Social Media | Speed Communications Blog

February 12th, 2013 by kate

The Art of Networking

Lots of people ask me about this so thought I’d share some basic thoughts. Networking, lets face it, is an essential part of any professional life, but it’s not rocket science. My guess is that for most people, it’s either habitual and part of your daily life, or, you do it when you have the time.

Strangely, when I compare my approach to networking vs. my social media habits, they are quite different. I would probably be classed as a binge tweeter, it’s feast or famine depending on how busy I am which considering I am a communications professional is not what would be expected. But networking, well that’s a different beast altogether.

I could honestly say that is something that makes up a part of every day, much of what I do and what I have done since I started my career has been networking. Perhaps because I started in sales, it became second nature early on. That I ended up in PR, a natural progression as far as I see it, it remained a very important part of my job.

The thing is, if you don’t like networking you probably aren’t very good at it but if you are too overt about networking then those you try and connect with will see straight through you. Nobody likes to be on the receiving end of being blatantly networked, the key is that there must be mutual value and at an even more basic level, people need to like you and enjoy your company. You need to be able to prove pretty early on in the relationship that you can be useful too.

Practised well it can help your career whatever you do and for many professions, being good at networking and being well connected across your sector, with your customers…media,blogger, the list goes on.. is essential.

Networking is a reciprocal skill, a good PR for instance is also a good matchmaker and good networking is good matchmaking. You must be comfortable for it to work in one direction for a while, introduce others and help create valuable relationships for others, don’t always, just think about how it can help you.

Because as the saying goes, what goes around comes around. How to use social media to enhance your networking next…

Posted in Agency
Tags: communicatoins professional, Media, networking, People, PR, Relationships, social media
1 Comment »

January 31st, 2013 by petermills

Creating a brand ready for social media – part 3

Scott McLean’s (MD at Speed Communications) recent blog looked at how brands are using social media; this one is looking at why you should consider being social. The starting point, as with so many things, is to ask what are you trying to achieve? What’s the goal?

This is my second blog from the Information Standard event, held in partnership with Patient Information Forum, and the third of four from the session that I presented with Scott McLean, MD at Speed Communications.

Here are some of the questions you should be asking.

Who is my audience? Does it need segmenting? Where are they? What do I know about them and their consumption of media? Can I address all their interests through one conversation or should I consider multiple conversations? Will different audiences inhabit different social environments?

What am I trying to get my audience to do?

Who already influences my audiences within social media and do I need to influence them?

Have I thought through the risks? Will I need a detractor engagement plan (see below)?

Is this going to impact customer services and how will we co-ordinate?

What is my tone of voice and how does this align with my brand?

What is my content strategy and who do I need to involve?

What is the call to action which gives audiences a reason to engage with my brand?

What are the next step actions? Have I supported this from a content and destination point of view?

How does this align with the rest of my marketing and communication strategy?

How am I going to resource this?

There is more to this than meets the eye. But planning is vital.

I have a friend in Koh Tao, Thailand who owns a small, yet popular, fish restaurant http://www.barracudakohtao.com/ trading on his training and expertise from the renowned English’s in Brighton. He has been in business couple of years and his only (and I mean only) marketing is through TripAdvisor. He relies on, and encourages, customers leaving comments on the site to drive real, paying customers to his door. He uses it as an incentive for his employees, who get a bonus for every 50 positive comments, and as barometer of how well his menu is going, or whether his cocktails are hitting the spot. He monitors it every day, and when the occasional negative comment comes back he’s on to it straight away, often making changes to his menu the same day. One customer, he told me, left unflattering comments. He followed her trail of reviews and all of them for her visits to the island had been negative, including her hotel and diving instructor. He offered her the chance to return and he would join with all the local businesses and show her a good time. A huge round of (virtual) applause from his other customers (as well as the neighbouring businesses) followed.

My friend has (although he probably wouldn’t call it this) a detractor engagement plan. All organisations will have their detractors. Being prepared for them means that you are on the ball, and can benefit from the positive feedback from supporters.

On the other hand, you may have spotted this story in London’s Evening Standard. A ‘hot-headed’ chef responded angrily on Twitter to a diner commenting on his food in his relatively obscure blog. It all blow out of proportion and having a plan would have ensured that this would never have happened.

