategy in 2017. With that being said, media outlets are constantly getting bombarded with guest thought leadership pieces from publicists, which means that you need to make sure you're submitting high quality, stellar content on fresh topics. Also, the Editorial Directors for these media outlets that take contributed content, are constantly changing so it's going to be a little difficult keeping up with who you should be pitching."

-- Kristen Tishchhauser, Co-Founder & CEO, TalkTech Communications
But not everything in 2017 is negative for PR pros...
"I've been in this industry for over 25 years and I believe PR professionals are in a sweet spot right now. Most businesses realize they need PR/Marketing support and are taking PR more seriously. It's not the first thing to be eliminated when budgets get tight anymore."
​
-- Jamie Brown, Founder, DirectPR
0 Comments

Thinking About Thought Leadership

1/19/2017

0 Comments

 
Today's post comes from ROAM Communications network partner, Rory J. O'Connor, Chief Storyteller at San Francisco-based Morcopy Communications. He is an award-winning former journalist and long-time senior PR executive, who provides executive communications consulting and writing services to corporate clients. 
Picture
There's hardly a corporate communications program that doesn't include a "thought leadership" component, whether the goal is to increase the visibility of a key executive, position a brand to stand apart from its competitors, or influence the direction of an industry or public issue. 

Unfortunately, few of those programs succeed as well in practice as they do on paper. What often gets in the way of success is fear of risk.

Being a true thought leader is inherently risky. It requires an individual or a brand to be bold, to take a stand on something important, or point with confidence to a vision of the future. But taking a stand means choosing sides, and predicting the future means you might be wrong. The stronger the stand, the more risk there is of opposition; the bolder the vision, the greater the risk it won't come to pass.

The temptation is to back away from that risk -- but that also saps a thought leadership campaign of vitality and effectiveness. You wind up with speeches that don't excite audiences, op-eds that don't entice editors, and blog posts that don't ignite conversations.

Don't run away from those risks: Embrace them instead, and then build your campaign around these five key principles:
  • Embrace a powerful point of view. Leadership means choosing a direction for others to follow and providing a compelling reason to follow that path. you can't base a thought leadership campaign on just putting all the options on the table with their pros and cons. That's confusing analysis with opinion. Tell the audience what you believe, and make it clear why they should care.
  • Be provocative. One of the greatest values of a thought leadership campaign is its ability to spark a conversation around your point of view. Unless you create that spark, though, what's there to talk about? Trying to make your point in a way that pleases everyone will inspire no one. Think about what grabs your attention: things like conflict, controvery, contrarian views are going to get your audience to pay attention. 
  • Say something new and timely. Leaders are, by definition, ahead of everyone else. Putting an old idea in a new package isn't going to put you ahead or earn you mindshare. What will do that is a fresh approach, a different prism on the issue, an unexpected idea, that's relevant to the audience. 
  • Offer solutions and a call to action. It's not enough to talk about all the problems out there -- once you tell people why they should care, tell them what they can do about it. If you're talking to the right audience, they probably already know what the problems are, because they are experiencing them. If you're going to lead the discussion, then don't rehash the problems: Show the way forward.
  • Be transparent. Transparency is the key to credibility. There's nothing inherently wrong with having a point of view that aligns with your business interests. But you should acknowledge where those interests lie. Otherwise, the conversation will soon focus on what's in it for you​, not for your audience.

Finally, even if you follow these principles, a thought leadership campaign rarely succeeds overnight. It takes time to earn a following and respect with a target audience. One of the most successful thought leadership campaigns of my career, which a colleague and I developed for a major global technology brand, developed quite gradually over 18 months. We were fortunate to have a CEO who both embraced the risk and was willing to invest the right level of time and resources. Setting expectations at the outset will help ensure the campaign has the opportunity to deliver its full value. 
0 Comments

Metrics and Public Relations

1/10/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
From the early days of PR, agencies, independents and clients alike have been searching for ways to demonstrate the true impact of their actions. This request has become even more in demand as companies are relying more heavily on metrics to drive decisions across the business. This is logical and responsible.

