Most businesses with an active social media presence dream of viral posts that deliver explosive follower counts and booming revenue growth. But viral visibility isn’t always positive. In fact, even the largest companies in the world get caught off guard by preventable gaffes that taint their online reputations for years. But don’t let that scare…
Public Relations
How to Handle a Social Media Crisis with Grace
Social media isn’t just an amazing tool for connecting with potential customers, it’s also rapidly becoming the preferred method of customer service. Consumers love posting questions, praise (and unfortunately complaints) on company social accounts because it’s much easier and faster than traditional methods. This is fantastic when content is positive, but it can also drag…
How to Build a Positive Reputation Using Social Media
In the past, online reputation management services were devoted to burying or removing negative content from search results. Times have changed, and so has ORM. The web is now teeming with reputation management tools, but social media platforms top the list for ROI. When businesses take the time to optimize, promote and regularly update their…
Seven Biggest Social Media Mistakes Businesses Make That Damage Their Reputation
It’s easy to see why savvy business owners are so easily lured by the power of social media marketing. It offers the possibility of big returns with almost no capital investment and virtually anyone is able to open an account for free and begin sharing content. Unfortunately, in the hands of an inexperienced business owner,…
Social Media for PR: Effective Strategies That Work
Social media is now a significant part of any PR strategy and one that will only continue to become more important as time goes on. As such, it is important to have detailed social media strategies in place, to ensure that you maximise the results of all your social campaigns. Be relevant It may sound…
How to Pitch to Journalists on Social Media
Social media has already had a significant impact on public relations. PR professionals now include social media in their campaign plans and create purpose-built strategies specifically for this medium. There are plenty of social media tools and tips for PR, but using social media to pitch to journalists is something that should be explored in more…
How Social Media is Shaping the Future of Public Relations
Social Media and Public Relations have been intertwined for a number of years. PR-enabling phenomena such as selfies, Instagram and Snapchat filters, Facebook Live and Periscope, have become completely ingrained into our day-to-day lives. Increasingly, the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat, are taking on larger roles in PR agencies. PRs have to change…
Social Media for PR: 5 Creative and Effective Examples
This post looks at examples of marketers creatively merging public relations (PR) and social media to achieve exposure for their brand, with a little background on the ongoing convergence of social and traditional PR as it once was. Compared to public relations, social media is the new kid on the block. Since the early 2000s,…
The Body Coach Case Study: Clear $1 Million a Month with Social
The Body Coach Case Study: Clear $1 million a month with social Haven’t heard of Joe Wicks? You will have soon. His online fitness business, The Body Coach has taken the UK by storm – and soon he’ll be cracking America. Joe has single-handedly, through prolific, intuitive and strategic use of social media channels, has disrupted…
PR Essentials: How to Deal with Bad Publicity on Social Media
Dealing with a disgruntled customer and bad publicity on social media can be uncomfortable for everybody involved. After all, nobody enjoys airing their dirty laundry in public. There is always the worry for a business that things may become too negative, escalate and spiral out of control. Don’t worry, these tips on how to…
5 Must-Haves for Your Online Press Room
How long has it been since you updated your online newsroom? As PR pros, it’s easy to overlook the critical role that our newsroom plays as we’re busily dealing with social media, press and more and on a day-to-day basis. An online press room is going to be one of the first stops for media…
4 Ways to Add More Personality to Your PR & Social Media
The days of the stalwart and stoic press release are long gone for PR, and now, more than ever your brand needs to have a clear and distinct personality. When it comes to PR and social media if you find yourself using the same old tactics and your results keep decreasing, it’s a sign that…
Preparing for a Social Media Crisis
Social media has radically altered the PR function but no more so than when it comes to crisis communications. Where a company once possibly had hours, or even days to respond to a crisis depending on the news cycle, they now may have only minutes to respond. Where information may have once been conveyed by…
The Fine Art of Social Media Newsjacking
Whether you’re in charge of PR, social media, marketing or media relations, you may have heard of the “newsjacking” concept. In fact, you may have it on your list of goals for this year, but you may not entirely be sure where to start. Newsjacking, a term coined by David Meerman Scott, is the art…
Creating Ongoing Value from Media Coverage Using Social Networks
Every organization with an active media relations program is familiar with the cycle of pitch and publish. There’s a whole lot of hustle that goes into working with the media to land each interview or appearance. Across the company, everyone gets excited as you wait for the piece to appear. The day coverage runs there’s…
Definition Byte: Social PR for Business — Relating the Inside Out
Part I: Defining Social PR for Business “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there.” —Heather Yaxley, co-author, The Public Relations Strategic Toolkit Have you given thought to where you are headed with your organizational social PR efforts? What are the benefits of integrating “social” into your strategic organizational public…
Journalist Byte: Five Suggestions for PR 2.0 Relationship Building
My 12th Bytes from the PR Sphere column is the first to address social connections between public relations practitioners and journalists. Media relations remain an important component to effective public relations, particularly related to reputation and issues management. In the PR practitioner’s (necessary) skill set is the ability to engender trust and credibility. Following are…
Connections Byte: Chewing on Relationship Building in PR vs. Social Media
The inaugural byte focused on two of the three pillars of PR: reputation and value. Now let’s gnaw away on the third pillar of relationship building to test its sturdiness, particularly in relation to social media (“engagement and information”). As a framework, let’s revisit key definitions from the last Bytes from the PR Sphere column:…