Which all leads me to nine ideas you shouldn’t forget when writing your detractor engagement plan:

Don’t blog, tweet, in fact, do anything, when you are blissfully happy, tipsy, dead on your feet, angry, down in the dumps, really, really hungry. You’ll just say something you’ll regret.

Social media isn’t an excuse for laziness. Abbreviations, acronyms, slang, bad English, all reflect badly on your brand, because they then suggest that is how you will do business with them. No one wants a service with shortcuts.

When tweeting or posting from a brand say who you are. Say: “Hi, it’s Peter here from The Team”.

Don’t pretend to be someone else.

Don’t talk about stuff that doesn’t concern you. It’s a waste of time and will confuse your story.

The law of unintended consequences is amplified on social media.

Bad news isn’t bad news. It’s advice. Someone commenting negatively is really telling you that you’ve got something wrong. It could be the message, or the service. Manage. People will admire your honesty and intention to change things.

The moment you set up a social media account as a brand, you are setting up a new customer services channel. Work out how you’ll respond to enquiries.

Only ever do anything social if it answers your objectives. Know these inside out and return to them at every stage so you keep on track and stay focused.

Next post will be on, who will offer our 10 ideas for protecting and enhancing your brand online.

Posted in Agency
Tags: branding, corporate pr, PR, Reputation management, social media
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January 28th, 2013 by scottmclean

Engage, don’t broadcast

The corporate team has been working on four key themes that will dominate the year ahead. In the first of four blog posts, we take a look at the role of ‘owned media’ and how it can allow brands to achieve sustained engagement with target audiences as part of a corporate PR programme.

How, as a brand, can you talk with your audience not at them? This is a critical challenge for 2013 and will involve some serious changes of approach within brand communications. And, indeed, is why the rise of ‘owned media’ will remain an important trend for 2013.

To connect a brand directly with its audience means discussing issues that are of mutual interest and that bring mutual benefit. The secret to success will therefore come down to the importance of content within owned media and how to attract and sustain the audience’s interest – in other words not just the content itself.

Brands will therefore need to adopt rich content strategies, highly focussed audience planning and tightly integrated comms that drive an audience through PR, advertising, marketing and events towards specific digital destinations as the platform for achieving sustained engagement. For many brands this will form part of the customer acquisition programme, pulling in the audience and creating opportunities to sell. However, it will also be a powerful tool for corporate PR.

For brands seeking to evangelise around key topics and issues, owned media digital environments – i.e. dedicated websites on a specific subject matter – can play a key role in industry leadership and lobbying. The ability to develop these exclusive environments for invited guests only, which we light-heartedly refer to as ‘anti-social networks’, can provide a powerful tool for connecting with specific audiences.

This is the next evolutionary step in digital communications that recognises the web needs to become an integrated part of audience engagement. But, more importantly, that it can achieve for corporate PR programmes that nirvana of sustained engagement.

Owned media can be a daunting world as it’s all still very new – especially to businesses. But with the right procedures, strategies, aims and objectives in place it does not have to be confusing and a business can reap the benefits.

Posted in Agency, Corporate
Tags: Audience, Brand, Business, Content marketing, Digital destinations, engagement, Marketing and Advertising, Owned media, Public relations, social media
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October 31st, 2012 by scottmclean

How brands are using social media

At the Information Standard event on Wednesday, I joined Peter Mills, consulting director from our sister agency, The Team, to talk about how to build and protect your brand using social media. This is the second blog post following that talk and looks at how brands are using social media. The first, by Peter, discusses the issue of brands and branding and how social media can play a part in building a brand today.

Broadcasting
Despite the fact that the essence of social media is engagement and interaction, the vast majority of brands today only use social media to broadcast their views at their target audience.

There is nothing wrong with this approach and for some brands it can work very well, a couple of obvious examples being media outlets, such as our client, The Economist, as well as sports clubs and other brands with a massive fan base who want to keep their fans informed. However, one of the key points of conversing on social channels is to spark debate and have a conversation. Having a conversation involves both listening and talking with not at the other person and yet brands are either reluctant or unable to move away from using social media to simply broadcast messages at their audience.