But what if metrics for a particular department or activity are hard to come by?
​

There have been a variety of approaches to creating PR-related metrics: impressions, mentions, features, tone, share of voice, web traffic, conversions, etc. Each of these metrics have their pros and cons. For example:
  • Impressions show you the maximum outreach of your stories based on the total number of readers for each outlets. Again, this is the maximum. But not every single reader or subscriber of a news outlet reads every single story published so your metric is flawed.
  • Mentions give you the total number of stories that mention your company. This provides a view of the volume of stories being produced but what if your company name is a generic word or there is another company or product with a similar name? It takes quite a bit of time to sort through the coverage to ensure you are only counting the correct articles. And furthermore, even Google searches don’t capture every single article out there so may need to pull from a variety of sources and set up different alerts to try and cover most bases but that may not cover everything.
  • Tone shares the intention of the stories published about your company. This metric attempts to answer the question: are reporters taking a positive, neutral or negative perspective? This one is difficult and time consuming. Many databases offer services that claim to identity tone in articles but that type of algorithm can be difficult to trust. Beyond this, many stories tend to be neutral. They are fact based and aren’t steering readers one way or another, so what are you supposed to do with a metric that says the majority of your coverage is neutral?
  • Share of Voice expounds on the impressions/mentions metrics by taking the numbers from the entire industry or at least select competitors to determine just how your PR efforts compare to others. This metric has the same concerns -- time consuming and may not encompass everything actually published.
  • Web Traffic/Conversions provide an idea of the original source of traffic to the company’s website and possible sales conversion. It is always a great proof point when you can show that a story placed by PR resulted in a win or at the very least traffic to your site. This type of metric requires that your team has the appropriate analytics and tracking in place from the very beginning as very rarely (read: never) will a news outlet provide you with their analytics for your own sales use.

​Before a new engagement with an agency or freelancer or, at the end of the year, as you begin planning for the next year’s PR program, clearly discuss with the PR team and your company’s leadership which metrics are important to your company and why. This can help keep everyone on the same page as well as guide discussions around what campaigns make sense to execute upon and which won’t help the team achieve its goals.
0 Comments

The Big PR Debate: Press Release or Blog Post?

1/3/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
Should this be a press release or a blog post?

This is a question that executives and communications teams alike ask on a regular if not daily basis. And it can be a highly debated topic depending on a variety of factors.

Historically, press releases were critical to getting any company news out to the public. You issued a standard press release for earnings, mergers & acquisitions, product announcements, customer wins, etc. It went across "the wire" into the hands of key reporters. 

But then the blog post was created. 

Google was the first major company to truly embrace the blog post. The company deliberately chose to forego press releases (with the exception of where it is required like earnings and mergers & acquisitions) and put all of their effort into blogging. And it has been an extremely successful and cost-effective decision. 

There are pros and cons to both methods, and in fact, there are a variety of other newer formats -- like LinkedIn and Medium -- to consider as well. Many companies choose to use a mixture of these platforms and that's probably the right approach. Not all company news requires a press release but some news needs more reach than what your blog may be getting at this point. 

Whatever approach your team chooses to take, the key is to be consistent. 

0 Comments

    ROAMings

    Welcome to ROAMings, a compilation of thoughts and musings about the PR and media industries. This is an opportunity to discuss the “here and now” of the industry, interesting events or case studies, pivotal moments that affect how we approach PR, etc. It isn’t about brand loyalties or preferences -- and we will not be publishing self-promotional materials or talk about our clients in this setting -- but how those brands, individuals and events are leveraging (or in some cases abandoning) PR.

    Archives

    November 2018
    October 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    November 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    March 2016

    Categories

    All
    Anniversary
    Apple
    Best Practices
    Communications Strategy
    Crisis Comms
    Drones
    Guest Post
    Journalists
    Launch Strategies
    Marketing Strategies
    Media Relations
    Mythbusting
    Netflix
    Planning
    PR Obstacles
    PR Tips
    Public Speaking
    Rising Above The Fray
    Sony
    Thought Leadership
    Trends
    Uber
    United

    RSS Feed

      Join Our List!

    Subscribe to Newsletter
© COPYRIGHT 2015. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.