Customer service
If you have customers or are a public facing organisation, then the moment you engage in social media you are creating another customer service channel whether that is your intention or not. Get it wrong and you will get a kicking. Get it right and you might get advocates.

Opinion monitoring
Social media also means that your customers are talking about you or certainly have the ability to do so even if you are not talking with them. The conversation over the dinner table or down the pub is now being massively amplified to hundreds, thousands or even millions of people.

Many brands have reacted in fear. However, the astute ones have recognised it as a great way of gaining audience insight and/or directly addressing negative sentiment.

Audience gathering
It goes without saying that if as a brand you engage in social media, you will want an audience. Some will find you themselves (especially brand fans), others need to be found and that involves creating great content and a dedication to search. It also involves thinking about integrated comms where all outbound marketing and communications supports the goal of building an audience.

Short term engagement
Be careful when you count the amount of ‘likes’ on your Facebook page because are they actually ‘liked’? What evidence do you have that it wasn’t just passing interest?

That may not be a problem. We have seen many examples of great social media campaigns that can generate significant brand awareness and that can make them highly successful if that was the goal. One of my favourite examples is the Tippex Youtube campaign ‘Shoot the Bear’.

However, brands are beginning to understand that the vast majority of social media campaigns to date have been too momentary and lacked audience stickiness. As such, brands are beginning to explore new ways of creating sustained engagement and that is going to dominate social media strategy moving forward and is a far bigger challenge for a whole variety of reasons.

Participation
What digital communications enables us to do is to have a sustained conversation with the target audience. If brands can find the right thing to discuss then they can influence the audience to participate in a conversation with the brand. This lies at the heart of achieving sustained engagement.

Social Advertising
For most campaigns, an advertising presence on Facebook is beneficial. It’s cost effective, targeted to niche audiences and is often a sensible way to kick off activity and encourage new fans/followers. It’s not just the sponsored ads either which you are probably familiar with. Promoted Posts which are targeted turbo-charged posts can be combined with Pay Per Click to deliver results. Similarly, Twitter is now running sponsored tweets and, more controversially, sponsored trends.

In the next post we will delve into the questions brands need to ask when considering social media and our top tips for social media success for brands.

Posted in Agency, Corporate
Tags: customer service, Economist, engagement, Facebook, Fans, participation, Pay Per Click, Reputation management, social advertising, social media, Twitter, YouTube
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October 29th, 2012 by petermills

Branding through Social Media

Last Wednesday saw the second event organised by The Information Standard, in partnership with Patient Information Forum at the Wellcome conference centre on the Euston Road.

I had the chance to do a double-hander with super social-media whizz, Scott McLean, managing director of our sister PR and social media agency, Speed Communications. The subject: How to build and project your brand using social media. This is the first of our four blogs, two by me and two by Scott.

Our starting point was ‘what is brand?’ I am fully aware that just by writing this I am adding to the cacophony of noise about what a brand is and how to manage it. But my premise is simple. Brands live in other people’s heads. As much as we may dislike this notion it is true. The role of not just the brand manager or owner, but everyone in an organisation, is to influence understanding. But we also have to remember that others can influence it, too, for both good and bad, and no more so than now thanks to the power of social media.

And just to be clear, a brand is not a logo. Never has been. A logo is a mark of guarantee, a hallmark even. It offers assurance that a product or service experience won’t let you down. Branding is little more than putting logos on things (so, not much different from burnishing a mark of ownership on the sides of cattle). That doesn’t devalue its importance, and having a distinctive mark is vital.

Brands are therefore the sum of your experiences, including contextual, visual, aural, environmental, tactile, olfactory, even. Positive responses to these experiences build brand equity, or goodwill, and negative responses detract from value. Positive means that you are more likely to promote an organisation, while negative means that you are more likely to discredit it. The ambition is to build trust and people develop trust by having a clear understanding of who you are, what you do and by you keeping your promises.

The starting point for any organisation, however, can’t be what you think you would like to be, but what you should be to achieve your business objectives. Clear sight of what you want to achieve and having a vision of the future is the heart of organisational brand planning. With this in place, and with people knowing what this is and subscribing to it, allows you to develop a brand which is credible, believable and achievable.

Brand models vary widely, but ours, which we call the 4Ps model, is simple enough to remember and use. The most effective way of developing your model is using a co-creative process, bringing influences and insight from across and from outside your business.

Purpose

Why you get up every day to do the thing you do and what you strive to achieve. A blend of what will appear in your business planning thinking as vision and mission. Ideally, this should be unique and how you would describe yourself to others, whoever they may be, including customers, recruits, employees and suppliers, professional advisers, your bank, your donors. Ideally, it should be pithy and use words that all your audiences understand.

Promise

This is your universal commitment, your guarantee, your all-pervading pledge. Sometimes, an internal mantra, although often an external one, too. It needs to be heartfelt and preferably measurable.

Principles, or values

Guides to behaviour. The temptation here is to stick with words that don’t challenge, or try to deal with ingrained poor behaviours, such as professional and mutual respect. These are, in my opinion, fundamental hygiene factors and have a better place in a staff handbook rather than a brand model. Brand principles need to give people permission to do things. Often, words such as innovation are used, however the culture of the organisation, or even people’s job descriptions, don’t encourage innovation or original thinking, and as such compromise the other values.

Personality

I describe this as imagining what you would want to overhear someone describing you. Ideally aspiring, they are the key determinants in how your organisation expresses itself through its tone of voice, language, brand identity and environment.

With your brand in place and everyone signed up to it, how can you use social media to build and protect it? Over to you, Scott.

Posted in Agency, Corporate
Tags: corporate pr, Reputation management, social media
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September 17th, 2012 by rachaelmyers

Calling all Speedettes!

We’re a friendly bunch, and like to encourage people to join us for work experience placements and internships wherever possible. In fact, it’s our aim to have at least one intern working with us at all times. It means they get some help in making career decisions and a chance to experience first-hand what the world of PR is like, and on the flip side, we get a little bit of help with our work where needed! Work experience should never be about doing the tea runs. It’s only by letting our interns do real, interesting work for us that they’ll learn whether PR is a career they might want to pursue. We asked Charlie Menage about his time at Speed and what he’ll take away from his placement with us.

1) What have you learnt in your time at Speed?

Image via CrunchBase

I’ve learnt so much about social media during my time at Speed. I didn’t even have a Twitter account before I arrived here but now I know how to retweet and what a hash tag is! Now that I know how it works, I realise that Twitter is an incredibly powerful social tool in the PR industry and a valuable means by which to engage in two-way conversation (and not forgetting a great way to stalk my sporting heroes).

2) Have your experiences here made you consider a career in PR?

Yes, definitely. I can see that this is an industry in which you need to be an excellent communicator and you need to have people skills. If you can get on well with your clients and colleagues, then there is a decent chance that you can do well in PR. At the end of the day, it’s a people’s business, driven by networking and building relationships. Oh, and it’s also a lot of fun!

3) What have you enjoyed the most about Speed?

It sounds cheesy, but it’s my colleagues that have made it such an enjoyable experience. I’ve been made to feel so welcome since I’ve been here and I’ve been taught a lot about life in PR. From what I’ve seen in my short time here, Speed is a really cool company to work for and there’s a great vibe in the office, which is so important. Hope to see you again at some point!

So if you want to bolster your experience in the workplace and think you’ve got what it takes to work in a fast-paced agency in the heart of London for a couple of weeks or even a month, please do get in touch with Jo Shapter!

Posted in Agency
Tags: Facebook, internship, London, Online Communities, Public relations, social media, Twitter, work experience
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August 23rd, 2012 by samevans

HMV’s Social Media Café needs engagement, not just free Wi-Fi

HMV (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This week HMV opened a new store in Cambridge, dubbed as a next generation outlet complete with a ‘social media café’. Companies which have run successful social media campaigns online have seen excellent ROI, and this new retail environment seeks to create a ‘smart’ shopping experience by combining the best of online with the best of offline – good old fashioned shopping.

The revamped store will have free Wi-Fi, charging/connectivity points and a Starbucks-esque café area complete with leather sofas. Free Wi-Fi is a top trend of the year and is something that consumers are getting used to, what with Virgin Media’s provision of free connectivity on the London Underground this summer and O2’s free Wi-Fi in the Olympic Park.

Chiming in with retail guru Mary Portas’ call for the high street to revive itself as a “hub of the community”, store manager Mike Barry told Retail Week that he envisages the store as a “community point”. From the publicity shots, the store looks fresh, interesting and inviting – not least the new neon lighting(!).

Mary Portas

Whilst this is all well and good, and I wouldn’t say no to mid-shop latte whilst checking out HMV’s expanded digital/tech product range, an engagement plan needs to be put in place so that there is purpose for this community to embrace the new connectivity HMV has put in place.

Using social media data so that consumers can ‘check-in’ to receive personalised offers, reward loyalty and enter competitions is one way that HMV could bring this opportunity to life. It has the potential to cause a ripple effect of repeat sales as customers make product recommendations or ratings through their social networks, broadcasting their choices to friends and connections online. Through this interactive engagement, it also has the power to grow a dedicated following of brand champions that could attract more converts.

HMV has described the transformation as “the direction of travel for the retailer”. For this to truly take off, the store needs to stimulate the ‘social’ element of ‘social media’. Once established, this could be hugely beneficial to the retailer and consumer alike and be replicated in other stores across the country who are calling out for revival.

Posted in Mobile, Retail, Technology
Tags: HMV, HMV Group, London Underground, Mary Portas, Retail Week, social media, virgin media, Wi-Fi
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August 23rd, 2012 by jamesmccannellerington

There is no I in team, but there is in the IPL

English: England cricket Captain Kevin Pietersen at The Oval (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Two big names departed from the international cricket scene this week. One permanent and one definitely, maybe, temporary. The retirement of the great Indian middle order batsman, VVS Laxman was in stark contrast to our own ‘Pietersen saga’ – quiet and unassuming versus a plot so thick you could serve it with a ladle. The irony in all this is that in one microcosm of activity, both players have left the international stage in much the same manner in which they graced it for so many years. I don’t think either player will play test cricket again and the adage goes that in sport, you are a long time retired, but what is the legacy for these great players and have they taken the best of their reputation into (probable) retirement?

Pietersen first – he’d want it that way. The ostentatious, peacock of a player that would fill grounds by simply thinking about turning up. He scored hundreds, big hundreds, when England needed him (take note Ian Bell). Who can forget his debut ashes century at the Oval or his double hundred at Adelaide? Unfortunately, his ability to take things to pieces extended beyond opposition bowling attacks and the optical rack at Mahiki’s. By sending texts regarding his captain’s technique to the opposition bowlers he crossed an unwritten but unmistakable line. This was also followed by a lesson in how to do your own PR, badly. The threat of retirement to play in the IPL, the YouTube video missing any sort of apology, the belated apology and deleted texts, the retirement from ODI and then declaration to play all forms of cricket is at best misguided and at worst, completely unforgivable.

Compare this with VVS Laxman. One of the golden generation of Indian batsmen. Wristy, silky, classy but a monstrous run getter nevertheless. The Australians, who suffered more than most, paid the highest compliment after India’s 2003-04 tour Down Under by admitting they did not know where to bowl to him. Much like KP, between his dazzling and sometimes workmanlike hundreds, he suffered the frustration of getting starts and then getting out. There’s a great write up on his career from Suresh Menon on the BBC.

So who would you rather be – Laxman, a good, if not great career but retiring on your own terms, endeared by supporters and likely to be welcomed with open arms to the international cricket fraternity. Or, Pietersen? A box office player, the short term affair of excitement over longevity, pushed out the international frame, vilified in media quarters, shunned by team mates and with a reputation more soiled than the loo at the international curry eating contest. Does reputation management matter in sports? You bet it does.

Posted in Agency
Tags: BBC, social media, sports crisis, sports PR, Sports reputation, Twitter
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August 17th, 2012 by Raminta

Digg’s relaunch closes another SEO goldmine

Digg, a popular social news site, relaunched from a clean slate at the beginning of August, after being acquired by Betaworks. None of the old Digg remains, making search engine manipulators (or spamdexers) very, very unhappy.

Digg before (left) and after

In the old Digg days, you would “digg” or “undigg” the content to give your view on the content. You submit an article on Obama winning the presidential election and thousands of Obama supporters would jump at the chance to digg your submitted content. Well done, your story made it to the home page. It was also a no-brainer for SEO gold miners: they posted content with a backlink to their sites, ran scripts that gave them all the thumbs up, sat back and watched Digg do the SEO legwork for their site selling herbal remedies.

Digg’s new look and feel

While users are still able to digg stories on the new site, it’s only a small part of the algorithm which determines what will appear on the home page. The new Digg Score is even more social – it consists of diggs, Facebook shares and tweets for a story. However, even the highest Digg Score on your “Drag Queen Barbie Doll” article doesn’t guarantee you a placement on the home page. The final word goes to three Digg moderators.

Many complain about having to use Facebook to submit and digg stories (a temporary way to log into the website while the team in NYC are working on a better solution). A lot of the criticism is directed at Digg’s decision to wipe out users’ bookmarks and links (value of which is likely to be most dear to algorithm abusers). There’s also a moan or two about the new Digg being too clean, too much like Pinterest and that the new model is not futureproof – the old users will simply turn away.

Why the new Digg matters

It is a story of a small tech company that became a victim of its own success. The website could not sustain its expensive infrastructure whilst SEO junkies were cashing in on its popularity. The point is no longer whether Digg will rise from the ashes or die out and get replaced by another social sharing sweetheart.

Just a couple of months back Google’s Penguin ruffled a few feathers in the search circles. This time around Digg takes on the white and black hat SEO. It comes as a reminder that it’s all about quality content and relevancy in the end. That has never gone down poorly with the fourth estate guys and PR professionals.

Posted in Media, Technology
Tags: algorithm, BetaWork, Digg, Facebook, google, Pinterest, Search Engines, SEO, social media, Social news, Spam, Twitter
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August 15th, 2012 by meeralakhani

Is social media really profitable?

How many of us can honestly say we don’t ‘like’ or follow companies and brands on Facebook or Twitter. I, for one, do – whether it’s to take advantage of promotions, keep up to date with new product lines or services, or even just to complain when I’m not happy with the service.

Most businesses now have some sort of social presence to increase engagement and popularity with their customers. In fact, many now go as far as hiring entire teams to handle their social media accounts. But how do companies really measure the value and ROI of their social media interactions?

American Idol (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In a move to really take advantage of social media platforms, the producers of American Idol are set to release a new reality show that Facebook users and cable subscribers can stream live on Facebook. The new platform will allow viewers to post comments and chat with friends while watching the show. In this case, the producers can measure ROI quite easily: viewers can pay $1.99 (£1.27) per episode or $11.99 (£7.64) for the series of seven episodes.

But how do companies that rely on promotions, advertising, or simply having a presence measure their ROI on the likes of Facebook and Twitter?

I found this lovely infographic by InventHelp that shows exactly how ROI can be measured using Google Analytics to correlate Twitter and Facebook activity with sales. Unsurprisingly, a number of companies have seen good turnover from investing in social media. The infographic also highlights the point I made above – customers are more than happy to interact with their favourite brands on the likes of Facebook, providing they’re also getting something out of it. Receiving discounts and promotions from brands was cited as the top reason (40 per cent) for ‘liking’ a brand on Facebook.

Many retailers have already got this hands down. According to eDigitalResearch’s Social Media Benchmark of over 100 UK retailers, Topshop has seen the most ROI, with the most Facebook and Twitter fans. Topshop’s male counterpart, Topman is also the most talked about retailer on social networking sites. The retailer uses a chatty, fun tone on the sites to engage its target audience and also recommends accessories for events they’d be interested in, such as the festival season.

Social networking sites are great tools for advertising, marketing and customer engagement – investing time and money into creating a good presence can have a huge impact on a company’s sales and reputation. Over a third of the world’s population is now online and businesses that haven’t already taken advantage of the opportunities this presents could be left behind.

Posted in Media, Technology
Tags: American Idol, Facebook, Google Analytics, Rate of return, social media, Topman, Topshop, Twitter
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